Cassius looks down at him. No measure of humor to the man, just pride, not the vain sort I’ve seen in him over the years. War and life have drained that vigorous spirit from him. This is the face, the bearing of a man who wants nothing more than to die with a little dignity. “Yes,” he says loudly. “I did.”
“Glad we cleared that up. He’s a murderer,” Sevro shouts to the crowd. “And what do we do to murderers?”
The crowd roars for Cassius’s life. And Sevro, after making a show of cupping his ear, gives it to them. He shoves Cassius off the edge of the walkway. The Gold plummets till the cable around his neck snaps taut, arresting his fall. He gags. Feet kick. Face reddens. The crowd roars hungrily, chanting Ares’s name.
Mobs are soulless things that feed on fear and momentum and prejudice. They do not know the spirit in Cassius, the nobility of a man who would have given his life for his family, but was cursed to live while they all died. They see a monster. A seven-foot-tall former god now mostly naked, humbled, strangling on his own hubris.
I see a man trying his best in a world that doesn’t give a shit. It breaks my heart.
Yet I do not move, because I know I’m not witnessing the death of a friend as much as I’m seeing the rebirth of another. My company does not understand. Horror stains Kavax’s face. Victra’s too—even though she held little pity for Cassius all this time, I think she mourns the savagery she sees in Sevro. It’s an ugly thing for any man to bear. Holiday pulls her weapon, eying the Reds nearby who point to Kavax. But they’re missing the show.
I watch in awe of Sevro as he bounds up onto the railing, arms wide, embracing his army. Beneath, Cassius dangles and dies and the crowd beneath makes a game of seeing who can launch themselves high enough to pull his feet. None succeed.
“My name is Sevro au Barca,” my friend cries out. “I am Ares!” He thumps his chest. “I have killed forty-four Golds. Fifteen Obsidian. One hundred and thirteen Grays with my razor.” The crowd roars in approval, even the Obsidians. “Jove knows who else with ships, railguns, and pulseFists. With nukes, knives, sharp sticks…” He trails off dramatically.
They slam their feet.
He beats his chest again. “I am Ares! I am a murderer too!” He puts his hands on his hips. “And what do we do to murderers?”
This time no one answers.
He never expected them to. He grabs the cable from the neck of one of the kneeling Golds, wraps it around his own neck, and looking to Sefi with a demented little smile, winks and backflips off the railing.
The crowd screams, but Victra’s stunned gasp is the loudest. Sevro’s rope snaps taut. He kicks, choking beside Cassius. Feet scrambling. Silent and horrible. Face turning red, on its way to purple like Cassius’s. They swing together, the Goblin and the Gold, suspended above the swirling crowd that’s now stampeding trying to get up the ladder to the walkway to cut Sevro down, but in their madness they overload the ladder and it bends away from the wall. Victra’s about to launch herself into the air on her gravBoots to save him. I hold her down. “Wait.”
“He’s dying!” she says frantically.
“That’s the point.”
It is not a boy who dangles on that line. It is not a brokenhearted orphan who needs me to pick him up. It’s a man who has been through hell and now believes in the dream of his father, in the dream of my wife. It’s a man I would die to protect even as he dies to save the soul of this rebellion.
Kavax is transfixed, watching Sefi who stares down at the curious scene. Her Obsidian are just as confused. They glance to her, searching for leadership. Ragnar believed in his sister. In her capacity to be better than the world that was given them, one in which there is no such thing as mercy, no such thing as forgiveness. Silently, she hefts her axe and swings it into Sevro’s cable and then, reluctantly, Cassius’s. Somewhere, Ragnar is smiling.
Both men tumble through the air to be caught by the swirling crowd beneath.
Kavax has not moved since Sevro jumped, watching Sefi with a profound look of confusion. Still with his hand on the com to call his children, but I lose him in the crowd. The Sons of Ares and Howlers have formed a tight circle around their leader, shoving others back. Sevro hacks for breath on all fours. I rush to him and kneel as Holiday helps Cassius, who wheezes on the ground to my left. Pebble drapes her Howler cloak over his body.
“Can you talk?” I ask Sevro. He nods, lips trembling from the pain, but his eyes are all fire. I give my arm and help him stand. I hold up a fist, demanding silence. Sons shout the others down till the twenty-five thousand breaths balance on the beating heart of my little friend. He looks out at them, startled by the love he sees, the reverence, the wet eyes.
“Darrow’s wife…” Sevro croaks, larynx damaged. “His wife,” he says more deeply. “And my father never met. But they shared a dream. One of a free world. Not built on corpses, but on hope. On the love that binds us, not the hate that divides. We have lost many. But we are not broken. We are not defeated. We fight on. But we do not fight for revenge for those who have died. We fight for each other. We fight for those who live. We fight for those who don’t yet live.
“Cassius au Bellona killed my father….” He stands over the man, swallowing before looking back up. “But I forgive him. Why? Because he was protecting the world he knew, because he was afraid.”
Victra pushes her way to the front of the circle, watching Sevro who speaks now as if it was meant for her and her alone. “We are the new age. The new world. And if we’re to show the way, then we better damn well make it a better one. I am Sevro au Barca. And I am no longer afraid.”
“You’re bloodydamn manic,” I tell Sevro when we’re alone in Virany’s infirmary. Sevro’s holding his neck laughing at himself. I kiss the top of his head. “Bloodydamn insane, you know that?”
“Yeah well I stole that one from your playbook; what does that say about you?”
“That he’s insane as well,” Mickey says from the corner. He’s smoking his laced-burners. Purple smoke slithering from nostrils.
Sevro winces. “That slagging hurt. I can’t even look sideways.”
“You sprained your neck, damaged the cartilage, lacerations in your larynx,” Dr. Virany says from behind her biometric scanner. She’s a lithe, tan woman with that special small silence inside her reserved for people who have seen both sides of hardship.
“Just as I said when you came in. All these tools you use, Virany. Really where’s the art in it?”
Virany rolls her eyes. “Another ten kilos on your body and you would have broken your neck, Sevro. Count yourself lucky.”
“Good thing I took a shit before,” he grumbles.
“Darrow’s neck would have held up under the strain of fifty more kilos,” Mickey brags idly. “The tensile rating of his cervical—”
“Really?” Virany says tiredly. “Can’t you brag later Mickey?”
“Merely observing my own mastery,” Mickey replies, giving me a little wink. He enjoys pushing the gentle Virany’s buttons. Since he’s employed her help in his project they’ve been spending most waking moments in his laboratory, much to Virany’s chagrin.
“Ow!” Sevro yelps as she prods the back of his spine. “That’s my body.”
“Sorry.”
“Pixie,” I say.
“I almost broke my neck,” Sevro complains.
“Been there, done that. At least you didn’t have to get whipped.”
“I’d rather have been whipped,” he mutters, wincing as he tries to turn his neck. “Be better than this.”
“Not being whipped by Pax,” I reply.
“I saw the video, he wasn’t swinging that hard.”
“Have you ever been whipped? Did you see my back?”
“You see my bloodydamn eye at the Institute? Jackal had it plucked out with a knife, didn’t see me whining.”
“I had my whole bloodydamn body carved open,” I say as the doors hiss open and Mustang enters. “Twice.”
“Oh
, it always comes back to the slagging Carving,” Sevro mutters, wiggling his fingers in the air. “I’m so bloodydamn special, I had my bones peeled. My DNA spliced.”
“Do they always do this?” Virany asks Mustang.
“Seems like,” Mustang says. “Any chance I could bribe you to suture their mouths shut till they learn not to swear so much?”
Mickey perks up. “Well, it’s interesting you ask…”
Sevro interrupts him. “How’s the Gold holding up?” he asks Mustang. “You know?”
“Happy he still has a tongue,” Mustang says. “They’re suturing his chest in the infirmary. He has some internal bleeding from blunt trauma, but he’ll live.”
“You finally went to see him?” I ask.
“I did.” She nods thoughtfully to herself. “He was…emotional. He wanted me to thank you, Sevro. He says he knows he didn’t deserve it.”
“Damn right he didn’t,” Sevro mutters.
“Sefi says the Obsidian will leave him be,” I say.
“The Obsidian?” Mustang asks, my statement pulling her from her thoughts. “All of them.”
I laugh suddenly. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“What’s that?” Sevro asks.
“She spoke for the Obsidian now, not just the Valkyrie. Wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Pan-tribalism wasn’t in place before the riot,” I say. “Must have used it to unite the other warchiefs under her direction.”
“So…she pulled a coup?” Sevro asks.
I laugh. “Seems like.”
“We’ll see if it holds. Still…impressive,” Mustang says. “They always told us never to let a good crisis go to waste.”
Mickey shivers. “Obsidians playing politics…”
“So all that out there…was that strategy or was real?” Mustang asks Sevro.
“Dunno.” Sevro shrugs. “I mean, gotta stop the cycle somewhere. Sucks, but dad’s gone. No sense burning down the world to try and bring him back. You know? Cassius didn’t kill dad because he hated him. They were both soldiers doing what soldiers do.”
Mustang shakes her head, at a loss for words. So she sets a hand on his shoulder, and he knows how impressed she is. The compliment of silence is as deep a one as she can give, and Sevro favors her with a rare un-ironic smile. One that disappears when the door opens and Victra comes in. She’s red-eyed and agitated.
“I need to talk to you,” she says to Sevro.
“Get out,” Sevro says when we don’t move. “Everyone.”
—
We wait outside the door as Victra and Sevro speak inside. “How long do you think it will take to make the voyage?” Mustang asks.
“Forty-nine days,” I say, pulling Mickey back from the door where he cups his ear in an attempt to hear the happenings inside. “Key is keeping the Blues quiet.”
“Forty-nine days is a long time for my brother to make plans.”
Beyond our hull the worlds continue to turn. Reds are hunted. And though we’ve woken the spirit of the lowColors, and given this rebellion another victory, every day we spend crossing the distance to Core is another day that the Jackal can hunt our friends and the Sovereign can squelch the rebellions that plague her. My uncle’s already gone. How many more will die before I return?
“This won’t heal everything,” Mustang says. “The Obsidians still killed seven prisoners. My people are wary of this war. The consequences. Particularly if Sefi now has united the tribes. That makes her dangerous.”
“And more useful,” I say.
“Until she disagrees with you again. This could go wrong at any moment.”
She straightens as Mickey skitters back and the door to the infirmary opens. Sevro and Victra come out, both wearing smiles. “What are you two grinning about?” I ask.
“Just this.” Sevro thrusts out a House Jupiter Institute ring. It’s loose on his finger. I squint at it, not understanding right away. His own ring is missing and then I see it awkwardly jammed onto Victra’s pinky. “She proposed,” he says with delight.
“What?” I sputter.
Mustang’s eyebrows shoot up. “Proposed…as in…”
“Yeah, boyo!” Sevro beams. “We’re gettin’ hitched.”
—
Sevro and Victra marry seven nights later in a small ceremony in the auxiliary hangar of the Morning Star. When Victra asked me to give her away after they broke the news to us, I couldn’t speak. I hugged her then as I hug her now before taking her arm and walking her through the small line of scrubbed and washed Howlers and towering Telemanuses. It’s the cleanest I’ve ever seen Sevro, his unruly Mohawk combed to the side as he stands before Mickey. It is custom to have a White give the benediction. But Victra laughed at the idea of tradition and asked Mickey.
The Violet’s face glows now. Too much makeup on the day, but he’s a ray of light all the same. From Carver to slaver to slave to wedding officiant, he’s not had an easy road, but he’s lovelier for it. He was delighted when Clown and Screwface asked him to join us for Sevro’s bachelor night, and he howled along with us as we kidnapped Sevro from his room the night before and dragged him to the mess hall where the Howlers gathered to drink.
The animosity stemming from the riot has not abated entirely, but the wedding brings a sense of nostalgic normalcy. Surrounded by the insanity of war, it’s a special hope given knowing life can go on. Though some Sons gripe about the marriage of the Red leader to a Gold, Victra’s done enough to merit respect from the leaders within the Sons. And the bravery she showed in storming the Morning Star with Sefi and me around Ilium has bought her their respect. She shed blood for them, with them, so my fleet is quiet, at peace. At least for tonight.
I’ve never seen Sevro so happy. Nor so nervous as he was the hour before the ceremony when he combed his hair in my washroom. Not that you can do much with a Mohawk. “Is this insane? It seemed like a good idea yesterday,” he asked, staring at himself in the mirror.
“And it’s a good idea today too,” I told him.
“You’re not just saying that. Tell me the truth, man. I feel sick.”
“Before I married Eo, I threw up.”
“Bullshit.”
“Got it all over my uncle’s boots.” A twinge of pain as I remember he’s gone. “Wasn’t that I was afraid of making the wrong decision. I was afraid she was. Afraid of not living up to her expectations…But my uncle told me that it’s women who see us better than we see ourselves. That’s why you love Victra. That’s why you fight with her. And that’s you why you deserve this.”
Sevro squinted at me in the mirror. “Yeah, but your uncle was crazy. Everyone knows that.”
“Even company then. We’re all a little manic. Especially Victra. I mean she’d have to be to marry you?”
He grinned. “Bloodydamn right.” And I rumpled his hair, hoping beyond all hope that they can have this little moment of happiness and maybe more after that. It’s the best any of us can hope for, really. “Wish Pops was here, though.”
“I think he’s laughing his ass off somewhere that you have to stand on your tiptoes to kiss your bride,” I said.
“Always was a prick.”
Now Sevro shifts from foot to foot as I hand Victra over to him and he looks up into her eyes. I’m not even there. None of us are, not to them. The gentleness I see from the raging woman now is all it takes to know how much she loves him. It’s not something she’d ever talk about. It’s not her way. But the sharp edge she has for everything and everyone is dull tonight. Like she sees Sevro as a refuge, a place where she can be safe.
I rejoin Mustang as Mickey begins his flowery speech. It’s not half so grandiloquent as I might have expected. The way Mustang nods along to the words, I know she must have helped him edit it down. Reading my mind, she leans over. “You should have heard the first draft. It was a spectacle.” She sniffs me. “Are you drunk?” She looks back at the flushed Howlers and teetering Telemanuses. “Are they all drunk?”
“Shhh,” I say a
nd hand her a flask. “You’re too sober.”
Mickey is finishing the ceremony. “…a compact that can be broken only by death. I pronounce you Sevro and Victra Barca.”
“Julii,” Sevro corrects quickly. “Hers is the elder house.”
Victra shakes her head down at him. “He said it right.”
“But you’re a Julii,” he replies, confused.
“Yesterday I was. Today I’d rather be a Barca. Presuming you don’t have problem with that and I don’t have to become proportionally diminutive.”
“It’d be lovely,” Sevro says, cheeks glowing as Mickey continues and Sevro and Victra turn to face their friends. “Then I present you to your fellows and the worlds as Sevro and Victra of the Martian House Barca.”
—
The ceremony may have been small, but the celebration is anything but. Fleet-spanning, even. If my people know one thing it is how to survive hardship with celebration. Life’s not just a matter of breathing, it’s a matter of being. Word of Sevro’s speech and his hanging spread through the ships, stitching the wounds back together.
But this day is the one that matters. The one that reaffirms the joy of life throughout my fleet. Dances are held on the smallest corvettes, on the destroyers and torchShips and the Morning Star. Flights of ripWings buzz bridges in celebratory formation. Swill and Society liquors flow among the milling crowds, which gather in hangars to sing and dance around weapons of war. Even Kavax, so stubborn in his fear of chaos and his prejudice against the Obsidians, dances with Mustang. Drunkenly hugging Sevro and Victra and clumsily attempting to forget the ballroom dreck of Gold dances and learn those of my people from a full-figured Red with a laughing face and a mechanic’s grease under her nails. With them is Cyther, the awkward Orange who so impressed me a year a half ago in the garages of the Pax. He only just finished Mustang’s special project this morning. Now he’s drunk and turning his ungainly body around on the dance floor as Kavax roars approval.
Daxo shakes his head at his father’s antics while sitting in reserve on the side, as always. I share a drink with him. “It’s wine,” I say.