“Can you talk?” I ask Sevro. He nods, lips trembling from the pain, but his eyes are all fire. I give my arm and help him stand. I hold up a fist, demanding silence. Sons shout the others down till the twenty-five thousand breaths balance on the beating heart of my little friend. He looks out at them, startled by the love he sees, the reverence, the wet eyes.
“Darrow’s wife…” Sevro croaks, larynx damaged. “His wife,” he says more deeply. “And my father never met. But they shared a dream. One of a free world. Not built on corpses, but on hope. On the love that binds us, not the hate that divides. We have lost many. But we are not broken. We are not defeated. We fight on. But we do not fight for revenge for those who have died. We fight for each other. We fight for those who live. We fight for those who don’t yet live.
“Cassius au Bellona killed my father….” He stands over the man, swallowing before looking back
up. “But I forgive him. Why? Because he was protecting the world he knew, because he was afraid.”
Victra pushes her way to the front of the circle, watching Sevro who speaks now as if it was meant for her and her alone. “We are the new age. The new world. And if we’re to show the way, then we
better damn well make it a better one. I am Sevro au Barca. And I am no longer afraid.”
“You’re bloodydamn manic,” I tell Sevro when we’re alone in Virany’s infirmary. Sevro’s holding his neck laughing at himself. I kiss the top of his head. “Bloodydamn insane, you know that?”
“Yeah well I stole that one from your playbook; what does that say about you?”
“That he’s insane as well,” Mickey says from the corner. He’s smoking his laced-burners. Purple
smoke slithering from nostrils.
Sevro winces. “That slagging hurt. I can’t even look sideways.”
“You sprained your neck, damaged the cartilage, lacerations in your larynx,” Dr. Virany says from
behind her biometric scanner. She’s a lithe, tan woman with that special small silence inside her reserved for people who have seen both sides of hardship.
“Just as I said when you came in. All these tools you use, Virany. Really where’s the art in it?”
Virany rolls her eyes. “Another ten kilos on your body and you would have broken your neck, Sevro. Count yourself lucky.”
“Good thing I took a shit before,” he grumbles.
“Darrow’s neck would have held up under the strain of fifty more kilos,” Mickey brags idly. “The
tensile rating of his cervical—”
“Really?” Virany says tiredly. “Can’t you brag later Mickey?”
“Merely observing my own mastery,” Mickey replies, giving me a little wink. He enjoys pushing
the gentle Virany’s buttons. Since he’s employed her help in his project they’ve been spending most waking moments in his laboratory, much to Virany’s chagrin.
“Ow!” Sevro yelps as she prods the back of his spine. “That’s my body.”
“Sorry.”
“Pixie,” I say.
“I almost broke my neck,” Sevro complains.
“Been there, done that. At least you didn’t have to get whipped.”
“I’d rather have been whipped,” he mutters, wincing as he tries to turn his neck. “Be better than this.”
“Not being whipped by Pax,” I reply.
“I saw the video, he wasn’t swinging that hard.”
“Have you ever been whipped? Did you see my back?”
“You see my bloodydamn eye at the Institute? Jackal had it plucked out with a knife, didn’t see me whining.”
“I had my whole bloodydamn body carved open,” I say as the doors hiss open and Mustang enters.
“Twice.”
“Oh, it always comes back to the slagging Carving,” Sevro mutters, wiggling his fingers in the air.
“I’m so bloodydamn special, I had my bones peeled. My DNA spliced.”
“Do they always do this?” Virany asks Mustang.
“Seems like,” Mustang says. “Any chance I could bribe you to suture their mouths shut till they learn not to swear so much?”
Mickey perks up. “Well, it’s interesting you ask…”
Sevro interrupts him. “How’s the Gold holding up?” he asks Mustang. “You know?”
“Happy he still has a tongue,” Mustang says. “They’re suturing his chest in the infirmary. He has
some internal bleeding from blunt trauma, but he’ll live.”
“You finally went to see him?” I ask.
“I did.” She nods thoughtfully to herself. “He was…emotional. He wanted me to thank you, Sevro.
He says he knows he didn’t deserve it.”
“Damn right he didn’t,” Sevro mutters.
“Sefi says the Obsidian will leave him be,” I say.
“The Obsidian?” Mustang asks, my statement pulling her from her thoughts. “All of them.”
I laugh suddenly. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“What’s that?” Sevro asks.
“She spoke for the Obsidian now, not just the Valkyrie. Wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Pan-tribalism wasn’t in place before the riot,” I say. “Must have used it to unite the other warchiefs under her direction.”
“So…she pulled a coup?” Sevro asks.
I laugh. “Seems like.”
“We’ll see if it holds. Still…impressive,” Mustang says. “They always told us never to let a good
crisis go to waste.”
Mickey shivers. “Obsidians playing politics…”