Morning Star

Hours after Cassius has left me, I’m woken from a restless dream by Sevro. He calls my datapad with an urgent message. Victra has engaged Antonia in the Belt. She requests reinforcements, and Sevro’s already got his gear and has Holiday mustering a strike team.

Mustang, the Howlers and I hitch a ride on the remaining Telemanus torchShip, the fastest left in the fleet. Sefi tried to come along, eager for more combat, but even after the victory at Io my fleet rides on a razor’s edge. Her leadership is needed to keep the Obsidians in line. She’s a peacemaker, and the punch line of Sevro’s favorite new joke: what do you say when a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall woman walks into a room with a battle axe and tongues on a hook? Absolutely nothing.

Personally, I’m more worried that only a handful of strong personalities bind this alliance together. If I lose one, the whole thing might crumble.

We go full burn, straining the ships to reach Victra, but an hour before we arrive at her coordinates amidst a thicket of sensor-disrupting asteroids, we receive a brief encoded message that is patented Julii: Bitch captured. Kavax free. Victory mine.

We shuttle over from the lean Telemanus torchShip toward Victra’s waiting fleet. Sevro picks nervously at his pant leg. Victra’s won a great victory. She set out in pursuit with twenty strike craft. Now she possesses nearly fifty black ships—fast, nimble, expensive craft. Just the sort you’d expect of a trading family. None of the hulking behemoths the Augustuses and Bellona favor. All the black ships bear the weeping spear-pierced sun of the Julii family.

Victra waits for us on the deck of her mother’s old flagship, the Pandora. She’s splendid and proud in a black uniform with the Julii sun upon her right breast, a fiery orange line burning down the black pants, gold buttons sparkling. She’s found her old earrings. Jade hangs from her ears. Her smile is broad and enigmatic.

“My goodmen, welcome aboard the Pandora.”

Beside her stands Kavax, injured yet again, with a cast on his right arm and resFlesh coating the right side of his face. The daughters who raced ahead to find him flank him now and laugh as Kavax bellows a hello to Mustang. She tries to maintain propriety as she rushes to him and tosses her arms around his neck. She kisses him once on his bald head.

“Mustang,” he says happily. He pushes her back and lowers his head. “Apologies. Deepest apologies. I cannot stop being captured.”

“Just a damsel in distress,” Sevro says.

“It seems the case,” Kavax replies.

“Just promise me this is the last time, Kavax,” Mustang says. He does. “And you’re injured again!”

“A scratch! Just a scratch, my liege. Don’t you know I’ve magic in my veins?”

“I have someone who has been dying to see you,” Mustang says, looking back up the ramp. She whistles and inside the shuttle Pebble lets Sophocles go. Claws clatter behind me, then under me as he races through Sevro’s legs, almost knocking my friend down, to jump onto Kavax’s chest. Kavax kisses the fox with open mouth. Victra cringes.

“Thought you were in trouble,” Sevro grunts up at her.

“I told you I had it under control,” she says. “How far behind is the rest of the fleet, Darrow?”

“Two days.”

Mustang looks around. “Where’s Daxo?”

“Daxo is dealing with rats on the upper decks. Still some hardcore Peerless left. It’s been a bitch digging them out,” Victra says.

“There’s barely any wreckage…” I say. “How did you do this?”

“How? I am the true heir of House Julii,” Victra says proudly. “According to mother’s will and according to birth. Antonia’s ships—legally my ships—were run by stool pigeons, paid allies. They contacted me, thought the whole fleet was right behind my little harrying party. They begged me to spare them from the big bad Reaper…”

“And where are your sister’s men now?” I ask.

“I executed three and destroyed their ships as an example to the rest. The disloyal Praetors which I could capture are rotting in cells. My loyalists and mother’s friends have taken command.”

“And will they follow us?” Sevro asks gruffly.

“They follow me,” she says.

“That’s not the same thing,” I say.

“Obviously. They’re my ships.” She’s one step closer to taking back her mother’s empire. But the rest can only be done in peace. Still, it gives her an eerie independence. Just like Roque had when he gained ships after the Lion’s Rain. It will test her loyalty, a fact Sevro does not seem entirely comfortable with. Mustang and I frown at one another.

“Property is a funny thing these days,” Sevro says. “Tends to have opinions.” Victra bristles at the challenge.

Mustang inserts herself. “I think Sevro means to say: now that you have your revenge, do you still intend to come with us to the Core?”

“I don’t have my revenge,” Victra says. “Antonia still breathes.”

“And when she does not?” Mustang asks.

Victra shrugs. “I’m not good with commitment.”

Sevro’s mood sours even more.

—

Dozens of prisoners fill the ward’s cells. Most Gold. Some Blue and Gray. All high ranking and loyal to Antonia. A canyon of enemies who glare out at me from the bars. I walk alone down the hall, enjoying the feeling of so many Golds knowing I’m their captor.

I find Antonia in the second to last cell. She sits against the bars of the cell that separates her from the adjacent one. Aside from a bruised cheek, she’s as beautiful as ever. Mouth sensual, eyes smoldering behind thick eyelashes as she broods under the brig’s pale lights. Her willowy legs are folded under her, black-nailed hands picking at a blister on her big toe.

“I thought I heard the Reaper swing,” she says with a seductive little smile. Her eyes drift slowly up the length of me, eating every centimeter up. “You’ve been downing your protein, haven’t you, darling? All big again. Don’t fret. I’ll always remember you as a weeping little worm.”

“You’re the only Boneriders left alive in the fleet,” I say looking at the cell adjacent hers. “I want to know what the Jackal’s planning. I want to know his troop positions, his supply routes, his garrison strengths. I want to know what information he has on the Sons of Ares. I want to know what his plans are with the Sovereign. Are they colluding? Is there tension? Is he making a move against her? I want to know how to beat him. And most of all, I want to know where the bloodydamn nuclear weapons are. If you give me this, you live. If you do not, you die. Am I clear?”

She didn’t flinch at the mention of the weapons. Neither did the woman in the adjacent cell.

“Crystal clear,” Antonia says. “I’m more than willing to cooperate.”

“You’re a survivor, Antonia. But I wasn’t just talking to you.” I slam my hand on the bars of the cell next to hers where a shorter, dark-faced Gold sits watching me with raw eyes. Her face is sharp, like her tongue used to be. Hair curly and more golden than last time I saw her—artificially lightened, same with her eyes. “I’m talking to you too, Thistle. Whichever of you gives us more information gets to live.”

“Devilish ultimatum.” Antonia applauds from the ground. “And you call yourself a Red. I think you were more at home with us than you are with them. Isn’t that right?” She laughs. “It is isn’t it?”

“You have an hour to think it over.”

I walk away from them, letting them stew in it. “Darrow,” Thistle calls after me. “Tell Sevro I’m sorry. Darrow, please!” I turn and walk back to her slowly.

“You dyed your hair,” I say.

“Little Bronzie just wanted to fit in,” Antonia purrs, stretching her long legs. She’s more than a head and a half taller than Thistle. “Don’t blame the runt, unrealistic expectations.”

Thistle stares out at me, hands clutching the bars. “I’m sorry, Darrow. I didn’t know it would go so far. I couldn’t have…”

“Yes, you did. You’re not an idiot. And don’t be pathetic and claim to be one. I understand how you could do it to me,” I say slowly. “But Sevro was supposed to be there. So were the Howlers.” She looks at the ground, unable to meet my gaze. “How could you do that to him? To them?”

She has no answer. I touch her hair with my hand. “We liked you the way you were.”