43
The Last Test
I find her asleep in a suite beside Jupiter’s own. Her golden hair is wild. Her cloak dirtier than my own. It hangs brown and gray, not white. She smells like smoke and hunger. She’s destroyed the room, upturned a dish of food, buried her dagger into the door. The Brown and Pink servants are scared of her, and me. I watch them skitter away. My distant cousins. I see them move, alien things. Like ants. So void of emotion. I feel a pang. Perspective is a wicked creature. This is how Augustus saw Eo as he killed her. An ant. No. He called her a “Red bitch.” She was like a dog in his eyes.
“The food was laced with something?” I ask one of the Pinks.
The beautiful boy murmurs something, looking at the ground.
“Speak like a man,” I bark.
“Sedatives, lord.” He does not look at me. I don’t blame him. I’m a Gold. A foot taller. Worlds stronger. And I look positively insane. How wicked he must think me. I tell him to go away. “Hide. My army does not always listen when I tell them not to toy with lowColors.”
The bed is grand. Sheets of silk. Mattress of feathers. Posts of ivory, ebony, and gold. Mustang sleeps on the floor in the corner. For so long we have had to hide where we sleep. It must have felt so wrong lying in perfect comfort, even with sedatives in her. She tried breaking the windows too. I’m glad she didn’t. It’s a far drop.
I sit beside her. The breath from her nose stirs a single coil of hair. How many times I’ve watched her sleep with a fever. How many times she’s done the same. But there’s no fever now. No cold. No pain in my stomach. Cassius’s wound has healed. Winter is ended. Outside, I saw the first of the flowers blossoming. I picked one on the mountainside. It’s in the hidden compartment of my cloak. I want to give it to Mustang. Want her to wake with the haemanthus by her lips. But when I take it out, a dagger slips into my heart. Worse than any metal blade. Eo. The pain will never go away. I don’t know if it is supposed to. And I don’t know if this guilt I feel is owed. I kiss the haemanthus and tuck it away. Not yet. Not yet.
I wake Mustang gently.
Her smile spreads before she even opens her eyes, as though she knows I am beside her. I say her name and brush the hair from her face. Her eyes flutter open. Golden flakes spiral there in the irises. So strange next to my calloused, dirty fingers with their cracked nails. She nuzzles my hand and manages to sit up. A yawn. She looks around. I almost laugh as I see her digest what has happened.
“Well, I was going to tell you about a dream I had about dragons. They were purple and pretty and liked to sing songs.” She flicks my armor with a finger. It rings. “Way to upstage me. Jerk.”
“It happens.”
She groans. “I’ve become the maiden in distress, haven’t I? Slag! I hate those girls.”
I tell her the news. The Jackal is split. His forces besiege Mars as he and Lilath hide in the deep mountains. We’ll be able to find him easily.
“If you want, you can take our army and root the bastard out.”
“Done,” she smirks, and raises an eyebrow. “But can you trust me? Maybe I’ll want to be big Primus of this weird army.”
“I can trust you.”
“How do you know?” she says again.
This is when I kiss her. I cannot give her the haemanthus. That is my heart, and it is of Mars—one of the only things born from the red soil. And it is still Eo’s. But this girl, when they took her … I would have done anything to see her smirking again. Perhaps one day I’ll have two hearts to give.
She tastes how she smells. Smoke and hunger. We do not pull apart. My fingers wend through her hair. Hers trace along my jaw, my neck, and scrape along the back of my scalp. There is a bed. There is time. And there’s a hunger different from when I first kissed Eo. But I remember when the Gamma Helldiver, Dago, took a deep pull from his burner, turning it bright but dead in a few quick moments. He said, This is you.
I know I am impetuous. Rash. I process that. And I am full of many things—passion, regret, guilt, sorrow, longing, rage. At times they rule me, but not now. Not here. I wound up hanging on a scaffold because of my passion and sorrow. I ended up in the mud because of my guilt. I would have killed Augustus at first sight because of my rage. But now I am here. I know nothing of the Institute’s history. But I know I have taken what no one else has taken. I took it with anger and cunning, with passion and rage. I won’t take Mustang the same way. Love and war are two different battlefields.
So despite the hunger, I pull away from Mustang. Without a word, she knows my mind, and that’s how I know it’s in the right. She darts one more kiss into me. It lingers longer than it should, and then we stand together and leave. We hold hands till the door, then I turn to her.
“Fetch me the Jackal’s standard.”
“Yes, Lord Reaper.” She gives a mock bow and a little wink. Then she is gone.
The place is a madhouse of looting. In all the chaos, Sevro has found the holoTransmitter. It has our sensorial experiences stored in its harddrives and is queued to send them back to the Drafters wherever they may be. It is not a streaming feed, so the Drafters do not yet have today’s events. There is a half-day delay. That is all it will take. I give Sevro instructions and have him get to work splicing out the story I want told. I would trust no one else.
I have Fitchner brought up from Castle Apollo’s dungeons. He reclines in a chair in Olympus’s dining hall. His face is purple from when I hit him. The floor is made of condensed air, so we are suspended above a mile vertical drop. His feet are on the table and his mouth twists into a smile.
“There’s the manic boy,” he calls, fingering his chin. “I knew I liked your odds.”
I give him a greeting with my middle finger. “Liar.”
He returns the finger. “Turd.” He reaches for my hand. “Don’t tell me you’re still bitter about the poisoning, the sicknesses, the setup with Cassius, the bears in the woods, the shitty tech, the terrible weather, the assassination attempts, the spy.”
“The spy?”
“Messing with you. Ha! Still a child. Speaking of which, where are your soldiers? Running around, eating themselves stupid, showering, sleeping, screwing, playing with the Pinks? This place is a honey trap, my boy. A honey trap that will make your army worthless.”
“You’re in a better mood.”
“My son is safe,” he says with a wink. “Now what are you up to?”
“I already sent Mustang to deal with the Jackal. And after this, I go to Mars. Then it will all be over.”
“Ooo. Except it won’t be.” Fitchner pops a familiar gumbubble and winces. I did a number on his jaw. It makes me laugh. I’ve felt like laughing since Sevro took down Jupiter. My leg throbs with pain from that blasted man. Even with the painkillers, I can hardly walk.
“No riddles. Why isn’t it over?”
“Three things,” Fitchner says. His hatchet face examines me for a moment. “You’re a peculiar creature. You and the Jackal both. Everyone always wants to win. But you two stand apart, freaks. Golds won’t die to win. We value our lives too much. You two don’t. Where did it come from?”
I remind him he’s my prisoner and he should answer my questions.
“Three things are not finished. Here’s what’s what. I’ll tell you what they are if you answer my question: what drives you.” He sighs. “The first thing, good man, is Cassius. He will simply have to duel you until one of you little sods keels over and dies.”
I was afraid of that. I answer Fitchner’s question.
I tell him the Jackal wanted to know the same thing. What drives me. The right-off answer is rage. From point to point, it is rage. If something happens, and if I was not anticipating it, I react like an animal—with violence. But the deepspine answer is love. Love drives me. So I must lie a bit to him.
“My mother had a dream that I could be greater than anyone in my family. Greater than the name Andromedus. The name of my father.” Fake father. Fake family. Point still the same. “I am not a Bellona. Not an Augustus. Not an Arcos.” I smile wickedly, something he can appreciate. “But I want to be able to stand above them and piss on all their gorydamn heads.”
Fitchner likes that. He’s always wanted the same, but he’s found that without the pedigree, merit takes you only so far. That frustration is his condition.
“The second thing that is not finished is this.” Fitchner waves his hands about. I got the crust of this deal—he’s making no revelations. I killed a Proctor. I have evidence that the ArchGovernor bribed others and threatened more so that his child could win. Nepotism. Manipulation of the sacred school. This is not idle news. It will shatter something. Perhaps even remove the ArchGovernor from office. Charges. Punishment? The Drafters will want blood. “And the ArchGovernor will want yours. This will embarrass him, and potentially make room for a Bellona ArchGovernor.”
Fitchner asks me why I trust the soldiers in my army who were slaves.
“They trust me because they’ve seen how they would have done in all this had I not come along. You think they want the Jackal as their master?”
“Good,” Fitchner says. “You trust them all. Splendid, then there is no third complication. My mistake.” I press him for what he means, so he sighs and relents. “Oh, only that you sent Mustang and half the army to deal with the Jackal.”
“And?”
“It’s really nothing. You trust her.”
“No. Tell me. What do you mean?”
“Well, fine. If you must know, if there’s simply no other way of going about it: she is the Jackal’s twin sister.”
Virginia au Augustus. Sister to the Jackal. Twin. An heir of the great family, the gens Augusta. The only daughter of ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus. The man who made all this happen. Kept cloistered and out of the public eye to ward off assassination attempts, just like her brother. That’s why Cassius didn’t know the daughter of his family’s archrival. But when I sat with the Jackal, Mustang knew who he was. Her brother. Had she known before of the Jackal’s identity before? Nothing can explain her silence if she knew who he was before and said nothing. Nothing except for family—which is a loyalty above friendship, above love, above a kiss in the corner of a room. I have sent half my army to the Jackal. I have given him recoilArmor, gravBoots, ghostCloaks, razors, pulseWeapons, enough tech for him to take Olympus. Dammit.
The Proctors all know. And when I pass them at a run, they are laughing. They laugh at my stupidity. The rage grows inside of me. I want to kill something. I marshal my forces. They are spread throughout the castle, eating its food, taking its pleasures. Fools. Fools. My best are where I need them. Sevro, left to his work. That is the most important thing. I order Tactus to hunt down the remnants of Venus and Mercury and enslave them, and I set Milia out to marshal the rest of my army with Lea. I need to go to House Mars now. I cannot wait for my soldiers to assemble. I need fresh bodies, because when the Augustus twins come, they will have weapons and technology to match mine, and they may have more soldiers. The game has changed. I did not prepare for this. I feel a fool. How could I have kissed her? My heart is swallowed by darkness. What if I had given her the haemanthus? I tear it to ribbons as I jump from the edge of Mount Olympus in my gravBoots and let the petals fall.
I take only the Howlers with me, passing the petals as we soar down.
We wear gravBoots and armor and carry pulseFists and pulseBlades. The snow in the land of House Mars is gone. Muddy soil churned by the feet of invaders replaces it. The highlands are swaddled in mist. The smell is of earth and siege. Our towers, Phobos and Deimos, are rubble. The catapults gifted to the besiegers have done their work there. So too have they made progress on the walls of my old castle. The front fa?ade is in ruin and strewn with arrows, broken pottery from pitch jars, swords, armor, and some students.
Nearly a hundred strong besiege Mars. Their camp is near the treeline, but an enclosing fence has been built around Mars Castle to prevent any sallies from the fortress. It has been a long winter for both sides, though I note the solar cooking pots, the portable heaters, the nutrition packets of the Jackal’s besieging force—comprised of Jupiter, Apollo, and a quarter of House Pluto. Several crosses stand high at the bottom of the slope. They face the castle. On the crosses are three bodies. Crows tell me their state. The only sign of resistance I see from House Mars is our flag—the wolf of Mars, tattered and scorched. It hangs slack in the poor wind.
The Howlers and I come from the sky like golden gods. Our ragged cloaks flap behind us. But if the besiegers expected us to be Proctors bringing more gifts, they could not have been more mistaken. We land hard on the earth. The Howlers first, and I land at their head, and as I hit, the enemy scatter before me in utter terror.
Reaper has come home.
I let the Howlers make ruin of the enemies on our soil. This is as close as I’ve been to home, to Lykos, in months. I bend down and take a handful of House Mars soil as my men do my work around me. Mars. Home. I have flown a different banner, but I have missed my House. Enemies run to attack me. They see my blade, know who I am. I walk impervious. My pulseArmor is my shield. Sevro and the Howlers act as my sword.
I walk to the three crosses and peer up to see Antonia, Cassandra, and Vixus.
The betrayers. What did they do now?
Antonia is still alive, as is Vixus, barely. I have Thistle cut them down and take them back to Olympus for the medBots. They will have to live with the knowledge that they slit Lea’s throat. I hope it hurts them. I stand for a moment at the bottom of the hill. I call up to tell them who I am. But they already know, because the flag of Mars comes down and in its place is raised a soiled bedsheet with a hastily drawn slingBlade arching across.
“The Reaper!” they cry, as I am their salvation. “Primus!”
The defenders are ragged, dirty, and thin. Some are so weak we have to carry them from the rubble of the castle. Those who can, come to salute me or tip their heads or kiss my cheeks. Those who cannot, touch my hand as I past. There are broken legs and crushed arms. They will be mended. We ferry them back to Olympus. House Mars will not be useful in the coming battle, so I will use besiegers from Pluto, Jupiter, and Apollo. I have Clown and Pebble enslave them all with the standard of Mars. A thin boy I hardly recognize delivers it to me. But when he grabs me in a skeletal embrace, a hug so hard it hurts, I know who he is.
A silent sob echoes in my chest.
He is quiet as he hugs me. Then his body shudders like Pax’s did as he met death. Except these shudders come from joy, not pain.
Roque lives.