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“When I got free of Apple, you know why I didn’t steal a ship and make for Mars myself?” he asks. Cassius and I were wondering. “I knew you’d come. You’re stupid like that. It’s why I love you.
“It’s a pretty dream. But your mother was the dreamer, boyo. I’m not. I’m just a savage who can’t let things go.
The generation that lights the fuse usually gets buried in the rubble.
“If I am not there now, I’m sorry. But know I’m all right. No matter how I went, the path led me back to your mother. We loved you, Sevro. With your first breath. With our last.
You’re not the Reaper. You’re just a wanderer trying to be what he thinks others need him to be.
“You all right?” I ask. “I was used as a bus driver for a spy I’m in love with who I thought rescued me because she thought I was a hero, whose protégé chose to become a tyrant and shoot my best friend’s protégé in the head—whom I find out was the paragon of honor.” He smiles. “I’m over the moon, goodman.”
Is your faith in Virginia broken?” I shake my head. “Even though she didn’t send help on Mercury.” “Never.” “Then how can you be so dumb as to think she would ever believe any less in you?
“If you wish to be repaired, you must first be broken,” I mutter. “What?” “The eleventh understanding.” He rolls his eyes. “When did everyone turn into a gorydamn philosopher?” “When we started losing.”
I think of all my bloody uselessness, how I couldn’t stop any of the bad shit from happening. That makes me angry. And anger’s all the fuel a Red lass needs to keep going.
“Ain’t exactly flattering, is it? Truffle Pig.” “Ain’t that all you’re good for? Sniff, sniff, looking for treasure in mounds of the Solar System’s shit,”
Now let’s work. And by the way, no one gets to choose their own callsign.” “What was yours?” “Badassmotherfucker.”
That’s why I admire Reds so much. They dread dreams more. At least in the waking hours they can struggle instead of merely suffer.”
If there’s one hero who never lost his shine in the mud of 121, it’s Ares. Eo too, but she was always the romantic part of the Rising. Darrow was its promise.
I know what it is to be small. To be…stepped on. There’s dignity in holding up your hands against the boot. But it crushes all the same.”
“Hail libertas!” “Hail Reaper!” they shout and board up. His name is Darrow, I think. Because the Reaper is not mine. He’s not the man I love. Darrow is.
Reaper. Reaper. It never stops. They mean well, and the Reaper’s name feeds them power. But they shout for the god while I carry a hollowness inside me the size of the man.
Let them come, I say. Let them come and die. Atalantia, Atlas, Lysander, Ajax, Helios, Dido. We will make Mars their grave.”
“I know it’s been frustrating watching him rise.” “What’s frustrating is that he never comes into the field of battle so Victra can just kill the little bastard and end his delusions of grandeur before he becomes a problem.”
Whoever your source is, whoever has been helping you find these traitors, you can tell me.” I close my eyes. He’s still not let me go. I enjoy the embrace while it lasts. “Imagine the worst, and it is true.” I can’t bring myself to say it. He holds me tighter and kisses my head.
“I didn’t want to break your heart by telling you the truth,” I say. “Daughter, you are my heart,” he replies.
“Father is alive until proven dead. I know you balk at religion—rightly so—but if Father is anything, he is bloodydamn hard to kill.
“It’s true. I wanted more for you than a life of war. But I see you now for what you are. A son of the Rising.
“I’m sorry this is the world that was given to you. It wasn’t fair to bring a child into this. I should have waited.” He searches my face. “Do you wish you had?” “No. If I had, you wouldn’t be you, and I think you’re perfect.”
“Mother, your inheritance was guilt. Father’s was surrender. Because of you, because of Father, mine is struggle. That is better than guilt. It is better than surrender. I do not blame you. I thank you.
If life is anything, it is struggle. You taught me that. Father taught me my life is not my own, not unless we win. So, do not come back here. Do not think of me. Fix your gaze on our enemies. Fix your heart on the struggle. And win.”
He steps forward and wraps his arms around me, and I wrap mine around him. It is the first embrace we’ve shared where I can feel a hint of the strength his arms will one day possess. I hold him for as long as I can.
That season of life is a haze to him, but when I die and reflect on my life, I know I will still believe that season was the meaning of mine.
By the time Kavax makes it back to me, I am ready for the enemy to come. I have more reasons to fight than they do. My armor is my love.
Scars are for the poor or the pompous.”
Sure, they’re real bastards in asteroid combat and deep space affairs, but when it comes to breaking a planet, it takes tonnage, Newtons, manpower, and a strong stomach—most of your men will die. Why do you think Darrow and I are the only assholes who take planets?
“The Carthii stuck their perfumed hand in the Minotaur’s mouth, and he’s dragging their whole house into his labyrinth bit by bloody bit.
The enemy has come to finish us, so we gather where it all began. Lykos. My face is painted blood-red in the mine where Darrow was born.
“They hanged my son here. His name was Darrow.” I see my husband. Sixteen, whipped and broken, walking the stairs up to the noose, and think how far he’s come since that day.
The thought of his homecoming is like dawn to my heart.
“My son died that day and returned as our sword. That is not all he is, but he became that so we could be free.”
They come to make us slaves again. So today we are not dreamers. We are not Colors. We are swords. We are wrath. We are reapers.”
Deanna glares into my eyes. When I look into hers, I realize it is no mystery where Darrow got his rage. I stick out my bare hands and Deanna wipes them with red Martian mud to cover my Gold sigils, then Victra’s. “Go, daughters of Mars, and be our wrath.”
To fill his personal legions, my husband chose only his own breed. The kind of grunts who floss their teeth with the threads of enemy standards. Who can sleep on volcanic rocks and win a fight in heaven or hell.
“Pegasus Legion! You were the tip of Darrow’s spear. He is not here. I am!” Victra says. “Today, I need wolves. Are you wolves?” They howl. “Good. The enemy is up there. They want to be down here. That’s not your problem.
“You’re the bookish one. Was it a man who said ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?” A lancer brings her gauntlets. “It must have been—to imagine something so petty as scorn to be the utmost misery a woman could suffer. What, I wonder, would he make of a mother who has seen her husband sold like meat and her babe nailed to a tree?” She dons her gauntlets. “Perhaps: wrath, I am thee?
“Do not fear for me. Instead, pity them.”
“He’ll see the energy wash of the battle if he’s near,” I say absently to Holiday. “I hope it doesn’t make him do anything stupid.” “He won’t,” Holiday says. I turn on her. “He’s with Bellona and Sevro. Put them together and the stupidity tends to be exponential.”
I know that man. If he made it off Mercury, he can make it home. He is hard as nails and slippery as a fish.”
She orphaned you. That is unforgivable. Family does not do that to each other. So, we are family now. You and I. And family sticks together. Come ruin or victory.” He bumps my forehead with his own. “See you in hell, little brother.”
I’m terrified. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be here. I have to be here. Noble thoughts flee. No more peacemaker. No more politician. No more feeble seed. I am Iron. I am Death. I am Gold.
“Nine destroyers. But the waste…” “What’s all that to a Lune?” I snarl.
Maybe they thought I had a magic trick up my sleeve. Something that would make my order less monstrous. They are sorely disappointed. It’s not that kind of day.
Lune didn’t just bring battering rams. He brought clawDrills too. Hundreds of them. “He’s aping Darrow,” Kavax says and kneels to stroke Sophocles’s head.
“My Sovereign, I cannot give the order. Those are good men and women! If we don’t wait for the radiation to pump out, they’ll die!” “Get those shields up, or go tell your family they will pay because you wouldn’t. We are here to do our jobs!” Kavax booms, then to all: “War requires monstrous deeds! If you cannot be a monster, then get out of the way!”
Teach Lune’s allies the only thing here is death.”
