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To her credit, Lea tries not to pity me. She knows all too well how it burns to be seen in a patronising light—as some frail and feeble thing that might be shattered by a shout or a shove and must be handled with utmost tenderness—and how it would scald me to be seen as such by her, especially. Yet she cannot stop snivelling as she tends to my brutalised body. Every time that I think her tears are finally spent, she makes the mistake of meeting my eyes—well, eye, as the left is still swollen shut—again and more fall. 

And it does scald. I want to flee from her sympathy, from her sight. And the comfort in her trembling touch is entirely hers, because her cloth is far too abrasive and the water she’s drawn for her purpose is tepid when it should be cold—like the river where I already scrubbed myself raw in vain attempt to escape the stench and cried myself dry from the stab of what feels like a hundred cuts. There may be no privacy from the Proctors in this accursed valley, but I’ll be damned if I allow anyone from our tribe to ever witness me in half as vulnerable of a state. 

I refuse to wear disgrace on my cheek—and I refuse to cede Titus such power.

Perhaps tending me alleviates her overestimated—really, her imagined—guilt in what transpired. She cannot be so dense as to think she had a chance of restraining me, but perhaps she wishes she had tried—or tried harder—to dissuade me. It’s just as fanciful. 

And I would dismiss her if I wasn’t certain she’d take it like a blow. As it is, I’ve added her to the ever–expanding list of people that I apparently live to indulge—and suppress my urge to flinch whenever her inexperienced hand passes too firmly over a laceration and threatens to reopen the wound. 

The truth is that the damage is not as severe as it seems. It’s mostly bruises from incompetent assailants that didn’t know how to harm me. And the dislocated bones are technically my doing, consequence of my thrashing during the—during. As far as the pummelling is concerned… I am certainly concussed, but I never lost consciousness and I never convulsed—not in that sense—and the vomiting… well, I’m satisfied that my nausea has a different cause. And the fact that I successfully returned to the fort is a feat of both cognitive and physical significance that someone with a traumatised brain could not accomplish. 

All in all, I’d wager that my Conquering bones are faring better than his bloodied knuckles at the moment. 

One of the dregs approaches us gingerly. It takes a moment before I can remember why. Freshly appalled by my injuries, it takes him a moment, too. “I, uh… I washed it with the lye,” he says of my highCollar. “Think I got most of the smell out. I don’t know though. It was, uh… really bad. Um… do you—do you want me to wash it again?”

I grunt. “No, just… just leave it there. Thank you… Crispus.” 

I’ve never used his given name before. It disquiets him. But it feels profoundly uncouth to call the boy that volunteered—wholly unprompted—to scrub piss and blood out of my shirt and subjected his hands to the harshness of our lye soap for nearly an hour pursuant of that goal ‘Clown.’ They don’t see the pseudonyms as a mark of disrespect—no, they’ve taken my proposition about shedding their given names until they ‘earn’ them to heart.

But it’s always been fundamentally disrespectful and today… today, I feel ashamed of it. 

A voice calls from beyond the walls, indiscernible from this distance, but I can tell from their tone that they’re demanding entry. The others look expectantly at Lea, who hurries to meet them after a beat… and it’s only belatedly that I realise why. With Darrow, Roque, and Quinn gone and me incapacitated, she is the leader of our tribe, isn’t she? 

Jove have mercy upon us all. 

The gate creaks open. An ally, then. I’m not what—or, rather, who—I expected. The odds that it would be Quinn were risible. Yet I am disappointed.

“You have to kill that piece of filth, Darrow,” I hear Lea say, with more anger than I reckon she’s ever summoned in her life; muffled, but not indistinct. “You have to cut his slagging balls off.”

“What happened?” There is frustration in his voice to learn that his plan has been stymied, of course. It gives way to alarm when he notices her puffy eyes—and my absence. “Lea. Where is Cassius?”

“They took Quinn. They took her and sent us her…” She sobs. “Her ear. Cassius went…. he went to save her. To… challenge him.”

“Challenge him?” Roque. “Titus, you mean? To what?”

“To a duel.”

“Oh… goryhell.”

“But he’s alive?” The dread in Darrow’s voice is a tangible thing. “Lea. He’s alive? He escaped?”

I groan. “Yes, I’m alive, you… Pixie!”

“Bellona?” Roque calls. “Is that, you ninny? Stop sulking and come out where we don’t have to shout!”

It’s Thistle that offers me her hand. She’s been watching Lea and I from the corner since I arrived. I decline it—and regret declining it the moment that I try to stand and I’m so dizzy that I nearly fall back into the chair. My tinnitus resumes in full chorus and my head feels cloven in twain and… gods help me, I think I’m going to vo—

“Let Roque go,” she murmurs, gentler than I’ve ever heard her speak. “Let Roque go with Darrow as the bait. Stay behind and light the fire instead. You’re in no state for…”

I would shake my head were it not for the pain the movement would case. “He needs me. In case something goes wrong. I have to protect him.”

“You can’t protect him like this.”

I wince through a smile. “Don’t underestimate me, Tanus. Believe it or not, I’ve had worse.”

That’s a lie. It’s not the gravest thrashing that I’ve ever taken, no, but I’ve never been tortured before and I’ve never been half as terrorised. Still… I refuse to let Roque abscond with my share of today’s glory.

Using the walls as a crutch until I regain some coordination, I stumble through the gate to meet them. Roque blanches, derision vanishing in a breath, when he sees what I’ve suffered. Small wonder, as they’re not at all concealed. I’ve yet to don my highCollar again; not only because it reeks of piss, but also because I’m not sure that I can complete the motion myself. 

He gasps—and he’s not the only one. The others gather around the gate like satellites in orbit, drawn by magnetism to the spectacle that is my ruined body; ruined, because whilst the damage is decidedly temporary, they will never purge themselves of the memory of having seen me so disfigured and it will forever mar my beauty—and my formidability—in their eyes. 

No longer do they see me as invincible. Strange to think they would, at all, but the indoctrination fed to the masses about the supremacy of my caste—the descendants of the Conquering—always works better than we expect. Yet Roque should not have fallen victim to that lie… and Darrow should have, but it seems otherwise. Whilst our dear cloistered poet is pallid as a corpse in his horror, his distress is not all indicative of surprise—rather, longstanding dread of something that’s finally come to pass. 

His eyes are more searching than they’ve ever been, lingering over every injury—every darkening bruise and coagulated cut, every stretch of swelling and dislocated bone—as if he must commit them to memory, yet there’s nothing clinical in the gaze. No, my mutilation is somehow as much an affliction to him as me. But… whilst I am aggrieved—livid, really—at the injustice that’s been done, rage is not the emotion that smoulders behind his veil of impassivity. 

It is sorrow. 

Roque finds his voice first. “Cassius…” 

I chuckle, despite the pain, because if they knew the extent of what I suffered there… well, to start, they would insist that I remain behind. “They beat the slag out of me when I challenged him, of course. Hit me with a shovel on the side of the head before we could start. Then… then, they stood around and had themselves a circle piss! Can’t really say that I’m really surprised about Ladros and his lowBorns brutes, but I would’ve expected more dignity from the highs. Alas… not so. Afterwards, they tied me up in their slagging keep, but—” 

I cannot tell them that it was Vixus that set me free—or that Johanna deliberately tied a faulty knot so that I could escape. It goes without saying that my receiving aid from Vixus is as nonsensical as it is suspicious and it would invite too many questions that I’m not prepared to answer—of which nothing prime can come of answering—into the nature of this whole ordeal.

Darrow would be equally suspicious of why Johanna might facilitate my escape and Roque… it would surprise him, even though he’s aware of our conspiracy, because Johanna is the most aloof of our number and nothing she’s done has implied that she’s personally invested in my welfare… until now. She isn’t—this was pure pragmatism—but I don’t trust Roque not to misunderstand her.

There’s only person that won’t pique his curiosity and would make sense to Darrow, because I bonded with him in plain sight before our exile began. “—Pollux set me free, like a good lad, and he’s agreed to open the gate if we need it done.”

He will. He’s doubtless eager to escape Ladros now, because torturing me clearly crossed some ethical line for him—and he’s astute enough to recognise the opportunity to ingratiate himself with Darrow, his soon–to–be master. 

Said master clenches his jaw. It cannot conceal how his voice wavers and the red that’s rimming his eyes, as if he’s fighting back tears. “I didn’t think you were so stupid.”

Roque rolls his eyes. “Of course he is. He wants to be one of the Sovereign’s knights. And all they do is duel.” He frowns disapprovingly. “You should have waited for us.”

But they have proven my supposition sound. It’s not that they’re indifferent to Quinn’s plight, of course, but if I’d waited for their approval, I never would’ve received it. Indeed, I think Darrow would’ve sooner restrained me. I’m not sure if Lea has changed her mind as to the desirability of that conclusion, but I have not. I only regret the necessity—and I wish that my odds regarding Vixus were more favourable, but I’ve done all that I could to subdue him. If I fail, still… well, it’s fated. 

“What’s done is done.” Darrow’s sigh is laboured. “Do you know if Quinn was captured before or after? Did they mention it? Did she get to Antonia?”

“The ear came around dusk,” Lea says—to our collective surprise, because we’d all forgotten she was there and she’s not typically someone with useful thoughts to contribute. “She left at dawn. If they caught her before, it would’ve come earlier, no?”

“But we don’t know?” He groans. “We need Antonia. We need her numbers if we’re to have a hope of reclaiming the castle from the invaders.”

“Should we send someone else, then?”

“If she accepted our truce, her people will already be on their way south,” Roque reminds her. “Anyone we send will find Deimos Tower empty—and it could still be guarded. When Quinn didn’t meet us, we went to the tower ourselves,” he tells me. “Vixus was there, along with five others.”

I hum. “Well… I can’t speak for the others, but Vixus is definitely in the keep—I saw him—and I don’t imagine they’d spend a night in the wild without him at their six with a whip.”

Darrow scowls. “Roque is right. If Antonia is our ally in this, she’ll be expecting us at the Metas. If not… that’s a risk we’ve got take now. We’re running out of time.” He takes a deep breath. “We continue with the plan.”

“Fine,” I say, before anyone can object. “We’ll just add this to his long list insults against me. And when the time comes… all of you would do well to remember that Titus is mine.”

Roque frowns. “Cassius… you can barely stand. And you’re going to run fifty kilometres into enemy territory? No… someone else should go.”

“Who?” Darrow asks. “Who else can cover that? Who else can keep pace with me?”

He scoffs. “Cassius cannot keep pace with you! Darrow, look at him. He’s a wreck.”

“Oh, I’ll be prime. Don’t worry.” I wink. “I’m sterner than I look.”

*

“Darrow.”

I remember how it felt the last time he set my fingers; after the Passage. His touch was soothing and tender and no less purposeful for being distracted. It was still soothing when he touched me today—I suppose it’s soothing by default, an ebb to my constant throb—but there was nothing tender in his setting that took for gorydamn granted the resilience of my reinforced bones. Perhaps the arrival of his rage was simply belated but… why should it be directed at me if the source of said rage is my injuries? Unless… it’s not my injuries.

I had forgotten—perhaps understandably, given my weakened state—how my actions might constitute a betrayal in his eyes. But he must be satisfied that I suffered for the insult, no? And he must realise that he’s not at all entitled to my loyalty; he’s done so little—nothing of consequence, really—to earn it. And he cannot think it reasonable to expect me to choose him over Quinn—and my honour, withal—in any circumstance. 

Then again, if there’s anyone in these worlds that might be sufficiently arrogant to think otherwise…

I moaned from the pain as he jerked my shoulder back into the socket, as much from the forceful motion that repaired the dislocation as the pressure of his fingertips on my arm, refreshing the bruises that Pollux left and sharpening their ache. And it was enough of a paroxysm that I collapsed unexpectedly into his arms. He stiffened from the sudden intimacy and it was plain that his instinct is to recoil, especially when I straightened myself—and recovered far too slowly for his tastes—by cupping his neck. 

He must have noticed the pungent odour of urine that still lingered in my air, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Although he’s unlikely to believe it, I did not intentionally bring our faces within centimetres of each other. I did not intentionally mingle our breath. I did not intentionally direct my glistening eyes into his. 

“Thank you,” I whispered before he could scorn me. “I failed the test. Their test. The one that we’re… here to pass. I know it. I went in there like a plum fool.” I made a half–hearted grimace. “If this were anywhere else, they would have killed me. Gods know they wanted to. But… I had to. I did. And there are… worse things than dying, you know.”

He winced as if I’d slapped him and withdrew, averting his eyes from my inspection. He hasn’t met them since. 

“Darrow, slow down.”

In accordance with his plan, we are traveling farther east than we’ve yet gone, following the peaks of the northern highlands far beyond the safety of our densely–forested territory, ensuring our exposure to the rolling plains of our immediate south as we finally ascertain the origin of the mysterious fire that we spied during our third reconnoitre. Our aim is to attract the notice of an enemy House—preferably, an enemy scout that will relay their reconnaissance to their leader who will, in turn, mount a successful assault against our castle. 

It’s a dangerous gambit. If they seize the castle, they’ll also capture our standard and, if they are too powerful, they might overcome our planned siege against our own fortress. Even with Antonia’s people, if Quinn indeed delivered Darrow’s message and she accepted his proposal, we cannot hope to defeat an armed host with a resourceful leader, especially on horseback. If they escape with our standard… I cannot be sure, as Fitchner neglected to say, but I believe we are disqualified from the game by default. 

So, the success of our plan relies upon the quality of the House that we manage to inveigle; they must be redoubtable enough to take a castle but not redoubtable enough to escape it.

“Stop running so gorydamn fast.”

We’ve covered nearly twenty klicks thus far and all of them at inadvisable speed where I am concerned, because I cannot keep pace with Darrow today—a fact of which he is well aware and is spitefully choosing to ignore. I’m impressed at myself for being able to manage a canter for as long as I have, to be honest, because my vision is swimming with more black than a leopard’s coat and my head is pounding like a drum with sensation—that is, if the poor instrument was capable of feeling each blow and prayed for spontaneous combustion after each blow due to the pain—but I have managed it. 

Pat on the back and all that. Three cheers for my Aureate—nay, my Conquering—constitution. 

But Darrow insists upon galloping to our eastern horizon as if the hounds of hell are trailing us and he refuses to retard in the slightest. Halfway through the twenty–first klick with four outstanding before our scheduled respite, I collapse… and vomit. It’s almost a dry heave, given what little I have in my stomach, but there’s bile, dejected for lack of food to digest, and I’m not yet rid of all the urine. 

“Goryhell, Darrow!” I shout. He’s almost a blur on my horizon, but he stops. “I know… that you’re upset! You feel… insulted! I understand! But… for the love of Jove, man! Will you stop being such an arse!”

Tears come unbidden—not tears of sorrow, but pain. Naught can banish pain but pain itself, I know, but this sensation is not sweet—it’s sickening—and this pain does not crest—it’s constant—and this pain does not liberate—it smothers—and this pain does not cleanse—it taints—and this pain is a barrier to the worlds, not a blinder. It’s more anguish than agony. I cannot wait to be rid of it. 

I hear his footsteps approach. I only wish that I could feel the coolness of his shadow as he hovers menacingly above me, as it would be a welcome respite from the scorching afternoon sun, but we’re the wrong direction.  

“Of course you understand,” he seethes. “It’s clear as fucking crystal. I warned you, Cassius. I warned you what would happen if you confronted him. Gorydamn it, I warned you!” I wince at his unexpected volume. “And now… what? You expect me to just… forgive you because your face got battered? As if you didn’t ignore me? As if you didn’t compromise our whole plan? As if you didn’t fucking defy me when you promised me—promised me!—that you wouldn’t.” 

He grabs my jaw and forces me to meet his eyes. His burn like fired ingots into mine through his windswept hair, but they betray that he’s more wounded than his voice suggests and they are rimmed with even more red than earlier, as if he’s been crying all throughout our trek. “How the slag am I ever supposed to trust you again, Cassius? Why would I ever trust you again? Tell me.”

I hear the word unspoken on his tongue. Please. 

I take a deep breath and shudder from the sharpness of it. My sneer is more grimace and my voice is still hoarser than Pollux. “Oh… but you promised me, too, Darrow—or don’t you recall? I told you, man. I gorywell told you—again and again and again, like a broken fucking record. I told you that I could never—never, under any circumstances—lose face.” 

I snicker. “And what did you do? What did you do, Darrow? What did you do? You insulted me at every gory turn with a gory sneer on your gory face. Didn’t let a single opportunity pass you by, did you, to take a swipe at me? To knock me down a peg? To dismiss my advice and my demands and my criticisms as if you were deaf and dumb to every word I’ve ever said?”

He scoffs. “And this was your revenge? Humiliating yourself—for no fucking reason—just to spite me and throw a wrench in my plan? To undermine my leadership at the worst possible time? To cripple yourself when I need you most?”

“Oh, Darrow. Darrow, Darrow, Darrow.” I sigh, slowly rising to my feet, defiant of the upswell of pain that nearly blinds me; he doesn’t help, even though it’s plain that I’m unsteady. “Vixus threw a wrench in this—this farce of yours… and I had every fucking reason to challenge him. Brace—brace yourself for this shock, goodman, but the worlds do not revolve around you. This… was between me and him; Vixus as much as Titus. And what I did, I did for myself—and for Quinn, who is currently being imprisoned by a moontouched sadist, by the by, who has already maimed her and is, as we speak, torturing and potentially raping her.” 

I snort. “Now… I know you couldn’t give half a shit about Quinn. You’d sacrifice her in a blink if it won you Primus. But… perhaps you’ve forgotten, so I’ll remind you—that she is my lover.”

He cackles scornfully. “How the fuck could I ever forget, Cassius, when you parade her around like your whore? So much for Golds not being Pinks, huh? It’s only Titus that doesn’t deserve one, right?”

“Oh, go slag yourself!” I snarl. “Believe it or not, some people are not ashamed to use their cocks—or their cunts, for that matter—and some people are actually capable of expressing affection when they’re in love. Forgive me for not being pressurised as a… fucking canister of achlys–9! Quinn is not my whore—and I went there to save her from becoming one. Because no—Titus does not deserve her as a fucking spoil. What the hell are you on? And tomorrow, I will flay him living if I find that he laid a single finger on her.”

He doesn’t respond. Silence stretches. I’ve unexpectedly struck a nerve, although I’m not sure how and which. Nevertheless, his scorn has fled. There’s something decidedly dejected about his expression when he asks, in a voice far weaker and far more revealing than his wont, “You… love her?”

It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. No, it’s partially true. Because Quinn is the initiator of nearly all our encounters and she is in love with me. I know what he wants me to say—what he hopes I’ll say. No. I don’t love her; I only love you; I’ve only ever loved you; I’ll only ever love you. Damn jealous fool. Again, though… it’s partially true. What she feels, I don’t reciprocate… and what I feel for him is far stronger than anything I could ever feel for her. Is it love—or another flavour of obsession where lust has blurred the lines? I don’t know if I’ll ever be certain. 

But I cannot forsake Quinn to please him. Not only because it’s unfair to her, but also because it’s unfair to me, too. Now, more than ever, he doesn’t deserve to feel secure about my fidelity—or our connexion. 

I sigh. “It… it doesn’t matter how I feel. I promised her that I would protect her—that I would protect her from Vixus—and I intend to keep that promise, if I can.”

He doesn’t relent. “It matters to me.”

I’m surprised. Either he doesn’t realise how dangerous this line of inquiry is or he does realise and he’s pursuing it heedless of the risk—and I wouldn’t have expected either that obliviousness or that audacity from him, not where I am concerned. He’s always been so mindful of exposing himself, so determined to belie his sensitivities, so wary of being perceived as too invested. What has changed?

“Why?” I ask innocently, as if I don’t already know, yet there’s the traitorous hint of a smirk on my lips. “Why would that matter to you, Darrow? Why is my relationship with Quinn any of your concern?”

He groans, as I’m being intentionally obtuse. “It’s a simple question, Cassius. I know you’re allergic to brevity, but the only appropriate answer here is yes or no.”

My smirk grows. I must have regained some of my capacity for expression by now, because he finally notices—and it’s only when he notices that he realises his error, his egregious error. “Mine is simple, too.”

He scoffs as he searches for an excuse that might shield him. The wise decision would be to just stop talking. He’s clearly too jarred—either by Quinn’s capture or my beating or perhaps both—to maintain his composure. If he continues to talk, he’s sure to make more of same errors… and whilst I am operating at a unique physical disadvantage here, it’s not as relevant as he might surmise. My body may be a ruin, yes, but there’s nothing wrong with my mind—I am too familiar with pain to be clouded by it—and it’s my mind that’s always been the threat. 

His mind, however… well, it’s never been more scrambled. He’s in no state to spar with me. But he’s too rash to recognise his peril and he’s too arrogant to admit he stumbled and let me win this inconsequential battle… lest he suffer a more grievous casualty. 

“Well… apparently, you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he taunts. “I overestimated you. That’s on me. And your… stupidity last night almost cost me everything. It matters because now that I know you’re a gorydamn slave to your impulses, I need to account for them when I make my plans. To do that, I need to know what they are. If your heart’s going to make your head a fool, I need to understand it.”

He expected me to feel offended by his patronisation and respond with anger of my own that would redirect our conversation away from his blunder and engender some safe acrimony. He frowns when my smirk broadens instead. 

“Everything? Almost cost you… everything? Do explain that one. What did my beating cost you, Darrow? Because… you don’t need me for this plan to work. You’re sufficient bait on your own—and I’m not sufficient protection if things sour. If I was still tied up in that keep, it wouldn’t change anything about your circumstances. Except… well, I suppose Titus could wield me against you; could threaten you… by threatening me. But…” I snicker. “… you’d have to care about what happens to me, Darrow, for that to work—and why would you care?”

I cock my head. It’s playful, but it doubtless seems predatory to him, given how he’s stiffened. “Why would you care if I was maimed? Why would you care if I was killed? No, you want Father’s patronage, of course. I know that. But… respectfully, goodman, there’s no way that you—you, so gorydamn haughty that you’d put Achilles to shame—think yourself wholly dependent upon my friendship to ascend in our worlds. No, you fully intend to win this game and merit a patron of your own—on your own. You don’t need me.” 

With my eyes alone—eye, actually, as the swelling in my left still has yet to abate—I circle him like wounded prey. “What was I risking, hmm? What did I endanger? Tell me.” I chuckle when he remains silent. “You already said it, Darrow. You can’t take it back. Tell me. Tell me.”

He scowls, as if it might mask his shame. Given the severity of his visage, sharper now than it’s ever been in starvation and exhaustion and naked desperation, it almost works. Yet there’s a rawness in his quavering voice that he cannot conceal and although he does not weep, it betrays that he already has. It’s not the condemnation of revulsion or the incredulousness of shock that bleeds—nay, that haemorrhages—into his verbal assault but rather… the vulnerability of fear. 

I have terrified him.

“You endangered yourself! You rushed in there like a reckless fool without a second’s thought—for what might happen, what they would do, what anyone else might feel. You dared them to hurt you, dared them to maim you, dared them to kill you! And it had nothing to Quinn—stop hiding behind her! The others may buy that line, but you and I both know that she was nothing but a pretext. No, you’ve been waiting for a chance like this—a chance to challenge him, challenge them, challenge any gorydamn thing in these worlds—since the start. Because…” 

He falters. For the emotionality of his broken voice when he continues, I half–expect him to cry. “… you want to die, don’t you? You want to be… put out of your misery. Because there’s nothing left for you here and you… you just want to be with him.” He frowns. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what this is… all about. You’ve given up. You’re standing at the edge of the Void and begging anyone that’ll listen to push you in.”

“That’s…” I hesitate at how scandalised I sound, but I can’t purge myself of it. “That’s none of your concern. None. You—you speak of things… you do not understand. You cannot understand. You cannot…”

Distantly, I am aware that he’s humiliated himself. Perhaps, distantly, he’s aware of it, too, because he’s blushing and he doesn’t rush to respond. But we are both beyond giving a slag. I feel as though he has stripped me bare. This is not a conclusion that I ever expected him to reach. I’m not sure if it’s because I underestimated his perspicacity or if it’s because I overestimated the extent to which the ludicrousness of the endeavour would shield me from accusation. 

Because this is not behaviour that is becoming of any Gold, to say nothing of a Gold of my status and station, and it defies every preconception for how someone of my conditioning would process grief. Death is never something that we covet, especially those of us that have yet to establish themselves in the worlds, because the Void is not afterlife; it’s nonexistence… and alleviated solely by the endurance of your memory amongst the living. 

To seek death before esteem—or, even worse, instead of esteem—is shocking to our sensibilities. And to seek death as an escape from grief… this is not done. This is an admission of fragility that cannot be countenanced, let alone embraced, that reflects damningly not only upon the weakling in question but the family that reared them. Aureate do not take their own lives—and not only because we are too vain for it. Our lives are simply not ours to take. 

We belong to the Society, of course; to Colour and Compact. It is impious to needlessly deplete the Golden stock—especially the ever–dwindling Conquering stock. But we also belong to our Houses. 

It is an insult to my family that I would deprive them of sixteen years of exorbitant investment that was lavished upon me in the understanding that I would someday glorify our name. To spurn life—in the season of my life and the flower of my youth, no less—is to spurn them. It is an act of consummate selfishness and ingratitude. It is equivalent to spitting in the faces of my ancestors. It is the surest avenue to permanent disgrace. 

And I have laboured—gods know that I have laboured—to conceal my traitorous yearning for it. In this, I surpass him in suppression—no, in repression—and shame. But he speaks as if it’s plain. And his question was rhetorical; there’s no point in denying it. Yet I cannot admit it, either—with a knife to my throat, I could not admit it. 

I don’t think he apprehends the gravity of our conversation. No, he feels wounded—because of his jealousy as much as his protectiveness. To him, I am a cherished possession to which he feels entitled and dreads to lose; in the same breath, I am praised and degraded. But he doesn’t seem to perceive his words as the assault or even the condemnation that they are; he doesn’t seem to perceive their stigma, at all. 

Once again… every time that I am astounded by his abysmal cognisance of our culture and believe that he’s demonstrated the zenith of his ignorance, I am proven wrong. He is a… baffling creature. Yet I cannot punish him for that—and nor can I punish his veiled declaration of love for me. What other explanation can there be, for him to care this deeply?

I swallow painfully. “I know… that your parents are dead.” The reminder makes him flinch. “And I am sorry. I am sure that loss… it weighs heavily upon you, as it would me. I would never… never recover from losing Father… or Mother. But it is…” I shake my head. “I am sorry. I am. Believe me when I say that I am not trying to… to belittle it. But it is… it is not comparable.”

Tears well in my eyes. “Julian was…” What? How could I ever explain it? How could I ever do him justice? “He was me. We were… born of the same moment. We share… flesh and blood and bone. That’s—that’s not always… the case, you know. Sometimes twins… they’re really just siblings who shared a womb, who… happened to be born at the same time. They have an… independent genesis. They were always two, never—never one. 

“But we… we were. We were true twins. We were supposed to be one person, Darrow. And we were never—never whole without the other. Always, I… ached for him. Gods, even if he was right there… I had to touch him. We could never… never be close enough. And when we were apart, I—I felt lacking. Like someone ripped out a piece of me and I’d be in pain until they returned it. It wasn’t… torment. No, it was bearable. But it still… ached. Any—any distance from him.”

I am not sure if the tears fall on their own accord or because I’ve started shivering. The wind is strengthening. “Imagine if—if half of you died. Half of you, just… gone. Forever. Never coming back. Could you… live? Missing half of yourself? Knowing that… you’d never be whole again? That you’d never feel content again? That you’d never really… be happy again?” My voice lowers to a whisper. “Would you want to?”

I don’t hear him. I only feel his hands—gingerly, as if my jawbone has become brittle—cradle my face and guide my eyes to his. With his thumbs, he wipes away my tears. Yet it’s not tenderness that softens his eyes and the tears that streak down his cheeks are not just for me—if they’re for me, at all. No… once again, it is sorrow.

His voice is hoarse, strained and pained as if the syllables are lashes upon his back. “I don’t have to imagine, Cassius. She’s…” He falters. His sigh is shuddering. “She’s dead. She—she died… and it was my fault. I—I couldn’t save her. Not from them… and not from herself. And I wanted…” His blink is overlong. “It was all I wanted. To… follow. So we could be… together again in the Va—Void. And… I did.” 

He almost snickers. “I did it, Cassius. And I regretted it the—the moment that I… that it was too late.” He furrows his brow. “It was… really just luck that I lived. I don’t know why… they chose me—me to save. I wished… gods, I still wish they had chosen her. But… I was wrong. That’s—that’s the point. I was wrong to give up. I was wrong.”

There’s a part of me that’s angered. He lied. He lied about having someone else. He cowered behind a dead girl rather than confront his feelings for me. It seems that I was right to pity her, even though she’s far beyond caring; he has abused her memory. It’s… vile. He lied and lied and lied… until the golden opportunity came to confess. And just as he used the lie to manipulate me, now he tries to manipulate me with the truth. 

This is not commiseration—for my sake or his—and I should not indulge him. There is nothing neutral about this lament. 

Yet it is authentic. His grief is true and raw. He loved her—deeply. And he’s not wrong to think his loss resembles mine. If there is anyone in this game that can comprehend mine, it is him. And I know there’s a dimension here that is tender and compassionate, despite his ulterior motive that he doubtless thinks I’m far too emotional to suspect—or perhaps he’s too far too emotional to realise it. Perhaps it’s a subconscious manipulation. 

The truth is… I cannot help but indulge him. And I want to be a salve to his wounds. I—I will be. I will do all that I can so that he might heal from this; from her. But…

With a deep sigh, I close our distance and press my forehead against his. Strands of his hair tease my cheek.  “It… is not… comparable. I—I am sorry. I am. But nothing… nothing is comparable.”

For a beat, he lingers in disbelief or denial of my intransigence—or perhaps he’s eager to exploit this rare moment of intimacy for as long as he can. But he sighs as he withdraws, disappointed by my answer, deliberately avoiding my eyes—out of scorn rather than shame, although he is ashamed, as well, and more than a little vexed to have miscalculated and divulged an intimate secret for nothing—as he tries to collect himself and recover his composure.

“You’re so fucking selfish,” he mutters. “Do you know that?” 

I was expecting him to lash out. It’s his tried–and–true defence mechanism. His choice of lash does surprise me, though. I’m not sure what he’s implyi—

His scowl is contemptuous. “You’ve encouraged me since the beginning. All but… begged for it. Shouted it at the top of your lungs. How much you… wanted me. Like a… bitch in heat! And… all that while, you were wishing someone would come along and put you down. Did you ever think of that, Cassius?” 

He chuckles ruefully. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d said yes or no, would it have? No, you still would’ve wanted a knife in your heart more than me. You still would’ve chased after Vixus and Titus and whoever the fuck else you could find that might have a chance of killing you. Because…”

He almost sobs, but it doesn’t convey sadness—rather, despair.  “I’d never be enough. You’d choose death with Julian over life with me every fucking time. And I…” He shakes his head and groans. “I already loved someone who felt that way. Someone who—who chose death… over me. And I—I won’t do it again. I won’t.” His voice sharpens. “Does that register, Cassius? I won’t.”

What’s supposed to be an ultimatum is undermined by the fact that it’s plain—so painfully plain, like the simplest of equations transcribed in perfect penmanship under the midmorning sun—what he fears has already come to pass. Against his will, he has fallen in love with me—perhaps in spite of my resemblance to her, perhaps because of it. Against his will, he will continue to love me, regardless of what I do. Against his will, he will mourn me no less than her when I am finally snatched by the Void. 

There is only one choice that the Fates have afforded him here and that is whether he will live in denial of this truth or in harmony with it. 

But I am curious now about this girl… and feeling somewhat defensive, as well. Perhaps it’s just projection, but I’m following his lead and if we are truly alike, as he claims, I wonder if she suffered as I’ve suffered—or has he changed? 

I doubt that.

“And did you choose her, Darrow?” I bait. He’s perplexed by the response, but I continue, undeterred. “Did you choose her—in life? Did you ever choose her… or was it all about you? What Darrow wants, what Darrow needs, what Darrow aspires to be. Did you ever think of her, Darrow?” I snort. “Or did you suck all the air from the room for yourself—like you gorywell do now? Because you have never once thought of me. You have never once listened to me. You have never once given half a shit about what I want or what I need—or why I want or need it.”

He scoffs indignantly. “I always listen to y—”

“Oh, but there’s a difference between hearing and listening, Darrow. No, you’re like… a rock in a stream. If I cracked you open, I’d find you dry as a bone in the Ladon, wouldn’t I?” I sigh. “I would choose death over you, you say? Well… you don’t know that. You can’t know that—not without giving me the chance to prove it. It may have escaped your notice, Darrow, but you and I are not lovers. We’re not friends. We’re barely even allies. I owe you… nothing. No fidelity, no regard. If we were lovers… it would be different. But we’re not.”

I snicker. “Yet you’ve already proven, again and again, that you’ll choose your ambition over me. There hasn’t been a single opportunity to demonstrate as much that you’ve ever missed. Enough with this hypocrisy, man. Your ambitions are stronger than any love you’ve ever felt or could ever feel—and you know it.”

He scowls, but he doesn’t contest it. He can’t. He knows that it’s obvious and that to claim otherwise would be an insult to my intelligence. Yet he’s not done cowering behind her, it seems. “It’s not my ambition. It never was. It’s hers.”

I chuckle wryly. “Oh, so… you don’t want to be powerful, then? You don’t want to be respected? You don’t aspire beyond your station, at all? No, you were modest and meek before she came along, were you? Content to lead an aimless life of no consequence and die in obscurity before she forced all this concern about prospects down your poor little throat? You didn’t think you were better than everyone else and entitled to more than you’ve ever received? That’s all her influence, is it, and you’re just the hapless victim of a silvertongued harpy?”

I’m strangely offended on her behalf. I’m not sure why I care… but I do. “Lie to yourself if you want, Darrow, but we both know this isn’t about her—not anymore, if it ever was. What you’ve done here, you’ve done for yourself—and for no one but yourself.” I snort. “She didn’t make you ruthless. She didn’t teach you to crush people’s hands when you shake them. She didn’t tell you to never share power.”

I shake my head. “Call me selfish if you like, if that helps you sleep at night, but I’m not the one that’s so desperate for that shitty little Primus badge that you let three–quarters of our House starve for a gorydamn month because they wouldn’t kiss your Golden arse, that you watched as a dozen of our Colour were defiled for sport and did nothing, that you abandoned Quinn—and would’ve abandoned me, if I hadn’t escaped—to the very same fate.”

I snigger. “You didn’t do that for Eo.” He gasps at her name. Perhaps he’s forgotten that he let it slip. Perhaps he was hoping that I’d forgotten. “You did it for yourself. Because all you’ve ever really cared about is being on top.”

He’s still and stiff as a board. Only his hair is animated, fluttering in the wind. It’s not just that he wasn’t expecting the accusation. No, I don’t think he was fully cognisant—if at all cognisant—of it until now. Perhaps he truly had convinced himself that this was all for her… and I don’t doubt that she encouraged him. But I know the difference between a natural ambition and a feigned one—and there is nothing feigned about his hubris. 

For a moment, I think that he’s searching for a similarly scathing response, but it’s actually a distraction—and he finds one. “There’s a rider to the southeast.”

I turn, expecting to see nothing and mock his feeble lie, but it’s not a lie. Given the current limitations of my vision, the shape is too indistinct to say more, but I do discern the horse and it’s unlikely to be wild. “Well… there’s nothing more deserving of our full attention than that, is there?” I nod to a glen about a klick to the south. “We can lure them there. There will be water of some sort. Unless that horse of theirs can tread it, we’ll have an escape if things sour.”

He furrows his brow. “That’s… good thinking.”

I almost let it go, but I’m not in the mood to indulge him… further. “You do realise… that I’ve prepared for this my whole gory life, right? I was taught strategy and tactics—from the very best minds that credits can buy. I had tutors in every subject and they made me study until my eyes fucking bled. I wasn’t a perfect student and I wasn’t prime in every subject, but… well, that hardly matters now. I remember enough.” 

I scowl. “I’m not a dullard, Darrow, or a gorydamn Pixie that’s never read anything but the dress code on their invites—and I don’t appreciate that you always assume as much.”

I abandon him on the bluff in disdain, but I’m only three paces away before I’m tempted to continue—to twist the knife deeper. I turn back to his waiting scowl. “But it’s not a neutral assumption, is it? It’s a… comforting fiction, no? To assume that I never have anything consequence to add, that I’m too much of a ninny to contribute anything to your plans but my fists? And that’s why you always dismiss me, why you always exclude me, why you always insult me, why you… distract me.

“Because… gods forbid that Cassius has a better idea than Darrow. Gods forbid that Cassius’ strategy wins the day. Gods forbid that Cassius is laurelled instead of Darrow. Gods forbid… that Cassius is ever favoured for Primus instead of Darrow.” I chuckle scornfully. “Goryhell, man! You’d sooner slay me than even risk losing your lead, wouldn’t you?”

My frown is derisive. “Is that for Eo, too?”

*

The lake is dark and deep and delightfully cool—and the deerling agree with my assessment. Even our presence is not sufficient to startle them away from partaking. We kneel in the mud athwart from the creatures as we drink. Yesterday, I would’ve been disinclined from sullying my uniform thus, but now that I reek of piss that’s not liable to fade until next week’s end, it doesn’t seem that I have cleanliness worth preserving anymore. 

Little insects flit across the water as we drink. They accost Darrow once or twice but never me. I suppose I smell too rancid.

“Here,” he says, offering me some mutton from his duroBag. “You should eat. And it’s better if we look… relaxed.”

I almost laugh. His frigidity hasn’t diminished in the slightest and he cannot meet my eyes—out of anger or fear of further confrontation, I don’t know. “I think I can go without the protein for a spell. It’ll just make me ill. And… to be honest, I can’t imagining chewing anything of half that rigour right now.”

He takes a miserable bite. It does, indeed, take him a minute to fully masticate. “How far east of the castle do you reckon we are?” he asks, raising his voice and pointing to the northwest… and that’s how I know that we’ve ensnared the attention of the rider. 

“Oh… maybe twenty klicks. Hard to peg it. Feels farther but my legs are just tired.” I straighten and look where he points. “Ah, yes. You’ve got it.” 

I see them their reflection in the lake. From atop their horse, they watch us from the edge of the glen. From what I can glean, they don’t possess any obvious weapons—not a bow or a sword or anything they might wear across their back, as I wear the pitchfork—but there is something tied to the saddle. It’s too diffracted by the surface to see clearly, though, so I’ve no choice but to turn.

It’s a girl. She’s small, almost too small for the dappled mustang she rides—a testament to the skill of her horsemanship. (Aurelia rode stallions as a girl, too, and rode them better than men thrice her size.) For the size of the bar that’s tied to her saddle, it must be a stunPike. Gods… Fitchner really does hate us. Her gleaming jasmine hair is braided in the French style and falls to her waist. I cannot make out the features of her fairskinned face or the sigil upon her uniform from this distance, but I know that she smiles at me. 

I doubt it’s a kind smile. 

She doesn’t approach. Indeed, from the placement of her hands on the reins, she looks on the verge of riding away; perhaps to inform our riders of our presence here and return in greater force to enslave us. That won’t do. 

“Darling!” She starts somewhat at being addressed—and I wince at the volume of my voice. My chest was not ready for that expansion. But I continue at the same volume, nevertheless. “Prime ride! What House are you?”

She rides closer, until we’re ten metres apart. It was, indeed, not a kind smile. 

She is arrestingly beautiful—and not in a pedestrian way that barely warrants comment. No, she is a… contradiction. Because her features are dainty to the point of winsomeness, evocative of the innocence that you might find in Lea and the vivacity that you might find in Quinn, and she seems younger than she can possibly be; far too sweet and soft, too scarless and careless, to have inhabited these worlds for sixteen years, if not more. Judging by the flesh alone, she looks as ludicrous in her lacklustre fatigues atop her oversized mount as Amarantha might. 

But the spirit that animates her is defiant of the flesh. It is… cruel. 

There’s a derisive gleam to her feline eyes that leaves me feeling as scrutinised by a mere glance as a creature beneath a scope—and found lacking. There’s a contemptuous curl to her luscious lips that foretells the presence of a tongue that’s far sharper and colder than her blushing heartface suggests. There’s an arrogance to her air that only masquerades as audacity… because she does not believe herself bold or disrespectful, at all. No, such is her confidence in her unassailability that she perceives risks as certainties and she shows respect only where and to whom that she believes it is due—and that is nowhere and to none. 

And I feel as though I have been transported back six decades in time, because I have seen precisely this face before… on Mother. 

She cannot be my relative, of course. Still, I’m surprised that I cannot place her. It would be one thing if I lacked even an inkling of her identity, but there’s something… vaguely familiar about her… hair? That shade and that length and that texture and that style. I’m certain that I’ve seen it before, but I cannot recall when or where. 

Yet Darrow’s eyes spark with recognition. It’s bizarre to think he might know a blueblooded Gold that I don’t and even more bizarre to think that she might be common—with that face? Surely, not. And she wouldn’t be familiar to me, at all, if she was. 

“Lo, Mars,” she calls. Her voice is as mellifluous as I expected and no less roguish than Quinn’s, but there’s nothing playful or mischievous about her intentions. It may or may not be deliberate, but it’s a ruse. 

Her sigils are covered so that we cannot know her House and her face is streaked by three diagonal lines of cobalt that must be berry juice. Yet her intent is undermined by the implication behind its existence. Because it’s clever to conceal one’s House and cleverer to mark your cheek in a pattern that cannot be replicated—lest someone steal your uniform and impersonate you in an attempt to gain ingress to your fortress—and cleverer still to be as cautious as she’s been in approaching enemies that she seems to so greatly outmatch.

She must be Minerva or Vulcan, then. The rest of the Houses either wouldn’t think of these safeguards in the first place—Jupiter would actually disdain them, just as they disdain all subterfuge—or would recognise that it’s actually wiser to encourage people to underestimate your capacity for guile. But Minerva and Vulcan, well… they can’t help showing off. 

Vulcan would explain her enviable weapon, but since she’s clearly not starving or dependent on meat—indeed, there’s no hint of any privation in her appearance—as we are, her House must have some source of sustenance beyond game, as Ceres does, and Vulcan is not associated with agriculture. But Minerva (or, rather, her Greek counterpart, Athena) invented the olive tree and these environs—this fertile soil betwixt our fingertips, this abundant sun in a cloudless sky, this sweltering heat—would be prime for them to flourish.

And horses were Poseidon’s gift to the Athenians in their contest for preeminence in the city that preferred her tree and thus bears her name—which seems like cheating on her Proctor’s part, but I wouldn’t expect less from their House. 

I bow. Lo, Minerva. 

“Well… this is swell.” Dejectedly, Darrow kicks a stone. “Lo… Mustang.” So, he doesn’t know her, after all. I’m relieved. It wouldn’t do for him to have a connexion to another highBorn that preexisted—or could supplant—ours. I have no taste for rivals where he is concerned. “Nice sigil. And horse.” 

Her lips quirk at his careless admission of the creature’s significance. “Why, thank you. What are you boys about in the hinterlands? Reaping grain?”

He pats his slingBlade. “Oh, no. We have enough back home.”

She suppresses a laugh at his boldfaced lie. A single look at our faces—our sunken cheeks and the darkened rims of our eyes—makes it plain that our diet is devoid of carbohydrates. “Sure you do.”

But I don’t like the way he watches her. It’s too… rapt. It betrays far more interest than it should and I am not sure which is the more upsetting possibility: if he’s truly that guileless and incapable—or perhaps just unwilling, too proud to sustain the mockery—of playing the fool or if her appearance is distracting him from our mission. 

A familiar apprehension rises within me that I haven’t felt in weeks, partially because he’s long since demonstrated that he’s not attracted to anyone in our House but me and partially because I trusted that his fidelity to his girl was too insurmountable of an obstacle for anyone else to overcome. But now that I know that she’s dead and now that we’ve encountered this fresh face whose beauty is quite unlike any that have yet tempted him…

Is he attracted to her? The possibility is… sickening. After all this time, all this labour, all this torment… just to lose him to this stranger?

Oh, no, that will not do!

“Goodlady, I will be even with you.” I force a charming smile—well, it would be charming, if I was capable of expressing a full spectrum of emotion. As it is, it’s a testament to my constitution that I can smile, at all; a few hours ago, my face was too swollen, but it comes easily, if not painlessly, now. 

I take a small step forward to see if she’ll notice. She raises an eyebrow as she does, teasing her reins backward so that her mustang withdraws, maintaining our distance. “You are stunningly beautiful. Verily, you must be from Venus.” 

She smirks at the compliment. It’s not unlike how Ariadne—that is, a true woman of Venus—might smirk. Indeed, they are both heartfaced and only a subjective eye could determine which is lovelier. 

But hers is a beauty that wakes you—a radiant smile that invigorates as if you’ve just administered a stim, scintillating eyes that banish weariness as effortlessly as midmorning light banishes deepnight dew, a provocative tongue that demands to spar. Altogether, she is stimulative, akin to a whetstone that sharpens you with every gibe and every glance. She should be likened to the dawn.

The beauty of Venus, conversely, should be likened to dusk. It does not taunt—rather, it tantalises. It does not liven—rather, it lulls. It… disarms. It’s a suggestive purr in your ear that’s precisely what you want to hear. It’s a caress wherever you desire it most. It’s too mesmerising to take notice of anything else in these worlds—or take precaution against it. It’s a sensual kiss… followed by a knife twisted in your heart. 

No, she is not Venus. She is more novel… and more congenial to my tastes. Dangerously so. Because I am accustomed to Venus, after all; I was born and bred in a den of such vipers and I’ve long since developed a tolerance toward their venom. But this girl… I have no tolerance whatsoever toward hers. Even if she resembles Mother in this way, as well, it’s not as if I ever been resistant of her wiles. 

Smile widening, I take another step; she withdraws again. “Hit me with whatever is under that cloth on your saddle and take me back to your fortress.” 

Her amusement falters—almost imperceptibly, so quickly does she suppress it—at my acknowledgement of her weapon. She cannot possibly think me that oblivious… can she?

Another step, another withdrawal. “I’ll gladly be your Pink if you promise never to share me and keep me warm every night.” 

Another. “And every morning.”

She laughs. It’s a delightfully wicked sound. “Well… aren’t you the charmer, Handsome.” Such is the battered state of my face, I can’t tell if it’s satirical or not. She flutters her overlong lashes at me. “And by that pitchfork in your hand, you must be a prime fighter, too.”

That’s obviously satirical, but I pretend it’s sincere and take it as a compliment. Her smile broadens—at my shameless display of vanity or oblivious display of dimwittedness, I don’t know, but either is prime. Yes, darling. I’m a plum fool. Even if Carvers scooped half your brain out, you’d still be cleverer by a klick.

Belatedly, I realise there’s another insinuation. She snickers at my frown.

“Yeah. Uh–oh. You see, we didn’t have any tools in our stronghold except those pertaining to our deity, so… you must have encountered House Ceres already.” 

Says the girl with a gorydamn stunPike, I almost snap. Forgive me, I must have forgotten the myth where Minerva created those.

She leans forward in her saddle with a patronising smile. “You don’t have crops. You just fought those who do. And you don’t have any better weapons, clearly, or you would be carrying them with you. So… Ceres is in these parts as well. Likely in the lowlands near the woods—good soil and exposure. Or near that big river everyone is talking about—for irrigation.” 

She tilts her head as she chuckles. Her golden hair glitters, as if it’s bejewelled in the Numidaean style, under the dying sun.

“So… you’re in the woods?” she asks, not expecting an answer, already decided on the truth, trusting her acuity far more than she’d ever trust our words. “North in the highlands, probably. Oh, this is fun! How bad are your weapons? You clearly don't have horses.” She mock–frowns. “What a poor House.”

I sigh. “Well… slag.” 

“You seem pretty proud of yourself,” Darrow says, scowling, as much at the fact that she’s directed all of her questions toward me, as if only I merit her attention, as the fact that we were flirting—as I expected, it successfully altered his perception of her, recast now (perhaps only temporarily, but I’ll take it) as a rival rather than an intrigue—but his indignation is stronger than his envy. 

He cannot stand being seen as the less prominent of our pair.

She raises a hand, as if admiring the way her ring reflects the sun. I suppose there are some people that are vain enough for such an act to be meaningless (Uncle Antonius is known to pause in the midst of a conversation or action for no other reason than to briefly admire himself) and it’s possible that she’s such a person, but I cannot know. And if not… it’s likely a signal. We are expecting company, then. 

I would convey that to Darrow, but I’m not sure how I would, even if he looked my way, and he’s deliberately ignoring me as punishment for flattering someone else. Damn jealous fool!

“Sort of. Sort of. More proud than Handsome there should be.” She titters. “He’s full of tells.” 

So are you, sweetling.

He shifts his weight to see if she notices—and she smirks. “Now, now, Reaper. Are you going to try and get in my saddle, too?”

I’m not sure if he’s trying and failing to mimic our kittenishness or if he’s intentionally exuding menace, but he does. “Just trying to knock you out of it, Mustang.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually is just trying to steal her mustang. I can’t blame him. His feet must ache no less than mine in those boots. Gods, how prime it’d be if we could ride back… and how prime it’d be if we were compelled to share a horse. 

She laughs. “Fancy a roll in the mud, do we? Well, how about… I promise to let you up here with me if you give me more clues as to where your castle squats? Towers? Sprawls? I can be a kind master.”

Oh, I doubt that. 

She leers at him. If she’d done it earlier, it would’ve vexed me and it would’ve affected him—how he might’ve blushed scarlet as her sparkling eyes roamed his body—but she’s too late in her exploitation. Doubtless, he cannot think beyond how she has piqued him—that she dismissed him as my inferior, that she reciprocated my coquetry, that she has all but flaunted her flagrant privilege in our game—and it’s with envy of no small malevolence that he approaches her now. 

“What Draft number were you?” he asks. 

I cannot possibly see how that’s relevant—and neither can she, but she seizes the opportunity to waste our time until her Housemembers arrive. And fuck if I have no way of warning him without alerting her. He still won’t look at me.

She baits him. “Higher than you, Reaper. I remember Mercury wanted you something awful, but his Drafters wouldn’t let him pick you in the first round. Something about your rage metric.”

He takes her bait. “You were higher than me? So… you’re not Mercury then, because they chose a boy, and you’re not Jupiter, because they took a gorydamn monster.” He smiles. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so vain.” Maybe you should take a look in a gorydamn mirror, you ninny. “Then I wouldn’t know what Draft you were.”

He hums, as if he’s bored, but he continues to ignore me. Sighing with some exasperation, I watch the hillside whence they’ll come instead. Nothing. Perhaps it’s because my vision is still too slagged or perhaps it’s because this lake is uniquely suited for an ambush. I cannot see more than fifty metres before the crest of the hills obscure whatever lies beyond. If they arrive on horseback, which is likely, they’ll materialise as if conjured from thin air and close that distance within the minute. 

Darrow starts suddenly and turns to me. I’m optimistic at first that he might’ve caught sight of her riders, but… no.

“Snake,” he whispers into my ear whilst looking suggestively at the grass beneath her mustang’s forehooves. 

It’s a ruse so obvious that it’s a wonder she doesn’t laugh—but she doesn’t. There’s suspicion in her eyes as she leans forward to inspect the hooves, but it’s not enough to stop her. Perhaps it’s instinctual. I’m not sure what his design is. She’s too far away to—

No. She’s not. He lunges across the gap—and closes their distance before she can withdraw. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed, but between the steps that she retreated from me and the step she retreated from Darrow, her mustang’s hindhooves were squelched by mud. Between that microsecond delay and her disequilibrium from the lean, he’s able to take hold of the latter third of her braid before she can dart to safety… and he tries to dismount her. 

He fails. She sacrifices a fistful of her hair to escape—and escape, she does, cursing from the pain. Well… slag. Her reinforcements are coming. Our only chance of escaping this glen—save for swimming deep into the lake and waiting for Roque to lure her away—is on that fucking horse. We need it. 

So… for the first time in my gorydamn life, I throw a pitchfork. 

And it’s as disastrous as you’d expect. I’m not sure what I was aiming at—her or the horse. Injuring either would’ve defeated the purpose. Luckily and perhaps predictably, though, I don’t hit either. I misjudged the weight and the aeroresistance of the thing. It’s not that I’ve never thrown anything of the like before, but the javelins that I typically use for target practice are light and manoeuvrable. I suppose it felt too familiar in my hand and my musclememory reacted accordingly. 

It strikes the grass at her horse’s hooves, close enough to startle the beast into tossing its rider and momentarily stumbling. She shrieks and tumbles into the mud as it gallops away… and she doesn’t emerge. 

Shit. 

“Dammit, Cassius!” he snarls at me. 

“Sorry, I—”

“You might’ve killed her!”

“I know! I know. I’m sorry! But we have to—”

He’s already rushing to where she fell, heedless of my alarm. “Darrow, we need to—”

“Shut up!” 

He hesitates, paling at her motionlessness, before kneeling at her side and extending an arm to check her pulse. I cannot see what transpires between them through the overlong grass, but I suspect that she tries to pull a knife and he thwarts her. What she says is indistinct. Her whistle is not. A second signal? Or perhaps the first wasn’t a signal, at all. 

Hooves thunder as seventeen riders crest the hill and plunge into the glen. Fuck! Swimming and awaiting rescue, it is. 

I dive into the lake. It’s colder than I expected, as if the ambient heat—and, indeed, season, because no body of water has a right to be this crisp during a summer day—cannot permeate it. That bodes ill, since dusk is coming and nightfall will only intensify the chill. It’s also deeper than it looks. After three strokes, I can’t stand anymore… which means Darrow can’t go further. He can’t swim. 

And that’s not nearly deep enough to be safe from the Minerva. 

It takes admirable discipline to resist the urge to flee from the riders with the alacrity of the nearby deerling, but I wait for him in the shallows—and I don’t have to wait long. Gone is his ire and gone is his pride when he takes my hand and lets me tug him deeper, suddenly unashamed to be treated like a small child on their first (I suppose it’s technically his second) lesson. 

Half of the Minerva circle the lake on horseback. It’s small enough that they bore quickly of the task. Some of them shout what I assume are taunts, but they are too indistinct to my ears—partially because my hearing is not prime and I’m overexerting myself in swimming for two, partially because the lapping waves that we tread compete too much with the sound, and partially because at least one of them has an atrocious Zephyrian accent. Their tendency to pronounce their o as aw, among other perversions of Common, makes their dialect almost incomprehensible to anyone outside of northeastern Sirenia. 

They expect us to tire. Just how long can two emaciated Golds tread water before they’re forced to surrender, lest they drown? Several hours would be a fair estimate in optimal conditions. The temperature of the water, Darrow’s inexperience, and my injuries would halve it… were it not for our possession of duroBags, which seal sufficiently to be inflatable. To be honest, though, it’s all I can do to keep Darrow afloat as he empties each one and blows them full of air; by the time that I’m relieved of my duty by the bag, I’m closer to minutes than hours where drowning is concerned. 

Of the Minerva, only one seems keen to fetch us, but she—clearly their leader, if not Primus—stops him. And it’s only when she stands beside him that I realise… goryhell, he’s tall as a Sunblood. From what I could tell of her proportions at my odd angle, she’s likely of Cagney’s stature—that is to say, a decimetre and a half shy of two metres—and the top of her head doesn’t even reach his shoulders. Gods, what a monstrosity.

And what a delightful surprise for Titus.

He shouts something that must be provocative, given his tone, but I cannot understand it—because he’s the Zephyrian. Ah, he must be a Telamanus, then. Only they are so elephantine… and so daft. 

“Don’t listen to him,” I say when I notice Darrow’s scowl. 

He glares through saturated hair that he’s yet to push back. I’m not sure if he’s more vexed or embarrassed that mine never got wet, but he really is such an abysmal swimmer.  “What—you think I would?”

“Honestly… I wouldn’t put anything past that pride of yours.”

He snorts. “Remind me: which of us almost died yesterday in a harebrained rush to avenge their gorydamn honour?”

I laugh. “Remind me: which of us got so irked by the fact that she paid more attention to the other that they decided to ignore every fucking sign that she was stalling for time just so that we’d be even? You fell right into her trap, man.”

“And you didn’t? Never seen a pretty face that you weren’t desperate to slag, have you?” He chuckles dryly. “Here we are, in the middle of a dangerous plan where just about everything’s gone wrong so far, risking enslavement and death, and the very first thing you do is try to seduce her? There’s no gorydamn way that you’re stupid enough to think that might’ve worked, so the only explanation is that you just wanted to kick some dirt in my eye. You spiteful bastard.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh my—gods above, Darrow. Do you know, I think you may be the most arrogant man alive—and yes, I am including Apollonius au Valii–Rath, who only fucks in front of mirrors, in that estimate.” I sigh. “I flirted with her to distract her, you ninny, from the fact that you can’t feign innocuousness to save your slagging life—and because it’s expected. That’s what my lot do. And I want her to believe that I’m a damn horny fool. The more she underestimates me, the better. That’s how you win games like these.”

He scoffs. “Because you’ve got no interest in her whatsoever. It’s all a performance. You’re definitely not ready to shaft me for a better match.”

I gape. “I… What? What are you… Darrow. Sincerely. Have you completely lost your fucking mind?”

He scowls. “You’re eager to shaft Quinn for me. What’s to stop you from shafting me for her?”

I shake my head. “Well… I don’t know what gave you that impression, Darrow, but let me be crystal: I have no intention whatsoever of shafting Quinn for you.”

His bitterness vanishes. Silence stretches between us that’s interrupted only by the distant carousing of the Minerva. There’s an unmistakable hint of desolation in his voice when he speaks again. “So… you do love her.”

I groan. “Darrow… we’ve already had this conversation. How I feel for Quinn is none of your concern.”

“But you’d rather have her than me,” he mutters. “She’s… better. Easier. You’re more… compatible. Hell, she fits you like a glove.”

I sigh somewhat regretfully, because he’s right—or, rather, he should be right. She is better. She is easier. She is the more agreeable match, by far, and although I do have relatives that would disapprove of my courting a midBorn, they are far and few between; certainly, Father would not. She is everything that I should want, that I have been encouraged to pursue and that I expected would please me… and yet. 

Yet.

“If that’s true, if I’m content with her… why am I still chasing you?”

He furrows his brow, puzzled. “You’re… not? You… you said that you weren’t… interested anymore.”

I cannot help but cackle. “Oh, Darrow… dear Darrow. If you believed that line, I fear that you are blinder than Polyphemus, goodman. And if you believe that I’d ever choose slavery over… whatever the hell this is, then you really haven’t listened to a damn thing I’ve said. I’d rather drown in this gorydamn lake than have an owl on my forehead. And you know—damn it, man, you know!—that I cannot, under any circumstances, be someone’s Pink.” I scoff. “Father would disown me in a breath.”

Even though he’s still processing that I’ve just admitted to lying during our conversation by the hearth, he sobers at my insinuation. “I would never let that happen to you, Cassius. I promise.” 

His sincerity does touch me, but it’s hard to see past the fact that he has willingly and wittingly condemned Quinn—to say nothing of the poor Ceres slaves—to that fate. I don’t doubt that I’m an exception to the rule, but I’m somewhat disquieted by how selective his compassion is. He’s more callous than I thought. Yet I’m not nearly as disquieted as I should be; perhaps because it would hypocritical. It’s not as if my compassion isn’t selective, too. 

“But I don’t think that’s what she meant,” he adds, after a beat. “Look at her. How she laughs—all girlish, like a giggle. How she teases and taunts with a silly little smirk. Bitching over her hair like she’s got no greater concern in the worlds. No, I reckon she meant what she said: this is fun to her. It’s still a lark, still a game.”

I frown. “She won’t be smiling after she sees what Titus has done.”

“No.” He scowls at our northwestern horizon. “Roque should have lit the fire by now. What the hell’s taking him so long?”

“He’ll light it. Faith, goodman. Have some faith.” I snort. “Gods know the rest of us have placed a perilous share in you.”

He ignores that loaded addition. “We’re also supposed to be almost back by now.”

I sigh deeply as I stretch over my inflatables. “Well… as long as I’m not being tortured, this night is an improvement on the last.” 

And I cannot say that I particularly mind the chill. After being subjected to a sweltering summer sun in a cloudless sky since dawn without respite or anything that might have alleviated the dry heat of this clime, I welcome being submerged in this brisk little lake—and I reckon that it will help ameliorate my swelling, too. Yet it’s already begun to overstay said welcome and it’s not lost on me that anything could be swimming alongside us… or beneath us. These waters are unfathomably deep and dark and, more likely than not, home to a Carveling or two—or twenty—of the carnivorous sort. 

Gigavoks swimming in the baths…

He scoffs. “They hit you with a shovel and pissed on you, Cassius. That’s not torture. Believe me.”

I smile ruefully. “If you believed that line, then you don’t know Ladros, at all.” He piques at my insinuation, but I don’t let him inquire. “Stop panicking. Save your energy.”

He clenches his jaw in indignation. “I’m not panicking.”

“We’ve got them baited. Roque will reel them in. Trust me. He’s been desperate to catch something on his line for weeks. He won’t slag it up.”

Still, his eyes dart anxiously to the shore. “But they’re Minerva, Cassius. What if she sees through it?”

“You think… what? Minerva is the smartest of the lot?”

“Aren’t they?”

I chuckle. “No, man. They just think they are—and that’s part of the reason why they aren’t. Minerva… they always overestimate themselves. They’ve got no sense of their own limitations. They say only Apollo have a greater propensity for hubris. And Minerva typically have more cause to boast than Apollo, because they are rare geniuses—they don’t consider anyone that scores shy of perfect on their tests, not usually—but that makes it worse, in a way. Because they’re so accustomed to being the smartest person in the room that they underestimate everyone else.

“And… nine times out of ten, they’re woefully unseasoned, too, like our dear Fabii. All their knowledge comes from their books and their tutors, especially when they’re blueblooded, like this peach. And their quixotism is… fucking resilient. Rare that you see a Minerva acknowledge they made a mistake; rarer still that you see them learn from it. Sure, she may be smarter than us on paper, but in practice?”

I sneer. “Darrow, we’re going to thrash her. Don’t worry.”

“If the plan works.” He frowns. “It can’t work if we’re trapped here.”

“We’re not. When she sees Roque’s fire, she’ll lead the bulk of them away. I don’t think she knows who I am—which, for once, is a prime thing, because she’s likely to undershot my capacity and she’s definitely undershot yours. So… she’ll take her best fighters for the siege, including that monstrous Telamanus, and leave her scraps to watch over us fools.” 

I smirk. “And we’ll wipe the floor with them—and finally get some decent fucking weapons.”

“What if we can’t overcome them?”

I roll my eyes at his timidity. “We can. StunPikes are terribly ineffective in close quarters, Darrow. And they’re too heavy to wield comfortably unless you’re in armour. Really, all you have to do is evade, grab the non–electrified part of the shaft, and force them into overextending their thrust. And then they either they let go or risk a sprain.” 

I sneer. “Pampered little Pixies like these are sure to let go. But… even if they capture us at the onset, we’re not ruined. No, they don’t have their standard, which means they can’t enslave us. As long as we escape before the others return, there will be no repercussions.”

Yet he’s still apprehensive. “Darrow, it’s—it’s prime. Just… have a little patience, will you?”

He’s quiet for a spell, engrossed in his despondent thoughts, before something piques him. “You said she was blueblooded.”

“Only a blueblooded lass would be that derisive.”

He raises an eyebrow. “But you don’t recognise her?”

“There’s definitely something… familiar about her. Something about her face. I… gorydamn, I can’t place it.” I sigh exasperatedly. “Obviously, I’m familiar with her family; we’re familiar with all the important families on Mars. But I’ve not met her—that’s for certain. I’d remember that.”

“I’ve met her,” he admits. “Briefly. In Agea, at the stables. Um… Ishtar. She’s the…” He grimaces at the memory. “The girl that laughed at me… when I… fell.”

He scowls when I cackle at his expense. “No! Well… what were the odds of that, huh?” I hum as the realisation dawns upon me. “Maybe that’s why I don’t recognise her. If she’s an Agean, her family must be aligned with the Augustuses. And any staunch ally of theirs wouldn’t come within a klick of Olympia.” 

But I frown. “Still, I should’ve seen her abroad. Or just encountered her in Agea—gods know I’ve spent enough time in that wretched city to know its aristocracy. It’s somewhat… suspicious, actually. Because… well, as I said, we know everyone worth knowing. It can’t be an accident—or an oversight on our part. We are… ripe thorough when it comes to maintaining our connexions. There must be a reason. But…” I shake my head.

Who are you, darling?

*

Darrow has been glaring at the shore for an indeterminate amount of time, as if he might summon the power to set the Minerva alight if he only sets himself to the task. Several minutes may have passed… or a score or a dozen or two dozen or three dozen or four dozen or five dozen; I’ve lost the ability to keep track. The lake has long since overstayed its welcome. We shiver violently and colour has leached from our faces. And the sky has transitioned from dusk to twilight by the time he finally resolves to speak—and not to me. 

“You look bored, Mustang!” he shouts through chattering teeth and I cannot help but wince as his volume. “Come in for a swim!”

She laughs. “And get hypothermia? I’m not stupid. I’m Minerva, not Mars, remember?” He doesn’t appreciate the reminder… but she disproves her statement within the minute. “No… I’d rather warm myself by your castle’s hearth. See?” 

She points behind us. A thick column of black smoke rises in the distance—within eyeshot of our castle. If she isn’t foolish enough to attack without investigating the source—and she may gorywell be—she will find that Roque has burnt our refuse. And she will encounter Vixus and his sycophants at the fire, because Titus will surely send him to investigate. Talented duelist he may be, but he’s no match for the eighteen armed and mounted Minerva that intend to challenge him—and especially not for her Obsidian masquerading as Gold. 

He’ll be defeated and humiliated… and painfully eager to slay them all.

If we are lucky, she will be astute enough to recognise the opportunity that they’ll have carelessly provided to avoid a protracted siege; she can use whomever she captures at the fire to infiltrate our castle and conquer from within. And the quicker their conflict is resolved, the better, because if she proves dense, we’ll have to wait until she surmounts the walls to spring our trap… and we’re not the patient sort. 

“How the slag did those pricks pass the test?” Darrow moans for her benefit. “They’ve given our castle away!”

“If we get back, I’m going to drown them in their own piss,” I add, too forcefully for the comfort of my ribs and perhaps a bit too vindictively to avoid arousing his curiosity. “Except for dear Antonia, of course. She’s far too pretty for that.”

“Reaper, Handsome, I must leave you now!” She teases as she mounts her horse. “Try not to drown before I return with your standard. You can be my pretty bodyguards!” She laughs. “And you can have matching hats! But we’ll have to teach you how to think better!”

As I suspected, the majority of her riders accompany her to Castle Mars, including the behemoth. Two remain to guard us—horsemen, armed with stunPikes. They don’t bother recovering our discarded weapons from the mud. We watch as they start circling the lake again. I’d half–hoped that they’d be idle in the absence of their leader, as our Housemembers would be, but they are too clever and too bored to dismiss the opportunity to toy with us.

“Your… your lips are blue,” Darrow murmurs. It’s only his impressive capacity for seeing through the dark that makes it plain; although the sun has yet to set on our territory, it’s receded far enough to the west that night has fallen here. His eyes still burn with too much zeal through the black and moonslight glimmers off his damp hair, but I can’t discern the rest of his features.

I don’t doubt it, but— “Yours are bluer. I’m… more resilient to the cold. Thank the—the Mons for that.”

His sigh is a plume of smoke. It’s not half as dense as it should be. “Cassius… you look like you’re minutes from sinking to the bottom of this lake without a fight.”

I don’t contest it. Perhaps mercifully, my limbs are beyond aching; I am overcome with numbness—from overexertion as much as the cold. It’s a wonder that I’m still treading, at all. I am too exhausted to even shiver, but it’s not the precipice of sleep that I’m teetering toward, of course, and stillness means that I’m in graver danger of losing consciousness, sooner rather than later. “Come—come closer. For… warmth.”

He scoffs. “You… you’re unbelievable. You know that? You have… you have hypothermia, Cassius! Can—can you even feel your cock? How the hell are you still… still thinking with it?”

I roll my eyes. “How… are you? It was… an innocent suggestion! Why are you always so—so gorydamn suspicious of me? No—no. Don’t answer that. I’ve a… better question. Why… are you so—so invested in my welfare, Darrow? Why? If it’s such… torment for you to even look into my eyes, if you’re so… so determined to spurn me and pretend that she took your—your cock to the Void that you’d rather… rather drown than touch me, wouldn’t it be… better? If I was… gone. That way… well, you wouldn’t have to—to resist anymore. You’d never be tempted again. You’d never be… threatened again. Seems like… forgive me, but seems like that’d be the—the optimal eventuality for you, no?”

He chuckles ruefully. “Not a… single day has gone by since I—since I lost her that I haven’t been—been tempted, Cassius. Every—everywhere I look, it’s… everything reminds me of—of her.” He falters. “What—what you said earlier about… you weren’t wrong. The truth is that… that I wasn’t content before. I was… bitter. I—I wanted more. But that… that was before I knew what it would—what it would cost. What I’d… lose. What I’d have to—to sacrifice to live in this world. And now…”

He sniffles. “Now, I wish I could go—go back. I swear to Jove, I do. And I’d trade it all just for—just for her.” He shudders. “I miss her more… more than I could ever—ever want anything, Cassius. I think… I think that I could’ve been… happy with her. I was happier than—than I realised… at the time. I—I took it for… granted.” He grimaces. “But she… she wasn’t… she wasn’t happy with me. I wasn’t… enough for her. And I was never—never going to be… to be enough.”

He groans. “That’s what… that’s what really… slags me up, you know. That no—no matter what I’d done… what I’d chose… it wouldn’t have—wouldn’t have changed that. I would never be… enough.”

I’m tempted to draw his attention to the implication that has clearly escaped him: that he’s all but confirmed I will never be enough for him. He would trade me for her in a breath—and he’s far too attached to the past that he’s romanticising to appreciate his prime fortune in the present. It’s not vain for me to say that our relationship is the most fortuitous thing that has ever happened or could ever happen to a boy of his station and aspiration; it’s mere fact. I could speak his wildest fantasies in actualisation like an incantation. I have offered him satisfaction beyond what most of the misfortunate inhabitants of these worlds can even fathom. Half of why I still live is for the perverse pleasure that I feel whenever we vie.

Yet he would trade me for her in a breath. I am not as wounded by that sentiment as someone foreign to inconsolable grief might be and it would be hypocritical to accost his fixation on her whilst maintaining my own on Julian. But I am wounded.   

I cannot quite keep the resentment from my voice. “If she… if she really didn’t want you, Darrow, then… then, she’s just a ninny. I know, I know—don’t speak ill of the—the dead. My sister would swat me. But… anyone that would—that would reject you is… dafter than a slaveknight that’s spent three—three decades ramming their skull into duroArmour. And… tasteless as Quicksilver, withal.”

I know from his tone that he scowls. “You have rejected me, Cassius. Again and again, you have. I… apologised. For what I said and… and what I did. I… wanted to fix things. I wanted us to be—to be friends again. And you… you rejected me! You chose to stay… icecold and bitter. You chose that.”

I scoff. “Again? I already told you, Darrow. There’s no again. We—we were never friends. And neither of us ever had the—the slightest interest in being so.” I chuckle scornfully. “You—you just wanted to use me and I just wanted to… to fuck you. We both made ourselves ripe… ripe clear, that night on the ramparts. That wasn’t—that’s not friendship, Darrow. And you made… gorydamn sure that there wasn’t fertile ground for—for anything else. You’ve… scorched and salted that earth and then some.”

“I’m not the one that left!” he hisses—and I’m taken aback at the vitriol, but there’s more anguish than malice or even bitterness in it. His voice tears like a serrated knife no less as it leaves him than when it finds me; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s fighting back tears. “That second night… you just… you left. You gave up and you—you left and… and you never came back, not—not really. No, you—you chased after her. And you kept—kept chasing after her until you got her. And now that you’ve had your—your fill, you’re ready for the—the next conquest… and the next and the next and the next, because that’s… that’s the sort of man you are.”

He suppresses something that sounds like a moan. “And I’m… I’m just the distraction. That’s—that’s all I’ve been… since the start. Distraction from Julian, distraction from Quinn, distraction from Titus, distraction from the… the monotony of it all! Whenever you’re bored, you taunt me and… and test me, like it’s—it’s a lark to watch me squirm, like you’re trying to break your own gorydamn record for how deep your words can cut, like you get some—some sick thrill from bending me til I snap. And when you tire of it, you—you leave. You just… walk away! And you leave me…” He shivers. “In torment.”

I huff. “You… you are unbelievable, Darrow. Truly. You… are the most infuriating boy that I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. I… I left because you wanted me gone. You made that… ripe clear. You—you could’ve had me then and there. I could’ve been yours… from the start. And there would be no—no torment, no shame, no bitterness, no… Quinn. But you rejected me, you bastard—and you hid behind your dead lover to do it. You’re still hiding behind her. You still can’t face the truth. Because you are a coward, Darrow au Andromedus… and a gorydamn fool. A distraction? Ha!”

I am snarling when I continue. “I chose this wretched House for you. I swallowed my pride for you. I sacrificed my ambitions for you. I devoted myself—my life, my blade, my mind—to you! You are the only fucking thing in this game that I’ve ever given half a shit about! Not because I’m compelled or because it’s politically advantageous or because it’s socially advisable. No. You are the one ambition that is truly and wholly mine! And I have coveted you more than anything I’ve ever sought! You are the only person—beyond blood—in these worlds that I have ever loved.”

Tears fall, unbidden. “Do not speak to me of torment. What you feel, you have inflicted upon yourself… and you have inflicted it sevenfold upon me!”

“Trouble in paradise, Mars?” One of the horsemen teases; the other laughs. I had quite forgotten they were there. “Come on out and we’ll settle your lover’s spat. Wouldn’t do to have you gouging each other’s eyes out, now, would it? You heard Virginia—she wants you pretty.”

Perhaps I should have expected that he’d remain oblivious unless I shouted the truth artlessly in his face, but I cannot help feeling bemused by his transfixion, because… wasn’t it obvious that our relationship has taken precedence in every decision that I’ve made? It is so shamefully plain that I’ve been obsessed with him since the start—and he has taken advantage of that obsession, hasn’t he? It cannot have been unwittingly. 

But I have shocked him. He would blush if he still had blood in his cheeks. Yet there’s no relief that he misjudged me or even cautious optimism that we are less doomed than he surmised in his voice when he responds; only resignation that’s all the more acrid for my failure to acknowledge what’s clear to his eyes. “You… you don’t know me, Cassius. You can’t… love someone… that you don’t know. And there’s so much that… that I can’t tell you. Not won’t. I… I want to. Gods know that I do. But—but I can’t. It’s—it’s not possible.”

I sigh—as deeply as I can, but it’s still shallow. “You are so intent on convincing me this is wrong, on discouraging me at every turn, but you know—in the very marrow of your bones, Darrow, just as I do—that it’s right; that it’s inevitable. You know.” I shake my head. “How long must we play this game? How long will you insist on denying it? Until you combust from all the—all the jealousy and the rage that you’ve got bottled up inside? Until there are no secrets between us, at all? Because I can tell you which is more likely.”

He scoffs. “It’s easy for you to say. They aren’t your secrets. You don’t have to bear them.”

I chuckle dryly. “Oh, but I’m bearing them already, Darrow. I just… don’t know what they are. You aren’t—aren’t sparing me anything. You must know that.”

I frown. “You’re… afraid. That’s what it is. It’s not… shame. Not guilt or… uncertainty. No, you’ve—you’ve been burnt and now you fear fire. I… I understand. But… speak true, Darrow. If you could go back… would you ever choose not to love her? Not to know her, at all? Because—because I wouldn’t. There will never be a time when I ever wish that I wasn’t born a twin. All that I’ve suffered… and all that I will suffer, before I’m through… I’ll never wish it. Never. Would you?”

He’s quiet for a moment, pondering. “I… I don’t know. Sometimes, I…”

It’s not the answer I expected, but I admire his honesty—and his tacit admission that our losses are, indeed, not comparable. “Maybe you’d regret it. Maybe you wouldn’t. If you don’t know yourself prime—prime enough to say, I certainly don’t. But… I know myself, Darrow. And I wouldn’t. I would never—never regret you. If it’s doomed, then… then it’s doomed. That’s a problem for tomorrow. Today, I—I don’t care. I don’t…” 

I’m not sure what I was going to say. Is there anything more to say? I—I don’t know. But this conversation cannot continue. I cannot stay here. I cannot wait any longer or waste any more time—much less breath, more and more precious, more and more shallow—on him. I am… grasping consciousness by a thread. Rigid as a board and pallid as a corpse—indeed, I am more than halfway there. I have to swim to shore before… I’m minutes away—and that is a generous estimate, perhaps too generous—from losing the ability, from losing use of my limbs entirely. And Darrow cannot tow me, not as I did…

I don’t feel his fingers when they seize my arm; it’s only the splash that I notice and I haven’t the faintest idea why—oh. I was sliding off the duroBags. That they’ve remained secure under my arms all this time is somewhat remarkable, because I lost the sensation and strength to hold them there around twilight. 

“Cassius… you have to stay awake.” 

“I’m not… I am…” Was I falling asleep? I hadn’t realised. I’m distantly aware that he’s calling my name—and I see alarm in his eyes when he takes my face in his hands and forces me to meet them. “I… I need you to come closer. I need your…”

Warmth. I need his warmth. It’s all I want—to feel warm again. Yet it’s a ridiculous notion. Because he has none to give. He’s nearly as hypothermic as I am. His fingertips are almost navy where they brush against my cheeks and sufficiently icy when they sink into my curls that I still feel their nip despite how dulled my senses are, the smoke of his exhale has almost thinned beyond perceptibility where it mingles with mine, and his kiss does not feel given by someone still living.

His… kiss?

It takes a moment before I can feel his lips, no less luscious in their chill, pressing against mine. It takes another before I can process what is happening—and, indeed, I am not sure that I believe it is happening. Because I know that it could be symptomatic—that it’s common to experience unreality in the severe stage of my affliction—and I have experienced unreality where he is concerned before, haven’t I? With less cause. No, I am not sure… but I do not care. 

If he is phantom, so be it. I will die happier labouring under the delusion that I have kissed him. 

But it’s not only because his lips are cold that this feels somewhat necrophilic. No, they are also inert. He neither moves nor breathes. Yet his paralysis is not a consequence of his hypothermia; no, it’s apprehension and more than a little uncertainty, too, because this was rash and wholly unprecedented on his end. He’s never kissed another boy before; it’s been an age since he’s kissed anyone, at all. He doesn’t know how to proceed—and he’s not sure that he should or even that he wishes to. Lamentably, dominance seems contrary to his nature.

And now that I haven’t reciprocated, he is baulking and about to withdraw.

That will not do.

Burying my hands inside his damp hair, I immobilise him—as much because he’s stunned by the motion as the fact that I wouldn’t let him escape me if he tried—and deepen the kiss, exploiting the opportunity that his answering gasp provides to slide my tongue between his teeth. Between that sensation and how I’ve tightened my grip on his hair, I elicit the sweetest spoil that I’ve indeed ever tasted: his shuddering sigh of half–suppressed pleasure. It reverberates… and leaves me aching for more. 

My tongue is languid is his mouth—sampling, savouring, traversing. And I’m faintly aware of how unpleasant I must feel to him—that I must taste and reek of blood and piss, that I’m frigid as the snow on the Mons and fragile as a Pink in my battered state, that I’ve wrestled control and far surpassed the intimacy that he initiated—and how unwelcome I might be. But he does not recoil when I lave his tongue with mine as if I’m ravenous for the mutton that tinges it. He does not seem repulsed, at all.

Perhaps I should’ve expected as much, given that he inhaled my—not at all fragrant, it must be said—highCollar like delicate Pixies huff lavender to mask the pervasive odour of viscera at the arena.

He possesses no ember—and I have no spark to impart. Yet there’s a smouldering sensation, born of thrill that’s quick to banish any irrelevant concern—our predicament, our environs, our state—to the recesses of my mind and no less potent for being flameless, that now enlivens me. And there’s heat blossoming in my core, defiant of the imprudence and seeming impossibility of its existence, with more alacrity than I would’ve thought myself capable of summoning. I am too aroused—aroused, as if I’ve been starved every other day of my life and only now can eat my fill—to remember that I am dying.

And I do not care. Let me drown. Let me drown… in him.

I cannot know if his stiffness is critical of my aggression or simply a consequence of the cold, but the provocation starts to loosen him. He’s tentative with his tongue, though, and I wonder if it’s fair to blame his nerves or his chills for that fact that he’s clearly forgotten how to kiss—well, how to kiss like a decadent. Perhaps he’s never known. He doesn’t use Pinks, after all, and she was no Society debutante whose idea of a plum evening at the theatre involves poppers and double penetration. Perhaps I have overestimated him.

Yet I am not inclined to show him mercy and neglect to press my plain advantage—not after all the denigration that I’ve suffered at his hands. In this, if nothing else, he will become acquainted with humility. 

He groans into my mouth when I jerk his head back and bare his neck for assault. Verily, I am tempted to end our kiss, because exploiting those vulnerabilities—the swell of his accelerating pulse, the tension in his outstretched tendons, the enticing little hollow of his throat—would be a far better use of my mouth and the angle is odd now, but I don’t want to relent. I don’t want him to taste anything that isn’t me or breathe anything but our air. No, I want him to feel smothered—and he doesn’t seem disposed to protest.

With my free hand, I splay across the column of his throat, as if I might strangle him, with tantalising pressure behind my fingertips that I don’t let him savour. He gasps when they catch at his collar—half–incredulous that I might intend on stripping him, half–hoping in his own lust that the lunacy of the act will be lost on me—but they have a more ambitious mark. Perhaps too ambitious. It’s as likely as not that he’s not capable. 

But mine is the more severe case and I’m… quite capable, all too capable, painfully capable, so… perhaps. He shudders as he realises my intent; as my hand submerges and descends languorously down his torso, as my fingers tease at the fastening of his trousers… as I palm his half–hardened cock.

His moan is bridled—either because he laboured to suppress it or because his pleasure is admixed to pain; a delight, regardless—when I caress him. He expects—or perhaps hopes—that I’ll unfasten them and take his cock into my hand; fortunately for him, I am not so inexperienced. Gods, even a neophyte should known that water is an abysmal lubricant and that he’ll be happier with the friction. His trousers are already taut, but not yet so that I cannot adjust them for better access; I manipulate the fabric until his length is flush with his thigh. 

Then I start to pleasure him. His moans are less and less recognisable as such—it’s really more of a whimper and a shuddering one, at that—and even through the dense fabric, I feel how he throbs as I knead his… gods, his truly magnificent cock. I am not jealous, of course; mine is just as enviable. But it’s rare that I’ve ever taken a lover that was larger than me—and gorydamn, am I keen on them. I am half–tempted to tease him, but I’m more eager—and more exhilarated—to see how fast I can finish him from this petty stimulation alone. 

And I’m revelling enough, if I’m honest, in the mere fact that I’m touching him.

I still haven’t broken our kiss—nor have I withdrawn. No, my tongue is still ensconced in his mouth, tempered and tamer yet still lapping and occasionally teasing. I’d given up on expecting reciprocation, but the pleasure of being on the precipice of release—release, at long last, because I would not be surprised to learn that he denied himself even his hand this entire time—unleashes something inside him and I’m taken aback—quite literally, he jolts me—by newfound passion in his kiss. 

I can hardly fault him for his fervour, but I think that he’s forgotten that I’m… well, grievously injured. Because he seizes my curls with violence as he penetrates my mouth with his tongue and I’m made acutely aware of where my lips are riven and where my cheeks have been lacerated and which teeth have been battered within a centimetre of avulsion. And were it not for merciful numbness that’s seeped into the very marrow of my bones, it would be excruciating. 

As it is, it’s not a kiss from a Rose. 

I’m not sure if he mistakes my wince for a grunt of encouragement or if he’s too lecherous to care, but he continues in earnest, heedless in his determination to devour me. Perhaps he sees the continuation of my ministrations as assent and the truth is… I don’t object. I should… but I should object to a great many things that I do not. No, the truth of the matter is that I relish pain as much as pleasure from his touch… and that the most pressing of my concerns at the moment is attracting one of those freakishly dexterous hands that have claimed my curls south. 

But then—then, he shudders. Almost breaks our kiss, either unknowingly or involuntarily, but I don’t allow him to retreat. I hold him fast by the nape of his neck—which he could probably escape, if he tried. He doesn’t. No, he cannot think beyond where he thrusts into my pleasuring hand through the zenith of his orgasm, moaning so wantonly into my mouth that you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was fucking him from behind. But it’s just my hand… and not even my skin.

Such is his lust for me. Would that my lust for him was even stronger—so that his spectacle might be sufficient to undo me. Alas.

I continue until he winces from the overstimulation. Only then do I relax my grip and allow him to withdraw even a centimetre from my lips. Despite his freedom, he lingers. His breath is warm against my cheek, smoke the moment that it hits air, laboured as he calms… and laboured still as he realises what he’s done. He cannot say that he did not want it and he cannot say that he regrets it, as both are boldfaced lies—but neither can he say the inverse. He will not allow those words to form upon his tongue.

No, he cannot say that he regrets it, but now that the thrill has started to subside, I might—because my cock has indeed made my head a fool. I lost myself in the throes of his pleasure, didn’t I? And gave him satisfaction that he’d not yet earned and mercy that was far from deserved when I should have denied him, when I should have tormented him, when I should have taken advantage of his fleeting moment of frailty that may never come again. 

Yet I acted as if I was born to indulge him instead—a Rose of a different Colour, after all. 

“Cassius…”

Whatever wound his intended words planned to inflict upon me is interrupted… by a bloodcurdling scream.