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I replay the conversation between Atalantia and h command Screwface straddles the balcony outside, his desert shades hiding his eyes No aides line the warroootten at a side table The Day of Red Doves has streamed on every screen in Heliopolis that has power It is the only signal froe They mock us froe dissolves, leaving darkness on the faces of ht Thraxa stares at a fly hovering over a vine by theShe has not spoken since she learned Daxo has died The news has rattled her in a way nothing else ever has What of her mother, her father, her sisters?

“Until now…” My voice betrays y was based upon the belief that the Republic was on its way I do not believe it…practical to continue in this assuent of Atalantia’s Or that the events that took place in the Senate were the product of her designs The Vox Populi are co the authority of any ele Atalantia will likely bea Senate de surrender

“We have been given an offer with a twenty-four-hour clock An offer that we have no reason to believe our ene what I a a coward nonetheless “I do not believe that I can chart an unbiased course given the situation” I wave a hand as Thraxa and several others rise froet this out” Colloway and Harnassus remain absolutely still Of the two, I can’t tell which looks worse, though the ripper pilot is certainly drunk I hear Screwface had to pull hiet hiiven our situation, I do not believe it should be despotism” I try to look around the table, but find it difficult to ht them here I sowed the seeds of my wife’s end, and the end of our Republic I may not have done it alone, but it hardlyas I have It is your family as much as it is mine You will decide its fate I will accept any decision you make The only plea I offer is that you decide based on what is best for our men, and then the Republic”

With that, I leave Thraxa, Harnassus, Colloway, Screwface, and the rest of the high coh warroo the lower balconies where night mist beads on the stone walls The waves crash all around the roots of the building Both were ive our species a new home to live and to love But in time, I don’t knohen, their creation became a vanity of will, and in the shadow

of that vanity,the keys of creation, because he od, and cared less for his people, and more that his works endured

Have I done the same?

With a great sucking sound, the black water pulls back to reveal the work it has done to the roots of the stone after all these years And then the waves crash back A cavernous solitude makes a home in my chest, where once there was only purpose that made far too little room for my boy and my wife

I return to e I wrap its chain around

“ARE YOU AWAKE OR ASLEEP, Lysander?”

I’m not in the desert

I am at Lake Silene

Snow clings to the evergreens It s tremble as I haul myself up the stairs that wind up the cliff from the lake to the house I drop a stone the size ofIt is the winter after my parents died

I look up to see the severe face of randmother

I am terrified of her, but desperate for her approval Even now, knohat she did, the boy in the memory cannot hate her He is too afraid to hate

I thought the ould be just for Aja and et her to myself Atalantia had taken Ajax to Echo City to watch the water races I thought Aja and I would take the horses north, but Grandmother has come back from Hyperion to continue my lessons