We have not yet been able to contact the Sons of Ares. Communications are blacked out across all
channels. Which means Narol succeeded in destroying the relays as he promised. Gold and Red are
just as blind now.
I give Roque the burial he would have wanted. Not in the soil of some foreign moon, but in the sun.
His casket is made of metal. A torpedo with a hatch through which Mustang and I slip his body. The Howlers smuggled him from the overflowing morgue so we could say goodbye to him in secret.
With so many of our own dead, it would not do to see me honor an enemy so deeply.
Few mourn the death of my friend. Roque, if he is remembered by his people, will forever be
known as The Man Who Lost the Fleet. A modern Gaius Terentius Varro, the fool who let Hannibal encircle him at Cannae. Or Alfred Jones. The American general who went mad and lost his Imperium’s dreaded mech division in the Conquering. To my people, he is just another Gold who thought himself immortal till the Reaper showed him otherwise.
It’s a lonely thing carrying the body of someone dead and loved. Like a vase you know will never
again hold flowers. I wish he believed as firmly in the afterlife as I once did, as Ragnar did. I’m not sure when I lost my faith. I don’t think it’s something that just happens. Maybe I’ve been worn down bit by bit, pretending to believe in the Vale because it’s easier than the alternative. I wish Roque would have thought he was going to a better world. But he died believing only in Gold, and anything that believes only in itself cannot go happily into the night.
When it is my turn to say goodbye, I stare at his face and see nothing but memories. I think of him on the bed reading before the Gala, before I stabbed him with the sedative. I see him in his suit, pleading with me to come along with him and Mustang to the Opera in Agea, saying how much I’d
delight in the plight of Orpheus. I see him laughing by the fire at her estate after the Battle of Mars.
His arms around me as he sobbed after I came home to House Mars when we were hardly more than
boys.
Now he is cold. Eyes ringed with circles. All the promise of youth fled. All the possibilities of family and children and joy and growing old and wise together are gone because of me. I’m reminded of Tactus now, and I feel tears coming.
My friends, the Howlers in particular, do not much like that I’ve let Cassius come to the funeral. But I could not stand the idea of sending Roque to the sun without the Bellona kissing him farewell. His legs are chained. Hands manacled behind his back with magnetic cuffs. I un-cuff them so he can say goodbye properly. Which he does. Leaning to kiss Roque farewell on the brow.
Sevro, pitiless even now, slams shut the metal lid after Cassius is done. Like Mustang, the little Gold came for me, in case I needed him. He has no love for the man, no heart for someone who betrayed me and Victra. Loyalty is everything to him. And, in his mind, Roque had none. So too with Mustang. Roque betrayed her as readily as he betrayed me. He cost her a father. And though she can understand Augustus was not the best of men, he was her father nonetheless.
My friends wait for me to say something. There’s nothing I can say that will not anger them. So, as Mustang recommended, I spare them the indignity of having to listen to compliments about a man who signed their death warrants, and instead recite the most relevant lines of one of his old favorites.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney sweepers come to dust
“Per aspera, ad astra,” my Golden friends whisper, even Sevro. And with a press of a button, Roque disappears from our lives to begin his last journey to join Ragnar and generations of fallen warriors in the sun. I remain behind. The others leave. Mustang lingers with me, eyes following Cassius as he’s escorted away.
“What are your plans for him?” she asks me when we’re left alone.
“I don’t know,” I say, angry she would ask that now.
“Darrow, are you all right?”
“Fine. I just need to be alone right now.”
“OK.” She doesn’t leave me. Instead, she steps closer. “It’s not your fault.”
“I said I want to be alone.”
“It’s not your fault.” I look over at her, angry she won’t leave, but when I see how gentle her eyes are, how open to me they are, I feel the tension in my ribs release. The tears come unbidden.
Streaking down my cheeks. “It’s not your fault,” she says, pulling me close as I feel the first sob rattle my chest. She wraps her arms around my waist and puts her forehead into my chest. “It’s not your fault.”