“I remember the feeling of being under the ground, Darrow,” he says slowly. “The cold stone under my hands. My Pluto housemembers around me, hunched in the darkness. The steam on their breaths, looking to me. I remember how afraid I was of failing. Of how long I had prepared, how little my father thought of me. All my life weighed in those few moments. All of it slipping away. We’d run from our castle, fleeing Vulcan. They came so fast. They were going to enslave us. The last of our housemembers were still running through the tunnel by the time I rigged the mines to blow, but so were Vulcan. I could hear my father’s voice. Hear him telling me how he was not surprised I failed so quickly. It was a week before we killed a girl and ate her legs to survive. She begged us not to. Begged us to choose someone else. But I learned then in that moment if no one sacrifices, then no one survives.”
Cold fear wells in me, beginning in the deep hollow of my stomach and spreading upward. “Mustang…”
“They’re here,” she says, horrified.
“What’s happening? What’s here?” Sevro hisses.
“Darrow…” Cassius whispers.
“The nukes aren’t on Mars,” I say. “They’re on Luna.”
The Jackal’s smile stretches. Slowly, he gains his feet and not one of us dares touch him. It all falls into place. The tension between him and the Sovereign. The subtle threats. His boldness in coming here into the Sovereign’s place of power. His ability to mock Aja without consequence.
“Oh, shit.
“I never wanted to nuke Mars,” the Jackal says. “I was born on Mars. It is my birthright, the prize from which all things flow. Her helium is the blood of the empire. But this moon, this skeleton orb is, like Octavia, a treacherous old crone sucking at the marrow of the Society, crowing about what was instead of what can be. And Octavia let me ransom it. Just as you will, because you are weak and you did not learn what you should have at the Institute. To win, you must sacrifice.”
“Mustang, can you find the bombs?” I ask. “Mustang!”
She’s been struck dumb. “No. He would have masked the radiation signatures. Even if we could, we couldn’t deactivate them….” She reaches for the com to call our fleet.
“If you make the call, then I detonate a bomb every minute,” the Jackal says, tapping his ear where a little com has been implanted. Lilath must be listening. She must have the trigger. That’s what he meant. She’s his insurance. “Would I really tell you my plan if you could do anything about it?” He straightens his hair and wipes blood from his armor. “The bombs were installed weeks ago. The Syndicate smuggled the devices across the moon for me. Enough to create nuclear winter. A second Rhea, if you will. When they were in place, I told Octavia what I had done and I told her my terms. She would carry on as Sovereign until the Rising was put down, which…has taken a surprising twist…obviously. And afterward, on the day of victory, she would convene the Senate, abdicate the Morning Throne and name me her successor. In return, I would not destroy Luna.”
“That’s why Octavia has the Senate rounded up,” Mustang says in disgust. “So you could be Sovereign?”
“Yes.”
I stand back from him, feeling the weight of the fight on my shoulders, the weakness in my body from the strain, the loss of blood, now this…this evil. This selfishness, it’s overwhelming.
“You’re bloodydamn mad,” Sevro says.
“He’s not,” Mustang says. “I could forgive him if he were mad. Adrius, there are three billion people on this moon. You don’t want to be that man.”
“They don’t care for me. So why should I care for them?” he asks. “This is all a game. And I have won.”
“Where are the bombs?” Mustang asks, taking a threatening step toward him.
“Uh-uh,” he says, scolding her. “Touch a hair on my head, Lilath detonates a bomb.” Mustang’s beside herself.
“These are people,” she says. “You have the power to give three billion people their lives, Adrius. That is power beyond anything anyone should ever want. You have the chance to be better than Father. Better than Octavia…”
“You condescending little bitch,” he says with a small laugh of disbelief. “You really think you can still manipulate me. This one is on you. Lilath, detonate the bomb on the southern Mare Serenitatis.” We all look to the hologram of the moon above our heads, hoping beyond hope that somehow he’s bluffing. That somehow the transmission won’t go through. But a little red dot glows on the cool hologram, blossoming outward, a small almost insignificant little animation that envelops ten kilometers of city. Mustang rushes to the computer. “It’s a nuclear event,” she whispers. “There’s more than five million people in that district.”
“Were,” the Jackal says.
“You freak…” Sevro shrieks, rushing the Jackal. Cassius gets in his path, knocking him back. “Get out of my way!”
“Sevro, calm down.”
“Careful, Goblin! There’s hundreds more,” the Jackal says.
