“It’s what I am.”

“It’s what you are?” she laughs. “You who trust Victra. A Julii. You who trusted Tactus. You who let an Orange give strategic recommendations. You who gives command of your ship to a Docker and keeps an entourage of bronzies?” She wags a finger at me. “Don’t be a hypocrite now, Darrow au Andromedus. If you’re going to tell everyone else they can choose their destiny, then you damn well better do the same.”

She’s too smart to lie to. That’s why I’m so ill at ease around her when she asks me questions, when she probes things I can’t explain. There’s no explainable motivation to so many of my actions if I am really an Andromedus who grew up in my Gold parents asteroid mining colony. My history is hollow to her. My drive confusing … if I was born a Gold. This must all look like ambition, like bloodlust. And without Eo, it would be.

“That look,” Mustang says, taking a step back from me. “Where do you go when you look at me like that?” The color slips from her face, retreating into her as her smile slackens. “Is it Victra?”

“Victra?” I almost laugh. “No.”

“Then her. The girl you lost.”

I say nothing.

She’s never pried. She’s never asked about Eo, not when we shared time together after the Institute when I was a rising lancer. Not when we rode horses at her family’s estate or walked through the gardens or dove in the coral reefs. I thought she must have forgotten I whispered the name of another girl as I lay with her in the Institute’s snows. How stupid of me. How could she forget? How could it not linger there inside her, forcing her to wonder, as she lay with her head on my chest listening to my heart beat, if it didn’t belong to another girl, a dead girl.

“Silence isn’t the right answer right now, Darrow.” After a moment, she leaves me alone in the room. Sounds from her feet fade. The Mozart disappears.

I chase after her, reaching her before she finds the door to the hall. I grab her wrist. She flings me off.

“Stop it!”

I reel back, startled.

“Why do you do this?” she asks. “Why do you pull me back if you’re just going to push me away?” Her fists ball like she wants to strike me. “It’s not fair. Do you understand that? I’m not like you … I can’t just … I can’t just shut off like you do.”

“I don’t shut off.”

“You shut me off. After that speech about Victra … about the importance of friends …” She snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You can still cut me away like that. You care and then you don’t. Maybe that’s why he likes you so much.”

“He?”

“My father.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“How could he not? You are him.”

I back away from her and find rest on the edge of the bed. “I’m not like your father.”

“I know,” she says, releasing some of her anger. “That’s not fair to you. But you will become him if you follow this path alone.” She puts her hand on the door controls. “So ask me to stay.”

How can I let her? If she gives me her heart, I’ll break it. My lie is too great to build a love upon. When she discovers what I am, she will reject me. Even if she could survive that, I would not. I look at my hands as if the answer is there.

“Darrow. Ask me to stay.”

When I look up, she is gone.

34

Blood Brothers

Lorn’s scouts capture the camel vessel as it brings foodstuffs to Pliny’s fleet gathered around Hildas Station, a star-shaped hub of trade and communications on the fringes of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. For fifteen hours, I hide with Roque, Victra, Sevro, the Howlers, the Telemanuses, Lorn, Mustang, and Ragnar amongst boxes and crates of vacuum-sealed protofiber meals. Ragnar crushed the first box he sat on, sending meals scattering everywhere, before he left the humid cargo bay for the subzero freezer unit.

Sevro cuts open a half dozen of the meals and nibbles throughout the journey, sharing with the Telemanuses and his Howlers while Roque sits speaking with Victra in the corner. Mustang leans against Daxo, sharing stories with Kavax about Pax. She avoids my gaze.

I tried apologizing before we boarded the ship, but she cut me off fastlike. “Nothing to apologize about. We’re adults. Let’s not sulk and bicker like children. There’s things to be done.”

The words grow colder as I roll them over and over again through my mind.

Lorn nudges me with his boot. “Try to be less obvious, boy. You’re staring.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Love and war. Same coin. Different sides. I’m too wrinkled for either.”

“Maybe war will breathe some life into your old bones.”

“Well, I tried love last month.” He leans close. “Didn’t work like it used to.”

“Too honest, Lorn.” I can’t help but laugh.

He grunts and adjusts himself on the boxes, groaning audibly as something pops in his back. “So that’s the reason for all this. Helping poor old man Lorn get his fix of war.” His anger has not yet dissipated, nor do I expect it to. “Let me return the favor to you. The key today will be tact. The Praetors, Legates, and bannermen you attempt to woo are not fools. And they do not suffer fools. Pliny has given them valid argument. He’s aligned their interests with his. You must counter with the same.”

“Pliny is a leech,” I say. “A liar as much as you’re an honest man.”

“And that makes him dangerous. Liars make the best promises.” Lorn plays with his griffin ring, no doubt thinking of the beast and of the grandchildren on his ships in the fleet. He brought his whole household off of Europa, three million men and women of all Colors. “I could not leave them,” he told me when I noted the size of his fleet as we left that water moon. “Octavia would come and burn the home while we’re away.” So they left their floating cities and set to the stars. The civilians will separate from my fleet soon, hiding in the infinite black space between the planets. His three surviving daughters-in-law will guide them.

“And Pliny has the power of the Sovereign behind him,” Lorn continues. “It will be difficult to dissuade them. Speaking of the Sovereign … I noticed that you have something of hers.”