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I lost my son.

For this rotted slaver.

“Burn him.”

“No!” The Ash Lord tries to rise from his bed. “Stop!”

“Ashes to ashes…” Apollonius turns the canister so it points at the Ash Lord. “Dust to dust.” He depresses the canister’s release button. Antibacterial residue hisses out onto the Ash Lord, coating him in chemical sheen. Then Apollonius tosses the candle onto the bed. Blue fire explodes as the candle flame catches the alcohol.

The Ash Lord screams. Fire races over the dry husk of his skin. He flails against the inferno like a thrashing mantis, his skin contracting and boiling and swelling and blackening as the air of the room fills with acrid smoke. The plastic tubes connected to his gut and arms snap taut and jerk the medical machines toward the bed.

Apollonius stands back from the horror in delighted satisfaction. The inferno dances in his eyes, and casts maniacal shadows over his high cheekbones. Beside Sevro, I feel no satisfaction, only a gaping loneliness. All the friends and family tattered and torn by my war, my choices.

Anguish saws at me inside with crueler teeth than these flames.

And as the Ash Lord breathes his last, I turn from

the murder, as lost as I was when I walked the scaffold seventeen years ago and felt the rope around my neck. All I wanted to be then was a father. And now my son is lost.

THE IDLE CHATTER THAT FILLS the Hall of Justice in the Ionian Golds’ capital city of Sungrave evaporates when Romulus au Raa enters the room. He comes in dignified silence, clad in a gray kimono of rough-spun wool. Flanking him are his loyal kin: misshapen Marius, ancient Pandora, a host of die-hard Praetors and white-haired veterans. What is missing and notably absent is the younger generation. Those of my age or thereabouts. The brilliant students of the post-Rising generation all cluster worshipfully around Seraphina, her Dustwalkers, and several other notable captains of Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and a contingent from Saturn’s and Uranus’s moons up in the stone stadium seats.

The Hall of Justice itself is a dark treasure. All its surfaces are faced in a shiny black stone. The nave is triangular, the south, north, and west aisles steeped stadium rows. The towering ceiling narrows until it makes a pyramid, the peak of which is iron. In the winnowing east chancel, twelve Olympic Knights sit cross-legged in a bowed line on an elevated white marble podium looking out at the nave. Each wears a long cape in harmony with their title. Diomedes’s is storm gray. Helios’s is brilliant white. Behind them, a marble, gold-tipped pyramid floats. The old Justice sits to the right of the pyramid in her living chair of elm. The young Chance from the duel sits to the left in her chair of bone; one remembers, one promises.

After a welcoming benediction and customary rights, Romulus and his men take their seats in the center of the nave on thin cushions. His has been set apart at the peak of the forty others. Helios au Lux, Arab Knight of the Olympics, stares out from the shadow of his cape like an imperious falcon, long-necked, bald but for a long white mustache, the ends of which are held together by two iron clasps. Diomedes sits at his right hand. A toadish woman with huge eyes sits to his left wearing the badge of the Rage Knight.

“Romulus,” Helios begins, his voice a hammer and lacking the nuance for duplicity. “Sovereign of the Rim Dominon, Dominatus of House Raa, you have been brought before the Olympic Council for an impartial hearing on charges brought against you by your accuser, Dido au Raa.”

Alone, Dido sits beneath the council, cloaked all in black. To accuse before the council is a perilous endeavor. If Dido’s charges are deemed false, she will suffer the fate that would have befallen the man were he convicted. Draconic.

“Accuser, present your charges.”

Dido stands without flourish. “First charge: gross negligence during wartime.” The Olympics wait for her to continue the list, but she sits down.

Whispers are exchanged in the crowd. She brings no charge of treason, just as she said she would not. She played everyone like a zither. Once her husband is forced to step down or accept co-rule, she will solidify her position. I overhear the two men next to me voicing a different opinion.

“Base cowardice on her, not bringing treason charges,” one says.

“Nepotism there. He knew. He had to know.”

The room quiets as Helios confirms. “You seek no charge of treason?”

“I do not.” She says nothing more and watches her husband evenly.

“Very well, the accuser may present her evidence or witnesses for the charge of gross negligence during wartime.”

“This first evidence you may have heard by now.” She throws the holo up into the air and plays Seraphina’s evidence of the Reaper’s deception to predictable silent response. Romulus sits implacable on the ground, watching the docks die in the air above him and bathe him in the brilliant light.

The next item of evidence is Romulus’s own communication with Darrow, taken from the sealed communications records of the Battle of Ilium. Romulus’s helmet cam feed appears in the air. He’s in a hallway filled with smoke. Dying men writhe on the ground around him as he stands, armor spattered in blood, surrounded by mechanized Golds and Obsidians in the middle of a firefight. His two sons Diomedes and Aeneas provide cover for him as he makes a desperate call to Darrow. His face is frantic with fear.

“Darrow, listen carefully. The Colossus has altered trajectory and is headed for Ganymede….”

“He’s going for the docks. Can any ships intercept?” the Reaper asks.

“No. They’re out of position. If Octavia can’t win, she’ll ruin us. Those docks are my people’s future. You must take that bridge at all costs….”

“I’ll do my best,” are the last words of the Reaper.

“Thank you, Darrow. And good luck. First Cohort, on me!” The connection to Darrow cuts out and we see from Romulus’s headcam as he and his sons charge down the hallway. A blinding flash of light goes off. The hull to the right ruptures open, and Aeneas, Romulus’s eldest, is speared through the side of his head by a fragment of metal and then sucked out to space. The clip ends.