Golden Son

“Hardly,” my ArchGovernor sneers. “It goes to the great warriors.” He strafes Fitchner with his eyes. “Which you are not, Fitchner. What did you promise the Sovereign for your new helmet? I’m sure the price was high.”

“Oh, I rode Darrow’s star when he beat your boy. Hello, Jackal, you little rugrat. Then there was a gorydamn contest and, well, you can ask Tactus’s eldest brother and Proctor Jupiter about the specifics.…” He strikes a pose. “I’m more than meets the eye, eh?”

“So you don’t have a new master with the new helmet?” Augustus asks.

“Master? Pfah!” Fitchner comically puffs up his chest. “Olympic Knights have no master but our conscience. We defend the Society’s Compact, subservient only to duty.”

“Once. Now you are the Sovereign’s servants,” Daxo declares.

“As are we all, my dear Telemanus,” Fitchner replies. “Great admirer of your brother and your family, by the by. Wonderful war-hammer you carried at that tournament on Thebos. Gorydamn scary lineage. I’ve always meant to ask, which of your ancestors screwed the rhinoceros?”

Daxo raises his eyebrows in delicate offense. Kavax grumbles like Pax might have.

“Sorry. Was it a grizzly instead?” Fitchner grunts another laugh. “A joke. Keen? We’re all servants, though, eh? Gorydamn slaves to the one with the scepter.”

“I assume, then, your loyalty to Mars is gone and cannot be … remembered?” Augustus asks. “Since you’re a servant.”

Fitchner claps his gloved hands together. “Mars? Mars? What is Mars but a gorydamn hunk of rock? It’s done nothing for me.”

“Mars is home, Fitchner.” Augustus waves to those around us. “The Sovereign bid you to find us. Well, here we are—kin from your own planet. Will you join your loyalty to us? Or will you give us up?”

“Oh, you are a jokester, Augustus! A prime jokester. My loyalties are to the Compact and to myself, as yours are to yourself, my liege. Not to a rock. Not to false kin. So do not waste your breath. Now, I’ve been told to place you and your kin under house arrest. You recall we set aside a prime villa for your pleasure? It’d be dandyfine if you could scamper on back there. Enjoy our hospitality. Your Sovereign insists.”

“You forget yourself,” Augustus hisses.

“I forget much. Where I put my pants. Who I’ve kissed. Who I’ve killed.” Fitchner touches his arms, his belly, his face. “But forget myself? Never!” He points to the Obsidians around him. “And I’ve certainly not forgotten my dogs.”

“And where are mine? Where is Alfrún?”

“I killed your Stained mutts. Both of them.” Fitchner smiles. “They were barking, Augustus. Barking so loudly.”

Rage burns across Augustus’s face.

“I hope they weren’t expensive, boyo,” Fitchner says with a smile.

“You speak as though we are familiars, Bronzie.”

“We are familiar.”

“As though we were equal. We are not equal. I am a descendant of the Conquerors, of the Iron Golds! I am the lord of a planet. What are you? A—”

“I’m a man with a stunFist.” He shoots Augustus in the chest. Augustus crumples backward as his Praetors gasp. “That’ll show him to not wear his armor to galas. Now!” Fitchner smiles. “Who can I reason with?”

“Me.” The Jackal takes a step forward. “I am heir to this house.”

“Hmm … pass! You’re creepy.”

He shoots the Jackal in the chest with the stunFist.

“Foolishness! Enough foolishness.” Kavax steps forward, pushing his son back. “Speak with me or Darrow. It’s plain enough, your intentions.”

“Indeed. Darrow. You shall come with me.”

“Like hell,” Victra sneers, stepping in front of me.

Fitchner rolls his eyes. “Telemanus, you and your son take the ArchGovernor back to his villa and then return to your own. Matters must be sorted.” Fitchner gazes quietly at the bald Gold. His words now scrape out like raw iron on slate. “This is not a request, Telemanus.”

Telemanus looks to me. “My boy trusted this one. So shall I.”

“I need your assurance my friends will not be hurt,” I say to Fitchner.

He looks at Victra. “They won’t be.”

“Convince me.”

He sighs, bored.

“The Sovereign can’t gorywell execute an entire house absent a trial for treason. Can she? That violates the Compact. And you know how that would make us Olympic Knights feel, not to mention the other houses. Remember how her father met his end. But if you resist, well, that’s another matter entirely.” Fitchner flips a piece of gum into his mouth. “Do you resist?”

“Not today,” I say.

14

THE SOVEREIGN