Page 23 (1/2)

“?’Course you do”

I turn to her About to tell her to go with Harnassus, when I see she understands what I mean…what exactly I h me

“Where is it?” she asks “Just in case…”

In case I lie dead on the battlefield, she means

When I asked Glirastes to build the sync hardware for the Storm Gods, I had hi it couldn’t decide the fate of the planet without me I pull the master switch from my coat and brandish it at Rhonna

“And in armor?” she asks

“Second thigh box Right leg”

And like that, she ensures her place at my side I’m sorry, brother

I send a e to the Howlers: “Alexandar, tell Thraxa to reconnoiter Angelia Do not engage the Fear Knight I’m on my way”

“LYSANDER AU LUNE HOW vital you look, for a ghost” Atalantia lifts me from my knees to embrace me in her meditation chamber “Look, Hypatia, our old friend,” she croons The tamed black vasta serpent that coils about Atalantia’s throat like a necklace eyes ive dear Lysander a kiss”

I’d forgotten how terrifying it is to feel the cold scales of Venus’s ainst your lips As I pull back from the kiss, I watch the snake’s chameleon scales wash pale to match my skin tone, and then darken as it coils back around Atalantia’s neck “She remembers you!” Atalantia croons

Her meditation chamber is more pleasant than her jewelry Unlike Grandarden with soetation I have ever seen Under a dome of stars, helix trees with violet leaves wend like DNA strands Birds sing And even a s in the trees Were it not for Mercury turning outside the viewport, I would not knoas on a battleship

My favorite touch is the carnivorous orchids perched upon babbling cupid fountains Their tongues reach for me as I look at Atalantia

Like Ajax, Atalantia has changed in est Gri She looks not a day over twenty-five except in the eyes But where once reclined the whimsical heartbreaker of the Palatine now stands a soldier

Gone are the gowns and the jewels and the hair swaying in braids down past her lower back Gone are the diane flutes and the halls filled with owns have been replaced by a draolden spikes and a death’s-head on each shoulder, and the paraeneration, the ice-eyed veterans of her own, and the reends of the one before