SILENE MANOR, THE SOVEREIGN’S traditional Luna country retreat, is nestled five hundred kilometers north of Hyperion at the base of the Atlas Mountains on a small lake. The northern hemisphere of the moon, comprised of mountains and seas, is less populous than the belt of cities that girdle the equator. Though Mustang governs from the Palace of Light in the Citadel, Silene is the true home of my family, at least until we return to Mars. Built to resemble one of the papal villas on Earth’s Lake Como, the stone house sits along the edge of a rocky cove, and spills down to the lake by means of switchbacked stairs cut into the rock.
Here the thin conifers whisper to heights four times those possible on Earth. They sway nearly two hundred meters in the air around the raised concrete landing pad where the steward of House Augustus, Cedric cu Platuu, waits with my wife’s Lionguards as our shuttle lands. The small Copper greets Sevro and me with great alacrity, bowing deeply and flourishing his hand. Thraxa runs past him without even a greeting, eager to find her mother.
“ArchImperator,” he gushes, plump cheeks flushing with delight. He’s a short but ample man, built a bit like a plum with knobby arms and legs added as an afterthought. A whisper of a mustache, nearly as thin as the graying copper hair upon his head, wavers in the wind. “What gladness to see you again!”
“Cedric,” I say, greeting the short man warmly. “I hear you’ve just had a birthday.”
“Yes, my lord! My seventy-first. Though I do maintain one should stop counting after sixty.”
“Prime work,” Sevro says. “You look positively prepubescent.”
“Thank you, my lord!”
Few know the secrets of the Citadel as well as Cedric; he was one of the gems of the Sovereign’s court. Mustang, having thought highly of him during her time with Octavia, saw no need to dismiss a man so knowledgeable and dedicated to his duty.
“Where’s the welcoming party?” Sevro asks, looking for his wife, Victra. Mustang and Daxo remained behind in Hyperion to deal with their unruly Senate, but promised to rejoin by dinnertime.
“Oh, the children are recently returned from a three-day adventure,” Cedric says. “The Lady Telemanus took them to the ruins of the USS Davy Crockett in the Atlas Mountains. Merrywater’s own! I hear they had quite a time around that old wreck. Quite. A. Time, yes. Learned many lessons and expanded their individual initiative. As your curriculum requested, dominu—” Cedric’s eyes nearly pop out of his head before he corrects himself. “As your curriculum requested, sir.”
“Is my wife here yet?” Sevro asks gruffly.
“Not yet, sir. Her valet said she would be late to dinner. I believe there were labor strikes in her warehouses in Endymion and Echo City. It’s all over the holoNews.”
“She didn’t even show to the Triumph,” Sevro mutters. “I looked fabulous.”
“She has missed you at your most prime, sir.”
“Right. See, Darrow? Cedric agrees.” What he hasn’t noticed is Cedric shuffling away from the odious stench of his wolfcloak.
“Cedric, where is my son?” I ask the man.
He smiles. “I think you can guess, sir.”
The sounds of neoPlast swords knocking together and boots on stone greet Sevro and me as we enter the dueling grotto. There, vines crawl over granite fountains and along the damp stone floor. Evergreen needles drift in cumulous shapes from the top of the trees. And in the center of the grotto, under the watching eyes of the gargoyles adorning the fountains, a young boy and girl circle each other at the center of a chalk circle. The seven other children of their pack watch on, along with two Gold women. Sevro pulls me to the side so we remain unseen and sit out of sight on the edge of a granite fountain to watch.
The boy at the center of the circle is ten, lean and proud. He laughs like his mother and broods like his father. His hair is the color of straw, his face round and flushed with youth. Rose-gold eyes burn from under long lashes. He’s larger than I remember, older, and it feels so impossible that he could have come from me. That he could have thoughts of his own. That he’ll love, smile, die like the rest of us.
His brow is furrowed now in concentration. Sweat pours down his face, matting his hair as his opponent strikes his knee a glancing blow.
The girl is nine and narrow-faced like a sleek hunting dog. Electra, the eldest of Sevro’s three daughters, is taller than my son and twice as thin. But while Pax radiates an inner joy that makes adults’ eyes twinkle, there’s a deep grimness to the girl. Her eyes are dusky gold and hidden behind heavy lids. Sometimes when they look at me, I feel them judging with an aloofness that reminds me of her mother.
Sevro leans forward eagerly. “I’ll wager Aja’s razor against Apollonius’s helm that my wee monster beats the piss out of your boy.”
“I’m not going to bet on our children,” I whisper in indignation.
“I’ll throw Aja’s Institute ring in as well.”
“Have some decency, Sevro. They’re our children.”
“And Octavia’s cape.”
“I want the Falthe Ivory Tree.”
Sevro gasps. “I love the Ivory Tree. Where else will I hang my trophies?”
I shrug. “No Ivory Tree, no bet.”
“Bloodydamn savage,” he says, sticking out a hand to shake. “You have a deal.” Sevro’s become quite the collector—acquiring a hoard of trophies from Gold Imperators, knights, and would-be kings. He hangs their rings and weapons and crests from the boughs of the ivory tree he uprooted from the House Falthe compound on Earth and moved to his home on Luna.
We watch as Electra redoubles her onslaught against Pax. My son continues to back away, to sidestep, allowing her to overextend. Once she does, he twirls his plastic razor toward her rib cage. It connects lightly. “Point!” he shouts.
“I’m counting, Pax. Not you,” Niobe au Telemanus says. Kavax’s wife is a serene woman with a bird’s nest of untamable graying hair and skin the color of cherrywood. The tribal tattoos of her Pacific Islander ancestors cover her arms. “Three to two, for Pax.”
“Mind your balance, and stop overextending, Electra,” says Thraxa. “You’ll lose your footing if you’re on an unstable surface, like a ship deck or ice.” She sits on the edge of a fountain, miraculously already having found a bottle of beer.
Brow furrowed in anger, Electra rushes Pax again. They move fast for children, but since they’re still shy of puberty, their movements are not yet graceful. Electra feints high, then twists her wrist to slash savagely down, hitting Pax’s shoulder. “Point for Electra,” Niobe says. Sevro has to stop himself from clapping. Pax tries to recover, but Electra is on him. Three more quick blows knock his razor from his hand. He falls down and Electra lifts her razor to smash him hard on the head.
Thraxa slips forward and catches the blade mid-swing with her metal hand. “Temper, temper, little lady.” She pours a little beer on her head.
Electra glares up at her.
Sevro can’t contain himself any longer. “My little harpy!” He lunges up off the bench and I follow through to the grotto. “Daddy’s home!” A smile slashes across Electra’s dour face as she turns to see her father. She runs to him and lets him scoop her up off the ground. Looks rather like he’s hugging a limp fish. Some of the children flinch back when they see Sevro. And when they see me emerge from behind the vines, they stiffen and bow with perfect manners. Not one born since the fall of House Lune has the sigils implanted on their hands.
We raise them in packs of nine now, setting children of disparate Colors together early in their schooling with hopes of creating the bonds that I found at the Institute, but without the murder and starvation. Pax’s best friend, Baldur, a quiet gap-toothed Obsidian boy who is already nearly as tall as Sevro, helps Pax up. He tries to dust Pax off before Pax shoos him away and looks over at us.
I expected him to rush to me like Electra, but he doesn’t. And in that moment, a very sharp spasm of pain goes through the deeper part of me. When I left him, he was a boy, brimming with reckless life, but the hesitation, the coldness in him now, is from the world of men. Minding his pack, he walks forward very calmly and bows at the waist, no deeper than manners require. “Hello, Father.”
“My boy,” I say with a smile. “You’ve grown like a weed.”
“That’s what happens when you age,” he says, an edge to his words. I always thought when I became a man, I’d feel more confident, but towering over this boy, I feel so very small. I lost my own father to a cause; have I doomed Pax to the same fate?
“He’s not generally such a snot,” Niobe says later as we stand to the side after the children are dismissed from the day’s practice. Pax leaves quickly and in a mood. Baldur rushes to keep up.
“Take the angst as a compliment, Darrow,” Thraxa mumbles. “He just misses his father. I felt the same way anytime the old man was away on one of Augustus’s errands.” She pulls a slim burner from her pocket and lights it in the coals of one of the copper braziers that line the crumbling walls of the grotto. Niobe plucks it from her fingers and puts it out on her daughter’s metal arm.
“Was Daxo ever like that?” I ask.
“Daxo?” Niobe laughs. “Daxo was born stoic as a stone.”
“Plotting in the womb from conception,” Thraxa mutters, and sips her beer. “We used to make owl hoots at him. Always watching the rest of us out the window. Big brother never wanted to play our games. Only his own.”
“And you were such a paragon?” Niobe asks. “You used to eat cow pies.”
Thraxa shrugs. “Better than your cooking.” She steps out of range of her mother’s reach and lights a replacement burner. “Thank Jove we had Browns.”
Niobe rolls her eyes and touches my arm. “The miscreant is right, Darrow. Pax just missed you. You’ve time to make up.”
I smile at her but watch Sevro walking away toward the water with Electra. “You know you’re Daddy’s favorite, don’t you?” he’s saying to her. I fight back my jealousy. He always seems able to pick right back up where he left off with his family. I wish I had that same gift.
I seek my mother out in the garden that runs along the side of one of the stone storage sheds. She’s hunched in the black dirt with two other Red servant women and a Red man, her bare feet sticking out behind her as she plants bulbs in the ground in tidy rows. I pause a moment at the edge of the garden to watch her, just as I used to watch from the stairwell in our little home in Lykos as she made her night tea. I was afraid of her after Father died. She was always quick with a swat or a barbed word. I thought I deserved the treatment. How much easier the love between us would have been if I’d known as a child that her anger and my fear came from a pain neither one of us deserved. The love in me wells up for her as I remember what she’s endured, and for a brief flicker, I ache to see my father again. For him to see my mother free.
“Are you just going to watch like a wastrel or are you going to help us plant?” she asks without looking up.
“I’m not sure I’d be a good farmer,” I say.
She stands with the help of one of her companions, dusts the dirt from her pants, and takes her time setting her tools away before coming to say hello. She’s only eighteen years older than I am, but she wears the years hard. Still, she is stronger by leagues than when she lived below. Her joints are worn from years in the mines. But her cheeks are ruddy with life now. Our physicians have helped relieve most of the symptoms of the stroke and heart condition that ravaged her. I know she feels guilty for this life. This luxury, when my father and so many others wait for us in the Vale. Her work in the garden and on the grounds is a penance for surviving.
My mother gives me a hard hug. “My son.” She breathes me in before pulling back to look all the way up to my face. “You put the death in me when I heard of that damn Iron Rain. You put the death in all of us.”
“I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have told you before that I was unaccounted for.”
She nods and says nothing, and I realize how deep her worry went. How they must have huddled in the living room here or in the Citadel and listened to the holoNews just like everyone else. The Red man shuffles to join us, his bad leg dragging behind.
“ ’Lo, Dancer,” I say past my mother. My old mentor wears laborer’s garments instead of his senatorial robes. His hair is gray, his face fatherly and creased from hard years. But there’s still mischief in his rebel eyes. “Given up the Senate for gardening, have you?”
“I’m a man of the people,” he says with a shrug. “Good to have dirt under the nails again. The gardeners in that museum the Senate gave me won’t let me touch a damn weed. ’Lo, Sevro.”
“Politician,” Sevro says, joining me from behind. Heedless of the mood, he pretends like he’s going to scoop my mother up into the air, but she scowls at him and he turns the scoop into a gentle hug.
“Better,” she says. “You nearly broke my hip the last time.”
“Oh, don’t be such a Pixie,” he mutters.
“Say that again?”
He steps back. “Nothing, ma’am.”
“What word from Leanna?” I ask.
“They’re well. Was hoping to visit them soon. Maybe take Pax along to Icaria in the winter. This place gets too cold for these old bones.”
“All the way to Mars?” I ask.
“It’s his home,” she says sharply. “You want him to forget where he came from? Red’s as deep in his blood as Gold. Not that he’s ever reminded it, ’cept by me.”
Dancer looks away, as if to give us privacy.
“He’ll go to Mars,” I say. “We all will when it’s safe.”
We might control Mars, but that’s a far cry from it being a world of harmony. The Sirenian continent is still infested by a Gold army of iron-skinned veterans, just like the battleground of South Pacifica on Earth. The Ash Lord hasn’t risked putting a major fleet in orbit in years, but ground wars are decidedly more stubborn than their astral counterparts.
“And when will it be safe, according to you?” my mother asks.
“Soon.”
Neither Dancer nor my mother is impressed by that answer. “And how long are you staying here?” she asks.
“A month, at least. Rhonna and Kieran will be coming, like you asked.”
“About bloody time. Thought Mercury had stolen them.”
“Victra and the girls will come up for a spell too. Though I do have business in Hyperion at the end of the week.”
“With the Senate. Asking for more men.” Her tone’s as sour as her eyes.
I sigh and look at Dancer. “Infecting my mother with your politics now?”
He laughs. “Deanna most certainly has a mind of her own.”
“With both of you in my ears I’ll go deaf,” she says.
“Plug your ears,” Sevro replies. “It’s what I do when they jabber about politics.”
Dancer snorts. “If only your wife did the same.”
“Careful, boyo. She’s got ears everywhere. She could be listening now.”
“Why weren’t you at the Triumph?” I ask Dancer.
He grimaces. “Please. We both know I’ve got no stomach for pomp. Especially on this damn moon. Give me dirt and air and friends.” He looks fondly at the trees around. A shadow passes over his face at the thought of returning to Hyperion. “But I must be heading back to the mechanized Babylon. Deanna, thank you for letting me garden with you. It’s just what I needed.”
“You’re not staying for supper?” my mother asks.
“Unfortunately, there are other gardens that need tending. Speaking of which…Darrow, could I have a moment?”
Dancer and I leave my mother and Sevro bickering about the smell of his wolfcloak to walk along a dirt footpath leading into the trees toward the lake. A patrol skiff skims the water on the far shore. “How are you?” he asks me. “None of that patriotic hero shit. Remember, I know all your tells.”
“Tired,” I admit. “You’d think a month’s journey back would let me catch up on sleep. But there’s always something.”
“Can you sleep?” he asks.
“Sometimes.”
“Lucky bastard. I piss the bed,” he admits. “Probably twice a month. I don’t ever remember the bloodydamn dreams, but my body sure as hell does.” He was in the thick of the fighting to free Mars. The tunnel wars there were even nastier than the block fighting on Luna. Even the Obsidians don’t sing songs of their victories in the tunnels. The Rat War, they call it. Over the course of three years, Dancer personally liberated over a hundred mines with the Sons of Ares. If Fitchner is the father of the Rising, it’d be fair to call Dancer the favorite uncle, despite the dissolution of the Sons of Ares.
“You can take meds,” I say. “Most of the vets do.”
“Psych meds? I don’t need Yellow synthetics. I’m a Red of Faran. My wits are damn sure more important than a dry bed.” On that we agree. Even though he’s my wife’s main opposition in the Senate, and thereby mine, he’s still as dear to me as my own family. Only when Mars and her moons were declared free did Dancer give up the gun and take up the senatorial toga to found the Vox Populi, the “Voice of the People,” a socialist lowColor party to counter what he saw as undue Gold influence over the Republic. It’s a bloodydamn thorn in my boots every time he gives a speech on proportional representation. If he had his way, there’d be five hundred lowColor senators to every Gold senator. Good math. Bad reality.
“Still, must be good to feel grass under your boots instead of sand and metal,” he says softly. “Must be good to be home.”
“It is.” I hestitate and look out at the rocky shore below. “Gets harder every time. To come back. You’d think I look forward to it, but…I don’t know. I dread it in a way. Every time Pax grows a centimeter, it feels like an indictment against me for not being there to see it.” I pick a loose thread impatiently. “Not to mention the longer I spend here, the more time the Ash Lord has to prepare Venus, and the longer this all stretches out.”
His face hardens at the mention of the war. “And how long do you think this will…stretch out?”
“That depends, doesn’t it?” I ask. “You’re the only thing standing in my way of getting the men I need to end this.”
“That’s always your answer. Isn’t it? More men.” He sighs. “I’m the mouth of the Vox Populi, not the brain.”
“You know, Dancer, humility isn’t always a virtue.”
“You disobeyed the Senate,” he says flatly. “We did not give you permission to launch an Iron Rain. We preached caution and—”
“I won, didn’t I?”
“This isn’t the Sons of Ares any longer, much as you and I both wish it were. Virginia and her Optimates were content to let you run roughshod over the Senate, but the people are learning just how strong their voice is.” He steps close to me. “Still, they revere you.”
“Not all of them.”
“Please. You’ve got cults that say prayers in your name. Who else has that?”
“Ragnar.” I hesitate. “And Lysander au Lune.”
“The line of Silenius died with Octavia. You were a fool to let that boy go, but if he was alive we’d know it. He got swallowed up by the war just like the rest of them. That leaves only you. The people love you, Darrow. You can’t abuse that love. Whatever you do, you set an example. So if you don’t follow the law, why should our Imperators, our Governors? Why should anyone else? How are we supposed to govern if you go off and do whatever you damn well please, like you’re a—” He catches himself.
“A Gold.”
“You know what I mean. The Senate was elected. You were not.”
“I do what’s necessary. You and I always have. But the rest of them, they do what gets them reelected. Why should I listen to them?” I smile at him. “Maybe you want an apology. Will that get me the men I need?”
“It may be too late for apologies.”
I raise an eyebrow. I wish I could say his coldness is alien to me, but that bond between us has never been the same since he learned how I bought my peace with Romulus. I gave Romulus the Sons of Ares. Those were Dancer’s men I left to die on the Rim. The guilt I felt for that defined our relationship for years, made me desperate for his approval. I thought if I could destroy the Ash Lord, I could amend the horror I consigned those men and women to. Nothing has been amended. Nothing will be. And it breaks my heart to know Dancer will never love me again the way I love him.
“Are we threatening each other now, Dancer? Thought you and I were beyond that. We started this together.”
“Aye. We did. I care for you as if you were my own blood. Have ever since you came to me covered in dirt, no taller than my nose. But even you have to follow the laws of the Republic you helped build. Because when the law is not obeyed, the ground is fertile for tyrants.”
I sigh. “You’ve been reading again.”
“Damn right. The Golds hoarded our history so they could pretend they owned it. It’s my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind, being led around by my nose.”
“No one is leading you around by your nose.”
He snorts his disagreement. “When I was a soldier, I watched as your wife gave pardons to murderers, to slavers, and I bore it because I was told it was necessary to win the war. I watch now as our people live fifteen to a room with scraps for food, rags for healthcare, while the highColor aristocracy live in towers, and I bear it because I’m told it is necessary to win the war. I’ll be damned if I sit back and watch another tyrant replace the one we left behind because it is necessary to win the fucking war.”
“Spare me the speeches, man. My wife’s no tyrant. It was her idea to diminish the strength of the Sovereign in the New Compact. Her choice to give that strength to the Senate. She helped give our people a voice. You think that was convenient for her? You think that’s what a tyrant would do?”
He fixes me with hard eyes. “I wasn’t talking about her.”
I see.
“I remember when you told me I was a good man who’d have to do bad things,” I say. “Your stomach go soft? Or have you spent so much time with politicians that you’ve forgotten what the enemy looks like? Usually they’re about seven foot tall, wear a big Pyramid badge, oh, and they’ve got Red blood all over their hands.”
“And so do you,” he says. “One million was the total loss, wasn’t it? One million for Mercury. You might be willing to bear that. But the rest of us tire of the weight. I know the Obsidians do. I know I do.”
“So that leaves us at an impasse.”
“It does. You’re my friend,” he says, voice heavy with emotion. “You will always be my friend. I won’t put a dagger in your back. But I will stand up to you. I will do what is right.”
“And so will I.” I put out my hand. He takes it and lingers for a moment before walking down the path. He turns before it bends into the trees. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Darrow? If there is, now is the time. When it’s between just us friends.”
“I’ve no secrets from you,” I say, wishing it were true, wishing he believed me. Wishing he were still the leader of the Sons of Ares, so we could bear our secrets together like we once did. Sadly, not all adversaries are enemies.
He turns and limps back to the garden to say farewell to my mother. They embrace and he makes his way to the southern landing pads where his Warden escorts wait. He takes a white wool toga from one and puts it on over his shirt before he goes up the ramp.
“What did he want?” Sevro asks.
“What do all politicians want?”
“Prostitutes.”
“Control.”
“He knows about the emissaries?”
“He couldn’t.”
Sevro watches Dancer’s wool toga billow in the wind as he boards his shuttle. “I liked the bastard better in armor.”
“So did I.”