“There are still Obsidians left in slavery,” I say, though I’ve seen this coming for some time now. The Obsidians have borne too much—Golds targeted them in the Rain above all others. “Your brother’s master still lives,” I say. I remember how Ragnar put her hand in mine as he died. I thought the bond would last forever, but I have felt the cracks for years now as I asked more and more from her people. “The Ash Lord made him a slave. Kept him in a fighting ring and made him kill like a dog.”
“My brother was a living god.” The Obsidians with her nod reverently. “But he is dead and in the mead halls of Valhalla, singing songs before Allmother death. On this middle plane, only I speak with him now.” She closes her eyes. Her second eyes, the ones tattooed in blue on her eyelids, stare at me each time she blinks. “And he tells me that my duty is not to Darrow Morning Star. Not to my vengeance. But to my people.”
The worst part is I don’t know if she is right. If Ragnar were here, what would he do? He dreamed of seeing his people free, and now they are. But they throw their sons and daughters into our war. Is that freedom? Have I used them like a Gold?
I have.
“You dumb yeti,” Sevro snaps. “You think the Peace will actually last?”
“No peace lasts, even the wind knows. But I am queen.” She looks at me with her black eyes, and as much as I need her, I cannot fault her. I think our spirits are so well matched that she would come with me if she did not carry the burden left to her by her brother. But she does. “If I march with you, Darrow, all Obsidians march with you. I will not. It is time others fight their own battles.”
“Sefi…” Sevro says desperately, his voice strained, knowing how much weaker we will be without them. “Please.”
“I am sorry, halfman. I have spoken.” She covers her heart. “Darrow. If we do not meet again in this world, I will save a seat for you in the mead hall beside Ragnar and my kin.”
We watch them go, knowing the strength they take with them. And for the first time in a decade, the Howlers are without the Queen of the Valkyrie. I feel somehow as if Ragnar’s spirit has finally departed, and it leaves me without his protection.
When the last has left and the door has shut, Clown turns to me.
“So, uh, boss, are we going to rejoin the fleet?”
“No, Clown,” I say, trying not to let the loss of the Obsidians steal my confidence. “We’re not going to rejoin the fleet. Not going to raise men on Mars. Not going to waste time wrangling with politicians. We’re going to Venus to find the Ash Lord and cut off his head.”
“Now, that’s what I call diplomacy,” Sevro says. He laughs maniacally and jumps atop the table, boots shattering a coffee cup. “Who’s up for some blood?” He howls hideously, his old mania vibrating through the room. Min-Min shoots up from her seat and howls. And soon the room wails with the cacophony of two dozen maniacs pretending we do not feel the hollowness of the howl absent so many of our friends. As Sevro rages atop the table, I watch Victra motionless in her seat, her hand on her newest child, watching in horror as her husband pretends he’s young again.
The doubt creeps in, and I feel so very old.
THE BLUE SKY MOCKS the dead that lie in the mud.
The soldiers and medics that came in the second wave of Republic ships laid the bodies of the dead out in the grass beyond the east wall of the camp. Once those bodies were full of life, but now they’re little more than empty husks of skin and bone. The spirits that made them have fled to the Vale of our ancestors. I feel like my spirit has already joined them. A hollowness in my bones as I walk the grass looking for my sister.
Here and there, survivors weep over the bodies of loved ones. A woman makes animal screams over her dead child as others search for their own. My people are taught that this life is just a road to a place we are all going in the end. A place washed in light and love where the very air is thick with laughter of lovers meeting again. I can’t see that world. I can only smell the burned bodies. I only see the pale legs smeared with soot. Cracking with dried blood. And everywhere, flies. Fat with blood, they buzz and hover in thick clouds over the dead.
I walk alone, having left Liam with the medics. My arm’s slung up; the shoulder throbs despite the meds they’ve given me, and the skin tickles at the resFlesh bandage holding the wound together. More support ships cut across the midday sky, banking around the columns of thinning black smoke.
I found Tiran where they shot him, facedown in the mud. Bootprints chewed the ground around him. I couldn’t even hold him to my heart one last time. His body was a ruin I could not bear. I sicked up and fled, gathering just enough courage to return to our house to see if my father somehow managed to hide.
He did not. I have no parents left.
Now I look for my sister in the killing field.
With every body I pass, I feel the window of hope closing. Knowing there’s only so many left. So many steps more till my world falls apart. But I hold on to the stubborn little voice in my head that says maybe she escaped. I pray before I look at each new face, and feel sick as I breathe sighs of relief when it is someone else’s mother, someone else’s sister dead on the ground.
I’m reaching the end of the last row. She’s not here. I don’t see the bright blue of her new shoes. Fifteen bodies left. Ten. And then I slow. Heels sinking into the mud. Stomach raveling into knots. The frantic wingbeat of the flies fills my ears and I’m swallowed by horror.
“No. No.”
A thin body lies on the ground. Its throat has been hacked through to the spine. Red hair encircles her head in a filthy halo. It’s not her. It can’t be her. But her children lie beside her, their pieces twisted like broken toys. And one of her shoes hangs loosely on her foot, covered in mud. The other foot is bare. Her lifeless eyes stare at the sky. Eyes that saw my mother birth me. That used to look down at me with perfect love as we lay in bed together under the covers, whispering of boys and the lives we would have. Eyes that fell in love, that watched four children come from her flesh into the world, made cloudless and empty by some angry young man with a hunk of metal in his hand.
I feel the mud on my knees. My hands.
I claw at my sister’s body.
Someone shrieks in the distance like they’re on fire. And it’s long after the medics pull me away from my dead sister and her dead children, long after they stick a tranquilizer into my shoulder, that I realize the screams are my own.
—
“You must avoid any undue exertion, citizen,” the Yellow is saying. “You’re lucky to be alive. Keep the wound clean. I’ll put your information in the system so the medics at your next stop know to recheck it for infection.” I stare through her, watching an iridescent beetle the size of a thumbnail settle on my exposed knee, several inches below where the paper medical smock ends. Its pigment darkens to match my skin.
“Next stop?” I ask, looking up at the medic. She’s hard into her forties. Sulfur eyes peer out from a mess of freckles. A white-filtered medical mask covers the rest of her face. Despite the sweat on her brow, she’s clean. From a city. Do we disgust her?
“They’re taking you and your nephew to a regional medical center,” she says. “You’ll be safe there.”
“Safe,” I echo.
She squeezes my good shoulder and then Liam’s. “There was a doctor,” I say. “Janis.”
“I’m sorry. None of the medical staff survived.”
She leaves and I lean back in the bed and look down the row of cots. Hundreds of us are clustered beneath the awnings. My pants and the tattered remnants of my shirt are crumpled in a bag at the end of my bed. Liam adjusts his hold on my hand. He hasn’t let go since I woke up. I don’t know what to say to him.
I’m spared the choice when we’re both eclipsed by a shadow. It blocks out the light from the nearby doorway. A man comes through the mosquito netting, drawing the eyes of the doctors, one of whom rushes to him and scoldingly points at some animal that follows him in. The man pushes the animal b
ack out with his foot and then closes the netting. But man isn’t the right word. No bloody way. On the riverbank, he looked like a statue. Moving, upright, he looks like a god. The Gold’s thighs are broader than my da’s chest. His hairy hands hang at his sides like giant, swollen mallets. And his head is bald and shiny with sweat and looks made for knocking down doors. Liam hears his footsteps and begins to shake in fear.
“Are you the one known as Lyria?” His voice soothes like the distant rumble of a clawDrill.
“Yes,” I manage with a dry tongue. “Who are you?”
His eyes, a dark gold, are small and close together. They glitter in a friendly way as he smiles and pushes himself awkwardly through the cramped confines of the medical tent till he’s at my bedside. “I am a man who owes you a great debt, little one. Yes indeed. A great debt. You saved my life.”
“Wasn’t just me.”
“Oh, but it was. I spoke to the Reds at the riverbank, and they told me what you did, despite your wounds. How you swam to the depths for a stranger.” He kneels. “I have many that I love who I will now see again, because of you. So I thank you, child, with all my heart.” His hands swallow mine. He kisses my knuckles.
“Who are you?” I ask again.
He frowns. “You do not know me?”
“That a crime?” He’s taken aback by my tone.
“Telemanus,” he announces grandly. He leans back, pleased at the recognition in my eyes. “I am Kavax au Telemanus. Eaglebreaker. Praetor of the Republic.”
From my side, Liam gasps. “The Kavax who slew Tiberius au Bellona? And flew with the Reaper to Luna? And cut off Atalantia au Grimmus’s leg?”
The Gold hadn’t noticed Liam, so low is my nephew to the ground, but now he puffs up his chest like a regular Helldiver, delighted to have his reputation precede him. “I can see this child is very wise.” He spares a look at me. “Though I was not alone against the Ash Lady. My daughter was with me.” Looking down at my little nephew, Kavax slowly realizes that Liam, with his unfocused, foggy eyes, is blind. The change in the Gold startles me. His voice softens and he kneels so that he is not so far away from my nephew. “And what is your name, young knight?”
“Liam, of Lagalos, dominus. But…but I’m not a knight….”
“That is a good name, Liam. It is an Old Earth name from the Irish Isles and means warrior, protector.”
“Does it?” Liam asks.
“It does indeed. Your people, the first Pioneers, brought more than flesh and blood with them from Earth.” He smiles. “I knew a man with such a name and he was very brave; but I fear you are wrong. You are a knight.” He puts a hand on Liam’s head, startling my nephew. “See…yes, you have a hard head. A fighter’s head. Just like mine. Do you want to feel my head? I’ve been told it is the hardest this side of Romulus au Raa.” With care, Kavax lowers his head and places Liam’s hand upon his great dome.
“You’re a bloody plant!” Liam exclaims in shock. His hands reach along Kavax’s head to find the end of its dimensions.
“Liam! Mind your tongue.” I pray this massive man doesn’t take offense. But he just chuckles.
“I am big enough for most things,” Kavax says with a grin. “But when I’m not, I call on my friends like your sister here. And we are friends now, little one.” He pulls a small silver fox pin from a pouch. He sets it in my palm and closes my hand around it. “If ever you want for anything, show this to any Republic soldier or employee and they will find me, and I and any of my family will do what is in our power to help you. You have my word.”
“My family…” I say.
“What of them?” He looks around. “Do you want me to fetch them? We need family when we are wounded. It is important. Tell me where they are, and I shall bring them to you.”
“They’re gone,” I manage in a small voice, not having any other words to describe what happened. Their absence does not feel real. But it creeps on me, a dark loneliness.
“Oh.” Kavax knows what I mean. His shoulders sag. “Oh, child.” I let him take my hand between his own. He leans close enough so I can smell the smoke in his beard and the oil he uses to shape it to a fine point. “I am sorry.”
“She said she would protect us…” I whisper.
“Who?”
“The Sovereign…”
He’s silent for a long moment. “I know it may be impossible to believe now, when everything is dark and broken, but you will survive this pain, little one. Pain is a memory. You will live and you will struggle and you will find joy. And you will remember your family from this breath to your dying days, because love does not fade. Love is the stars, and its light carries on long after death.”
I can think of nothing to say, so the Gold, called away by an assistant, leaves me there in the bed under the crinkled sheets in the small tent in the middle of a place that never felt like my home. Leaves me there as if his words were a gift. But what the hell use are words? How will they protect us? Feed us? Give us a future?
I will go where the Republic tells me to go. Likely another camp. But without my family this one will be empty of its soul. I don’t want that life. I hate this planet. There’s nothing holding me here. I suffer enormous guilt for thinking of it like that, but I can’t stay here. I’d rather die.
I need more. For Liam. For me.
“Liam, stay here,” I say, lunging up out of my bed.
“Where are you going?” he asks in fear. His hands reach for me.
“Just stay. I’ll be back.”
“Lyria, no…”
“Liam!” I snap. He reels back from me. I sigh out the anger and kneel, taking his face in my hands. “I promise I will never abandon you. You’re my heart. Be brave, and I’ll be back.”
I pull my pants from the plastic bag and jump into them. My shirt is bloody and in ruins, so I leave the medical smock on. I can’t find my shoes, but there’s no time. The nurses are moving toward me. I duck out the mosquito netting before they can block my way. The mud is warm between my toes as I race from the tent without shoes. I sprint fast as I can past soldiers and medics and mourning Reds till I reach the muddy landing strip where traffic controllers wave orange batons at landing shuttles. They look at me like I’m stark mad. I clip past.
No one stops me till I reach the Telemanus shuttle. A brooding black vessel shiny as the belly of a pitviper, with a dancing red fox on its upright wings. It’s as tall as any six trees stacked end over end. At the top of a ramp, Kavax speaks with another Gold and a Yellow. Two Gray soldiers with the same strange canines on their chestplates block my way to the ship. Each a head taller than me. One grabs my wrist, easily pulling me against his chest.
“Lord Kavax!” I shout. “Lord Kavax.”
He cannot hear me. My voice is too small. The roar of the engines too loud. The soldiers are pulling me away without effort. I call out till my throat is hoarse. But it’s not Lord Telemanus who hears me; it’s the animal that sits at his side. It looks like a dog with glossy red fur, but it’s nearly as large as Liam and has pointed ears and a narrow snout streaked with white. At the sound of my futile shouts, the animal quirks its head, turns to look my way, and then lopes back down the ramp toward me. Only then does Lord Telemanus turn. He follows his pet down the ramp, confused knights and attendants trailing in his wake. Finally he sees me.
“Off,” he barks to the soldiers. “Hands off the girl.”
They release me, and I push off the one who bruised my arm to stumble in front of Kavax. He towers above me, his eyes quizzical beneath tangled eyebrows. I pant for breath and pull my medical scrubs back into place.
At full height, I barely reach Kavax’s belly. In the tent, he seemed kind and human. Here, before hundreds of eyes, he’s untouchable. He pitied me earlier. That is why he stood by my bedside. But what am I to him? They say all Colors are equal now, but we all know that’s a load of snakeshit.
“Take me…” I stammer.
“Up,” he thunders. “Speak up. Hard to hear you up here,
little one.” He chuckles to himself as his pet threads through his legs. There’s a watchfulness to the creature. A brain examining me.
“Take me with you,” I say in an angry voice.
He doesn’t understand. “With us?”
“Yes. With you.”
“Child, we’re not staying on Mars. We’re bound for Luna.”
“Lovely. Then you can get me off this rock.”
“But…this is your home.”
“Home? It’s a grave.”
Kavax frowns, not knowing what to do. A tall, plain-faced Gold in her early forties, who wears a beautiful cloak the color of a storm cloud, drifts to the man’s side. Beneath the cloak, she wears cloth instead of metal. Her eyes are not as kind as Kavax’s, but dreamy and distant. She carries a large datapad with her medical equipment. “What is it, Father?” she asks.
“The girl wants to come with, Xana. This is the one who saved me.”
“Oh, heart.” Xana looks pityingly at me. “Father, you know she cannot.”
“Please…” I beg.
“It’s against the immigration regulations,” Xana says. “We can’t ignore them.”
“If…if you can’t take me…at least take Liam. Take my nephew. He deserves to have a chance at life.”
Again, Xana shakes her head before her father can respond. “We’re bound for Luna. If we take you, everyone will want to come. And the moon is already backlogged for years with refugees.”
“ ‘Everyone’ didn’t save your da.”
“Sorry.” She looks past me to the refugees at the tents who stand and watch. “It’s an impossible precedent to set. There is a system in place that the Senate designed. We can’t simply go against it because we want to. You will be taken care of. You will be protected. It’s to your benefit….”
“Protected? Like last time?” I snarl. I know I should rein in my temper. But my face is numb with anger. Tears leak out of my eyes. “You pulled us up out of the mine. You stuck us in this camp. You said it would be for six months, but two years later we’re still slagged in the mud. Two years. You abandoned us, Gold.” I jab a finger up at them. “The Sovereign abandoned us. And now my family is dead. My father, my sister, my brother, my niece, my nephews, because you lied.”