“I’m not so subtle.”
“Equal company then. All these snakes about …” He grins like a crocodile, dark Gold eyes tracing the men and women. The wine is gone in a moment. “It’s strangely decadent tonight.”
“I hear Quicksilver arranged the festivities,” I say.
“Only on Luna would they let a Silver pretend he’s a Gold.” Karnus grunts. “I hate this moon.” He takes a delicacy off a passing tray. “Food’s too heavy. Everything else too light. Though I hear the sixth course will be something to die for.”
Noting his strange tone, I cross my arms and watch the party. It’s a strange comfort being around this hateful man. Neither one of us has to pretend to like the other. No masks here, least not as much as usual.
He chuckles deeply. “Julian would have liked this fancy fare. He was a simpering, vile child.”
I turn to examine the killer. “Cassius only said pretty things about him.”
“Cassius.” He snorts out something like a laugh. “Cassius once wounded a bird with a slingshot. Came to me crying, because he knew he had to kill it to put it out of its misery, but he couldn’t. I dropped a rock on it for him. Just like you did.” He smirks. “I should thank you for sweeping away the genetic chaff.”
“Julian was your brother, man.”
“He pissed the bed as a boy. Pissed the bed. Always tried hiding the sheets by giving them to the laundrywomen himself. Like we didn’t own the laundrywomen. He was a boy who did not deserve his mother’s favor or his father’s name.” He grabs another glass of wine from a passing Pink. “They try to make it tragedy, but it isn’t. It’s natural law.”
“Julian was more a man than you are, Karnus.”
Karnus laughs in delight. “Oh, do explain that one.”
“In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and me, we’re just passing time before death reaches down for us.”
“Which will be soon for you.” He nods to my razor. “Pity you weren’t raised in our house. We learn the blade before we learn to read. My father had us make our blades, had us name them and sleep beside them. You might have stood a chance then.”
“Wonder what you would have been if he had taught you something else.”
“I am what I am,” Karnus says, taking another drink. “And they sent me after you, me of all the sons and daughters, because I am the best at what I am.”
I watch him for a moment. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet … you are here, drinking alone, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to ending me. Why?”
“Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives.”
“So it’s pride.”
“It’s always pride.”
“Pride is just a shout into the wind.”
He shakes his head, voice deepening. “I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind—how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.” He leans forward. “So you see, pride is the only thing.” His eyes leave mine and look across the room. “Pride, and women.”
I follow his eyes and I see her then.
She wears black amidst a sea of gold, white, and reds. Like a dark specter, she glides in out of the lift near the edge of the fake forest. She rolls her flashing eyes, twists her smirking mouth at the heads that turn in her direction to stare at her funeral gown. Black. A color to show disdain for all the merry Golds about. Black like the color of the military uniform I now wear. I’m reminded of the warmth of her flesh, the mischief in her voice, the smell at the nape of her neck, the kindness of her heart. I stare so hard I almost miss her escort.
I wish I had missed him.
It is Cassius.
He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo’s dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely as Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.
His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft, hands steady. Shoulders powerful, made for war. Face made for the hearts of court. And he wears the rising sun of the Morning Knight. The rumors are true. It rips through the party. The Sovereign has made him one of the twelve. Despite the fact that I won the Institute, he’s risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I’ve watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death.
But here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile. He has all I have in his Golden body and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. More handsome. Wealthier. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. Yet he has none of my burdens. Why too does he deserve this girl, who makes all but Eo pale in comparison? Does she not know how petty he is? How cruel his heart can be?
I cannot go to her, not even when I draw close enough to hear her laugh. If she saw me, I think I would shatter. Would there be guilt in her eyes? Awkwardness? Am I a shadow over her happiness? Will she even care that I see her with him? Or will she think me pathetic for approaching her?
It aches, not that I suspect Mustang is being petty in seeking my enemy, but because I know she is not petty. If she is with Cassius, it is because she cares for him. It aches deeper than I thought it would.
“And so you see …” Karnus’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder. “… you will not be missed.”
Tightness spreads through my chest as my shoulders carve a path out of the gala. I take a smaller lift down, away from these people who know only how to hurt. Away into the woods where I find a bridge that spans a fast-flowing stream. I lean over the polished railing, gasping for air, each breath a statement.
I do not need Mustang.
I do not need any of these greedy creatures.
I’m done with their games of power.
Done with trying to go it on my own.
I was not good enough to be a husband.
Not good enough that my wife would let me be a father.
Not good enough to be a Gold.
Now I’m not good enough for Mustang.
I’ve failed to do what I set out to do.
Failed to rise.
But I won’t fail now. Not now.
I take the ring. Hand trembling. Nerves stampeding inside me. I want to retch, there’s so much wrong inside of me. I take the cold ring to my lips. Say the words and the corrupt perish. Say “Break the chains” and Victra vanishes. Cassius evaporates. Augustus melts. Karnus dissolves. Mustang dies. Across the Solar System, bombs ripple and Red rises to an uncertain future. Trust in Ares. Just trust he knows what he is doing.
Break the chains.
I try to say the words, Eo’s last before she hanged. But they do not come. Force it out. Dammit. Make my mouth work. But it won’t. It can’t, because inside I know that this is wrong. It isn’t the violence. It isn’t compassion for the people I would kill. It’s anger.
Killing them proves nothing. It solves nothing.
How could this be Ares’s plan?
Eo said if I rose, others would follow. But I’ve not yet risen. I’ve not yet done as she asked of me. I am not an example. I am an assassin. I do not have an excuse to give up. To hand over her dream to others. Ares never knew Eo. He never saw the spark in her. I did. Before I draw my last breath, I must build the world she wanted to raise our child in. That was her dream. That was why she sacrificed, so others would not have to. And I will not let others decide my fate. Not now. I do not trust in Ares if it means I must reject Eo.
Not if it means I must sacrifice my trust in myself.
I wipe the tears from face, anger replaced by purpose. There must be another way. A better way. I have seen the cracks in their Society, and I know what I must do. I know what the Golds most fear. And it has nothing to do with Reds rising. It has nothing to do with bombs or plots or revolution. What terrifies the Golds is simple, cruel, and as old as mankind itself.
Civil war.