“It may be too late for apologies.”
I raise an eyebrow. I wish I could say his coldness is alien to me, but that bond between us has never been the same since he learned how I bought my peace with Romulus. I gave Romulus the Sons of Ares. Those were Dancer’s men I left to die on the Rim. The guilt I felt for that defined our relationship for years, made me desperate for his approval. I thought if I could destroy the Ash Lord, I could amend the horror I consigned those men and women to. Nothing has been amended. Nothing will be. And it breaks my heart to know Dancer will never love me again the way I love him.
“Are we threatening each other now, Dancer? Thought you and I were beyond that. We started this together.”
“Aye. We did. I care for you as if you were my own blood. Have ever since you came to me covered in dirt, no taller than my nose. But even you have to follow the laws of the Republic you helped build. Because when the law is not obeyed, the ground is fertile for tyrants.”
I sigh. “You’ve been reading again.”
“Damn right. The Golds hoarded our history so they could pretend they owned it. It’s my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind, being led around by my nose.”
“No one is leading you around by your nose.”
He snorts his disagreement. “When I was a soldier, I watched as your wife gave pardons to murderers, to slavers, and I bore it because I was told it was necessary to win the war. I watch now as our people live fifteen to a room with scraps for food, rags for healthcare, while the highColor aristocracy live in towers, and I bear it because I’m told it is necessary to win the war. I’ll be damned if I sit back and watch another tyrant replace the one we left behind because it is necessary to win the fucking war.”
“Spare me the speeches, man. My wife’s no tyrant. It was her idea to diminish the strength of the Sovereign in the New Compact. Her choice to give that strength to the Senate. She helped give our people a voice. You think that was convenient for her? You think that’s what a tyrant would do?”
He fixes me with hard eyes. “I wasn’t talking about her.”
I see.
“I remember when you told me I was a good man who’d have to do bad things,” I say. “Your stomach go soft? Or have you spent so much time with politicians that you’ve forgotten what the enemy looks like? Usually they’re about seven foot tall, wear a big Pyramid badge, oh, and they’ve got Red blood all over their hands.”
“And so do you,” he says. “One million was the total loss, wasn’t it? One million for Mercury. You might be willing to bear that. But the rest of us tire of the weight. I know the Obsidians do. I know I do.”
“So that leaves us at an impasse.”
“It does. You’re my friend,” he says, voice heavy with emotion. “You will always be my friend. I won’t put a dagger in your back. But I will stand up to you. I will do what is right.”
“And so will I.” I put out my hand. He takes it and lingers for a moment before walking down the path. He turns before it bends into the trees. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Darrow? If there is, now is the time. When it’s between just us friends.”
“I’ve no secrets from you,” I say, wishing it were true, wishing he believed me. Wishing he were still the leader of the Sons of Ares, so we could bear our secrets together like we once did. Sadly, not all adversaries are enemies.
He turns and limps back to the garden to say farewell to my mother. They embrace and he makes his way to the southern landing pads where his Warden escorts wait. He takes a white wool toga from one and puts it on over his shirt before he goes up the ramp.
“What did he want?” Sevro asks.
“What do all politicians want?”
“Prostitutes.”
“Control.”
“He knows about the emissaries?”
“He couldn’t.”
Sevro watches Dancer’s wool toga billow in the wind as he boards his shuttle. “I liked the bastard better in armor.”
“So did I.”
DINNER IS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER Daxo and Mustang arrive from Hyperion with my brother Kieran and niece, Rhonna. We eat at a long wooden table covered with candles and hearty provincial Martian dishes spiced with curry and cardamom. Sevro, swarmed by his daughters, makes faces at them as they eat. But when the air cracks with a sonic boom, he bolts upright, looks at the sky, and runs off into the house, urging his children to stay put. He returns a whole half an hour later arm in arm with his wife, hair a mess, two jacket buttons missing, touching a white napkin to a bloodied, split lip. My old friend Victra, immaculate in a high-collared green jacket threaded with gemstones, beams devilishly across the patio at me. She’s seven months pregnant with their fourth daughter. “Well, if it isn’t the Reaper in the leathery flesh. Apologies, my goodman. I’m dreadfully late.”
Her long legs cover the distance in three strides.
I greet her with a hug. She squeezes my butt hard enough to make me jump. She kisses Mustang on the head and slides into a chair, dominating the table. “Hello, gloomy one,” she says to Electra. She looks at young Pax and Baldur, who’ve been huddled conspiratorially at the far end of the table. Both boys blush furiously. “Will one of you handsome lads pour Aunty Victra some juice? She’s had a hellish day.” They scramble over one another to be the first to grab the pitcher. Baldur wins, and, pleased as a peacock, the quiet Obsidian lad solemnly pours Victra a towering glass. “Damnable mechanics union is on strike again. I’ve got docks full of freight that’s ready to move, but the little bastards got all spiced up by a Vox Populi mouthpiece and took the power couplings out of more than half the ships in my Luna food haulers and hid them.”
“What do they want?” Mustang asks.
“Aside from the moon to starve? Higher wages, better living conditions…the usual tripe. They say it’s too expensive to live on Luna with their wages. Well, there’s plenty of room on Earth!”
“How ungrateful of the unwashed peasants,” my mother says.
“I detect your sarcasm, Deanna, and I’m choosing to ignore it in honor of our recently returned heroes. There will be enough debate later in the week. Anyway, I’m practically a saint. Mother would have sent Grays in to crack their ungrateful skulls. Thank Jove the tinmen still bloody any Vox they see.”
“It’s their right to bargain collectively,” Mustang says, reaching down to wipe a bit of hummus off the face of Sevro’s youngest, Diana. “Written in ink in the New Compact.”
“Yes, of course it is. Unions are the heart of fair labor,” Victra mutters. “It’s the only thing Quicksilver and I agree upon.”
Mustang smiles. “Better. You’re a paragon of the Republic once again.”