Golden Son полностью

“Your turn to speak is at an end, Aja,” I interrupt. “You will let my Housemembers rise from the pool. You will let them board the shuttle I have inbound. You will tell the ripWings and fighters in the sky and space above Luna to let us pass. Or I will have my Howlers kill the boy.”

“You promised to protect the Sovereign,” Aja whispers. “And you do … this? He is a boy. He is helpless.”

“It’s part of the game,” Lysander says very seriously. “You play it too, Aja. We’re all on the board.”

“You see, he’s less helpless than the servants you slaughtered tonight,” Quinn replies. “Less than those your father burned on Rhea. But he’s one of yours. So of course you care.”

“You would kill a family to ensure the safety of your Sovereign,” I say coldly. “I would kill a child to ensure the safety of my friends. Speak again, and I take his left hand.”

She knows I would kill the boy.

I know I would not. I’m not Karnus. Not Evey or Harmony, despite what I’d have these Golds think. So even if they called my bluff, I would balk. Anyway, the moment I kill him, they kill everyone I know. The murder would be in vain.

This is exactly why I build my reputation as a killer, to leverage in situations like these. If they knew my heart, they’d kill my friends one by one. This is a gamble.

I gamble on pride of two sorts. The first pride is that the Sovereign will not let me kill her only grandson, whom she trained from childhood to take her place when the time comes. The second sort of pride is that deep down, she will believe it no great loss if Augustus and his family escape today. She has the will and the means to hunt us to the ends of the System. Why call my bluff and risk having her grandson die? I know this because of how she killed her father—not outright, but only when she had the support of all his former followers, only when they asked her to rise up against the tall tyrant and rule in his stead.

A woman like her has patience. If the Sovereign told me to do my worst, if she shouted to kill the boy and suffer the consequences, that would be foolhardy. A blunt, brutish demonstration of power, as if saying ‘Take my grandson, you cannot hurt me.’ No, instead she will feign weakness, let me have this victory, and then bring eternal ruin on me and mine. Fair enough. We’ll play that game another day.

A ship roars overhead. A stork—built to deploy men in starShells to drop points, but slower than molasses sliding uphill. The bay doors open two hundred meters up, as I instructed. So long as we have the boy, the ship’s speed doesn’t matter a lick. Of course Mustang planned that.

“We’re going to fetch our people now, Aja. Let your men know they’re to do nothing to impede us.”

Aja just stares at me, watching like a taunted panther in a zoo, eyes silent, horrible, as if willing the bars between us to disappear.

“Sevro, Thistle, check the villa. See if anyone managed to survive.” They shoot away. “Quinn, guard the boy. The rest of you, get the ArchGovernor and his retinue out of the pool.

“You’ll want to call off the ripWings,” I say to Aja. They blink in the darkness kilometers above. “Too much noise and this whole thing will turn into a nightmare for all of us. The Sovereign massacring a house … but the house escapes! What a dastardly testament to her hunger, her impotence. What a debacle that might cause.” I smirk at her. “Why, I fear some houses might rally around the offended house. Some may fear they too will be snuffed out like candles in the night. What would happen to the poor Pax Solaris then?”

Quinn stays with me, fingers twitching toward her weapons as Aja obeys my commands. I keep my hand on the boy as the other Howlers splash into the water and emerge with members of House Augustus clinging to them, soaked and gasping for air—some in formal wear, some in armor, most without helmets. They were sharing oxygen, it seems.

Augustus holds on to Harpy’s back. The Jackal holds on to Clown’s arm. Pliny hangs on to his feet. Where are my friends?

The Howlers deposit the survivors into the bay of the hovering stork high above and return to fetch the rest. Victra is the next they bring out. She’s helmetless and wounded on her neck. But she clings to her razor as though it were the thing carrying her aloft. Her eyes strafe the gathered Praetorians wrathfully, and when they find me, they spark against mine like bits of flint. Her anger falls away for a moment and I see a smile of joy, then it’s gone and she shouts.

“I will remember you all with great joy!” She laughs madly. “Starting with you, Aja au Grimmus. I will make a coat of your hide.”