The Academy smells of antiseptic and flowers. The rose petals sit in bins off to the side. Ducts above recycle our breaths and purify the air, making a steady hum. Fluorescents piss pale light down from the ceiling, as if to remind us that this is not a kind place for children or fantasies. The light, like the men and women here, is harsh and cold.
Roque stays at my side as we walk, though his aspect is deathly. I tell him to get some sleep. He’s earned it.
“And what have you earned?” he asks. “Not a day of sulking. Not a day of self-flagellation. Of all the lancers, you are second. Second! Brother, why not take pride in that?”
“Not now, Roque.”
“Come now,” he continues. “It’s not victory that makes a man. It’s his defeats. You think our ancestors never lost? You don’t need to huff and puff about this and make yourself one of those Greek clichés. Drop the hubris. It was just a game.”
“You think I give a shit about the game?” I wheel on him. “People are dead.”
“They chose lives of service to the fleet. They knew the danger and died for a cause.”
“What cause?”
“To keep our Society strong.”
I stare at him. Could my friend, my kind friend, be so blind? What choice did these people have? They were conscripted. I shake my head. “You don’t understand a thing, do you?”
“Of course I don’t understand. You never let anyone in. Not me. Not Sevro. Look how you treated Mustang. You drive friends away as though they were enemies.”
If he only knew.
I find the garden abandoned. It sits at the top of the Can, a large vestibule of glass, earth, and greenery designed as a retreat for fluorescent-weary soldiers. Stunted trees sway in a simulated breeze. I take off my shoes, peel off my socks, and sigh as the grass goes between my toes.
Lamps above the trees make a false sun. I lay beneath them till, with a groan, I pull myself up toward the small hot spring that lies in the center of the glade. Bruises, most faded, stain my body like little ponds of blue and purple ringed with yellowing sands. The water soothes my aches. I’m thinner than I should be, but strung tight as piano wire. Were my arm not broken, I’d say I was healthier than at the Institute. Fighting on Academy bacon and eggs beats the shit out of the half-raw goat meat of that place.
I find the haemanthus blossom by the side of the pool. It took life where no water laps. It is indigenous to Mars, like me, so I do not pick it. I buried Eo in a place like this. Buried her in the fake forest above Lykos mine, where I last made love to her. We were scrawny, innocent things then. How could so frail a girl have such a spirit, such a dream as freedom, when so many strong souls toiled and kept their heads down for fear of looking up?
I shouted at Roque that I did not care about the defeat. Yet I do, and there’s guilt for caring about that when so many lives should demand all my sorrow. But before today, victory made me full, because with every victory, I’ve come closer to making Eo’s dream real. Now defeat has robbed me of that. I failed her today.
As if knowing my thoughts, my datapad tickles my arm. Augustus calls. I peel the hair-thin display off and close my eyes.
His words echo in memory. “Even if you lose, even if you cannot take the victory for yourself, do not allow a Bellona triumph. Another fleet under their control will tip the scales of power.”
So much for that. I float in the water, drifting in and out of sleep till my fingers wrinkle and I grow bored. I am not meant for these quiet moments. I pull myself from the water to dress. I can’t keep Augustus waiting for long. Time to face the old lion. Then sleep, maybe. I’ll have to stand and watch the damn Victory for Karnus, but after that I’ll be away from this ugly place and headed back to Mars, and maybe Mustang.
But as I turn to leave the pool, I find my clothes are gone, as is my razor.
Then I sense them.
Hearing their military boots behind me. Their loud, excited breaths. Four of them, I guess. I pick a stone from the ground. No. I turn and find seven blocking the one entrance into the garden. All Golds of House Bellona. All my blood enemies.
Karnus comes with the Bellona, fresh from his ship. His face is as haggard as mine, his shoulders maybe half again as broad. He towers over me—an Obsidian in every way but birth and mind. That laughing mouth of his grins with uncommon intelligence. He rubs a hand over his dimpled chin, muscled forearms looking like they’re carved from smoothed riverwood. There’s something terrifying about being in the presence of someone so large that you can feel the vibrations of their voice in your bones.
“Looks like we caught the Augustus lion away from his pride. ’Lo, Reaper.”
“Goliath,” I mutter, using his call sign.
Goliath the breaker. Goliath the son killer. Goliath the savage. Mustang says he once broke the spine of a fancy Luneborn Gold over his knee after the brat thought to splash a drink in his face at a Pearl club. His mother then bribed the Judiciar to let him off with a fine.
The list of fines he’s paid for murder stretches longer than my arm. Grays, Pinks, even a Violet. But his true reputation comes from killing Claudius au Augustus, the ArchGovernor’s favorite son and heir. Mustang’s brother.
Karnus’s cousins orbit around him. All Bellona. All born under the blue and silver sigil of the conquering eagle. Brothers, sisters, cousins to Cassius. Their hair is curly and thick, faces all beauty. Their influence stretches across the Society. As does the reputation of their arms.
One is much older than I, shorter but more powerfully built, like a tree stump with blond moss covering his head. He is a man in his thirties. Kellan, I remember now. A full Legate, a knight of the Society. And he came here with his brothers and cousins for me. Arrogance drips off that one. He feigns a yawn as he plays these schoolyard games.
Fear thunders into my chest.
I find it difficult to breathe. Yet I smile, fingers grazing the datapad’s com functions behind my back.
“Seven Bellona,” I chuckle. “What need have you of seven, Karnus?”
“You had seven ships against my one,” Karnus says. “I’ve come to continue our game.” He cocks his head. “Did you think it ended with your ship dying?”
“The game is over,” I say. “You won.”
“Did I win, Reaper?” Karnus asks.
“At the cost of eight hundred and thirty-three people.”
“Whining because you lost?” asks Cagney. She’s the smallest of his cousins, a twentysomething lancer to Karnus’s father. She’s the one cradling my razor, the one Mustang gave me. She swishes it through the air. “I think I’ll keep this. I don’t think I’ve even heard of you using it. Not that I judge. Razors are tricky. The perils of an uneducated upbringing, I fear.”
“Go stick your fist up your cousin,” I sneer. “Must be a reason you curly-haired shits all look alike.”
“Must we listen to him bark, Karnus?” Cagney whines.
“I taught Julian to fish, Reaper,” Kellan, the Legate, says suddenly. “As a boy, he didn’t like it because he thought it hurt the fish too much. Thought it was cruel. That’s the boy your master had you kill. That is the measure of his cruelty. So how grand do you feel? How brave do you fashion yourself?”
“I did not want to kill him.”
“Oh, but we want to kill you,” Karnus rumbles. He nods to his cousins. Two of the Bellona break branches off the trees and toss them to their kin. They have razors, but apparently, they want to take their time.
“If you kill me, there will be consequences,” I say. “This is not a sanctioned duel, and I am Peerless. I am protected by the Compact. This will be murder. The Olympic Knights will hunt you. Try you. Execute you.”
“Who said anything of murder?” Karnus asks.