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“Lady Bellona, are you noble enough to watch your Cassius die? Watch as he disappears from the world?” Her lips curl. She whispers to Karnus, to Cagney. “Is that the strength of House Bellona? Do you watch like sheep as the wolf comes amongst the fold?”

I make a grand show of it for the hot-blooded ones in the Bellona fold. Cassius tries to fight. He stumbles as I cut his kneecap, falling into the snow before scrambling desperately to his feet. His blood makes a shadow about his feet. This is how slowly he killed Titus. He’s panicked, glancing at his family, knowing it will be the last time he sees them. They have no Vale. This life is their heaven. Despite everything, it is a sad sight and I pity him.

Cagney, urged on by Lady Bellona, has already taken a step forward, her sharp, pretty face riven with rage. I just need to hurt her strong cousin Cassius a little more. But Imperator Bellona jerks her back with a stern hand. He glares darkly at Augustus, then peers around the assembly.

“No Bellona shall interfere. On my honor.”

Yet his wife does not agree. She aims one more pointed glance at the Sovereign, and the Sovereign raises a hand. “Hold!” she calls. “Hold, Andromedus!”

I’m actually stunned by the interruption.

All look to the Sovereign’s dais. Cassius pants for breath. She can’t be so stupid. Can she? The interruption confirms the rumors for me, for everyone. The Sovereign reveals her favoritism. She’s chosen the Bellona family. They will supplant the Augustuses on Mars. Cassius would have been important to that plan. Now, because of her miscalculation, he’s about to die and her plan is going to be squabbed. Still, I had no idea she’d do as she’s about to do. It is so stupid. So shortsighted. Her pride has made her a fool.

“There has been an addendum to the rules. Since the White was unable to give the customary benediction, the contest will be to death or yielding,” she declares, glancing at Cassius’s mother. “Those are the limits to the duel. So many of our prized children are lost at our schools. No need to waste these two prime men on account of schoolyard pranks.”

“My Sovereign,” Augustus calls, greedy for his bloody prize, “the law is clear. Once a contest is declared, the rules may not be altered by man or woman.”

“You cite laws. That’s a pleasant irony, coming from you, Nero.”

There are snickers from the crowd, which tell me rumors of his involvement with rigging the Institute for the Jackal are very much in fashion.

“My Sovereign, we stand with Augustus in this matter,” booms a voice. Daxo au Telemanus steps forward. Pax’s elder brother, tall as my friend was, but less beastly. More a pine tree than a great boulder of a man. Like his father, Kavax, his head his bald, but engraved with Golden angels. A mischievous sparkle dances in sleepy eyes nestled under great swirling eyebrows.

“Hardly a surprise,” snarls Cassius’s mother.

“Perfidy!” Kavax, Daxo’s father, roars. He alternates stroking his forked red beard and the large pet fox he cradles in his left arm. “This reeks of perfidy and favoritism. My temper is slow. But I find myself offended. Offended!”

“Careful, Kavax,” Octavia says icily, “some things cannot be unsaid.”

“Why else would he say them?” Daxo asks, glancing at the families from the Gas Giants, where he knows he will find allies in this debate. “But I believe he would counsel you now, my Sovereign: even your words cannot change law. Your father discovered this by your own hand, no?”

The Sovereign’s Furies step forward menacingly. For her part, the Sovereign allows herself only the strictest of smiles. “But, young Telemanus, you fail to remember, my word is law.”

This is something you do not do. A Gold may rule other Golds. But declare your rule at your own peril. The Sovereign has been so long on the Morning Throne that she has forgotten this. Her words are not law. They now become a challenge.

One I accept with open arms.

She knows the words a mistake when she meets my eyes and we both realize in that moment there is one move I can make that she cannot counter.

“You will not steal what is mine,” I growl.

I wheel on Cassius. He brings up his blade. He never let me yield in the mud of the Institute. He knows I will not let him yield now. His face goes pale as I charge. He’s thinking about all he’s about to lose. How very precious his life is

. A Gold to the end. Others shout at me to stop, screaming that it is unfair.

This is the definition of fairness.

They would have let me die.

He lunges for my throat. It’s a feint. He whips his razor down to wrap around my leg. He expects me to recoil. I charge straight at him, inside the arch of his swing, jump over his head in the low gravity, then swing my whip backward without looking. My whip coils around his extended right arm. I press the button that makes the razor contract, and with the sound of a frozen tree branch cracking in winter, I claim the sword arm of Cassius au Bellona.

It’s equal parts silence and screams. I do not turn, not for a long moment. When I do, I find Cassius still standing, teetering, not long for this world. No one else moves as Cassius falls. His father looks at the ground, silent.

“I said stop!” the Sovereign shouts. Two Furies jump from the dais, landing with their blades dancing into hand.

“Finish it,” Augustus shouts.

I stalk toward Cassius. He spits at me, lips trembling. Contemptuous even now. I raise my blade. Then a hand settles around my wrist. Not an iron grip. A soft one. Warm against my skin. Delicate.