Morning Star: Book III of the Red Rising Trilogy (69 page)

The two Olympic Knights greet Cassius quietly as we enter, so as not to disturb the Sovereign in

her debriefing, though she’s noted my presence with an emotionless glance. Both knights are heavily armored and ready to defend their Sovereign.

Above the Sovereign, a globular holo dominates the domed ceiling of the room, showing the moon in perfect detail. The Ash Lord’s fleet is spread out like a screen to cover Luna’s darkside, where the Citadel is, like a concave shield. The battle is well under way. But my forces have no way of knowing that the Jackal is just waiting to swing around their flank and hammer them against the Ash Lord’s anvil. If only I could reach Orion, she might find some way to salvage this.

The Jackal quietly takes a seat to the side, patiently watching the Ash Lord give instructions to a sphere of torchShips.

“Cassius, you gorydamn hound,” the Truth Knight says, voice a deep baritone. His eyes narrow and

Asiatic. He’s from Earth, and he’s more compact than us Martians. “Is it really him?”

“Bones and heart. Took him from his flagship,” Cassius says, kicking me to my knees and hauling

back my head by my hair so they can better see my face. He tosses Sevro on the ground and they inspect the kill. The Joy Knight shakes his head. He’s thinner than Cassius and twice again as aristocratic, from an old Venusian family. Met him once at a duel on Mars.

“Augustus too? Don’t you just have all the luck. And Aja bagged the Obsidian. Fear and Love are

going to get Victra and that White Witch….”

“I’d kill to snag Victra,” Truth says, walking around me. “That’d be a dance. Say, didn’t you bed her, Cassius?”

“I never kiss and tell.” Cassius nods to the battle. “How do we fare?”

“Better than Fabii. They’re tenacious. Hard to pin down, keep trying to close so they can use their Obsidian, but the Ash Lord’s keeping them at a distance. The ArchGovernor ’s fleet will be the hammer that wins this. They’re already coming around their flank. See?” The knight looks longingly at the holo. Cassius notices.

“You could always join,” Cassius says. “Order a shuttle.”

“That would take hours,” Truth replies. “We’ve four knights in engagement already. Someone has

to protect Octavia. And my ships are being held in reserve protecting the dayside. If they make landfall, which is doubtful at this point, we’ll need martial men on the ground. We’ll have to wash his face.”

“What?”

“Barca’s face. It’s too bloody. We’ll make the broadcast soon, if we’re not hacked again. Saboteurs were wrecking operations. More of Quicksilver ’s boys. All sorts of tech-head demokratic filth with delusions of grandeur. But we hit one of their dens last night with a lurcher squad.”

“Best way to stop a hacker? Hot metal,” Joy adds.

“The enemy is brave, I’ll give them that,”
the Ash Lord is saying in the center of the room, his hologram twice again the width of his adjuncts’.
“Cutting off their escape but still they’re standing
toe-to-toe.”
He’s on a corvette in the back of his fleet, his signal being rerouted through dozens of other ships. The Ash Lord’s fleet moves with beautiful precision, never allowing my ships within fifty kilometers.

Roque cared about casualties. Cared about not destroying the beautiful three-hundred-year-old

ships I’d captured. The Ash Lord has no such restraint. He thuggishly smashes ships to oblivion.

Damn their heritage, damn the lives, damn the expense, he’s a destroyer. Here with his back to the wall he will win at all cost. It aches to see my fleet suffer.

“Report when you have further news,” the Sovereign says. “I want Daxo au Telemanus alive, if possible. All others are expendable, including his father and the Julii.”

“Yes, my liege.”
The old killer salutes and disappears. With a tired sigh, the Sovereign turns to look at her Morning Knight and extends her arms as if greeting a long-lost child. “Cassius.” She embraces him after he bows, kissing his forehead with the same familiarity she once had for Mustang. “My heart broke when I heard what happened on the ice. I thought you were slain.”

“Aja was right to think I was. But I’m sorry it took so long for me to return from the dead, my liege. I had unfinished business to attend.”

“So I see,” the Sovereign says, caring little for me. Focusing on Mustang instead. “I do believe you’ve won the war, Cassius. The both of you.” She nods without a smile to the Jackal. “Your ships will make this a short battle.”

“It is our pleasure to serve,” the Jackal replies with a knowing smile.

“Yes,” the Sovereign says in a strange, almost nostalgic way. Her fingers trace the scars on Cassius’s broad neck. “Did they hang you?”

“Oh, they tried. It didn’t quite take.” He grins.

“You remind me of Lorn when he was young.” I know she once said to Virginia that she reminded

her of herself. The affection is more real than the Jackal has for his men, but she’s still a collector.

Still using love and loyalty as a shield to protect herself. The Sovereign gestures to me, wrinkling her nose at the metal muzzle around my face. “Do you know what he’s planning? Anything that will compromise our endgame…”

“From what I glean he’s planning an attack on the Citadel.”

“Cassius, stop….” Mustang snaps. “She doesn’t care about you.”

“And you do?” the Sovereign asks. “We know exactly what you care about, Virginia. And what you’ll do to get it.”

“By air or ground?” the Jackal asks. “The attack.”

“Ground, I believe.”

“Why didn’t you mention this in space?”

“You were more concerned with chopping off Darrow’s hand.”

The Jackal ignores the barb. “How many clawDrills are there on Luna?”

“None working, not even in the abandoned mines,” the Sovereign says. “We made sure of that.”

“If he has a team coming, it’ll be Volarus and Julii,” the Jackal says. “They’re his best weapons and helped him take the MoonBreaker.”

“Volarus is the Obsidian?” the Sovereign asks. “Yes?”

“Queen of the Obsidian,” Mustang says. “You should meet her. You’d remind Sefi of her mother.”

“Queen of the Obsidian…they are united?” the Sovereign asks Cassius warily. “Is that right? My politicos said pan-tribal leadership was impossible.”

“And they were wrong,” Cassius says.

Antonia seizes a moment to stand out in the Sovereign’s eyes. “It’s only the Obsidian in Darrow’s

fold, my liege. An alliance of the southern tribes.”

The Sovereign ignores her. “I don’t like it. We have hundreds of Obsidians in the citadel alone….”

“They’re loyal,” Aja says.

“How do you know?” Cassius asks. “Are any from Mars?”

Octavia looks to Aja for confirmation. “Most,” Aja admits. “Even Zero Legion. Martian Obsidians

are the best.”

“I want them out of the bunker,” Octavia says. “Now.”

One of the Praetorians moves to do her bidding.

“Is she as formidable as her brother?” Aja asks Cassius.

“Worse,” Mustang says from her knees with a laugh. “Far worse and far brighter. She fights with a

pack of warrior women. She has sworn a blood oath to find you, Aja. To drink your blood and use

your skull as her chalice in Valhalla. Sefi is coming. And you cannot stop her.”

Aja and Octavia exchange a wary look. “They would have to land first before making an assault on

the citadel,” Aja says. “It’s impossible.”

“How are they coming?” Cassius asks me. I shake my head and laugh at him behind my muzzle. Aja

kicks the stump of my right hand. I almost black out as I curl around the wound in pain. “How are they coming?” Cassius asks. I don’t reply. He motions to the Joy Knight. “Hold out his other arm.” Joy grabs my left arm and pulls it out. “How are they coming?” he asks not me, but Mustang. “I will cut his other hand off if you do not tell me. Followed by his feet and nose and eyes. How is Volarus coming?”

“You’re going to kill him anyway,” Mustang sneers. “So fuck you.”

“How slowly he dies is up to you,” Cassius says.

“Who said they didn’t already land?” Mustang asks.

“What?”

“They came in the grain ships from Earth, compliments of Quicksilver. Landed hours ago. And they’re pressing for the Citadel now. Ten thousand strong. Didn’t you know?”

“Ten thousand?” Lysander murmurs from his chair to the side of the holopit. His grandmother ’s Dawn Scepter lies on the table before him. A meter long length of gold and iron, it’s tipped with the triangle of the Society and the withered heart of the Obsidian warlord who led the Dark Revolt nearly five hundred years ago. “The Legions are deployed to halt an invasion. The Obsidians will overrun

our defenses before they can return.”

“I will make ready the Praetorians and recall two legions,” Aja says, striding for the door.

“No.” Octavia stands motionless, thinking. “No, Aja, you stay with me.” She turns to the Praetorian captain. “Legatus, go reinforce the surface. Take your platoon. There’s no need for them here. I have my knights. Any ship approaching the Citadel should be fired upon. I don’t care if it claims to carry the Ash Lord himself. Do you understand?”

“It will be done.” Legatus and the remaining Praetorians rush out, leaving the room deserted save

for Cassius, the three Olympic Knights, Antonia, the Jackal, the Sovereign, three Praetorian guards, and us prisoners. Aja presses her palm into a console near the door. The sanctum seals behind the Praetorians. A second, thicker door appears from the walls in a corkscrew, slowly locking us off from the world beyond.

“I’m sorry, Aja,” Octavia says as the woman returns to her side. “I know you want to be with your

men, but we already lost Moira. I couldn’t risk losing you too.”

“I know,” Aja replies, but her disappointment is obvious. “The Praetorians will deal with the Horde.

Shall we attend the other matter?”

Octavia glances over to the Jackal and he gives her the barest of nods. “Severus-Julii, come forward,” Octavia says

Antonia does, surprised to have been singled out. A hopeful smile works its way onto her lips. No doubt she’s to receive a commendation for her efforts today. She clasps both hands behind her back and waits before her Sovereign.

“Tell me, Praetor, you were conscripted to join the Sword Armada as it subjugated the Moon Lords

in June of this year, were you not?”

Antonia frowns. “My liege, I do not understand….”

“It’s a fairly simply question. Answer it to the best of your abilities.”

“I was. I led my family’s ships and the Fifth and Sixth Legions.”

“Under the pro tem command of Roque au Fabii?”

“Yes, my liege.”

“Then tell me, how is it that you are still alive and your Imperator is not?”

“I only barely managed to escape the battle,” Antonia says, seeing the danger in the line of questioning. Her voice modulates accordingly. “It was a…terrible calamity, my liege. With the Howlers hidden in Thebe, Roque…Imperator Fabii, fell into the trap twofold, through no fault of his own. Any would have done the same. I made an effort to rescue his command, to rally our ships. But Darrow had already reached his bridge. And torchShips were burning all around us. We did not know

friend from foe. It’s haunted my dreams, the sounds of the Obsidian Horde pouring through their ships….”

“Liar.” Mustang snorts her derision.

“And so you retreated.”

“At grave cost, yes, my liege. I saved as many ships for the Society as I could. I saved my men, knowing they would be needed for the battle to come. It was all I could do.”

“It was a noble thing, saving so many,” the Sovereign says.

“Thank—”

“At least it would be if it were true.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t believe I have ever stuttered, girl. I do, however, believe you fled the battle, abandoning your post and your Imperator to the enemy.”

“You are calling me a liar, my liege?”

“Obviously,” Mustang says.

“I will not stand aspersions against my honor,” Antonia snaps at Mustang, puffing up her chest. “It is beneath…”

“Oh, be still, child,” the Sovereign says. “You’re in deep waters here, with larger fish than you. You see, others escaped the battle, others who transmitted their battle analytics to us so we would know what happened. So we could assess the calamity and see how Antonia of the Severus-Julii disgraced

her name and lost us the battle, abandoning her Praetor when he called for aid, fleeing for the belt to save her own hide, where she then lost her ships.”

“Fabii lost the battle,” she says vindictively. “Not I.”

“Because his allies abandoned him,” Aja purrs. “He might still have saved his command had you

not thrown his formation to chaos.”

“Fabii made mistakes,” the Sovereign says. “But he was a noble creature and as loyal a servant to

his Color. He was even honorable enough to take his own life, to accept that he had failed and to pay justly for it and ensure he would not be interrogated or bartered. His last act in destroying the rebel docks was the act of a hero. An Iron Gold. But you…you scurrilous craven, you fled like a little girl

who pissed her Whiteday dress. You abandoned him to save yourself. Now you slander him in front of all. In front of his friend.” She gestures protectively to Cassius. “Your men saw the reptile underneath, that is why they turned on you. Why you lost your ships to your better sister.”

“I would see whoever lays these claims against me in the Bleeding Place,” Antonia says, trembling

with anger. “My honor will not be smeared by faceless, jealous creatures. It is sad that they would manufacture evidence to smear my good name. No doubt they have ulterior motives. Perhaps intentions against my company or my holdings or they seek to undermine Gold as a whole. Adrius,