Golden Son

Water runs through the garden in a thousand winding paths. Babbling brooks with colored fish lead to quiet lagoons where carved Pink mermaids swim under flowering trees crawling with monkey-cats. Rangy tigerlynx lounge below the boughs. Violets wander through these bright woods, flitting here and there like summer moths, their violins echoing in eerie concert. It is a picture of Bacchus’s night gardens without the obscene sexuality the Greeks found so hilarious—Pixies would chuckle at that smut, but Peerless do not. At least, not in public.

We glimpse other processions through the trees. See their standards, great flashing things of moving fabric and metal. Our red and gold lion crest roars in silent challenge. A raven on a field of silver marks the passing of the Family Falthe over a cobblestone bridge. We eye their lord and his lancers warily. As a matter of course, all carry razors, but other tech is forbidden—no datapads, no gravBoots, no armor. This is a classical affair.

The tower yawns above us. Purple, red, and green mosses climb the base of the great structure with vines of a thousand hues, wrapping the glass and stone like the fingers of greedy bachelors around the wrist of a rich widow. Six great lifts bear families skyward to the top of the tower.

Beautiful Pink servants and Brown footmen service the lift, all in white. Gold triangles of the Society decorate their livery.

The lift is flat, marble with gravthrusters. It sits in the middle of a clearing where green grass flutters in the wind. Several Coppers rush forward to talk with Pliny, who, as Politico, speaks on behalf of the ArchGovernor. There seems to be some confusion. The Falthe family files into the lift ahead of us.

“This is a social trap,” Augustus mutters back to his favorite ward. Leto draws closer. “The fools. See how they feign accident. Soon they will tell us we must use the lift with the Falthes, when instead they should grovel to have us go before them.”

“Could it not be an accident?” Leto asks.

“Not on Luna.” Augustus crosses his arms. “Everything is politics.”

“The winds shift.”

“They’ve been shifting for some time now,” Augustus murmurs. His sharp face surveys his aides, as if making an accounting of the razors we carry. Some wear them coiled at their sides. Others wear them around their forearms like I do with my borrowed blade. Tactus and Victra each use them as sashes.

“I want three lancers attending the ArchGovernor at all times,” Leto announces quietly. We nod, the pack tightening. “No drinking.”

Tactus moans in protest.

Expressionless, the Jackal watches Leto give orders.

Pliny returns from speaking with the Citadel staff. Sure enough, we’re to share the lift with the Falthes. But something more menacing fills the air. Our Obsidians and Grays are to be left behind. “All families are to proceed to the gala without attendants,” he says. “No bodyguards.”

Murmurs go through our ranks.

“Then we won’t go,” the Jackal says.

“Don’t be a fool,” Augustus replies.

“Your son is right,” Leto says. “Nero, the danger—”

“Some invitations are more dangerous to decline than to accept. Alfrún, Jopho.” Augustus makes a cutting motion to his Stained. The two men nod silently and join the others to the side. Genuine emotion—worry—fills their eerie eyes as we join the Falthes on the lift and ascend. The head of the Falthe house smiles. His station improves.

The gala upon the roof of the Sovereign’s tower is modeled as a winter fairyland. Snow falls from invisible clouds. It dusts the spearlike pines of man-made forests and frosts my short hair with snowflakes that taste like cinnamon and orange. Breath billows in front of me.

The ArchGovernor’s appearance is noted with trumpet calls. Tactus and some of the younger lancers cut the Falthes off, obstructing their path so Augustus can enter the gala first. A body of pale gold and bloody red, we move into a grand landscape of evergreens. The pride of Gold culture awaits us. A terrible sea of faces that have seen things the first men could never even dream. You can see glimmers of our shared past at the Institute. The charmers of Apollo. The killers of Mars. The beauties of Venus.

Beneath the spire, the Citadel sprawls, and beyond those grounds glisten the cities with all their million lights. You would never guess that beneath that sea of twinkling jewels lurks a second city of filth and poverty. Worlds within worlds.

“Try not to lose your head,” Victra whispers to me, raking a clawed hand through my hair before going to speak with friends of hers from Earth.

I walk toward our table. Great chandeliers hover overhead on small gravthrusters. Light sparkles. Dresses move like liquid around perfect human forms. The Pinks serve delicacies and spirits on plates and in goblets of ice and glass.