AFTER THE PATIO IS SECURED, Tharsus sits with a robe around him in a chair apart from the bodies, his initial shock having given way to beleaguered contempt. “Apalling company you now keep, brother,” Tharsus hisses to Apollonius, who sits across from him.
“Means to an end, Tharsus. Means to an end.”
“And you brought them here. To my home.”
Apollonius slaps his brother gently across the face. “My home,” he corrects. “I am the heir of Valii-Rath, not you. I know you haven’t forgotten that. Or else I doubt I would have been a prisoner for so long.”
“I tried to rescue you,” Tharsus says convincingly.
“Did you, dear brother?”
“I spared no expense. Hired mercenaries, spent half my spies…”
“Sorry, Tharsus,” I say. “There was one assault made on Deepgrave, and it was not for Apollonius and not from you.”
“Slag you, halfbreed,” Tharsus says, spitting at me.
Apollonius slaps him across the face, this time so hard he tumbles out of his chair. He waits for him to find his seat again. “Manners, brother; when at the mercy of your enemies, petulance demeans your entity.”
“I reserve manners for people, not slaves,” Tharsus says. I stare down at him without pity. Apollonius has a measure of majesty about him, but Tharsus is a deviant with long eyelashes. His beautiful face no more than the evolutionary adaptation of a predator.
“You’re confused, dear brother,” Tharsus says with a manic laugh. “Lost in the tumble of your own mind without me to help you sort it right.” He smiles softly up at the bigger man. “Now, I shudder to think what they want, what they’ve promised you. But they don’t care for you as I do. When they get what they desire, they will cast you aside.” He looks at Sevro. “Mongrels without code or custom.”
“I might be a halfbreed,” Sevro says. “But at the end of the day, you’re still a bitch, and I’ve still got two ears.” He pulls the bootknife, grabs Tharsus’s hair, and cuts off his left ear. Tharsus cries out in pain and Tongueless steps toward Apollonius, but there’s no need. Apollonius watches with dispassion as Tharsus thrashes.
“Apollonius…” Tharsus hisses.
“I told you: mind your manners.”
“Mother was right. You’re mad!”
“I am not mad,” Apollonius growls, and steps forward. Tharsus reels back in sudden terror. But Apollonius’s anger dissolves as fast as it came. “I am not mad,” he says quietly, then breaks into a broad smile. “I simply lust for life and the thrill sport of war. Why should I deny myself the delight, when these two descended to offer me the ultimate play?” He sighs. “I know it is difficult for you to see me again, dear brother. Why, how easy it must have been when quarrelsome me was languishing in the abyss. But it was not easy for me. Neither the isolation nor the boredom nor the fear that my great strand of life would be cut short before the time of my glory. But do you fathom what the deepest, darkest lamentation was?” He leans forward. “Do you? It was the fear that my dearest, loving brother, my partner against the world, was complicit in my incarceration.”
“Complicit? Ridiculous.”
“Irrefutably complicit.”
“That’s a lie,” Tharsus says. “They’ve filled your head with bilious dreck.”
“Is that so?”
“Dreck. Bold and grotesque.”
“Come now, Tharsus. Do you really think I don’t know your tells by now? You could never hide them from me.”
“Apollonius, I would never betray you….”
Apollonius smiles. “You should be honor bound to a bloodfeud against Grimmus. Why would the Ash Lord keep you alive if you were not his creature? Did you think he would bring you to his side? Tharsus, the Pink drinker. Tharsus the Torturer. Tharsus the Vampire of Thessalonica? The Jackal might have treasured your cruelty, but these others see you and they laugh at you like the drunken jester you are. They think you a little nasty adolescent with blessed genetics, but, point of fact, you’re an adolescent with an army. So they kept you and let you distract yourself with idle playthings and helped themselves to that army. You let Grimmus give it to those clameater Carthii.” His lips curl back over his large teeth. “My army. The Ash Lord played you like a fool, brother. You knew. Admit it.” He leans forward. “Admit it.”
“Yes…” Tharsus says. He looks down in shame. The blood flow from his ear now a sluggish trickle. “It is true. I knew.” He looks up with hopeful eyes. “But I had no choice.”
“No?”
“I had to survive!”
“Why? For a facile existence of wetting your prick in myriad holes? You pathetic little deviant. You are not a child any longer.” He snatches his hair and finally Tharsus’s rebellious façade cracks. The hint of terror he let slip earlier gives way to a storm of it.
“Don’t kill him,” I say. “We need him to get into the darkzone.”
“Kill him?” Apollonius looks back at me, seeing my apprehension. “An ear is just an ear. But a life.” He shakes his head. “He’s my brother.” He looks back to Tharsus. “My brother who betrayed me. My brother who left his beloved kin to rot.” He squeezes his hair, pulling tighter. “My brother who wished to be an only child.”
“I didn’t…”
“Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t want to die…” Tharsus says pitifully. “He said he would kill me if I didn’t comply. But if I did, the Valii-Rath name would live on. Mother and Father gone…I didn’t know what to do….”
“Of course you didn’t. You need me,” Apollonius says soothingly. “You need your big brother.” He releases his hold and gently strokes Tharsus’s hair. “All this time by yourself. All these decisions. What horrible loneliness your ambition has brought.”
Tharsus closes his eyes, sinking into the touch of his brother.
“I am sorry….”
“I know.”
“If I could take it back…”
“I know. But amends must be made. A pound of flesh taken.” He strokes Tharsus’s face as the younger man’s eyes, filled with tears, open to look at him in terrible fear. “No, not from you, brother. There’s only two of us left in all the worlds. And what pleasure would there be there in witnessing the rise of our house if I am alone? I forgive you, my darling.” Tharsus looks like he doesn’t understand. Apollonius leans forward to kiss the tears from his brother’s face. “I forgive you, Tharsus. For your sins. For your nature. For everything.”
Tharsus bursts into drunken tears.
The display does not warm my heart. It shows the vile, maggoty innards of this family. I feel tainted being here with them, breathing the same air, and want nothing more than to be done with this. To be home with my family, to feel real love, not this weird tapestry of domination and cruelty they’ve woven. Poor Tactus. What chance did ever he have?
Sevro looks sickened by the display, and I feel heartbroken knowing I’ve taken him so far from his girls, from Victra, into this pit of devils. Maybe Victra was right. Maybe I should have left him behind. Then Wulfgar’s blood would not be on his hands, nor mine, and we would not have to share air with these men.
“Thank you, Apollonius,” Tharsus says. “Thank you. But why are you here? Why with…them?”
“Because our pound of flesh must be taken from the man who turned brother against brother. Soon, the Ash Lord will die. That is the cause that binds the Reaper to me. And you, my beloved, will deliver him to us.”
“How?” Tharsus asks.
“You’ll gain us an audience,” Sevro says. “Get us in nice and tight.”
“But…the Ash Lord hasn’t had an audience in three years. He reigns in solitude.”
“Three years,” I repeat, not believing it. “That’s absurd.”
“Nonetheless, it is true.”
“How the hell is that possible?” Sevro asks.
“There was an assassination attempt, so the rumors say.”
“By whom?” Sevro presses. One of Victra’s? None of mine got even close.
Tharsus looks perplexed. “I assumed by you. No? If anyone wishes to see him, they must go through his daughter, Atalantia.” He looks to his brother, something passing between them, some unspoken knowledge that I don’t like. It was a risk in letting them reunite. Men with unspoken bonds like the one Sevro and I have are always the most dangerous. “But Atalantia has vanished,” Tharsus says.
“What does that mean?” I ask. “A woman like that can’t just disappear.”
“It means I don’t know where she is. If the Carthii or the Saud know, they aren’t telling me. I’ve been frozen out.”
“Is the Ash Lord cloistered on Gorgon Isle?” I ask, hoping Republic Intelligence was correct about the darkzone. “At least tell us that.”
“Yes.” Tharsus nods. “But you cannot approach the island without a summons. The place is a fortress.” Sevro looks over at me. “The air around the island is restricted to House Grimmus aircraft for two hundred kilometers. It will be defended by an army. His Ash Legions. You’ll never get in.”
“Not unless we bring an army of our own,” Apollonius says with a smile.