“Little Hawk,” he says tenderly. He kisses the girl’s face and pushes his forehead to hers, nearly weeping. “Little Hawk. I thought you were for the dust.”
“Diomedes,” she says in a low voice, barely audible from my place on the deck. Nearly delirious from the morphone, she reaches up to caress his face as I strain to see it better. “My joy. What…how are you here?”
“Where else would I be?” He smiles slowly. “When a sister is lost, a brother seeks. Father sent me, Seraphina.”
Seraphina…I know the name, just as I know her brother’s. I glance over at Cassius. The names have not been lost on him, and any hope that was in my friend expires.
“Father…” she murmurs.
Diomedes nods. His voice tightens. “Pandora is here as well.”
“No…” the girl says with a start. She turns to see Pandora standing at the bottom of the ramp. Her eyes widen in fear. “No.”
“Rest now,” Diomedes says. “All is well.”
She pushes against him. “Where is Ferara? Hjornir?”
“Ferara and the rest of the traitors are in the hold,” Pandora says. “Breathing. Which is more than I can say for your crow. He told us your return vector after I took his teeth.”
“You old bag of bones…” Seraphina claws to get off the gurney.
Pandora looks to a Gold krypteia who shakes his head as he exits the ship, carrying the girl’s meager belongings. “Where is it?” Pandora asks, coming closer to the girl. “You didn’t come all this way for nothing. Is it in your teeth? Your belly?”
“I found nothing,” Seraphina says bitterly. “I was wrong.”
I glance at Cassius, wondering if this makes more sense to him than it does to me. What errand would send her into the Gulf? What would make this girl violate the Pax Ilium? A trespass that would most certainly mean death…
“Be still, Pandora,” Diomedes warns. He tries to calm his sister, pushing her down into the gurney. “Seraphina, Father sent us to bring you home. Both of us. Now you must see the surgeons.” But she won’t listen. Even now she’s trying to rise from the gurney to get at Pandora. He motions to one of the medics, and they dart forward to plunge a syringe into her shoulder. Slowly the fight leaves her eyes and she sinks into the gurney. The medics try to lift it back up, instructed by the krypteia, but Diomedes stands in their way. An awkward standoff ensues between Diomedes’s men and Pandora’s.
“My lord, she must be questioned,” Pandora says. “If she found something…”
“What could she find, Pandora?” he asks. “What is my father afraid of?”
“Nothing, my lord. But diligence must be done. Your father…”
“Is not a sadist. He desires his daughter back, alive. A state uncommon to those you question. I don’t blame you for your nature, Pandora. You serve my father well as a huntress. But if you wish time alone with my sister, you must first pass through me.” Her eyes search him and he smiles. “In your day, it might have been a question. But your day has passed. She is under my shield.” She nods acquiescence. He looks at the kuon hounds, then the rest of us before his eyes settle on Cassius. “As are the rest of the prisoners until our Sovereign renders his judgment.”
“He’ll want them interrogated. They could be spies.”
“What a gift you have, to know my father’s mind so many leagues away.” The words cow her. “We make for home. Recall the rest of your pickets.”
“Is this fleet no longer mine either?” Pandora asks. “Do the powers of an Olympic Knight stretch so far?”
Diomedes blinks, caught off guard. “No. Apologies. You are right, of course. I overstep.” He bows deeply, and stays bent.
“Forgiven,” the old woman sighs. He straightens, turns from her to lift his sister from the bed to carry her from our ship into theirs. When he’s gone, we’re left alone with Pandora’s men.
“Shall we take them to the white tanks, domina?” a soldier asks.
She contemplates it. “No. You heard the Storm Knight. Put them in the cells.”
Spared from torture, I should be overrun with joy. But as they drag me away from Cassius and Pytha into their ship, fragmented facts coalesce into shape: the scar, the razor, the brutal violence of the girl, the warship, the dragon sigils, and now the names. I knew the lineage of my own house going back to Silenius the Lightbringer before I was five years of age. I knew the rest of the major houses by seven.
But even an average child of the Palatine to some lesser prelate would know the names Diomedes and Seraphina. And even a street urchin on the wharfs of Venus would know their father. So long as there are men, his name will be remembered. The man who allied with the Reaper to break the Society in half. Sworn enemy of my grandmother and my godfather—Romulus au Raa, Sovereign of the Rim Dominion.
This is his ship, his children, and we are now under his power.
WE GATHER GEAR QUICKLY, raiding the Den’s armory for provisions. I watch the city move outside the window as I pause inside the concrete and metal room. Two Red Howlers push a crate of specialized combat armor out the door behind me. “So you know how we’re marching into almost certain death?” Sevro says from behind me.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I reply without turning.
“If we’re to go to Venus, slip past their orbital checkpoints, planetary patrols, and the Ass Lord’s own private army, I need something from you.”
“Name it.”
“I need to see my girls before we go.”
I feel a pang of sympathy. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Neither is yours. They cancel each other out.”
“I want to see Pax too….” I try not to think of his face. Of the betrayal that will be in my son’s eyes. “But the Wardens will look here first, there second.”
“You got Lionguards there,” Sevro says. “Wardens won’t get past them. It’s Augustus House territory.” It’s a good point. “The others can get the Nessus from orbit and we’ll rendezvous. No time wasted…” He looks at me hopefully, and I know whatever I say, he’s going to go.
This constant pull of duty and family. We bear it together, but he bears it naturally. I feel I’m not the father my son needs. I should not leave before telling him I love him. But still I’m afraid to face him. The memory of him in the dueling grotto staring up at me lingers.
“All right, but I go with you.”
“Well, I should hope so, dipshit. You’ve got a son to kiss goodbye.” He claps me on the shoulder, hoists up a drum of ripWing ammunition, and shuffles away. I look out at the window and wonder if Mustang has figured out my play. I wish more than anything that she were not the Sovereign. That I could have her with me. But our duties are different, and they’re what we chose for ourselves. I return to stuffing supplies in a rucksack.
“You know what is funny to me?” Victra’s reflection joins mine in the window. Her jade earrings are brilliant in the pale light. “They think you know what you’re doing.”
“You think I don’t?”
She snorts her answer and looks at the Minotaur helm in Pebble’s hands as she passes us.
“There was always a contingency plan to assassinate him,” I say. “This isn’t some ad hoc stupidity. The pieces are aligned.”