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“Golds wanting us to do their dirty work. Typical,” Pytha mutters. “I don’t want to die for them, Lysander.”

“This might be the only way we don’t die today,” I say with a smile. But inside, behind the dancing mask, my logic is cold and clinical.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about this!”

“Dido is preparing for war, Pytha. We’re afterthoughts to her. She’ll delete us or use us…use me as a bargaining chip somehow. I won’t have that. Not at all.” I turn to Gaia. “Would Diomedes help?”

“No. The vain boy is a slave to his honor. He’s bound by his oath to the Olympic Knights, and they’ve accepted Dido’s coup. Romulus’s trial begins tomorrow. Diomedes will deliver him to that trial for justice to be served there.”

“His own father?” Pytha asks.

“It is our way.”

“You have a plan, I assume?” I ask Gaia.

“So you’ll do it?” she says slyly.

“I did not say that. What is your plan?”

“My daughter, Vela, waits in the desert with legions loyal to Romulus. They will begin an assault on Sungrave to capture Dido. But she cannot attack if he is a hostage. I need you to go to the Dust Cells. Free him. I’ve arranged for hoverbikes in a garage. You will need them to cross the Waste and reach Vela.

“It’s not just about my son,” she says, baring all her cards. “I was friends with your grandfather, Lorn. He was a stuck-up old goat, but so am I.” She could be lying. “He came to Europa because he tired of the ambition of the young and the pride of the old. I tire of empire, just like Old Stoneside did. War eats families. I told my husband that when he went to Augustus’s war and raced to fall in the Lion’s Rain. He did not listen. My son did. All he’s done, all he’s hidden, has been for the good of the Rim.”

“Did Romulus know Darrow destroyed the docks?” I ask.

“No. I suspected, and I counseled my son not to seek war with him.”

“Logical, at the time, considering your losses. But dishonorable.”

“Stupid boy. Do you know how many proud humans I’ve seen die for honor? Melted onto the floors of landing craft? Crying on the battlefield for their mothers as they try to push their guts back into their bodies? Honor.” She sips her tea. “Romulus knows the cost. A leader may not always be logical and honorable. At times, he must choose. I’m surprised, of all people, your grandmother did not teach you that. Or are you trying to be Lorn?”

I say nothing. She makes a small noise of amusement.

“My son, for all his power, is a humble man. He listened to me. Because of him, our civilization survived the destruction of the docks, and the starvation and economic collapse that followed. We built new ships out of the ruins of the very docks that fell on Ganymede. Now we have peace. I want to die knowing that it will last and that the Venusian strumpet won’t pull us into her planet’s endless war.”

Gaia does this to protect her family and the Rim. She could care less about the Interior and their people. Seraphina suddenly seems so very noble compared with her grandmother. The young girl’s eyes were incandescent when she spoke of bringing peace to the Core.

There’s only one answer I can give Gaia that will let me walk out of here.

“I will do it,” I say carefully. “I will free your son. Pytha, you can stay here….”

“Last time I did that, you slagged things up good and I got thrown in a cell,” she says. She pushes away her tea. “I come with.”

I eye her frail arms.

“Then you must hurry.” Gaia stands with Goroth’s help. “Dido is in council with her Praetors now. But soon she’ll learn I brought you both here.”

We follow her back into the main room. “I’ll need something. A letter. A recording so Romulus knows you sent me,” I say.

“You’ll have a guide,” she says. “He knows Goroth.”

“Then why not just send him?”

“Goroth is not what he once was.” She looks at the Obsidian with grave affection. “And he does not know how to pilot the hoverbikes. I assume you do.”

I nod. Appraising Goroth, I look back at Gaia. “I’ll need a weapon.”

“Yes…Aruka, my hasta.” Aruka rushes to the tokonoma an