Golden Son

“How did Roque end up in Mars?” she replies with a shrug. “Each of us have hidden depths. Now, Pax wasn’t as bright as Daxo is, but wisdom is found in the heart, not the head. Pax taught me that.” She smiles distantly. “The one grace my father gave me after my mother died was letting me visit the Telemanus estate. He kept Adrius and me apart to make assassination of his heirs more difficult. I was lucky to be near them. Though if I hadn’t been, maybe Pax wouldn’t have been quite so loyal. Maybe he wouldn’t have asked to be in Minerva. Maybe he’d be alive. Sorry …” Shaking away the sadness, she looks back to me with a tight smile. “What did you think of my dissertations?”

“Which one?”

“Surprise me.”

“ ‘The Insects of Specialization.’ ” Snap. A practice razor slaps into my arm, stinging the flesh. I yelp in surprise. “What the hell?”

Mustang stands there looking innocent, swishing the practice blade back and forth. “I was making sure you were paying attention.”

“Paying attention? I was answering your question!”

She shrugs. “All right. Perhaps I just wanted to hit you.” She lashes at me again.

I dodge. “Why?”

“No reason in particular.” She swings. I dodge. “But they say even a fool learns something once it hits him.”

“Don’t quote”—she slashes, I twist aside—“Homer … to me.”

“Why is that dissertation your favorite?” she asks coolly, swinging at me again. The practice razor has no edge, but it is as hard as a wooden cane. I leave my feet, twisting sideways out of the way like a Lykos tumbler.

“Because …” I dodge another.

“When you’re on your heels, you’re a liar. On your toes, you spit truth.” She swings again. “Now spit.” She hits my kneecap. I roll away, trying to reach the other practice razors, but she keeps me from them with a flurry of swings. “Spit!”

“I liked it”—I jump backward—“because you said ‘Specialization makes us limited, simple insects; a fact … from … which Gold is not immune.’ ”

She stops attacking and stares accusatorially, and I realize I’ve fallen into a trap.

“If you agree with that, then why do you insist on making yourself only a warrior?”

“It’s what I am.”

“It’s what you are?” she laughs. “You who trust Victra. A Julii. You who trusted Tactus. You who let an Orange give strategic recommendations. You who gives command of your ship to a Docker and keeps an entourage of bronzies?” She wags a finger at me. “Don’t be a hypocrite now, Darrow au Andromedus. If you’re going to tell everyone else they can choose their destiny, then you damn well better do the same.”

She’s too smart to lie to. That’s why I’m so ill at ease around her when she asks me questions, when she probes things I can’t explain. There’s no explainable motivation to so many of my actions if I am really an Andromedus who grew up in my Gold parents’ asteroid mining colony. My history is hollow to her. My drive confusing … if I was born a Gold. This must all look like ambition, like bloodlust. And without Eo, it would be.

“That look,” Mustang says, taking a step back from me. “Where do you go when you look at me like that?” The color slips from her face, retreating into her as her smile slackens. “Is it Victra?”

“Victra?” I almost laugh. “No.”

“Then her. The girl you lost.”

I say nothing.

She’s never pried. She’s never asked about Eo, not when we shared time together after the Institute when I was a rising lancer. Not when we rode horses at her family’s estate or walked through the gardens or dove in the coral reefs. I thought she must have forgotten I whispered the name of another girl as I lay with her in the Institute’s snows. How stupid of me. How could she forget? How could it not linger there inside her, forcing her to wonder, as she lay with her head on my chest listening to my heart beat, if it didn’t belong to another girl, a dead girl.

“Silence isn’t the answer right now, Darrow.” After a moment, she leaves me alone in the room. Sounds from her feet fade. The Mozart disappears.

I chase after her, reaching her before she finds the door to the hall. I grab her wrist. She flings me off.

“Stop it!”

I reel back, startled.

“Why do you do this?” she asks. “Why do you pull me back if you’re just going to push me away?” Her fists ball like she wants to strike me. “It’s not fair. Do you understand that? I’m not like you … I can’t just … I can’t just shut off like you do.”

“I don’t shut off.”

“You shut me off. After that speech about Victra … about the importance of friends …” She snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You can still cut me away like that. You care and then you don’t. Maybe that’s why he likes you so much.”

“He?”

“My father.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“How could he not? You are him.”

I back away from her and find rest on the edge of the bed. “I’m not like your father.”

“I know,” she says, releasing some of her anger. “That’s not fair to you. But you will become him if you follow this path alone.” She puts her hand on the door controls. “So ask me to stay.”