Iron Gold

  “Because it was necessary to—”

  “One million souls.”

  I knew thirty-seven of those souls, and somehow that number seems larger than one million. “A man once said that a war fought by politicians will be lost by everyone,” I say bitterly. “Harnassus and Orion supported my plan. Your legions have protected you this far. But now you question them?”

  “Our legions?” he asks. “Are they ours?” Before I can answer, he lumbers forward, wrangling control of the conversation with all the grace of an old bear.

  “How many of us have lost loved ones to war? How many of us have buried sons, daughters, wives, husbands? My hands are raw from digging graves. My heart shatters seeing genocide and starvation on planets we claim free. On Mars, my home. How many more must suffer to free Mercury and Venus, planets now so indoctrinated that our own Colors will fight against us for every inch of ground we take?”

  “So as long as Mars is free, you’re content to call it a day? Leave the others to rot?” I ask.

  He looks me in the eyes. “Is Mars free? Ask a Red from the mines. Ask a Pink in Agea’s ghetto. The yoke of poverty is as heavy as that of tyranny.”

  Mustang interjects. “We have a solemn duty to rid the worlds of the stain of slavery. Your own words, Senator.”

  “We also have a solemn duty to make those worlds better than they were before,” Dancer replies. “Two hundred million have died since House Lune fell. Tell me, what is the purpose of victory if it destroys us? If we are stretched so thin that we cannot protect or provide for those we bring out of the mines?”

  There are no weapons in the room, save those of Wulfgar and his Warden, but Dancer’s words do damage enough. They rattle the Senate hall. And he’s not finished.

  “Darrow, you stand here asking us for more men and women, more ships to wage this war. So I ask you, and pray to the Old Man who guards the Vale that you can give me an answer, when will this war end?”

  “When the Republic is safe.”

  “Will it be safe when the Ash Lord falls? When we have Venus?”

  “The Ash Lord is the heart of their war machine. But he rules with fear. Without him, the remaining Gold houses will turn on each other within a week.”

  “And what of the Rim? What if they come and we’ve smashed our armies to bits to kill one man?”

  “We have a peace treaty with the Rim.”

  “For now.”

  “Their docks are destroyed. Octavia saw to that. The Starhall analysts believe they could not attack us, even if they wanted to, for another fifteen years,” Mustang says.

  “Romulus does not want another war,” I say. “Trust me on that.”

  “Trust you?” My old friend frowns. “We have trusted you, Darrow.” I feel the same anger in him that I saw when he learned of what I did to the Sons on the Rim. “So many have trusted you. For so many years. But you’re in love with your own myth. You think that the Reaper knows better than the People.”

  “You think I want war? I loathe it. It’s stolen my friends. My family. It takes me away from my wife. From my child. If there were another path, I would take it. But there is no path around this war. The only way is through.”

  He watches me for a moment.

  “I wonder, would you even know peace if you saw it?” He turns to the senators. “What if I told you, what if I told all of you there was another path? One that has been hidden from us?” Caraval frowns and leans forward. Sevro glances my way. “What if we could have safety not tomorrow, not a decade from now. But right this very moment? Peace without another Iron Rain. Without throwing millions more into the guns of the Ash Lord?” He turns to my wife. “My Sovereign, I invoke my right to present a witness to the Senate body.”

  She’s caught off guard. “What witness?”

  Dancer does not answer. He looks expectantly down the corridor to his right. At the end of it, a door opens and a lone set of heels click against the stone floor. In hushed silence, the senators crane their necks to see a tall, imperious woman of later years striding out of the corridor into the Senate hall. She stands a head taller than the Republic Wardens, excepting Wulfgar, as she passes on the way to the center of the floor. Her eyes are Gold. Her body serene and slight, despite her height. Her hair is spun behind her and caged by gold mesh. A gold collar in the shape of an eagle encloses her neck. Her gown is black and covering every bit of skin from her neck to her toes. And upon her regal, bitter face is a single curved scar.

  I glare at the woman. She has been shadow to my life ever since I beat her favorite son to death in a simple stone room sixteen years ago. Now she comes to stand before the Senate.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mustang demands, rising from her chair to dominate the room. Dancer does not back down.

  “This is Julia au Bellona,” he says against the rising furor. “She brings a message from the Ash Lord.”

  “Senator…” Anger flushes Mustang’s face, and she takes a violent step forward. “That is not your place! Foreign diplomacy is the province of the Sovereign! You overstep.”

  “So does your husband, but do you scold him?” he asks. “Hear what she has to say. You will find it illuminating.” The senators shout their desire to hear Bellona out. Dread enters me. I know what Julia will say.

  Mustang is trapped. She looks down at the woman, both the remnants of two great Gold houses that destroyed one another in their feud. Of their families, only Cassius remains. If he is still alive somewhere out there. “Say your piece, Bellona.”

  Julia looks up at Mustang with utmost distaste. She’s not forgotten how Mustang sat at their table with Cassius and then turned her back on them.

  “Usurper,” she says, refusing to use Mustang’s honorific. Her eyes look upon the senators with aristocratic disdain. “I traveled a month to stand before you. I will speak plainly so you understand. The Ash Lord tires of war. Of seeing cities turned to rubble.” She continues over shouts of protest. “During the Siege of Mercury, emissaries, including myself, were sent to the Morning Star to seek audience with your…warlord.” She glares at me. “We asked for an armistice. He replied with an Iron Rain.”

  “Armistice?” Mustang murmurs.

  “And why did you request an armistice?” Dancer prompts over the whispering senators.

  “The Ash Lord, and the War Council of the Society, wish to discuss terms….”

  “What terms?” Dancer presses. “Speak plainly, Gold.”

  “Did the Reaper not tell you?” She looks at me and smiles. “We requested a cease-fire in order to discuss the terms of a permanent and lasting peace between the Rising and the Society.”

  THE ROOM BURSTS INTO A CHAOS of thrust fists and rippling togas. Only the Obsidians do not move. Sefi watches the reaction with a neutral expression, unreadable as ever. Mustang turns on me in a fury. “Is this true?”

  “He never wanted peace,” I say coldly. Sevro is rocking in his seat in an effort to keep himself from strangling Julia au Bellona in the middle of the Forum.

  “But he did send emissaries?”

  “He sent provocateurs. Her and Asmodeus. It was a ruse that I did not warrant worth the time of this body.”

  Mustang can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Darrow…”

  “Asmodeus was on your ship and you did not report this to us?” Dancer asks, incredulous. Someone betrayed me. Someone in the Howlers. How else would he know? “Next you’ll say the Fear Knight himself was in your mess hall.”

  I fix my gaze on Dancer. “The Ash Lord burned Rhea. He burned New Thebes. He’d burn every city left to win back Luna. He wants the home we’ve stolen from him.”

  Dancer shakes his head. “You had no right.”

  Caraval and those Coppers who cheered me watch with uncertainty. Mustang has not moved from her chair, nor can she. Whatever she says will be dismissed as a wife defending her husband and might indict her as well. If they think she knew, she’ll be impeached, possibly worse. Which is the very reason why I hi
d this from her.

  My star is falling. If she holds on, it will drag her down too. Better to stay quiet, my love. Better to play the long game. I know better than to struggle. A Red senator lurches up from her seat and rushes across the floor. For a moment, I think she means to speak in my defense. Then she spits at my feet. “Gold,” she says. Wulfgar eases forward to dissuade any others from breaking protocol.

  For years I waited for this day to come, but as the Republic grew in strength, it never did. And I suppose I tricked myself into thinking it wouldn’t. But now that it’s here, now that I feel the blind hate rising and see the unpitying lenses of the cameras in the viewing deck above, I know how words will be lost on them. The noble newscasters will sanctimoniously peel at every decision, every secret, every sin, and stream them across the worlds, feigning duty, but delighting in the moral bloodshed, masticating my bones, cracking them for the marrow of ratings and feeding their vulture appetite for gossip.

  I’m not surprised, but I am heartbroken. I don’t want to be the villain. Wulfgar looks back at me pityingly, as if wishing he could carry me away from this public shaming. Sevro is standing from his seat in a rage.

  “You fucking backstabbing little rat…” he says to Dancer.

  “How can we trust you with our armies,” Dancer booms, “when you disobey the Senate? When you lie to the People?” He does not give me time to respond. “My brothers and sisters, there is no place in our Republic for warlords or tyrants. They are the death of demokracy. Our seven hundred years of slavery stands testament to that! But tyranny did not just spring up. It bubbled up slowly, as the leaders of Earth watched and did nothing. We must choose. Is our Republic ruled by its voice, or by its sword?”

  He sits, his work done. Amidst a roar of approval that spreads to more than just his usual supporters, Dancer of Faran, the hand of Ares who pulled me from the grave to make me a weapon, buries me under my own designs. And across the room, like a noble old olive tree neither flame nor axe can fell, Julia au Bellona watches me with hate in her gnawing eyes. Slowly, as if a long-forgotten promise is finally being delivered, she begins to smile.

  Publius cu Caraval stands in the chaos. Only by Mustang hammering her scepter on the ground can she quiet the senators enough for the Copper to speak. If anyone could find something to say to defend me, it would be him.

  “I do not share all the convictions of the Red senator. There cannot be peace while there is no justice. But in one matter, I fear he strikes the mark. You have overstepped, ArchImperator. You have forgotten your oaths made to serve the People.” He turns to the senators, summoning firm courage to overcome the betrayal. “I propose a vote to remove Darrow of Lykos from high command and to place him under house arrest pending a trial for acts of treason against the Republic.” Applause follows this. He looks back at me dramatically. “And I propose a temporary cessation of hostilities with the Golds of the Core so that we may decide ourselves between war and peace.”

  The sanctimonious bastard.

  There is little Mustang can do. At her instructions, Republic Wardens come to escort all non-senators from the room. I let Wulfgar guide me out. Over the heads of his men, I see my wife watching me from her chair, fear in her eyes because she sees the rage in mine.

  Outside the building, the world is quiet and untouched by my humiliation. Republic Wardens stand illuminated by the warm glow of blue lamps as we collect our weapons. Lesser bureaucrats thread their way across the plaza, tending to the affairs of a government responsible for ten billion lives. Dusk is over now and the sky is black. Autumn leaves roll across the white marble expanse.

  “Darrow, you are not to leave the city,” Wulfgar says to me. “Do you hear me?” He puts his hand on my shoulder again. “Darrow…”

  “Am I under arrest?” I ask.

  “Not yet…”

  “You need to step back,” Sevro says, his fingers tightening around the razor at his side. Wulfgar looks down at Sevro, who comes barely to his sternum, and steps back in respect. I descend the stairs away from the Forum, heading for the landing pads in the North Citadel. Sevro catches up to me. I stop and look back at the Forum as a loud cheer leaks out the open door.

  “Some little shit told them,” Sevro says. “I should carve Caraval’s balls off. Treason? They can’t actually arrest you, can they?”

  “They might not put me in Deepgrave, but they’ll lock me up for as long as they think they don’t need me. Long enough for the Ash Lord to make his move.”

  Sevro sneers. “The Seventh Legion will have something to say about that. Should I call Orion? The Telemanuses? Kavax should be on his way back from Mars….”

  I look back to the Forum. Inside, Mustang will be attempting to repair the damage done. But with Copper lost, she won’t have the votes to protect me. There’s nothing more I can do here. This isn’t my world. I knew it before, and Dancer just reminded me. The man says all I know is war. And he is right. In my heart, I know my enemy. I know his mettle. I know his cruelty. And I know this war will not end with politicians smiling at each other from across a table.

  It will only end as it began: with blood.

  “No, Sevro. Summon the Howlers.”

  I FLEE THE GUNFIRE THAT killed my brother.

  My baby brother, who I helped raise, who I made a notch in the doorframe for every time he sprouted a bit taller. Used to joke he was a weed so tall his head would one day touch the sky. Now I leave him in the mud.

  Each heartbeat is a sledgehammer. Tears stream so thick I can barely see. Mud cakes my burning calves. The plastic homes flash past. There’s more sounds now. More gunshots and the warbling of energy weapons. They’ve come by land too. I hear the squealing of hovertrack sleds. A fire’s started near the southern fence. I see four-wheeled land vehicles there and men with floodlights and torches. They carry guns and slingBlades.

  Our lane is still quiet as I make it home. As if in denial about what the night brings. I burst in through the front door. My sister still sits at the table, wearing her new shoes. “What happened? Were those gunshots?”

  “It’s the Red Hand,” I say just as the monsoon siren begins to wail from the antenna array behind our home. They didn’t make a siren for the Red Hand.

  “No…” she whispers. “Where is Tiran?”

  “He’s—” My throat constricts. “Gone.”

  “Gone?” She tilts her head as if she doesn’t understand the word. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

  “They shot him.”

  “What?”

  I feel myself shuddering. Losing control of my own body. “They shot him.” I’m sobbing. My chest heaves. I feel my sister’s arms around me. Holding me. “He’s dead. Tiran is dead.”

  Not just dead. Mutilated.

  “Get Da,” my older sister says, ghostly pale. She grips my head. “Lyria, get Da up. We have to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know. But we can’t stay here.” I nod, still dazed. She shakes me. “Lyria, do it now!” How can she be so calm? She didn’t have to see Tiran’s head dissolve into fragments. She pushes me toward the bunkroom.

  I find Da awake and staring at me, as if he already knows. Did he hear about Tiran?

  “You know what’s happening?” I ask. He barely nods. “I need you to help me with your arms.” Tiran usually lifts him from his bed into his wheelchair. I’m not as strong.

  I slip my hands under my father’s armpits. “One…two…three…” For the first time since Mum was buried in the deeptunnels, Da says something.

  “No.” It’s more of a moan than a word, but it is unmistakable. His eyes are wide and emphatic. Shakes his head and repeats it, “No.” His eyes glance down at his body, then shoot toward his chair. He’s right. There’s no way we’ll escape the Red Hand with him on our backs. Or that chair in the mud. Not without Tiran.

  His milky eyes watch me. They see me now. That’s what breaks my heart. He could have seen me sooner. He could have looked at me instead of
draining his life away into the HC. Why now? Why when we have so few seconds left? I wrap my arms around him. I kiss him on the forehead, staying there, smelling the musk of his skin and greasy hair, remembering what he was.

  With a heave, I hoist the old man from the bed toward his chair. I sag under his weight, nearly falling to the floor. The muscles of my lower back seize up, but I manage to twist my body and lever him into his chair. He lands roughly on his hip. More groans. “Hold on, Da. We have to say goodbye.” I push him into the front room, where my sister and her children are readying to leave.

  Through the doorway, my sister has gathered her little ones. “I need you all to hold hands,” my sister is saying. “And don’t let go of each other no matter what. That’s very important. Stay together.” She looks at me. “Lyria…Liam’s still at the infirmary.”

  “Dammit.” How could I forget him? Conn starts crying.

  “It’s all right, love. It’s all right,” Ava says. Ella is silent and pinned tight to her breast, swaddled in blankets. My sister won’t be able to make it to the center of the camp and back, not with her children.

  “I’ll fetch Liam,” I say. “You make for the jungle. We’ll meet you there.”

  “The jungle?” she asks. “You’ll never find us in there. The east guard tower…”

  “There’s trucks there,” I say. “The north looked quiet.”

  “Then meet us there, at the north. Then we’ll go together to the fishing boats. We can go downriver.” A distant explosion rattles the plastic home.

  “What about Da?” she asks. He sits in his chair watching us impassively.

  I shake my head once.

  “We can carry him…” my sister says.

  But we both know we can’t. We wouldn’t make it twenty meters dragging him and the children. I look at the terrified children, then at my sister.