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Fitchner’s beady eyes swell with sadness. Born the lowest of the Golds, he rose to the top on merit alone. What a man. To think I ever thought him weak.

Here, at the end of things, I know we will win Mars. Augustus will be freed. The war will continue. Gold will weaken. And Red will rebel. Maybe, just maybe, they will rise and find freedom. I’ve done what Ares asked. I created chaos. The rest will go to other men, women. Eo would be pleased.

I smile softly and feel the weakness in my legs. I am tired. I’m on my knees. When did I get there again? I care not. How very nice it will be to rest in the Vale while others carry out Eo’s dream. I just wish I’d seen Mustang before the end. Told her what I am, so at last she’d understand.

“Your boy burned bright. And fast,” Aja says to Fitchner from the shadows of my vision. “Keep the head. But you can cast the body to the soil in the Martian way.”

Aja reopens the drop ramp. Metal groans. I feel the wind of the Vale on my face. Feel the chill of mist. The scent of rain. I’m going to sleep. Soon I’ll wake beside Eo. I’ll wake in our warm bed, my hand tangled in her hair. I’ll wake to love and know that in the world before, I did my best.

I’ll miss you though, Mustang. More than I’ve admitted until now.

Fog and shadows are my vision. For a moment, the smell of rust makes me think I’m in the mine. Am I asleep? I hear metal boots. A man walking through the fog. I can’t see his face. But something stirs in me. Father? No, not Father. I squint.

“Uncle Narol.”

“No. It’s Fitchner, boyo.”

His voice jerks me violently back into the hold of the ship. Like a fishing hook tearing silk a direction it doesn’t wish to go.

“Oh. I’m glad it’s you,” I say quietly, finding enough strength to lift my heavy head a bit more to look him in his eyes. Tears fill them. He coughs out a laugh. The wind whistles behind me. Not the Vale. Just Mars. Not mist. Just the clouds. The ramp’s down so they can push my body out. I told Arcos I was never meant to have gray hair.

My head dips. I spit out some blood in my mouth. I’m nauseous and fading. “Tell Mustang … Eo … I love them.” I yawn so deeply.

“You bloodydamn fool,” he says in a low whisper, shaking his head. “I had it under control.”

“I didn’t …” I blink through the fog. “What?”

“It is me,” he says. “It’s always been me, boyo.”

The fog disappears. I look up at him. I look up at Ares as he dons his Rage Knight helmet and shoots his pulseFist back at the Praetorians, sending them scattering. He tosses back a sonic grenade.

“Fitchner!” the Sovereign roars. “TRAITOR!”

An explosion. Something hits my chest and I’m falling. Tumbling. Flying? Sense cold. Ragged wind biting me. Stomach in my throat. Spinning. Then a rigid arm under mine. Rising. Wind whips past my ears. But there’s another sound before the darkness swallows me. Fitchner—Ares—terrorist lord of the underworld, howls like a wolf as he carries me to safe harbor.

43

The Sea

I wake to the smells of the sea. Brine, seaweed, carried on a brisk autumn wind. Gulls cry. One banks and perches on the whitestone sill of the open window. It cocks its head at me and flies away into the morning sunshine. Clouds move distantly across the horizon, promising rain even as early morning dew drips down the open skylight.

She stirs at my side. Her slender body atop the sheets, coiled around my own damaged form. She’s clothed. I’m shirtless. Fresh skingrafts mark my body. Glossy things, pink and tender to the touch. Mustang stirs once more, her movement bringing me into my own body. Making me feel the aches and the pains and the comfort of her closeness. I let my eyelids drift shut and I sigh deeply, allowing myself to sink into the soft pleasures of being human. Her breath against my neck. The drumbeat of another heart against my rib cage. Her golden hair tickles my nose as cool wind blows strands into my face. The morning air is young, vital.

I breathe it deep, slipping back into sleep.

Memories of metal shatter the peace.

Screams echo in the black. Friends die.

My eyes burst open for the light, desperate to remind me where I am. Telling me I’m safe. I’m warm. There’s no metal here. Only cotton sheets. A bed. A warm girl. Yet the memories are so close. How did I survive?

I fell from the sky with Fitchner.

Ares—a truth that’s always been, but seems so new I cannot even grasp it. I woke to a Yellow’s tools inside my chest, restarting my heart. Then I woke again to a Carver’s scalpel against my skin. Agony and nausea my bedmates. Tides of vision ebbing in, flowing out. Visitors coming and going. I prefer waking to this.

I’m afraid to close my eyes again. Afraid of what I’ll see, what I’ll wake to find. As a Red child, I shared my small cot with Kieran. Every morning, I’d wake before him and lie there quietly, letting my parents’ hushed voices seep under the flimsy door as they started their day. I’d hear Father’s shuffling feet. The throat-clearing sound he’d make every morning as he washed sleep from his face. Mother would make him coffee, grinding the cubes she’d trade to the Grays for pitviper eggs or spools of silk stolen from the Webbery.

I wish it was the sound that woke me at the same time every morning. The grinding, the smell. I wish I could say it was how my body knew to return from sleep. But it wasn’t the smell of coffee or Mother’s tea. It wasn’t the morning sigh of water running through pipes or the arthritic creak of rope ladders as the men and women from Lykos Township’s nightshift made their way home from the mines and Webbery. It wasn’t the weary murmur of those of the dayshift making their way to work from home.