by Pierce Brown
If.
“I’m glad you came,” I say. “Even if your advice is shit.”
He laughs gruffly and nods to the Jackal, who speaks with Roque and several Politicos from Ganymede. “Your friend made it possible. Augustus somehow forgot to invite me, even though my men won him a planet. Manners are so conditional these days. Speaking of, how long do you think I have to stay before it’s not rude to leave?”
“It’s not even nine. Aren’t you presenting the Mask in a few minutes?”
“I was, but it’s tedious statecraft. I asked your friend Roque to do it, if that’s fine with you. Actually, he asked me. Same difference.”
“No. No, that’s better actually.” It’ll be good for Roque to be included as much as possible. There’s mending that needs doing. Public displays of friendship are a good place to start.
Lorn props his back against the tree. “My old bones creak at night. I’m going to check on security so I don’t have to talk to any of these slippery people.” He watches a ripWing pass high overhead.
“Let someone else do that.” A Pink hands Lorn the tumbler of whiskey I ordered. His favorite label. He sniffs, subdued. “I only get to see you in armor. Act the proper mentor and stick around. We’ve got two bottles of the Lagavulin for you.”
“Back to your old tricks. Two bottles for an extra two hours of training, wasn’t that the deal? Should have charged more. Ha!”
He limps off with his whiskey to play tag with his grandchildren in the trees. I watch the Pink who delivered his drink slip back into the crowd, her movement vaguely familiar.
A woman loops her arm in mine. I turn excitedly only to find Victra. She doesn’t notice my disappointment.
“I do hope the Violets put lions instead of a pegasus on your Mask.” She laughs at my expression. “Yes, the rumor is already aflight. Darrow au Augustus.” She shivers playfully. “The women will come running.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”
“Make me.” She slides her hand along my low back. “It’s a shame you already settled down.” Nodding to a group of young Peerless from the Gas Giants, she leans close. “But does it mean you can’t play?”
“Do you just enjoy trying to make me blush?”
She pulls the laurel wreath from my head and places it on her own, curtsying foolishly. “You’ve found me out. Where is your little Mustang anyway?”
“Why is everyone so damn curious?”
“Darrow.” Roque joins us, holding an ivory box large enough for the Triumph Mask. He’s sleek in a black Praetor’s uniform, hair slicked back. “I believe we’re supposed to gather for the Mask presentation. Do you know where? I’m a bit confused about this whole affair.”
Victra frowns. “Citadel staff is still discombobulated. The Bellona had the place for a month. Adrius had to comb through the Pinks for spies. Especially after what happened in Attica. He’s got his men everywhere tonight. Oh, hell. It’s starting.” She sets my laurel wreath back on my head and pulls me toward the clearing where the Golds assemble. Sevro cuts across my path, stopping us.
“Darrow,” he says quickly, then, looking to Victra, “take a hike.” She scrunches her face and leaves.
“You like her,” I tease. “I can tell.”
He ignores me. “He’s still not here.”
“Fitchner? You call his datapad?”
“Isn’t going through. The bastard said he was coming. So if he isn’t here, something important must be happening. I should check.”
“Check.” I grab his arm. “But call Ragnar. And be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
It’s strange watching him leave. Like watching my shadow depart and realizing its destiny may be separate from mine. Perhaps in the end, he’s more important than I. Truly a child of two worlds.
I follow the crowd through the trees. Little lanterns make homes in the branches, bathing the clearing in a warm white glow. There are no Whites present. No formalities here. It’s as understated as the Triumph was grand. The crowd parts for me. I walk onto the white cobblestones where Lorn sits with his grandchildren on the edge of a dolphin fountain. Augustus motions me to stand by him near a statue of a blind maiden holding a scale and a sword. It drowns in ivy. The Jackal joins us.
“I hear we’re going to be brothers,” I tell him.
“Well, who says you can’t choose family?” He glances distractedly at his datapad. “Better you than that bastard Cassius. Glad Octavia failed in that little scheme.”
“Something the matter?” I ask.
“More gorydamn requisition orders.” He looks up from his datapad. “Sorry. All’s prime on Mars, my goodman. Just wish my sister were here. You still wouldn’t know where she is, would you?”
I shake my head. With each mention, Mustang grows a little more distant. I held out hope she’d appear. Make a grand entrance and I’d know all was well. But some fantasies don’t come true.
“Your pardon! My goodmen!” Augustus announces, cutting through the murmur of conversation. “Thank you.” He clears his throat and extends a welcome to Mars’s many guests, tipping his head to the ArchGoverness of Triton. “Though our glasses sparkle and bellies are full, this night will not last.” He peers through his guests, voice firm and dry in the damp air. Fireflies glow amongst the trees.
“We know that this is only the beginning. War will require much from us. But let us not be so hasty as to pass over a victory such as the one we saw just a few weeks ago. A triumph of will, loyalty, strength.
“All that grandeur of the parade was for them. Quiet moments like this are for us.” He taps his facial scar once. “Where we, despite our differences, can nod our heads and raises our glasses to a unique accomplishment of will. It was not done alone. But the Rain was called by one man. So, Darrow au Andromedus, we salute you.”
“Hail, Reaper!” Lorn calls, mocking me only slightly.
The glasses rise through the clearing as voices murmur agreement. And they drink. It feels so hollow looking to my left and seeing the Jackal instead of Mustang. To smile feels so false, knowing all this will soon crumble apart. Victra seems to sense my mood, and so she winks tilting her glass to me.
Augustus motions Roque, who comes forward with the large ivory box cradled in his arms. He sets the box in my hands and puts one of his atop so I can’t yet open it.
“You and I have seen much together.” His voice is calm and even. “The night I first met you, you were on the floor of Mars Castle looking at the blood on your hands. Do you remember what I said?”
His other hand touches my right wrist, the tenderness something out of the past, when our hands had less calluses, less scars.
“Of course. ‘If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown. So keep swimming,’” I recite. “I’d never forget.”
“How far we’ve come.” His eyes survey my face, taking note of its lines, its imperfections. I tilt my head, wondering what he’s looking for. “I would have paid a hundred times what your contract was worth to protect you.”
“I know, Roque.”
“I would have died for you a thousand times more, because you were my friend.”
Were. Something in his voice makes me look around. Over his shoulder, I see Victra whisper something humorous to Antonia and their skeletal mother. Lorn serves his grandchildren little plates of cake brought by a short Pink. But it’s after the server turns that I freeze inside. He turns haughtily. Ruthlessly. Unlike any Pink ever born. Breaking character only for half a second. I know that turn. I know that man. It’s Vixus. It has to be. My eyes dart to the Pink who brought me Lorn’s whiskey. Lilath. The Jackal’s girl who wore bones in her hair. Who allied with the Bellona. They’re dressed as Pinks. Golds with fleshMasks. Contacts.
Wolves playing lambs.
I pull back from Roque, about to shout, when I feel his grip tighten, and I realize he was saying goodbye. The needle from his ring pricks my wrist. Gentle, like the kiss he now plants on my cheek
.
“And thus go liars, with a bloodydamn kiss.”
One word shatters a thousand lies.
Face colder than the marble statue behind us, Roque draws back and opens the ivory box’s lid. With the gentle creak of silver hinges, my world ends. Augustus gasps in horror at what’s inside the box. And a foot away, the Jackal, eyes full of long-dormant hate, smiles at me and cocks his head back like an animal to loose a manic, mocking howl.
A signal of the end.
Victra reaches for her razor. Antonia steps back. Pulls a scorcher from a waiter’s tray and fires two rounds into Victra’s spine. Two more into her mother’s neck before any can move.
“ARCOS!” Augustus screams, whipping out his razor. “TO ARMS!”
“HOWLERS TO ME!” Lorn roars, pushing back his grandchildren. “Protect the Reaper!”
Too late. Even as Lorn stands, Lilath pulls a pulseDagger from under her tray and sweeps it across his throat from behind. Lorn shoves his hand between throat and blade. Four fingers fall to the ground. He angles his body, strains against her, grasping her wrist with his bloody arm. Blade humming. Grunting. Intimate horror as chaos reigns across the clearing.
The poison spreads in me.
I slump to the ground, box in my lap.
Back against the blind statue.
Paralyzed.
The Jackal glides through the midst of this melee, a reptile over ice. He watches stabbing and butchery, and finds Lorn still struggling with Lilath as she tries to cut his throat. Lorn’s managed to take a shard of broken glass from the ground and is reaching to stab Lilath’s leg, when the Jackal bends, examines Lorn for a moment, and slowly puts a blade into his belly.
“They were wrong. Your side isn’t made of stone.”
Lorn’s face pinches with fear as the Jackal pulls the blade up the old man’s body. My razormaster’s eyes jump to me, to his grandchildren. He tries to stand, tries one last ounce of fury. Tries to say something. But his body has quit him. He will never see his island again. Never pet his griffin. Never hear his grandchildren laugh or see Lysander, the grandson I promised him. I did this to him. I brought him back from that separate peace he so wanted, but knew he never deserved. And soon his eyes gaze at nothing and the Jackal retrieves his blade and Lilath finishes her work with a slow sawing motion.
I loose a long moan. It’s all I can manage. Drool slithers down my throat. Victra crawls toward me, blood leaking from her. Amidst all this, Roque stands a statue apart.
Pulse weapons warble in the distance. Thunder rips the sky as dark shapes descend, cracking the sound barrier. They come from a stealthed ship. Something snuck in. Where are the patrols?
Obsidians and Praetorians land in the midst of the clearing, thumping down on the stone. They pursue those who fled the killing ground for the gardens, hunting them down with quiet economy. Antonia directs the slaughter, finishing heirs, clipping bloodlines half a millennium old. Taking hostages. Lilath is laughing with Vixus. They peel away electronic fleshMasks and shake free their golden hair. Behind them, Aja lands in splendor, her armor flashing in the lantern light. She surveys the carnage, face dark and content. I hardly notice her, because an old friend lands at her side. Cassius.
“Virginia?” he asks.
“Missing, I fear,” the Jackal says.
“Warned?”
“Angered. Lover’s spat.”
Victra manages to crawl to my ankle. A slick of blood shadows her path from where she was shot to the place where she now curls. Red on her lips. I can’t feel her touch.
“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “Darrow, I didn’t know.”
Aja bends over Lorn’s body taking his razor from his waist and closing her mentor’s eyes forever. He never even drew the weapon. Cassius comes close, stopping at my feet, where he goes to a knee and watches me.
“Can he move, poet?” he asks Roque.
“No. But he can hear.”
“You killed my family, Darrow. All of them. Me, Julian, that’s one thing. But the children? How could you?” I don’t know what he’s talking about. “I’ll find Sevro. I’ll find Mustang. There will be no mercy.” He touches the enameled hilt of his razor with his new arm.
“You can’t kill him,” Roque says from behind him. “You know what he is.” Roque puts a hand on Cassius’ shoulder. “Cassius, the Sovereign’s orders were clear.”
“Dissection,” Cassius murmurs. He watches me, and it seems that there was never a time when this man called me brother. Never a hope we could ever have been what we are now. Roughly, he takes my hand. I think, for a moment, he is shaking it. But instead, he steals the ring I earned. The iron wolf I killed his brother to possess. My finger is naked without it.
He rises from his bent knee to tower over me, more a beautiful vulture than an eagle. “Julian. Lea. Pax. Quinn. Weed. Harpy. Rotback. Tactus. Lorn. Victra. They deserved better than to die for a slave.” With that, he leaves me with Roque.
The world is silent except for sobbing and the sound of sirens. At my side, Victra watches Cassius leave, her life leaking from her. Those clever eyes of hers look up at me, lost.
“We must hurry,” Aja drawls in the center of the massacre. “They know we’re here. Bring your father and let us go.”
The Jackal nods. “A moment, if you please.”
Several meters away, Augustus lies pinned to the ground by three waiters. They hoist him up as the Jackal approaches, stepping over Lorn’s desecrated body.
“Is the Mask not as you like, Darrow?” he calls to me. “I made it just for you after you revealed your true self to me in Attica.”
The Jackal turns to his father. “What do you think, Father? Was this a ploy worthy your name?”
“You monster.” Augustus spits in his face. “What have you done?”
“So you’re not proud?” The Jackal wipes the spit away and looks at it. “Damn.”
“Stop this. My son, you’ve ruined us.”
“Adrius …,” Aja says impatiently. “We must go.”
The Jackal steps forward. “So now you call me son?” He clucks his tongue scoldingly and straightens his father’s jacket. “Was I your son when you put me on a rock for the elements to claim me? Three days. I was a baby. The Board didn’t even want an Exposure. But you thought I was so weak, and Claudius so strong. Was he strong when I had Karnus put him in the ground?”
His father’s lips tremble. “What?”
“I paid Karnus au Bellona seven million credits and six Pinks to sully Claudius’s girl. I knew Claudius’s honor would lead him into the ring. Funny thing is … it was your money. I asked you for it so I could invest in my future. And I did.” He frowns. “Father, did you really think a ten-year-old cares about the stock market? You should have paid better attention.”
“You killed Claudius.” Augustus’s voice breaks under the strain and he sags into the arms of those holding him, shaking from sadness. “You killed my boy.”
This would break Mustang’s heart.
“I am your boy,” the Jackal sneers. “I was a good son. I worshiped you. I feared you. I obeyed you. I learned what you wished me to learn. I went where you wished me to go. I did only as your will commanded. Yet I was not enough.”
Augustus shakes his head, drawing back his rage as the Praetorians cuff his hands together with magnetic shackles. His eyes rise to look at the monster he created. “I should have strangled you in your crib.”
“Come now, Father …”
“You are not my son.”
Adrius flinches. With those few words, Augustus releases something. And the small part of Adrius that held out hope to be loved disappears. He shakes off his humanity, leaving only the Jackal.
“Then farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear. Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost.” He whispers to some distant, fading part of himself as he lazily lifts the scorcher to his father’s forehead. “Evil, be thou my good.”
“Stop!” Aja steps forward. “Adrius! In the name of
the Sovereign …”
The Jackal shoots his father in the head.
Eo’s killer drops to the ground, and I feel hollowness spread over my heart. Death begets death begets death. This is what Dancer warned me about. This is why Mustang said not to trust her brother. This is why my friends will die. Why I will die. Because I cannot match this evil.
Who can?
“You dumb little snake!” Aja shouts. “The Sovereign needed him to talk down the Outer Rim! Gorydammit.” She looks to the sky as flame trails blaze across the dark. Someone’s coming in hard from the upper atmosphere. Pulse weapon fire flashes across Citadel grounds as Praetorians encounter Augustus’s and Lorn’s first responders.
“I gave you this prize,” the Jackal says, nodding to me. “Do not whine now.” He references his datapad and points at the flame trails. “The Telemanuses are coming. Unless you want to play with them, I suggest we leave.”
Cassius agrees. “Lorn and Augustus are dead. This army will wither.”
Aja orders her Praetorians to their shuttle. They come to pick me from the ground. Victra’s hand on my leg slackens. Her eyes have closed.
“Roque,” I murmur through the thickness of the poison. “Brother …”
“No. No,” he says, not a monster, still himself, still quiet and tranquil, if dreadful in his sadness. “You are a son of Red. I a son of Gold. That world where we are brothers is lost.” But he comes close, bending, reaching with delicate hands to angle the ivory box in my lap toward my face. “And in this world, the power of Gold will never wane.”
I look into the box and my heart shatters.
All that has been, all that was to be, crashes down. Eo’s dream falls into darkness. Wherever you are, Sevro, Mustang, Ragnar, do not come back to this world. There’s too much pain. Too much sorrow to ever mend it.
I look into the box and see Fitchner’s head staring back at me through empty eyes, mouth stuffed with grapes. Ares, the one hope we had, the one man who picked me up when I was broken and gave me a chance for something better than revenge, has been butchered. And I know we are undone.