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I turn to Tamara with a reasonable smile and tell her the truth. “I want Minerva off my back so I can come here and beat you, sure.” And then win the stupid game and destroy your civilization, please.

They laugh.

“Well, you’re honest. But not too bright, so it seems. Fitting. Let me tell you something, Reaper. Our Proctor says your House has not won in years. Why? Because you butchers are like a wildfire. In the early stages of the game, you burn everything you touch. You destroy. You consume. You ruin Houses because you can’t sustain yourselves. But then you starve because there is nothing more to burn. The sieges. The winter. The advance in technology. It kills your bloodlust, your famous rage. So tell me, why would I shake hands with a wildfire when I can just sit back an

d watch it run out of things to consume?”

I nod and dangle the bait.

“Fire can be useful.”

“Explain.”

“We may starve while you watch, but will you watch as a slave of some other House? Or will you watch from your strong fortress, your armies twice as large and ready to sweep up the ashes?”

“Not enough.”

“I will personally promise that House Mars will brook no aggression toward House Diana so long as our agreement is not violated. If you help me take Minerva, I will help you take Ceres.”

“House Ceres …,” she says, looking over to her bodyguards.

“Don’t be greedy,” I say. “If you go after Ceres on your own, both Mars and Minerva will set upon you.”

“Yes. Yes.” She waves an annoyed hand. “Ceres is near?”

“Very. And they have bread.” I look at the pelts her men wear. “Which I imagine would be a nice change from all that meat.”

Her weight shifts on her toes and I know I have her. Always negotiate with food. I make a note.

Tamara clears her throat. “So you were saying I could make my army twice as large?”

31

THE FALL OF MUSTANG

I ride dressed for war. All in black. Hair wild and bound by goat-gut. Forearms covered with durosteel vambraces looted in battle. My durosteel cuirass is black and light; it will deflect any edge less than an ionBlade or a razor. My boots are muddy. Streaks of black and red go across my face. SlingBlade on my back. Knives everywhere. Nine red crossbones and ten wolves cover Quietus’s flank. Lea painted them. Each crossbone is an incapacitated opponent, who are often healed by medBots and then thrown back into the fray. Each wolf a slave. Cassius rides at my side. He shimmers. The durosteel he received as a bounty is polished as bright as his glimmering sword and his hair, which bounces like coiled golden springs about his regal head. It’s as though he’s never been stood around and pissed on.

“Well, I do believe I am the lightning,” Cassius declares. “And you, my brooding friend, are the thunder.”

“Then what am I?” Roque asks, kicking his horse up beside us. Mud flies. “The wind?”

“You’re full enough of it,” I snort. “The hot sort.”

The House rides behind us. All of it except Quinn and June, who stay behind as our castle’s garrison. It is a gamble. We ride slowly so that Minerva knows we are coming. What they do not know is that I was there in the night just hours before and that Sevro is there now. Mud still sticks underneath my fingernails.

Minerva’s scouts dart across their rocky hilltops. They make a show of mocking us, but really they count our number to better know our strategy. Yet they seem confused when we ride into their country of high grass and olive trees. So confused that they withdraw their scouts behind their walls. We’ve never come in full force like this. The Howlers, our scouts, ride in full view on their black horses, black cloaks fluttering like crow wings. Our highDraft killers move as the vanguard of the main body—cruel Vixus, craggy Pollux, spiteful Cassandra, many of Titus’s band. The slaves jog about their owners, those who captured them.

I ride forward with Cassius and Antonia flanking me. She carries the standard today. Only a few archers man the walls, so I tell Cassius to make sure we are not ambushed from the flanks in case any of Minerva are about. He gallops away.

Minerva’s fortress is ringed by a hundred meters of barren earth made mud from the torrential rains of the last week. It is the killing field. Step into the ring and the archers will try to kill your horse. If you still do not retreat, they will try to kill you. Nearly twenty horses of both Houses litter the field. Cassius led a bloody assault on a Minervan warband up to the very gates of the castle itself just two days before.

Beyond the killing field is grass. Oceans of grass so high in some places that Sevro could stand tall and still not be seen. We stand at the edge of the mud ring amidst a meadow of autumn wildflowers. The ground squishes underfoot and Quietus whinnies beneath me.

“Pax!” I then shout. “Pax.”

I hurl the name against the walls until their main gate opens ponderously, as ponderously as it once opened that night when Cassius and I snuck inside. Mustang rides out. She trots slowly through the mud and pulls short of us. Her eyes take in everything.

“Is it to be a duel?” she asks with a grin. “Pax of Wise and Noble Minerva versus the Reaper of the Bloody Butcher House?”