They all raise their hands. Emotion tugs on my heartstrings. And here I thought I couldn’t love them any more.
19
VIRGINIA
Rising Dirge
THE ENEMY HAS COME to finish us, so we gather where it all began.
Lykos.
My face is painted blood-red in the mine where Darrow was born. I stand flanked by armored commanders and friends. Deanna’s breath billows in the cold of the mine. She thrusts her wrinkled hand up at the gallows that stand in the center of the Lykos township and murmurs, “They hanged my aunt here. Her name was Lorna.”
“Lorna,” Kavax whispers with the crowd and strokes Sophocles’s head.
“They hanged my husband here. His name was Dale.”
“Dale,” Holiday repeats, and must think of her brother.
Eyes of all fourteen Colors of the hierarchy watch Deanna limp around the gallows, her hand still outstretched. Drones carry the voice of Darrow’s mother to the thousands who cram into the township. On delay, they will carry it across Mars.
“They hanged my daughter here. Her name was Eo.”
“Eo,” Victra says like a prayer. She towers beside me, stalwart in green armor. The woman runs so hot a crown of steam writhes over her head. Her warhawk shave is fresh.
“They hanged my son here. His name was Darrow.”
I see my husband. Sixteen, whipped and broken, walking the stairs up to the noose, and think how far he’s come since that day. He is alive still. Alive and coming home.
“Darrow,” I say with ten thousand more.
The name rises above the others. Some can’t help but shout it. They should think he’s dead. They don’t know he’s alive. The thought of his homecoming is like dawn to my heart. It will be a sweet day to see all this faith, all this hope rewarded.
Deanna lowers her hand and looks down as if reflecting on the pain of her people. Her voice may be quiet, her body bent, but when she looks up, it is with the calm feminine power of Red women. A power that comes from certainty. That comes from love. She seems mother of us all.
“My son died that day and returned as our sword. That is not all he is, but he became that so we could be free.” She echoes my own thoughts, and I feel represented, part of something pure. “So did his friends, the brave lads and lasses who died on Mercury. Free to be mothers, daughters, brothers, fathers, grandparents.” She smiles at Kieran’s children. Dio, Eo’s sister, stands with them in the crowd. But Dio’s husband, Kieran, the ArchGovernor, is not here. We can’t afford to have the leadership all in one place. Victra and me together is risk enough.
“Free to live under the sky,” Deanna continues. “Free to dream like Eo. Free to own this land our people watered with our blood.” Her eyes grow fierce. “My son is lost. He will come home. But he is not here today. The enemy is. So today, we are not mothers. We are not fathers. We are not brothers or sons. They come to make us slaves again. So today we are not dreamers. We are not Colors. We are swords. We are wrath. We are reapers.”
She flicks her hand in disgust at the gallows. Fifty Reds of Lambda descend with power hammers and smash the gallows to splinters.
The crowd begins the Fading Dirge for the machine of death—thousands of fists pound on chests in the metronomic rhythm of a heartbeat. It is how they used to mourn their dead in the mines. Deanna limps over to my armored commanders and me. Darrow’s sister, Leanna, carries a dented metal pail behind her. I go to my knees with my commanders. Deanna glares into my eyes. When I look into hers, I realize it is no mystery where Darrow got his rage. I stick out my bare hands and Deanna wipes them with red Martian mud to cover my Gold sigils, then Victra’s.
“Go, daughters of Mars, and be our wrath.”
Victra and I stand and head toward the rubble. Deanna moves down the line, covering everyone’s sigils with mud. Victra and I each take a metal splinter fished from the debris by a child, and ascend the switchbacking stairs up to the Can. We are followed by Holiday, Kavax, and fifty more commanders. Hundreds of Reds beat their chests as we pass through the halls of the Can. Their faces are hard and painted red. The sound fades as we ride the gravLift toward the surface. Soon another sound grows, greater by far, as if we could hear the very heartbeat of the planet itself.
Two dreadnaughts float in the morning sky. One is Victra’s, one is my own. Beneath them, a sea of humanity surrounds the highland mine of Lykos. Most are civilians come to pray to the Reaper. Faith is dangerous, but it is also part of our power. They stretch to the horizon in every direction, beating their fists on their chests, their faces painted red. I wonder absently who arranged for the paint, then I see that the Reds closest to the mine have bandaged hands.
At the heart of this human sea waits a steel core: the thirty thousand legionnaires of Pegasus Legion beat their chests. Their white horsehair crest helms do not sparkle in the sun. Their chest plates are dented and battle-scarred. Their capes are ragged. But their weapons are pristine and the spheres on their chests declare the planets they have liberated. To fill his personal legions, my husband chose only his own breed. The kind of grunts who floss their teeth with the threads of enemy standards. Who can sleep on volcanic rocks and win a fight in heaven or hell.
Today Pegasus Legion is Thraxa’s, and she looks proud. She stands before them wearing a white wolfpelt. We don’t have many Obsidians left under Republic arms, but a few hundred remain in this legion, nearly all women. That says it all about this legion’s esprit de corps. It is a reflection of Darrow—nothing before the cause. They incite all, including me, to fight as hard as they will.
“Pegasus Legion! You were the tip of Darrow’s spear. He is not here. I am!” Victra says. “Today, I need wolves. Are you wolves?” They howl. “Good. The enemy is up there. They want to be down here. That’s not your problem. That’s the navy’s. So today, you will wait. You will be patient. Because when I release you, it will be to change the tide of battle. Make Darrow proud. Make Sevro proud. Make the enemy remember the Free Legions!”
They howl and she turns to me with a scandalous smirk. “So?”
“Vodka punch with a lemon twist,” I say to the question she asked me after our dinner with Kieran and the commanders the night before in the Citadel.
She scoffs. “That’s what you want to drink over Lune’s corpse? Vodka punch with a lemon twist? What are you? A Pixie trollop?”
“It’s gauche. He’d hate it.”
She grins. “Savage. Be that today, horsey. They certainly will.”
“Keep your head. They know you’re aggressive. They know you’ll want Apollonius too. I need you alive more than I need any of them dead.”
“Now you sound like Darrow,” she says.
It is a small kindness for her to comment on his humanity instead of invoking his name as a talisman for aggression. It touches me deeply. No matter what people think, Darrow cares for his soldiers, his commanders, and so do I.
Victra twists her neck to peer out at the sea of red faces. The Fading Dirge has slowed to a beat every few seconds. Even with her head shaved into the warhawk her husband used to wear to battle and her face painted red, the woman cannot hide a mother’s grief. She may be looking at the sea, but she is standing before Ulysses’s grave. Victra is daunting to behold in either peace or war. Her stature is tyrannical—tall, broad, muscular, with knives for cheekbones. Her nature matches—proud, brutal, voluble. But in her is a font of love that glows so hot it burns her from the inside out. For years I did not see that. I saw only her sharp edges. Now I love her and realize she was the sister I never wanted but always needed.