Morning Star

I sit with my legs dangling off the edge of the hangar, watching the city beneath teem with life. The clamor of a thousand hushed voices rises to me like a sea of leaves brushing together. The refugees know I’m alive. SlingBlades have been painted on walls. On roofs. The desperate silent cry of a lost people. For six years I’ve wanted to be back among them. But looking down, seeing their plight, remembering Kieran’s words, I feel myself drowning in their hope.

They expect too much.

They don’t understand that we can’t win this war. Ares even knew we could never go toe-to-toe with Gold. So how am I supposed to lift them up? To show them the way?

I’m afraid, not just that I can’t give them what they want. But that by releasing the truth, Sevro’s burned the boat behind us. There’s no going back for us.

So what does that mean for my family? For my friends and these people? I felt so overwhelmed by these questions, by Sevro’s use of my Carving, that I stormed out without a word. It was petulant.

Behind me, Ragnar moves past my wheelchair and slides down next to me. Legs dangling off the edge like mine. His boots comically large. The breeze of a passing shuttle catches the ribbons in his beard. He says nothing, at ease with the silence. It makes me feel safe knowing he’s here. Knowing he’s with me. Like I thought I would feel near Sevro. But he’s changed. Too much weight in that helm of Ares.

“When I was a boy, we always wanted to know who the bravest of us was,” I say. “We’d sneak out of our homes at night and go down into the deeptunnels and stand with our backs to the darkness. You could hear the pitvipers if you were quiet. But you could never tell how close they were. Most boys would break and run after a minute, maybe five. I always stood the longest. Till Eo found out about our game.” I shake my head. “Now I don’t think I’d last a minute.”

“Because you now know how much there is to lose.”

Ragnar’s black eyes hold the shadows of a vast history. Nearly forty, he’s a man who was raised in a world of ice and magic, sold to the Gods to buy life for his people, and served as a slave longer than I’ve been alive. How much better does he understand life than I do?

“Do you still miss home? Your sister?” I ask.

“I do. I long for the early snow in the throes of summer, how it stuck to the fur of Sefi’s boots as I carried her on my shoulders to see Níðh ǫ ggr break through the spring ice.”

Níðh ǫ ggr was a dragon who lived under the world tree of the Old Norse societies and spent his days gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil. Many Obsidian tribes believe he comes up from the deep waters of their sea to break the ice that blocks their harbors and open the veins of the pole for their spring raiding boats. In honor of him, they send the bodies of their criminals to the deep in a holiday called Ostara, the first day of true spring light.

“I sent friends to the Spires and the Ice to spread your word. To tell my people their gods are false. They are in bondage, and we will soon come to free them. They will know Eo’s song.”

Eo’s song. It seems so fragile and silly now.

“I don’t feel her anymore, Ragnar.” I glance behind us to the Oranges and Reds who spare glances our direction as they work on the ripWings in the hangar. “I know they think I’m their link to her. But I lost her in the darkness. I used to think she was watching me. I used to talk to her. Now…she’s a stranger.” I hang my head. “So much of this is my fault, Ragnar. If I hadn’t been so proud, I would have seen the signs. Fitchner would be alive. Lorn would be alive.”

“You think you know the strands of fate?” He laughs at my arrogance. “You do not know what would have happened if they lived.”

“I know I can’t be what these people need.”

He frowns. “And how would you know what they need when you are afraid of them? When you can’t even look upon them?” I don’t know how to answer. He stands abruptly and extends a hand to me. “Come with me.”

—

The hospital was once a cafeteria. Rows of gurneys and makeshift beds now fill it along with coughs and solemn whispers as Red, Pink, and Yellow nurses in yellow scrubs move through the beds checking the patients. The back of the room is a burn ward, separated from the rest of the patients by plastic containment walls. A woman’s screaming on the other side of the plastic, fighting a nurse as he tries to give her an injection. Two other nurses rush to subdue her.

I feel swallowed by the sterile sadness of the place. There’s no gore. No blood dripping on the floor. But this is the aftermath of my escape from Attica. Even with a Carver as good as Mickey, they won’t have the resources to mend these people. The wounded stare up at the stone ceiling wondering what life will be like now. That’s what this feeling is in this room. Trauma. Not of flesh. But lives and dreams interrupted.

I’d retreat from the room, but Ragnar rolls me forward to the edge of a young man’s bed. He watched me as I came in. His hair is short. His face plump and awkward with a prominent under bite.

“What’s what?” I ask, my voice remembering the flavor of the mine.

He shrugs. “Just dancin’ time away, hear?”

“I hear.” I extend a hand. “Darrow…of Lykos.”

“We know.” His hands are so small he can’t even wrap his fingers around mine. He chuckles at the ridiculousness of it. “Vanno of Karos.”

“Night or day?”

“Dayshift, you pigger. I look like some saggy-faced night digger?”

“Well, you never know these days…”

“True enough. I’m Omicron. Third drillboy, second line.”

“So that was your chaff I’d be dodging deep.”

He grins. “Helldivers, always lookin’ themselves in the eye.” He makes a lewd motion with his hands. “Someone’s gotta teach you to look up.”

We laugh. “How much did it hurt?” he asks, nodding to me. At first I think he’s asking about what the Jackal did. Then I realize he’s referring to the Sigils on my hands. The ones I’ve tried to cover with my sweater. I unveil them now. “Manic shit, that.” He flicks it with his finger.

I look around, suddenly aware that it’s not just Vanno watching me. It’s everyone. Even on the far side of the room in the burn unit Reds push themselves up in their beds to look at me. They can’t see the fear inside. They see what they want. I glance at Ragnar, but he’s busy speaking to an injured woman. Holiday. She nods to me. Grief still very much at home on her face for her lost brother. His pistol is on her bedside, his rifle leaning against the wall. The Sons recovered his body during the rescue so he could be buried.

“How much did it hurt?” I repeat. “Well, imagine falling into a clawDrill, Vanno. A centimeter at a time. First goes the skin. Then the flesh. Then bone. Easy stuff.”

Vanno whistles and looks down at his missing legs with a tired, almost bored expression. “Didn’t even feel this. My suit injected enough hydrophone to knock out one of them.” He nods to Ragnar and draws air through his teeth. “And least I still got my prick.”

“Ask him,” a man beside him urges. “Vanno…”

“Shut up.” Vanno sighs. “Boys have been wonderin’. Did you get to keep it?”

“Keep what?”

“It.” He looks at my groin. “Or did they…you know…make it proportionate?”

“You really want to know?”

“I mean…not for personal reasons. But I’ve got money riding on it.”

“Well.” I lean forward seriously. So do Vanno and his bedmates nearby. “If you really want to know, you should ask your mother.”

Vanno stares at me intensely, then explodes into laughter. His bedmates laugh and spread the joke to the far edges of the room. And in that tiny moment, the mood shifts. The suffocating sterility cut through with amusement and crude jokes. Whispering suddenly seems ridiculous here. It fills me with energy to see the shifting tide and realize it’s because of a single laugh. Instead of retreating from the eyes, from the room, I move away from Ragnar down the lines of cots to mingle more with the injured, to thank them, to ask where they’re from and learn their names. And this is where I thank Jove that I’ve a good memory on me. Forget a man’s name and he’ll forgive you. Remember it, and he’ll defend you forever.

Most call me sir or Reaper. And I want to correct them and tell them to call me Darrow, but I know the value of respect, of distance between men and leader. Because even though I’m laughing with them, even though they’re helping heal what’s been twisted inside me, they are not my friends. They are not my family. Not yet. Not until we have that luxury. For now, they are my soldiers. And they need me as much as I need them. I’m their Reaper. It took Ragnar to remind me. He favors me with an ungainly grin, so pleased to see me smiling and laughing with the soldiers. I’ve never been a man of joy or a man of war, or an island in a storm. Never an absolute like Lorn. That was what I pretended to be. I am and always have been a man who is made complete by those around him. I feel strength growing in myself. A strength I haven’t felt in so long. It’s not only that I’m loved. It’s that they believe in me. Not the mask like my soldiers at the Institute. Not the false idol I built in the service of Augustus, but the man beneath. Lykos may be gone. Eo may be silent. Mustang a world away. And the Sons on the brink of extinction. But I feel my soul trickling back into me as I realize I am finally home.

—

With Ragnar at my side I return to the command room where Sevro and Dancer are hunched over a blueprint. Theodora’s in the corner exchanging correspondences. They turn as I enter, surprised to see the smile on my face and to see that I’m now standing. Not on my own, but with Ragnar’s help. I left the chair in the hospital and had him guide me back to the command room I fled only an hour prior. I feel a new man. And I may not be what I was before the darkness, but perhaps I’m better for it. I have humility I didn’t have before.

“I’m sorry for how I acted,” I say to my friends. “This has been…overwhelming. I know you’ve done the best you can. Better than anyone could, given the circumstances. You’ve all kept hope alive. And you saved me. And you saved my family.” I pause, making sure they know how much that means to me. “I know you didn’t expect me to come back like this. I know you thought I’d come back with wrath and fire. But I’m not what I was. I’m just not,” I say as Sevro tries to correct me. “I trust you. I trust your plans. I want to help in whatever way I can. But I can’t help you like this.” I hold up my thin arms. “So I need your help with three things.”

“Always so dramatic,” Sevro says. “What are your demands, Princess?”

“First I want to send an emissary to Mustang. I know you think she betrayed me, but I want her to know I’m alive. Maybe there’s some chance it’ll make a difference. That’s she’ll help us.”

Sevro snorts. “We already gave her the opportunity once. She almost killed you and Rags.”

“But she did not,” Ragnar says. “It is worth the risk, if she will help us. I will go as emissary so she does not doubt our intentions.”

“Like hell,” Sevro says. “You’re one of most wanted men in the System. Gold have shut down all unauthorized air traffic. And you won’t last two minutes in a space port, even with a mask.”

“We’ll send one of my spies,” Theodora says. “I have one in mind. She’s good, and a hundred kilograms less conspicuous that you, Prince of the Spires. The girl’s in a port city already.”

“Evey?” Dancer asks.

“Just.” Theodora looks my direction. “Evey’s done her best to make amends for the sins of the past. Even ones that weren’t hers. She’s been very helpful. Dancer, I’ll make the arrangements for travel and cover, if that’s all right with you.”

“It’s all right,” Sevro says quickly, though Theodora waits for Dancer to nod his agreement.

“Thank you,” I say. “I also need you to bring Mickey back to Tinos.”

“Why?” Dancer asks.

“I need him to make me into a weapon again.”

Sevro cackles. “Now we’re talking. Get some man-killing meat on your bones. No more of this anorexic scarecrow shit.”

Dancer shakes his head. “Mickey’s half a thousand clicks away in Varos, working on his little project. He’s needed there. You need calories. Not a Carver. In the state you’re in, it could be dangerous.”

“Reap can handle it. We can get Mickey and his equipment here by Thursday,” Sevro says. “Virany has been consulting with him anyway about your condition. He’ll be tickled Pink to see you.”

Dancer watches Sevro with strained patience. “And the last request?”

I grimace. “I have a feeling you’re not gonna like this one.”