CASSIUS BURSTS FROM HIS SEAT, diving across the table to try to reach the access pad on the safe. The Obsidians grab him and wrench him back. I lunge for one of the knives on their belts, but Bellerephon stands and in one fluid movement whips his razor diagonally across the table. The thin black metal snaps around my arm. He jerks me sideways and I spill down, set upon by Obsidians. Bellerephon’s fingers move over the hilt of his razor to recall the whip to rigid form. He’ll take my arm.
“Bellerephon,” Seraphina snaps. “Not that one.”
He says nothing but flicks his whip free of my arm and recalls it back across the table. It slithers like a snake across plates and spilled rice. The Obsidians shove me into my seat. They’ve wrestled Cassius back to his. “If you hurt him, I won’t give you the combination,” I say quickly. “Seraphina, he saved your life. You’re in his debt and he’s under your promise of hospitality.”
“Void because of your lie,” Dido says.
Diomedes, who has sat like some paragon statue this whole time, watching the drama unfold, now frowns. “Mother. I know the face of Bellona as well as any man. That is not him.”
“Oh, but it is…” she says. “The razor of a Bellona is in that safe. Concealed under a shell of titanium.”
I look to Seraphina, hiding my horror as I realize what gave us away. When she opened the razor to hide her evidence inside it, she must have discovered the false cover and seen the eagles on the handle underneath. She knew all along.
“Did you think we do not know the technology of our enemies?” Dido asks Cassius, gesturing at her own face. “You may keep your Silver-spawned enlightenment; here we have masters of the old ways, of flesh and bone.” She gestures to the Violet and his jar. “You may begin.”
The Violet shuffles up to the table and, with a pair of tongs, reaches into his jar. From the yellow liquid he draws a tiny horror. A hideous spider-legged slug with corpse-pale skin and a belly riddled with small, hungry apertures. “This is a gruesli,” Dido says. The creature squeals like a burning worm and writhes in the air over Cassius’s face. He flinches away. From its apertures, thin tentacles push past layers of pallid flesh toward his face. “The gruesli eats masks, you see. You are not the first spy to breach the Gulf.”
The Violet lowers the creature onto Cassius’s face. Black stingers spurt from the tentacles into his skin. It wraps its legs around his head and sucks, shuddering with an orgiastic sigh as my friend gurgles beneath its flesh. I watch in cold terror as the creature feeds till it is engorged and lethargic and the Violet pulls it back up with tongs, to reveal, under a mess of puncture wounds and thin trails of blood, the swollen face of my handsome friend. He blinks through the layer of grime up at Dido as the Obsidians haul him up to face our hosts. Blood and milky fluid drip into his beard.
“The truth, at last,” Dido says.
Cassius laughs and rebelliously spits blood from his mouth. “Cassius au Bellona…at your service.”
I look to Seraphina for help, but there’s no ally left in the room. She loathes Cassius as much as the rest of them.
“You didn’t just take my daughter. You took my brother,” Dido says.
“Marcus,” Cassius says. “The Joy Knight.”
“Your sworn brother. Your fellow Olympic. You cut him down before you killed Octavia.”
“He was a bastard.”
“Yes. But he was my blood,” she whispers. “I will give you one last chance to open the safe.”
Cassius grunts. “So you can have a war that will send mankind back to the dark ages? Funny. You don’t look stupid.”
“These are the dark ages,” Seraphina says. “We will bring order back.”
“Says the little girl. Have you ever seen a city after orbital bombardment?”
“I saw Ganymede after the docks fell from orbit,” she replies bitterly. “I’ve seen horror—starvation. A whole city frozen.”
“You haven’t seen war.” His heavy eyes strafe the rest of the Raa. “You all think you’re the chosen people. The keepers of the flame. Please. You know how many have thought that? You’re just like the rest. Too vain to realize the flame has gone out. The dream of Gold was dead before any of us were ever born. You want a war because you think the Rising is vulnerable? Because they still battle the Core? You don’t know Darrow. You don’t know his people. If you attack, you lose everything.”
“The Slave King has already fallen,” Dido says, smiling at Cassius’s confusion. “Of course, how could you know? He has become an outlaw. His own mentor and wife have turned their backs on him. The Obsidian Horde is thinned. The remainder stirs with discontent. Their Senate devours itself and debates peace with the Pixies of the Core. They are flailing, scattered, and weak.”
“The Ash Lord has sought peace?” I ask.
“It seems war has softened his resolve. He is craven, and will be dealt with once we have retaken Mars and Luna. Rhea will be repaid in full.” Dido turns her eyes to me. “They say your family is cursed, Cassius. How lucky you are to have a brother survive the Jackal’s purge. Which one is he? Theseus? Daedalus? They would be his age by now….” She looks back to Cassius. “It doesn’t matter. If you do not give me the combination, I will let our dragons suck the marrow from his blasted bones.”
Cassius looks over at me with love and sorrow in his eyes. He’s been searching for this for the past ten years. A chance at redemption. Denying her war is that chance. It crushes him now to know the price it will cost. But he will pay it, I realize. Even if that price is my life.
“I swore to protect the people. That is what I will do. No matter the cost.”
“And do you share your brother’s insanity?” Dido asks me.
Cassius would have stayed to free the prisoners on the Vindabona. He wouldn’t have run at the first sound of Obsidians like I did, because he is a hero, and I am not. Whatever hate I have for Darrow, whatever hope these Gold have kindled in me, I cannot betray Cassius now. I love the man too much. But it breaks my heart to know that the masses he would die for would have his head on a spike if they could.
“He speaks for the both of us,” I say again.
Dido makes a small noise of disgust. She leans back, realizing the impasse, quick eyes searching for a way around it. “Diomedes. A bloodfeud needs resolution. Will you do the honors?”
“No,” the stoic knight replies. She turns on him in confusion.
“What?” Dido asks, caught off guard.
“You heard me, Mother.”
“He killed your sister.”
“They are our guests.”
“You’re joking.”
“You blathering idiot…” Bellerephon hisses. “They’re enemies of our blood.”
“They are our guests. If you want blood, draw it yourself.”
“Let him alone,” Seraphina says, standing. “It is his right to refuse. I will do the deed.”
“No,” Dido says.
Seraphina flinches. “You doubt I can?”
“Yes. Sit down.” She ignores Seraphina’s wounded expression and looks down the table. “Bellerephon, do what your cousin will not.”
“With pleasure.”
The man uncoils to his feet, long legs taking him around the table till he stands looking down his crooked nose at Cassius’s bloody face.
“Beware, milky,” Cassius says with a feral grin. “I am a student of Aja au Grimmus.”
“And I am the son of Atlas au Raa. Sixth shade of the Shadowfall. Slayer of Petro au Bretta, the Desert Spear.” Bellerephon’s eyes glitter with delight as he gathers phlegm and spits it onto Cassius’s face. It drips down Cassius’s cheek, running diagonal with his Peerless Scar. “This is a blood feud. The blood of my grandfather and my cousin is upon your hands. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another. In the name of House Raa, I, Bellerephon au Raa, challenge you to single combat in the Bleeding Place till one heart beats no more.”
“Very well, my goodman,” Cassius replies with a brilliant smile. “I am delighted to accept.”