Aja and Octavia exchange a wary look. “They would have to land first before making an assault on the citadel,” Aja says. “It’s impossible.”
“How are they coming?” Cassius asks me. I shake my head and laugh at him behind my muzzle. Aja kicks the stump of my right hand. I almost black out as I curl around the wound in pain. “How are they coming?” Cassius asks. I don’t reply. He motions to the Joy Knight. “Hold out his other arm.” Joy grabs my left arm and pulls it out. “How are they coming?” he asks not me, but Mustang. “I will cut his other hand off if you do not tell me. Followed by his feet and nose and eyes. How is Volarus coming?”
“You’re going to kill him anyway,” Mustang sneers. “So fuck you.”
“How slowly he dies is up to you,” Cassius says.
“Who said they didn’t already land?” Mustang asks.
“What?”
“They came in the grain ships from Earth, compliments of Quicksilver. Landed hours ago. And they’re pressing for the Citadel now. Ten thousand strong. Didn’t you know?”
“Ten thousand?” Lysander murmurs from his chair to the side of the holopit. His grandmother’s Dawn Scepter lies on the table before him. A meter long length of gold and iron, it’s tipped with the triangle of the Society and the withered heart of the Obsidian warlord who led the Dark Revolt nearly five hundred years ago. “The Legions are deployed to halt an invasion. The Obsidians will overrun our defenses before they can return.”
“I will make ready the Praetorians and recall two legions,” Aja says, striding for the door.
“No.” Octavia stands motionless, thinking. “No, Aja, you stay with me.” She turns to the Praetorian captain. “Legatus, go reinforce the surface. Take your platoon. There’s no need for them here. I have my knights. Any ship approaching the Citadel should be fired upon. I don’t care if it claims to carry the Ash Lord himself. Do you understand?”
“It will be done.” Legatus and the remaining Praetorians rush out, leaving the room deserted save for Cassius, the three Olympic Knights, Antonia, the Jackal, the Sovereign, three Praetorian guards, and us prisoners. Aja presses her palm into a console near the door. The sanctum seals behind the Praetorians. A second, thicker door appears from the walls in a corkscrew, slowly locking us off from the world beyond.
“I’m sorry, Aja,” Octavia says as the woman returns to her side. “I know you want to be with your men, but we already lost Moira. I couldn’t risk losing you too.”
“I know,” Aja replies, but her disappointment is obvious. “The Praetorians will deal with the Horde. Shall we attend the other matter?”
Octavia glances over to the Jackal and he gives her the barest of nods. “Severus-Julii, come forward,” Octavia says
Antonia does, surprised to have been singled out. A hopeful smile works its way onto her lips. No doubt she’s to receive a commendation for her efforts today. She clasps both hands behind her back and waits before her Sovereign.
“Tell me, Praetor, you were conscripted to join the Sword Armada as it subjugated the Moon Lords in June of this year, were you not?”
Antonia frowns. “My liege, I do not understand….”
“It’s a fairly simply question. Answer it to the best of your abilities.”
“I was. I led my family’s ships and the Fifth and Sixth Legions.”
“Under the pro tem command of Roque au Fabii?”
“Yes, my liege.”
“Then tell me, how is it that you are still alive and your Imperator is not?”
“I only barely managed to escape the battle,” Antonia says, seeing the danger in the line of questioning. Her voice modulates accordingly. “It was a…terrible calamity, my liege. With the Howlers hidden in Thebe, Roque…Imperator Fabii, fell into the trap twofold, through no fault of his own. Any would have done the same. I made an effort to rescue his command, to rally our ships. But Darrow had already reached his bridge. And torchShips were burning all around us. We did not know friend from foe. It’s haunted my dreams, the sounds of the Obsidian Horde pouring through their ships….”
“Liar.” Mustang snorts her derision.
“And so you retreated.”
“At grave cost, yes, my liege. I saved as many ships for the Society as I could. I saved my men, knowing they would be needed for the battle to come. It was all I could do.”
“It was a noble thing, saving so many,” the Sovereign says.
“Thank—”
“At least it would be if it were true.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t believe I have ever stuttered, girl. I do, however, believe you fled the battle, abandoning your post and your Imperator to the enemy.”
“You are calling me a liar, my liege?”
“Obviously,” Mustang says.
“I will not stand aspersions against my honor,” Antonia snaps at Mustang, puffing up her chest. “It is beneath…”
“Oh, be still, child,” the Sovereign says. “You’re in deep waters here, with larger fish than you. You see, others escaped the battle, others who transmitted their battle analytics to us so we would know what happened. So we could assess the calamity and see how Antonia of the Severus-Julii disgraced her name and lost us the battle, abandoning her Praetor when he called for aid, fleeing for the belt to save her own hide, where she then lost her ships.”
“Fabii lost the battle,” she says vindictively. “Not I.”
“Because his allies abandoned him,” Aja purrs. “He might still have saved his command had you not thrown his formation to chaos.”
“Fabii made mistakes,” the Sovereign says. “But he was a noble creature and as loyal a servant to his Color. He was even honorable enough to take his own life, to accept that he had failed and to pay justly for it and ensure he would not be interrogated or bartered. His last act in destroying the rebel docks was the act of a hero. An Iron Gold. But you…you scurrilous craven, you fled like a little girl who pissed her Whiteday dress. You abandoned him to save yourself. Now you slander him in front of all. In front of his friend.” She gestures protectively to Cassius. “Your men saw the reptile underneath, that is why they turned on you. Why you lost your ships to your better sister.”
“I would see whoever lays these claims against me in the Bleeding Place,” Antonia says, trembling with anger. “My honor will not be smeared by faceless, jealous creatures. It is sad that they would manufacture evidence to smear my good name. No doubt they have ulterior motives. Perhaps intentions against my company or my holdings or they seek to undermine Gold as a whole. Adrius, tell the Sovereign how ridiculous this all is.”
But Adrius remains quiet. “Adrius?”
“I’d rather have the loyalty of a dog than that of a coward,” he says. “Lilath was right. You are weak. And that is dangerous.”
Antonia looks about like a drowning woman, feeling the water coming over her head, undertow pulling her down, nothing to grab onto, nothing to save her. Aja swells behind her like a dark wave as Octavia denounces her formally. “Antonia au Severus-Julii, matron of House Julii and Praetor First Class of the Fifth and Sixth Legions, by the power vested in me by the Compact of The Society, I find you guilty of treason and dereliction of duty in a time of war and hereby sentence you to death.”
“You bitch,” Antonia hisses at her, then to the Jackal, “You can’t afford to kill me. Adrius…please.” But she has no ships anymore. No face. Tears stream out of swollen eyes as she seeks some hope here, some way out. There is none, and when she meets my gaze, she knows what I am thinking. Reap what you sow. This is for Victra, and Lea, and Thistle, and all the others she would sacrifice so she could live. “Please…,” she whimpers.
But there is no mercy here.