Helios beckons the small girl forward. She comes to whisper in his ear. His face tightens. She returns to her seat and the knights discuss amongst themselves. Whatever is said turns Diomedes sheet white. I glance up at Seraphina and can sense her distress even from across the room. Diomedes is shaking his head at Helios, as are two of the younger knights. The Death Knight, an older woman, walks from the end of the dais to confer with Helios and vehemently stabs her finger in the air. The younger knights don’t like what she’s said, but after Helios seems to agree, their objections fade and they slowly nod their heads in compliance.
Helios calls order to the room.
“We have discussed amongst ourselves and have come to an agreement. While it is seldom invoked, the Fates are afforded the right to levy additional charges against the accused on behalf of the State. It brings us no pleasure to voice these charges, but we, the Olympic Council, are bound by duty to charge Romulus au Raa with one count of arch treason.”
The room upturns. Peerless bound to their feet. Dido raves on the floor. “I do not seek that charge!”
“It does not matter,” Helios says.
“This is my trial! My charges!”
“It is the purview of the Fates to request to add charges. You know this. Now sit down.”
“Diomedes…”
“The council has spoken, Mother,” Diomedes says. He looks like he’s going to pass out. “You must desist.”
Enraged, Dido sits, casting a horrified look at her husband: the punishment for treason is death.
While his men behind him are in a holy rage, Romulus alone seems unaffected and waits patiently for Helios to continue.
“While the Fates may demand additional charges, it is not in their power to present evidence. Thus it should be a simple matter, and one that should be stated for the record so that there are no lingering resentments that might eat at the foundation of our Dominion as we enter our most dire hour. Our Chance was wise and correct to invoke her right. Let us clear the air and move forward as one people.” He looks at Romulus with a sigh. “My friend, it annoys me to insult you, but I am bound by my office.”
“Of course.”
“Two simple questions, two simple answers, and we move forward. Did you know that Darrow of Lykos destroyed the docks, and did you conspire to conceal this from us? Yes or no?”
Romulus wears a tranquil expression. The same I saw on his face as he dissected his razor when we first met. He stands slowly and steps off his small cushion and lets his lone arm fall down his side to tug on the cape so that it is smooth behind him. He lifts his head to the council, then to his wife, with eyes that seem to gaze far beyond the people in this room.
“Romulus…” his wife whispers, knowing the spirit of him. “Don’t…”
“Yes,” says the Moon Lord. “I knew and I did so conspire.”
The silence of the room shatters a second time. An uproar from the stands, from Dido, from all but Romulus’s men and the council itself. Diomedes sits stunned. Seraphina looks around like a lost little girl.
“He does not mean it!” Dido hisses to the council. “He does not mean it. Strike it from the record and convene a new trial for that charge.”
Helios is just as astounded. “I cannot.”
“He’s perjuring himself,” Dido says. “It is a lie. He had no evidence. Supposition doesn’t count. We all saw the recording. It can be inferred but not proven. All we have evidence of is his negligence. Diomedes, tell him…”
“Mother,” Diomedes says helplessly, “by his own admission…”
“Damn his admission, boy. He’s your father. He’s Romulus au gorydamned Raa!”
My heart breaks watching her spin helplessly about, as if she were a drowning woman the rest of us could not help. I’m as lost myself.
“Dido…” Romulus says from behind her. “Please.” She turns to him still in denial, but slowly as she looks into his eyes, she knows that there is no going back and all at once a shiver goes through her that I can see from forty meters back, as her reality, her family, are irrevocably shattered and she knows it is her doing.
“Tell them you’re lying,” she whispers. “Tell them you had suspicions but didn’t know.”
“But I knew,” Romulus says. “I knew because the holodrop you sent Seraphina to collect was offered to me first.”
“What?”
He looks up at the council as if he’s already parted from the world.
“It was offered to me. Several images were sent. I invited the brokers to the Rim, where they met around Enceladus. I relied upon my reputation of honor to lure them and the original copy there. I took out a warhawk and killed them all and burned their ship. Of course, as you have seen, there was a copy.”
“You did this by yourself?” Helios asks, looking at Pandora.
“I am Romulus au Raa.” He smiles sadly. “You might ask yourself why I did this. Why I tell you this now when it will cost me my own life. All my days I have lived as honorably as a man can. But I have carried this secret for too long. And, as my father would ask, what is honor without truth? Honor is not what you say. Honor is what you do.”
A cold stone settles in my throat as I watch Seraphina’s heart break. Tears leak down her cheeks.
“We live by a code. I broke that code, even if my reasons for doing so were just. Let it serve as a warning to you all. I lied because I knew if we saw what the Slave King did to the docks, we would have no choice but to declare the peace void and sail for war.
“I believe that war will destroy us. All of us, Rim and Core alike. All that the Colors have built together. All we have protected. The legacy of the Society will vanish. Not because our arms are weak. Not because our commanders are frail. But because we are fighting against a religion whose god still lives.
“At this moment, he is mortal. He strains under the burden of rule, and the seams of their alliances fray. But if we sail on Mars or Luna, the Colors will unite. They will become a tide and their now mortal general will become, once again, their god of war. And if he falls, another will rise, and another, and another. We are too few. We are too honorable. We will lose this war just as surely as I will now lose my life.
“I urge you to feel my death. To let it be the last casualty, and not the first of this war that claimed my father, my daughter, my son, and now me.”
Seraphina bursts into tears. Dido hangs her head, her body limp. I feel the stirring of my own grief, a reflection of the grief I felt for Cassius’s death. It is tragic to see a man’s nature doom him, especially when it is a nature so fine as Romulus’s.
Helios stands. His voice barely even a whisper. “Romulus au Raa, you are found guilty of the charges levied against you. Guards, seize the convicted and prepare him to return to the dust.”
AMONGST A HOST OF MOON LORDS on a frozen sulfur dune, Romulus says farewell to his children. Only Raa are in attendance. I do not know why I have been invited. Wearing a kryll and a scorosuit, I watch from the end of their ranks as he bends to press his forehead against young Paleron’s. The child weeps for his father. The tears freeze on his cheeks. Romulus stands before Marius. The two men press their foreheads together stoically.
“Forgive your mother. Honor me and serve the Rim,” Romulus says.
“As you wish, Father.”