Then the air cracks with a sonic boom.
Then another. And another, till a whole chorus resounds out from the darkness of the clawDrill-carved tunnel as it gives birth to a small army. Two, twenty, fifty armored shapes in gravBoots scream up out of the tunnel toward us. To my left, my right. Painted blood-red, pouring pulsefire skyward behind us. My hair stands on end and I smell ozone. Superheated munitions ripple blue from friction as they tear through air molecules. Miniguns mounted on shoulders vomit death.
Amidst the rising Sons of Ares, a crimson, armored man with the spiked helmet of his father zips
forward and catches Victra seconds before she impacts on the roof of a skyscraper. The howling of
wolves babbles from his helmet’s speakers. It’s Ares himself. My best friend in all the worlds has not forgotten me. He has come with his legion of empire breakers and terrorists and renegades: the Howlers. A dozen metal men and women with black wolfcloaks kicking in the wind fly behind him.
The largest of them in pure white armor with blue handprints covering the chest and arms. His black cloak is stained with a red stripe down the middle. For a moment I think it’s Pax come back from the dead for me. But when the man catches me and Holiday, I see the glyphs drawn in the blue paint of the handprints. Glyphs from the south pole of Mars. It is Ragnar Volarus, prince of the Valkyrie Spires.
He tosses Holiday to another Howler and pushes me behind him so I can wrap my arms around his
neck, digging my fingers into the rivets of his armor. Then he banks through the smoking valley city toward the tunnel, shouting to me: “Hold fast, little brother.”
And he dives. Sevro to the left, clutching Victra, Howlers all around, their gravBoots screaming as we plummet into the darkness of the tunnel’s mouth. The enemy pursues. The sounds are horrible.
Screaming of wind. Rupture of rock as pulsefire rips into the walls behind us and weapons warble.
My jaw rattles against Ragnar ’s metal shoulder. His gravBoots vibrate at full burn. Bolts from the armor dig into my ribs. The battery pack above his tailbone slams into my groin as we weave and dart through pitch black. I’m riding a metal shark deeper and deeper into the belly of an angry sea. My ears pop. Wind whistles. A pebble slams into my forehead. Blood streams down my face, stinging my eyes. The only light the glowing of boots and the flash of weapons.
The skin of my right shoulder flares with pain. Pulsefire from our pursuers misses me by inches.
Still, my skin bubbles and smokes, lighting my jumpsuit’s sleeve on fire. The wind kills the flames.
But the pulsefire rips past again and boils into the Son’s gravBoots just ahead of me, melting the man’s legs into a single chunk of molten metal. He jerks in the air, slamming into the ceiling, where his body crumples. Helmet ripping off and spinning straight toward me.
—
Red light throbs through my eyelids. There’s smoke in the air. Meaty. Stings the back of the throat. Fat tissue charred and crispy. Chest hot with pain. A swamp of screams and howls and cries for mother all around. And something else. The sound of bumblebees in my ears. Someone’s above me. See them in the red light as I open my eyes. Screaming into my face. Pressing a mask to my mouth. A damp wolfcloak dangles from a metal shoulder, tickling my neck. Other hands touch mine. The world vibrates, tilts.
“Starboard! Starboard!” someone screams in the distance, as if underwater.
We’re on a ship. I’m surrounded by dying men. Burned, twisted husks of armor. Smaller men atop
them, bent like vultures, saws glowing in their hands as they peel the armor away, trying to free those dying of their burns inside. But the armor ’s melted tight. A hand touches mine. A boy lying beside me.
Eyes wide. Armor blackened. The skin of his cheeks is young and smooth beneath the soot and blood.
His mouth not yet creased by smiles. His breaths come shorter, quicker. He mouths my name.
And he’s gone.
I’m alone, far away from the horror, standing weightless and clean on a road that smells of moss and earth. My feet touch the ground, but I cannot feel it underfoot. To either side stretches the grass of wind-beaten moors. The sky flashes with lightning. My hands are without Sigils and drift along the cobbled wall that meanders on ahead to either side. When did I start walking? Somewhere in the distance, wood smoke rises. I follow the road, but I feel I have no choice. A voice calls to me from beyond a hill.
Oh tomb, O marriage chamber, hollowed out
house that will watch forever, where I go.
To my own people, who are mostly there;
Persephone has taken them to her.
Last of them all, ill-fated past the rest,
shall I descend, before my course is run.
Still when I get there I may hope to find
I come as a dear friend to my dear father
To you, my mother, and my brother too.
All three of you have known my hand in death