The plan starts with a concession only someone once a husband could make. Cassius cannot stop laughing when I tell him the details. Even Quinn snorts a laugh the next morning. Then she's off, running like a deer to Deimos Tower to bring my formal apology to Antonia. She's to meet me with Antonia's response at one of our supply caches near the Furor River, north of the castle. Cassius guards our new fort with the remain- der of our tribe, in case Titus tries to attack while Roque and I go to the supply cache dur- ing the day. Quinn does not come. Dusk does. Despite the dark, we trace the path she would have taken from Deimos Tower. We go till we reach the tower itself, which sits in the low hills surrounded by thick woods. Five of Titus's men lounge around its base. Roque grabs me and pulls me down into the woods' brush. He points to a tree fifty meters distant where Vixus sits hidden in wait on a high branch. Did they catch Quinn? No, she's too fast to be caught. Did some- one betray us? We return to our fort by early morning. Im sure I've been more tired, but I can't remem- hor rirh an Dliotaro viiin mrr fnnt daonita tha fitted
shoes, and my neck peels from long days in the sun. Something is wrong. Lea meets me by the fort's gate. She hugs Roque and looks up at me like I'm her father or some- thing. She is not her usual timid self. Her birdlike body shakes not from fear, but anger. "You have to kill that piece of filth, Darrow. You have to cut his slagging balls off." Titus. "What happened?" I look around. "Lea. Where is Cassius?" She tells me. Titus captured Quinn as she was on her way back from the tower. They beat her. Then Titus sent one of her ears here. It was meant for me. They thought Quinn was my girl, and Titus thinks he knows my temper. They got the reac- tion they wanted, just not from me. Cassius was on watch and as the others slept he snuck away to the castle to challenge Titus Somehow the brilliant young man was arrogant enough to think hundreds of years of Aureate honor and tradition would survive the sickness that has consumed Titus's tribe in only a few weeks. The Imperator's son was wrong. And he is also unused to having his heritage be of such lit- tle consequence. In the real world, he would have been safe. In this small one, he is not. "But he's alive," I say. shirtless Cassius's "Cassius!"' out left of Roque eye the is gasps. fort. swollen His His face other shut. pales eye Lips is are suddenly. bloody split. "Yeah, T'm alive, you Pixie!" Cassius stumbles Ribs purple as grapes. Three dislocated fingers shoot out like tree roots, and his shoulder is odd. The others stare at him with such sadness. Cassius was the Imperator's boy--their shining knight. And now his body is a ruin, and the looks upon their faces, the pallid cast to their skin, tell me that they have never be- fore seen someone beautiful mutilated.
I have. He smells like piss. He tries to play it off as some lark. "They beat the slag out of me when I challenged him. Hit me with a shovel on the side of the head. Then stood around and had themselves a circle piss. Then they tied me up in that stinkhole keep, but Pol- lux set me free, like a good lad, and he's agreed to open the gate if we need it done." "I didn't think you were so stupid," I say. "Of course he is, he wants to be one of the Sov- ereign's knights," Roque mutters. "And all they do is duel." He shakes his long hair. Dirt crusts the leather band that holds it in a ponytail. "You should have waited for us." "What's done is done," I say. "We go ahead with the plan." "Fine,'" Cassius snorts. "But when the time comes, Titus is mine."