GOROTH, PYTHA, AND I WIND through the bowels of the ancient city in a darkness so complete memory guides the man instead of his large eyes. Up and down and in twisting turns we go. Passing whispers that leak through the stone. Machines that shudder in unseen alcoves and rooms. Thin blades of light slice through the darkness from peepholes. I glance through them, hoping to catch sight of Seraphina, but the deeper we plunge, the farther from the Golds we go. What I see through the walls are Yellows hunched over holoDisplays, studying diagrams and videos, White hierophants reading in cloisters, carver laboratories alive with experiments, barracks of Grays, and great cisterns and botanical gardens abuzz with bees and Reds plucking fruits from rows of subterranean bushes growing under artificial light.
The tunnels are old and have their own humors. Wind rolls through them, whispering eerily. And deep in the darkness, as it bends around turns and passes over apertures, the wind howls. I walk closely behind Goroth. Without him Pytha and I might wander until we starve to death.
At each turn Goroth glances back to make sure we still follow, and I worry that he knows what I’m thinking. Knows what I plan. He continues to guide us until we reach a freezing stretch of tunnel where ice slicks the stone under our feet.
“Here,” he says. We stop and I hear his finger on the wall. The stone grumbles in complaint and then light seeps in through the expanding aperture, revealing a storage room on the other side of the wall. Goroth goes through first. I put a hand on Pytha to stop her from following. My hand trembles on the hasta. What if I miss? I find the toggle with my thumb. My fingers shake.
“Some ill wind, dominus?” Goroth asks, turning back when I do not follow. Now he senses my intentions in the air. I say nothing. His eyes narrow as he sees my finger on the toggle. Without a word, he lunges at me. His speed uncanny to his age and size. I activate the razor. The long blade springs into the space that separates us. I lunge for his kneecap, hoping not to kill him. It impales the bone and tendons, sliding through them as if they were not even there. Goroth’s momentum carries him through the blade. His huge hands reach for my throat. Pytha screams and slips on the ice. Her legs knock out mine from beneath me. I slam down just as Goroth sails over me and crashes into the wall. He rolls over, reaching for me. I scramble away down the tunnel, trying to gain my feet. He manages to grab only my left hand. I try to bring the razor around, but he jerks me down. I fall facedown and he almost throws his body atop mine. A narrow miss. Still on my belly, right arm and razor pinned under my body, I kick blindly backward at him, hitting his face and shoulders, leveraging my legs against him to prevent him from crawling up my facedown body to pin me there. With his strength and weight, he would nail me to the ground and shatter my skull into the stone. We flail there in the darkness, grunting, his immense strength slowly overwhelming my kravat-learned leverage. I can’t twist my right arm with the razor out from under me.
“Pytha!” I shout. “Pytha! Kick him.”
I glance back and see her in the dim light that bleeds from the storage room into the tunnel. She’s gained her feet and rushes up behind Goroth’s prone body to kick him in the back of his head. His grip doesn’t slacken. He’s reaching up my body, trying to take the transponder that will signal Vela. Pytha kicks him again with the heel of her foot and, using the distraction, I manage to wrench my body around so that I’m on my side and can free my arm. I stab down at him again with the razor, this time in the arm that holds me. The blade gores his shoulder. He doesn’t let go. His huge hand closes around my left hand, squeezing till I hear a popping like green wood over a campfire. The bones crackle and splinter under my flesh. Pain races up my left arm. I grunt and swing the blade down at his arm in frantic desperation. His grip slackens. I scramble to my feet, his severed hand still clutched around my left. I wheel around to kill him, but he’s rolled back away from me into the shadows of the tunnel past the storage room aperture.
One breath. Two. He does not reappear.
I rush to Pytha, razor pointed warily at the darkness, and shove her inside the storage room. “Lysander, what the blackhell was that?” My hand throbs with pain. In the light I can see the mangled fingers and the swelling underneath the skin. We weave through boxes, fleeing the tunnels till we find a door and go through it into a cold hallway. We’re in the Dust Cells prison facility. Cameras blink on the ceiling from behind small glass globes. “They’ll see you!” I go to my knees in front of one and throw the razor on the ground. She retreats to the doorway of the storage room. “Lysander…” An alarm begins to howl out of the camera. Doors slam somewhere in the distance. Boots hammer the ground.
“Pytha, get on your knees with me. They’ll be here soon.”
“Lysander, what are you doing?”
“Choosing a side.”
An hour later, Dido watches me after I finish my story. Pytha stands nervously with me; we’re surrounded by a handful of soldiers, along with Dido and Seraphina, both of whom look to have been woken from their sleep. My left hand is in agony, swollen like a waterskin and throbbing a deep black-purple. The shock wore off half an hour ago. My teeth don’t chatter anymore, but I’m sweating bullets. I compartmentalize the pain along with the fear, putting it in the void and focusing on my breathing. The pain becomes manageable.
“He had this with him.” The centurion of the platoon that captured us hands Dido a plastic container that holds Gaia’s razor, taking care not to touch the blade with his own hand. “It is the matron’s razor, is it not?”
My evidence.
“It is. Seraphina, what do you think?” Dido asks.
Seraphina scrutinizes me from the corner of the room. “I wouldn’t trust a Lune farther than I can spit.” She looks at her datapad as it glows. “But they found a hand in the tunnel and Obsidian blood. Field DNA inspection says it’s Goroth’s.”
“And that monster wouldn’t take a piss if Gaia didn’t tell him to.” Dido cradles the transponder that Gaia gave me. “So he is telling the truth. Your grandmother is not so senile as she appears.”
“Should we send a platoon to her quarters, domina?” the centurion asks. Dido’s finger glides along the activation button.
“No…no, that would look tawdry. More family squabble.” Seraphina breathes a sigh of relief. Dido’s eyes glitter over at me. “We’re not Lunes, after all. She is my mother-in-law. No. Search for Goroth, centurion.” His men swallow nervously behind him. Dido doesn’t notice, but Seraphina seems to have a better gauge on the pulse of the men. “Even with one arm, I don’t like the idea of a Stained in the walls. And not a word of this to anyone. Last thing I need is all our new allies shitting themselves for fear of being skinned in their sleep.” The soldier waits expectantly. “Something else? Pray tell.”
“I don’t have clearance for the tunnels, domina. Or maps.”
“Did you know they existed before today?” Seraphina asks.
“Only rumors. And I was born in Sungrave.”
“I can go, Mother,” Seraphina says. “I know most of the—”
“No, I won’t risk you chasing a Stained in the dark. Who else knows the damn tunnels?”
“Some Dragonguard,” Seraphina says. “But most of the centurions are loyal to Father.”
“Goryhell. Isn’t there a map in the servers or something?”
“There was,” Seraphina says. “When Fabii’s hacker battalions corrupted the mainframe, the tunnel maps were casualties of the data purge.”
“You mean they’re lost and we’re strangers in our own gorydamn home?” Dido laughs to me. “See? Always at siege.”
“Marius was mapping them with the Krypteia, but I don’t know how far he got,” Seraphina says.
“Of course he would.”
“He won’t help us, not without Father’s permission.”
“I know. I know.” Dido rubs her fingers into her temples, thinking. “Sera, summon Kurath. I want a hundred Obsidian bloodstalkers and kuon hounds in the tunnels by morning. Let them hunt their own.” The Grays breathe a sigh of relief.
“And Marius’s maps?” Seraphina asks. “There’s thousands of kilometers of tunnel.”
“I’ll deal with the maps and your brother.” Dido dismisses the Grays. The centurion asks if he should take me to a cell. “Let him stay.” The Grays leave and Dido fondles the transponder that I gave her while looking me over.
I stay silent, knowing the die is already cast. Seraphina closes the door behind the Grays and looks at the transponder. “Are you going to summon Vela?”
“Perhaps.” Dido purses her lips. “It seems the only proper move in the game. I can recall the legions I sent to take care of Kardiff and Iola. Under that shield, Vela can last for years. We lure her into the Waste, we can destroy her legion in an hour. Solidify our control. Without Vela who will they rally around once Romulus sees reason?”
“You think he’ll see reason if you kill Aunt Vela?” Seraphina asks. “You kill her, you lose him. That’s not what I agreed to. We’ve done this without tearing our family apart. That is a victory to build our war on.”
I watch Dido for her reaction, gauging.
“Yes…” Dido’s thumb continues to trace over the activation button. “Yes, of course you’re right. We shall reason with Vela.” She tosses Seraphina the transponder. “Do something with that.” She turns to me. “Now, young Lune. This is the second time you’ve helped me. Considering the death of the Bellona, I am curious to know why you chose to betray my mother-in-law. Was is that you could not simply bear to be an honorable little boy?”
“Cassius died for his honor,” I say.
“No. He died because he murdered my brother, my daughter. Are you too cowardly to follow him?”
I look past her to Seraphina. “Death begets death begets death. It’s something my grandfather once said. And it’s why I did not free Romulus. Gold blood would spill, and there’s precious little of it left. Lorn au Arcos once said it is the duty of every man to listen to his enemies. When you spoke I listened. Your war is just. Cassius did not believe that, but he is gone. And to honor the dead at the cost of the living is a vanity none of us can afford.”
Seraphina has had some difficulty in looking at me since I entered the room, even when I recounted my story, but now I have her attention.
“I saw the Rising claim Luna. And I have watched for ten years as their supposed liberty gave way to anarchy. It is time order and justice return to the realm of man. That is why I helped you.”
“Not because you wish the Slave King’s head on a pike?” Dido asks.
“The worlds would be better without him in it,” I say.
“If you wanted that, you would have tried already,” Seraphina says. “You would have gone to your godfather in the Core. But instead you hid.”
“Cassius saved my life. I owed him a debt.” I do not say that I was afraid my godfather would blame me for the Fall of Luna and my part in it. “But with his death, that debt is gone.”
“Noble platitudes,” Dido says, eyes wary. “But Lunes have ever had silver tongues. I imagine you would have me free you?” I nod. “Many of my allies cry for your head. I would hate to disappoint them.”
“I have committed no crimes.”
“You are the residue of tyrants and genocides,” Seraphina snaps. “You are a Lune.”
“So you judge me by the faults of my ancestors? I thought better of you.”
“Interesting.” Dido examines me with a Venusian eye, wondering if I’m more valuable dead or alive. “But as it is, the decision is not mine.”
I frown. “Then whose is it?”
“Tomorrow’s trial will be a sham,” Dido says. “I’ve spoken to Helios, who will conduct the trial. He agrees, there is no evidence my husband knew about the recording. His containment of Seraphina’s return can be excused by saying he was trying to protect the peace and his daughter from harsh judgment. There was no treason. But the docks were destroyed on his watch. He will be impeached only for negligence in wartime for not investigating the Reaper’s duplicity. But then he will be freed and we will be on our course to war. As Rome had two consuls, we will have two Sovereigns. Husband and wife. Equals. He will have no choice but to lead at the front with me. So the fate of your life, Lysander au Lune, heir of empire, is not for me to decide alone. Together my husband and I will decide if you live or if you die.”
When Dido is through with me, Seraphina escorts me back to my cell. There is little conversation between us. But when she goes to close the door, I block it with my foot. “Did your mother send you to my cell?” I ask. “I want the truth.”
She stares back belligerently. “Since when has truth mattered to a Lune?”