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I wander away, willing more houses to fill the gala so that I may end this soon. A host of praetors, quaestors, judiciars, governors, senators, family heads, house leaders, traders, two Olympian Knights, and a thousand others come to bid my master a good evening. These older men and women talk of Outrider attacks on Uranus and Ariel, rumored Sons of Ares bases on Triton, and a new strain of plague on one of Earth’s dark continents. Light fare.

Many others take my master aside, as though a hundred eyes did not watch their every move, and with voices like syrup, tell him of whispers in the night, of shifting winds and dangerous tides. The metaphors mix. The point is the same. Augustus has fallen out of favor with the Sovereign the same way I have fallen out of favor with him.

The ships flitting above in the night sky are as distant from the conversation as I. My eyes fall upon the Sovereign herself. How strange a thing, to see the woman just there beyond the dance floor, at the raised podium speaking with other house lords and men who rule the lives of billions. So close, so human and frail.

For her part, Octavia au Lune is more h

andsome than beautiful, face impassive as a mountain’s. Her silence is her power. I see her speak little, but she listens; always, she listens to words as the mountain listens to the whispering and screaming of wind through its gulches, around its peaks.

I see a man standing alone near a tree. He’s near as thick around as its trunk. A hand dwarfs his small goblet, and he wears the mark of a sword with wings, a Praetor with a fleet. I approach him. He sees me coming and smiles.

“Darrow au Andromedus,” Karnus growls.

I snap my fingers at a passing Pink. Taking two of the wine goblets from his ice tray, I pass one to Karnus. “I thought that before you come to kill me, we might as well share a drink.”

“There’s a sport.” He downs his own drink and takes the one I offer him. He eyes me over the glass. “You’re not a poisoner, are you?”

“I’m not so subtle.”

“Equal company then. All these snakes about …,” he says, sly as a crocodile. His dark Gold eyes trace the men and women. The wine is gone in a moment.

“I hate this moon.” He takes a delicacy off a passing tray. “Food’s got too much butter. Not enough salt. Though I hear the sixth course will be something to die for.”

Noting his strange tone, I cross my arms and watch the party. It’s a strange comfort being around this hateful man. Neither one of us has to pretend to like the other. No masks here, at least not as much as usual.

“I hate butter,” I say. “Makes me feel like a pig.”

He chuckles deeply. “Julian liked butter. Ate it by the stick as a boy. He was a vile child, all whimpering and simpering.”

I turn to examine the killer. “Cassius only said pretty things about him.”

“Cassius.” He snorts out something like a laugh. “Cassius once wounded a bird with a slingshot. Came to me crying, because he knew he had to kill it to put it out of its misery, but he couldn’t. I dropped a rock on it for him. Just like you did.” He smirks. “I should thank you for sweeping away the genetic chaff.”

“Julian was your brother, man.”

“He pissed the bed as a boy. Pissed the bed. He was a boy who did not deserve his mother’s favor or his father’s name.” He grabs another glass of wine from a passing Pink. “They try to make it tragedy, but it isn’t. It’s natural law.”

“Julian was more a man than you are, Karnus.”

Karnus laughs in delight. “Oh, do explain that one.”

“In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and I, we’re just passing time before death reaches down for us.”

“Which will be soon for you.” He nods to my razor. “Pity you weren’t raised in our house. We learn the blade before we learn to read. My father had us make our blades, had us name them and sleep beside them. You might have stood a chance then.”

“Wonder what you would have been if he had taught you something else.”

“I am what I am,” Karnus says, taking another drink. “And they sent me after you, me of all the sons and daughters, because I am the best at what I am.”

I watch him for a moment. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet … here you are, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to killing me. Why?”

“Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives.”

“So it’s pride.”