We find the Citadel in chaos. Servants ransacking rooms, guards leaving their posts in two and threes, worried for their families or their friends. The Obsidians we said were coming are still in orbit. Sefi is with the ships. We only created the ruse to draw men from the room. But it seems word has spread. The Sovereign is dead. The Obsidians are coming.
Amidst the chaos there is only one leader. And as we move through the Citadel’s black marbled halls, past towering Gold statues and departments of state, soldiers gather behind us, their boots stampeding over the marble halls to flock to Mustang, the one symbol of purpose and power left in
the building. She lifts both her symbols of power high in the air, and those who first raise weapons against us see them and me and Cassius and the swelling mass of soldiers behind us and realize they’re fighting the tide. They join us, or they run. Some take shots at us, or rush forward in small
bands to halt our progress, but they’re cut down before they get within ten meters of Mustang.
By the time we come before the great ivory-white doors to the Senate Chambers, behind which Senators have been sequestered inside by Praetorians, an army of hundreds is at our backs. And only a thin line of Praetorians bars our way to the Senate Chamber. Twenty in number.
An elegant Gold Knight steps forward, leader of the men guarding the chamber. He eyes the hundred behind us, seeing the purple adherents Mustang has gathered, the Obsidians, the Grays, me.
And he makes a decision. He salutes Mustang sharply.
“My brother has thirty men in the Citadel,” Mustang says. “The Boneriders. Find them and arrest
them, Captain. If they resist, kill them.”
“Yes, Lady Augustus.” He snaps his fingers and departs with a fist of soldiers. The two Obsidians
guarding the doors push them open for us and Mustang strides into the Senate Chamber.
The room is vast. A tiered funnel of white marble. At the bottom center is a podium from which the Sovereign presides over the ten levels of the chamber. We enter on the north side, causing a disruption. Hundreds of beady Politico eyes turn their entitled focus toward us. They will have watched the broadcast. Seen Octavia die. Seen the bombs wrecking their moon. And somewhere in the
room, Roque’s mother will stand up from her seat on her marble bench and crane her neck to watch
our bloody band stomping down the white marble stairs to the bottom center of the great chamber, passing Senators to our right and left, bringing silence with us instead of shouts or protests. Lysander trails behind Cassius.
You can hear the rasping panicked breath of the Senate Majority Speaker as his Pink attendants help his withered form down from the podium where he was presiding over something of great importance. They were holding an election. Here, now, in the middle of chaos. And now they look like children who’ve been caught with their hands in the biscuit jar. Of course they would never suspect that the Praetorians guarding them would support rebels. Or that we could walk from the Sovereign’s bunker unimpeded. But they’ve created a Society of fear. Where men and women must attach themselves to a rising star to survive. That’s all this is. That simple human directive that allows for this coup to work. The old power is dead. See how they flock to the new.
Mustang takes the podium with the rest of us flanking her. I toss the Jackal to the ground so the Senate can see what has become of him. He’s unconscious and pale from blood loss. Mustang looks at me. This is a moment she never wanted. But she accepts it as her burden just as I have accepted mine as Reaper. I see how it troubles her. How she will need me as I’ve needed her. But I could never stand where she stands or hold what she holds. Not without destroying everyone in this room. They would
never accept it. If I am the bridge to the lowColors, she’s the bridge to the high. Only together can we bind these people. Only together can we bring peace.
“Senators of the Society,” Mustang proclaims, “I stand before you, Virginia au Augustus. Daughter
of Nero au Augustus of the Lion House of Mars. You may know me. Sixty years ago Octavia au Lune
stood before you with the head of a tyrant, her father, and laid her claim on the post of Sovereign to this Society.”
Her keen eyes scour the room.
“I stand before you now with the head of a tyrant.” She lifts her left hand to show the head of Octavia. One of the two objects which granted us passage here. Gold respects only one thing. And to change, they must be tamed by that one thing. “The Old Age has brought nuclear holocaust to the heart of the Society. Millions burned for Octavia’s greed. Millions burn now for my brother ’s. We must save ourselves from ourselves before the inheritance of humanity is ash. Today I declare the beginning of a new age.” She looks at me. “With new allies. New ways. I have the Rising at my back.
A navy made of great Golden Houses which holds the Obsidian Horde in orbit. You have a choice
before you.” She tosses the head on the stone podium and raises her other hand. In it is the Dawn Scepter, bestowing upon the bearer the right to rule Society. “Bend. Or break.”