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The broadcast transmission reaches The Archimedes in deep space. I am sweating from exertion in the training room when Aurae’s voice floats over the comm system.
“Delayed-transmission from Luna. Possibly Republic-code.”
I am in the cockpit before the sweat has had time to evaporate.
“Virginia?” I breathe, my stench drawing a cringe from Cassius and Lyria. Any other time and I might laugh at how similar their expressions are, but I am sick with apprehension. There’s no good reason why my wife would be trying to contact us again after giving clear orders, or why the transmission would be routed through Luna.
“Unclear,” Aurae says, a slight frown creasing her brow as she fiddles with the Archi’s commCenter to try and catch the transmission from such a distance. It must be pinging off a dozen comm towers to reach all the way out here. “It’s not being beamed directly to us; it’s a scope broadcast.”
“Like the one Apollonius sent out?” Cassius asks, crossing his arms as Aurae works.
“Similar, but that was a wide net cast for whoever was within range. This is a message intended for a specific type of person that would have sophisticated enough equipment.” She glances just slightly left as Sevro slinks into the room, like a shadow clinging to the corners. I haven’t seen him in at least two day-cycles. He looks like shit as he leans against the cockpit pod doors.
On the main comm screen, a garbled image appears.
“Can you refine—” Cassius stops when Aurae gives him a look. He grins sheepishly and Lyria smirks, as Aurae works to refine the grainy image. The sight, when it becomes clear, make my skin crawl.
I recognize the blurred face of the Syndicate Queen, despite the static that conceals her features. And now that I know it is Lilath au Faran, I recognize the flat, ghoulish affect to her voice as it speaks through the emptiness of space.
A message from the Syndicate to all those who seek to oppose us, domestic and abroad, Lilath drawls. I glance at Sevro. He is utterly still. You believe your strength protects you from us. That with your ships, with your legions, with your name, you can subdue those of us who thrive in the shadows.
“Who is this message for?” Cassius ponders. “Virginia? Us?”
I shake my head.
“Luna’s blockaded by Atalantia,” Lyria offers. “I can’t imagine that’s good for Syndicate business. Maybe it’s a message for her.”
“From The Abomination? They were allies.”
Lyria shrugs. “Do you starve your allies to death?”
I glance Sevro’s way at the mention of the Jackal’s clone, but his eyes are glued to the screen.
“Track the signal,” I remind, and Aurae nods.
Behold, the bounties of your supposed strength, The Syndicate Queen mocks. This is what we of the Underworld make of those who fancy themselves hunters. We are the hunters here. And you are the prey. Luna belongs to the shadows.
I say nothing, frowning at the vague messaging, before the blurred face is replaced by a grainy video of a gray cell. I immediately recognize the cell as one of those beneath the Citadel of Light where Virginia reigned as Sovereign the last ten years. I put more than a few enemies of the Republic in those cells. I glance at Sevro to see if he recognizes the place as well, but when I do, I find him standing bolt upright, his face sheet-white and his red gaze locked onto the image that now plays across the commScreen.
A tall man in black swaggering into the room, dragging a bedraggled prisoner by the hair. The man is a bonerider—his black accented by bleached remains of those he conquered—and the prisoner is bloody and ragged. It isn’t until the Bonerider throws him to the floor that I recognize him.
It’s Sevro.
Cassius recognizes him at the same time I do, and looks sharply my way. Sevro hasn’t moved.
“Gonna scream for me like your little wolves?” The Bonerider jeers, grabbing Sevro by the torn collar of his shirt and slamming him against the wall. Sevro’s wrists are shackled together and his legs are chained. His foot hangs at an odd angle and his face is a mottle of bruising. There’s nowhere he hasn’t been beaten, but as soon as the Bonerider’s forearm passes close enough, he tries to bite it, and receives a devastating punch to the face for it, sending him sprawling with a groan.
“You know the rules,” A female Bonerider drawls, sauntering in behind her companion. “Little Master said no games.”
The male stands over Sevro as he tries to push himself back up on quaking arms.
“Little Master’s balls haven’t even dropped,” the Bonerider sneers, “He wouldn’t even know how to play my games.” He slams a boot onto Sevro’s back and forces him back to the concrete, easily overpowering his feeble struggles.
Lyria winces at the abuse, and Cassius’ eyes are flicking between Sevro and the screen, no doubt waiting for a razor to go through the equipment in a fit of rage. But Sevro just stares, like this is a HC program playing out before him, and not a memory.
When the Bonerider grabs Sevro by the ankle and drags him back, I expect a fight. I expect my friend to flip over and knock the Bonerider off balance, to take him to the floor where it’s a fair match and slip a hidden knife between his ribs. But this is not the Sevro who fell in the Lion’s Rain at my side and fought the Rat War with me. This is not even the Sevro who stands beside me now, resentful and hardened. This is the Sevro that I saw suspended above a Syndicate auction-floor, utterly broken. This is his breaking.
“Finius,” the female Bonerider chides without conviction as her companion pulls a half-length stunPike and jabs it into Sevro’s ribs.
I hear the ragged cry through the video as Sevro seizes, and it’s a fist clenching around my heart. This is what he endured, while I fought through Mercury. This is what Virginia left him to endure, why he couldn’t meet her eye when we spoke over Mars. I turn to say something, to offer some comfort or apology, but all I see is Sevro’s back, as he leaves the room as quietly as he came.
Lyria watches him go, gnawing on her lip.
The noise of the video draws me back, and I square myself to endure it. I only have to watch; Sevro had to live it.
I watch him rally some strength to ram an elbow back into the Bonerider’s nose, but his futile rebellion is quickly met with a hard blow to the head, which makes him go limp and ragged for a few terrible moments. The Bonerider curses and sneers as he pulls Sevro up by his hair.
“You dirty little gremlin,” he hisses, breath hot by Sevro’s ear. “I’ve been waiting to give you your due since the Institute, rusty mutt.” The man’s hands paw at Sevro’s sweat-stained clothes, eliciting a struggle from the smaller man as he tries to twist away. He’s quickly shoved to the floor again, the air knocked from him as the other man laughs. “Lilath took your eye then; as a warning, she said, lotta good that did us. I said she shoulda taken your prick. Teach you a real lesson.” He chuckles, low and ragged as his palm shoves Sevro’s face into the stone.
“And then what did you go and do?” the Bonerider ponders. “Rutted yourself with one of our women, and tainted the blood of Gold with your little mutt children.”
Sevro wheezes and struggles, bound hands trapped beneath him.
I dig my nails into my palm and swallow down bile.
“Don’t damage him permanently, Finius,” the female Bonerider sighs, bored. The man just grins.
“Nah, nah.” He pins Sevro’s scrambling legs down with a crushing boot. “Just teaching a lesson that ought’ve been learned a long time ago. Lesson in humility for dirty-blooded rusters. Ain’t that right Little Goblin? Say, ‘Yes, Dominus’.”
Sevro utters some foul curse, before the man pulls his head back and slams it into the stone.
“Say it! ‘Yes, Dominus’,” the Bonerider demands. Sevro is spitting up blood, his body still shivering with the aftershocks of the stunPike, but he doesn’t speak.
My vision is blurring and I feel sick.
“When I’m done with you,” the Bonerider drawls into Sevro’s ear, pulling a knife from his belt. “I’m gonna go find your bitch, and I’m gonna ride her ragged; teach her how to scream for a real Gold.”
Sevro struggles and splutters beneath the man’s weight, but he was defeated before he ever entered this room. His body is at the end of its strength, and he cannot fight what is coming.
I watch until the Bonerider cuts Sevro’s clothes away with the knife. Until Sevro’s stubborn silence breaks to pained, animal cries. Then, like a coward, I turn away. Because I’m not strong enough to watch what my friend lived. The last thing I hear before the cockpit door closes is my own name, the anguished shout of the brother I swore to protect, screamed in desperation even though he knows that no savior is coming:
“Darrow! Darrow, help me!”
***
I allow myself sixty seconds to fall apart.
I stand just inside the doorway to the mess, a trembling palm clutched against my sternum as I fight to breathe. I shake beneath the weight of it all, beneath the pain, and the memories of my own torment that seem to reach through the veils of time to strangle me in this moment. But I cannot be strangled. My brother needs me.
I look for him first in the machine shop, pushing through the door even though no music blares from behind it. When Sevro isn’t hiding away in any of the corners of the room, I hurry to the other end of the ship, to the escape pod where he sleeps. But that, too, is empty. his nest undisturbed.
I gulp down recycled air and run a hand through my hair, searching the ship cameras on my dataPad. If he truly doesn’t want to be found, he’ll hide out in a blindspot, but I’ll scour the whole ship to get to him. I’ve flipped through thirty cameras when I spot it, and my heart plunges.
I run.
The airlock is all the way on the other side of the ship but I get there in fifteen seconds, bursting through the outer containment door and forcing myself to slow.
Sevro sits in the airlock between the panes of duroGlass, cross-legged, the release mechanism resting on his ankles. The doorlight is orange; he hasn’t started the release-sequence, and his hands are limp. I take a few seconds to squeeze my eyes shut and calm my panic. Then I put the override code into the keypad and let the duroGlass slide open with a hiss. It’s freezing in the airlock, one thick pane of glass away from the nothingness of space, and Sevro sits in the middle, hunched, eyes focused on nothing.
“Sevro?” I rasp as the duroGlass slides shut behind me. A safety measure. It can’t stay open for more than twenty seconds. If Sevro starts the release-sequence and doesn’t abort it, we’ll both be sucked into the vacuum. “Sevro.”
He doesn’t move. I’m afraid he’s taken something; is he on zoladone? Is he trying to dull his feelings before he hurts himself? I quiet my racing heart and take deliberate, loud steps towards him, signalling my presence before I fold my limbs to sit beside him.
Sevro’s profile is a jagged one. He’s always been more like a wind-blown cliff-face than a finely-chiseled statue. But these days he’s thin. By Jove, he’s thin. Even after weeks of the Archi’s food supply. He doesn’t work out with me and Cassius, and he doesn’t join Aurae in her strange stretching maneuvers every morning, so whatever food he’s eating ought to be pudging him up a bit. He could use it. But there’s no pudge to him at all, no meat to his bones. He’s wasting away, somehow worse than when we were headed to Mars. He was ravenous after escaping Apollonius; has he been eating recently? Have I noticed?
I set that worry aside, and focus on the man now, as he is. What he needs from me. I take a long breath and watch the stars that fill the void beyond us, letting the wind pass through me so that I can be what my brother needs.
“It was an Obsidian, for me,” I murmur. The hum of the engines fills the quiet. “Maybe the second month Adrius had me, I dunno. I hadn’t broken yet.” I pick at a new callous forming on my palm. “I guess he didn’t have the appetites to do it himself. Or maybe he just wanted me to be reminded of Ragnar.” I wonder if the Bonerider really was going against The Abomination’s orders, or if Adrius’ clone has the same capacity for evil as his predecessor. After what he did to the Howlers, I’d believe it. “I’m telling you this so when I say I understand, you’ll know I mean it.”
Sevro is silent beside me, still staring at nothing, still cradling the airlock release mechanism.
“You feel weak. You feel ashamed. You feel like if you were braver or smarter or stronger this wouldn’t have happened to you. That it wouldn’t have happened to a real man. That you’re dirty. That no one will ever want to touch you again.” I speak all the lies that I’ve worked so hard to dig out of my own broken soul, all the pain that Virginia has helped me walk through, the fears that I’ve whispered to her in the dark. “But it’s all a lie,” I say firmly. A truth I’ve fought a long time to realize. “What happened to you was not your fault, and it doesn’t make you weak or disgusting or broken.” I look at Sevro’s gaunt profile, the dullness in his eyes. I should’ve seen it. Should’ve asked. Should’ve tried harder to get him to open up instead of letting him sink into himself. To be violated in such a way is horror enough, but now to have his torment broadcast across the solar system for anyone to witness? To jeer at? It’s sickening.
“Sevro, I know it’s hard to hear right now, but trust me when I say, that the people who matter, the people you love… they will not think any less of you after seeing that. They will love you all the same, as I do.” I risk a hand on his shoulder and he doesn’t flinch away. “I am so sorry for what you had to go through alone.” Amidst the horror of this new era of darkness, no one has taken the time to apologize to Sevro for his own quiet hurts. There is too much war to be fought, too many plans needed, to hold sacred the pain that each of us bears alone. I wish I could help him bear this pain, but I know from experience it is a weight that will fit on only one set of shoulders.
“You are my brother,” I declare, holding tight to him so he doesn’t drift away. “And you’re not alone.”
For a long time Sevro says nothing, and I worry that he isn’t quite Here, that perhaps he can’t hear me. But then his chest expands in a lethargic breath, like a statue trying to come to life.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Darrow,” he says distantly, eyes still on the space-port before us.
“Do what?”
He just gestures to the air around us
“I want to go home.” Hot fear runs through my chest when I realize he’s not talking about Mars. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” He drags a haggard gaze to me. “Does that make me selfish?”
I take my time in answering, take my time to calm my worry, and to glance at my dataPad, where Cassius has messaged me:
We’re here.
“I understand,” I say finally. “I know it seems hopeless. Feels… like there’s no point sometimes. But I promise it’ll get better.”
He doesn’t even laugh at me for making foolish promises. That’s how I know I’m in danger.
“After Mercury I was lost,” I say. “I felt like a failure. Like no matter which way I turned or how hard I fought I was letting someone down. My Republic, my wife, my son—” Sevro shudders. “...my friends.” I examine my hands. “Before Cassius rescued me I considered ending it. Thraxa wanted to. I might have, rather than let them use me as a weapon. But Sevro…” I shake my head. “I knew I had so much to keep living for. And can you imagine if I had given up then? If I had chosen to end it, just before rescue was coming?” I try to imbue all the hope and peace I’ve been learning the past few months through The Path to the Vale, try to help Sevro feel even an ounce of it. “I know this isn’t where you wanted to be, but you chose to come with us after Quicksilver, and I have to believe that was for a reason. You were brave enough to choose hope. To choose to keep fighting. You were brave enough then, and you’re brave enough n—”
“That broadcast,” Sevro interrupts, his voice dull and flat. “It was a wide-band from Luna?”
“With encrypted frequencies, yes,” I answer carefully.
His eyelids flutter, staring at the airlock mechanism in his palms.
“She’s gonna see it.”
I take a deep breath. “Victra will not think an—”
“—Elektra,” he croaks, and I wince, realizing. “I taught her to hack wide-band encryptions when she was seven. She’s gonna see it, oh my god my kids.”
Sevro is shuddering, his breaths ragged as he starts to rock back and forth. The airlock mechanism is clutched against his chest.
I shake my head. “It’s… Victra will catch it first, she’ll take the kids’ dataPads away and scrub—”
“I’m one of the most famous people in the Solar System, Darrow, it’s gonna be copied onto the holoNet in a matter of hours; she is going to see it.” His voice is a scrape of pain, each word a gasp. I don’t have a response for this. It’s a particular horror that I have not yet encountered and have no weapon against.
“Sev—”
“I can’t do this.” Sevro springs to his feet. “I don’t want to be here.” He paces to the wall, still gripping the airlock mechanism.
“Sevro,” I rise with him, “I know it feels like this is the end of the world, but Victra and Virginia will make sure—”
“I c—I can’t…” His face contorts, knuckles white with his grip on the mechanism. “They’re going to see—I can’t—I c—I can’t be here, I don’t want to be here—
I click a single button on my dataPad.
“—I don’t want to be here I want to go home,” Sevro pleads, rocking himself as I approach with outstretched palms.
“Sevro, please give me the airlock trigger,” I murmur, aware of Cassius and Aurae slipping into the room on the other side of the duroGlass. I’m losing this battle and I need backup.
“Please let me go home,” Sevro croaks, wild eyes welling with tears. His back is to the airlock wall and his hands are shaking.
“Just give me the trigger and we can talk,” I assure.
“I just want to see my son,” he sobs, “Please just let me see my son, please I don’t want to be here—”
Cassius presses the cabin release button and the inner duroGlass slides open, turning the light red and nulling the airlock switch. At the hiss and the sudden movement, Sevro lets out a groan and backs into the far corner.
“Please let me go!” He begs, shaking the now-useless trigger, “I just want to be with my baby, Darrow, please!” The last word is a scream as he hits himself in the forehead with the airlock-trigger. “Please!” He lands another blow before I grab it from him and force his arm down, but now he’s completely lost himself, thrashing in my grip and clawing at the duroGlass—the only thing that stands between him and The Void.
“Let me go! Let me be with him, please!”
I wrestle Sevro back despite a heart that’s imploding with pain. I pin his arms down so he can’t harm himself further and feel hot tears on my own cheeks. Cassius reaches us and manages to get Sevro’s legs under control as his screams become incomprehensible. He bucks and thrashes and begs for death even as I pull him back from the Void. I can’t lose him. Not now. Not like this.
“Get me some bloodydamn zoladone!” I shout, just dodging an elbow to the face when Sevro manages to get his arm lose. Aurae is already there with an inhaling dispenser, shoving it up Sevro’s nostril and compressing the plunger even as he fights it. Sevro wheezes, twitching as the drugs hit his cerebellum. He clumsily tries to push me away, a grunt as his eyes go hazy.
“Just let me… just…” And then his head falls back onto my shoulder, and he’s limp.
“I gave him a Gold dose, I’m not sure if it’ll be too much,” Aurae frets as Cassius and I catch our breath.
“Prep-bench,” Cassius jerks his chin to the chamber outside the airlock, where spacewalking gear is laid out before a long bench. We carry Sevro there and lay him flat, and Lyria hits the airlock button to close the duroGlass.
For a moment we all stand there, panting, trembling. I want to crumble. I want to fall apart seeing my brother so broken. Cassius grips my shoulder. I’m staring at Sevro’s pale face, at the emptiness there, and I know I’ve failed him. I’ve failed my most faithful friend. I’m helpless when it really counts. With the people who really need me. I grip Pax’s key under my shirt and shudder a damp breath.
“Wh—what did… what was he talking about?” I grimace. “His baby, what…?”
I look to Cassius, expecting to see the same confusion I feel in my own racing heart, but instead I see grim, sorrowful understanding.
“What was…” I follow Cassius’ glance behind us, to Lyria. She’s crying too, staring at Sevro on the bench. “What did he mean?” I croak, and Lyria meets my gaze with Red eyes.
“I…” she looks down, through a sob. She has to swallow twice before speaking. “I was there. On Mars. After the Ascomanni, Victra…” Her eyes close for a moment. “Victra had the baby. A boy. Named Ulysses. They picked it out together.” She gestures to Sevro’s limp form, and I look between them, horror burrowing into my chest. She shakes her head.
“I—I thought he knew. I thought someone would have told him before—”
“Knew what, Lyria?” I snap, barely containing the sea of grief that is welling inside me. Her look is so pitying, so full of regret, it almost makes me not want to hear the answer.
“The Red Hand found us. They took Victra captive. And nailed the baby to a tree. He didn’t live past a day.”
Aurae holds her heart. Cassius looks at his feet. I am unable to move for almost a full minute, as the cooling system kicks on and the airlock re-sets with a ding. Ulysses. My first godson. Dead before his father ever held him.
“That’s why he came…” I murmur, gaze drifting to Sevro. “You told him at Quicksilver’s. In the hangar.”
Lyria lifts her thin shoulders in exasperation. “I thought when y—when you spoke with your wife someone would have said something, or at–at the very least warned me not to.”
But Victra hadn’t been available when Mustang reached us. Or perhaps she just hadn’t been ready to deliver that news to her husband. I have to sit down.
I crumple beside Sevro’s feet, holding my head in my hands. All this time I thought he was sulking because he couldn’t go home, because he felt obligated to continue on with me, with my fools-errand, with my stupid hope. But no. He’d been on a suicide mission. I remember that fatalistic, flat tone he’d had.
Can’t go home yet.
He couldn’t face his family. He couldn’t face his failure. And then this last, horrific reminder of how, while his wife was struggling alone on the surface of Mars, he was being brutalized by monstrous men. It was enough to break a man.
“Sevro…” I plead, kneeling before my friend and pressing my forehead to his temple. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
But I know why. Some hurts you carry alone.
But no longer. I will not let The Void have Sevro. It is not his time. Ragnar may be waiting for us, but he will have to continue his wait. I still need my brother.