My armpits stink. I’m tired. The scanty tray of food Dio brought me is untouched except the biscuit I chew numbly and think how ridiculous Ragnar looks on the table. He’s too big for it, feet hanging off the edge.
Despite the smell, Ragnar is peaceful in death. Ribbons red as winter berries nestled in the white of his beard. Two razors rest in his hands, which are folded across his bare chest. The tattoos are darker in death, covering his arms, his chest and neck. The matching skull he gave me and Sevro seems so
sad. Telling its story even though the man who wears it is dead. Everything is more vivid except the wound. It’s innocuous and thin as a snake’s smile along his side. The holes Aja made in his stomach
seem so small. How could such little things take so large a soul from this world?
I wish he were here.
The people need him more than ever.
Sevro’s eyes are glassy as his fingers glide over the tattoos on Ragnar ’s white face. “He wanted to go to Venus, you know,” he murmurs, voice soft as a child’s. Softer than I’ve ever heard it before. “I showed him one of the holoVids of a catamaran there. Second he put the goggles on I’d never seen
anyone smile like that. Like he’d found heaven and realized he didn’t have to die to go there. He’d sneak in and borrow my holo gear in the middle of the night till one day I just gave him the damn thing. Things are four hundred credits, max. Know what he did to repay me?” I don’t. Sevro holds up his right hand to show me his skull tattoo. “He made me his brother.” He gives Ragnar a slow, affectionate punch to the jaw. “But the big fat idiot had to run at Aja instead of away from her.”
The Valkyrie still scour the wastes in vain for signs of the Olympic Knight. Her trail goes deeper into the crevasse before it is covered by the frozen black blood of some creature. I hope something found her and took her to its cave in the ice to finish her slowly. But I doubt it. A woman like that doesn’t just fade. Whatever Aja’s fate, if she’s alive she’ll find a way to contact the Sovereign or the Jackal.
“It was my fault,” I say. “My shit plan to take Aja out.”
“She killed Quinn. Helped kill my father,” Sevro mutters. “Killed dozens of us when you were locked up. Wasn’t your bad. You’d have lost me too if I were there. Even Rags couldn’t have kept me from having a go at her.” Sevro rolls his knuckles along the edge of the table, leaving little white creases in the skin. “Always trying to protect us.”
“The Shield of Tinos,” I say.
“The Shield of Tinos,” he echoes, voice catching. “He loved the name.”
“I know.”
“I think he’d always thought himself a blade before he met us. We let him be what he wanted. A protector.” He wipes his eyes and backs away from Ragnar. “Anyway. The little princeling is alive.”
I nod. “We brought him on the shuttle.”
“Pity. Two millimeters.” He pinches his fingers together, illustrating how narrowly Mustang’s arrow missed Cassius’s jugular. After Sefi dispatched riders to the tribes, I took her and many of her warlords to Asgard aboard the shuttle to see the fortress there. I brought Cassius along as well and Asgard’s Yellows saved his life. “Why are you keeping him alive, Darrow? If you think he’s going to thank you for your generosity, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I couldn’t just let him die.”
“He killed my father.”
“I know.”
“Give me a reason.”
“Maybe I think the world would be a better place with him in it,” I say tentatively. “So many people have used him, lied to him, betrayed him. All that’s defined him. It’s not fair. I want him to have a chance to decide for himself what kind of person he wants to be.”
“None of us get to be what we want to be,” Sevro mutters. “Least not for long.”
“Isn’t that why we fight? Isn’t that what you just said about Ragnar? He was made a blade but we
gave him a chance to be a shield. Cassius deserves that same chance.”
“Shithead.” He rolls his eyes. “Just ’cause you’re right doesn’t mean you’re right. Anyway, eagles are hated as much as the lions. Someone here’s still going to try to pop him. And your girl too.”
“She’s got the Pitvipers with her. And she’s not my girl.”
“Whatever you say.” He collapses into one of Mickey’s stolen leather chairs and rubs a hand along
his Mohawk’s ridge. “Wish she’d taken the Telemanuses with her. If she had, you’d have slagged Aja hard.” He closes his eyes and leans his head back. “Oh, hey,” he remembers suddenly, “I got you some ships.”
“I saw that. Thank you,” I say.