“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.