Bronze Burning

MEDEA'S FOLLY

4

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MEDEA'S FOLLY

I place a call and tell the tale of a wounded Gold seeking shelter.

I'm gorydamn tired. My eyes are ringed with dark circles. Fresh blood sheets down my face from a cut above my brow. One arm dangles about, dislocated at the shoulder, and I blink back real tears of pain. A ruse, my father taught me, must be sold.

My messages register unread, but she answers on the third ring. "Clodia," I cough her name, slumping forward. "Liber found me. I need your help."

The sight of her face still takes my breath away. Clodia was a fierce rider atop an ironnose dolphin when I first laid eyes on her. While I struggled with freediving, she had already mastered the great Venusian watersports. I thought her half siren, an irresistible beauty born from sea foam, her golden braid swirling after her through the water. When I confessed this to her, she called me an unnerving ghost of a Gold and told me to practice my backstroke.

"I'm on my way." She sounds so earnest for a traitor.

"He's dead," I tell her. "They're all dead. I'm coming to you." I let a shiver of pain draw a gasp from me. "Please."

She is a calculated creature. Her eyes glimmer with drawn conclusions and new-hatched schemes. I was a star to hitch her wagon to, and in my failure, she sold me. How best to do so again?

"I'll keep you safe," she lies. "How close are you?"

"Very," I whisper, choking back my rage.

My shuttle flies above the high tides of early morning in Medea, a small eastern island overlooking the Guinevere Sea. Three smooth buildings of steel and glass huddle amongst the black rocks like giant crabs, glistening with salt spray. Translucent walkways link the hubs of the villa, and a broad landing pad has been scraped from the rock. The lingering darkness of the ocean breaks around bright patches of bioluminescent algae.

No ripWings guard the approach. Only a smattering of anti-aircraft batteries track the shuttle. The House of Lucianus was a long line of proud warriors, rich from their bioSilk operations, but their newest estate is the manor of a Pixie. I count at least four pleasure gardens inside the villa walls. Nimble hummingbirds dance around cut crystal fountains and carved sandstone buttresses. Banded marble tiles the walkways. It seems Clodia has foregone the way of the Iron Gold, chasing money like some credit-mad Silver.

Relief floods me. Her newfound softness makes my plans far easier.

The shuttle settles on a platform surrounded by sculpted basalt. A trio of willowy Pinks walks out to meet me.

But I am not on the ship.

Instead, wearing the battered pulseArmor of Liber au Virius, I cling to the cliffside at the island's edge. Mating eels slither in the cove below me, no longer disturbed by my presence. The wind whistles over sea stacks. I've been here for sleepless hours, but from my vantage on the volcanic rock, I see all.

The interlink on the armor adjusts, popping my shoulder back into place. My vision swims as I prime the railRifle in my hands, racking the magnetic charge composite and verifying the energy levels. Sighting down the optics, I find Clodia in her living room, a monstrosity that juts out over the water. Walls and floor are glass. The ocean tides swirl beneath the feet of a cadre of Browns. I've interrupted a dress fitting, pale silk in tight pleats. The sight of her stokes the burning rage in my soul.

A dark shadow lurks in the corner.

"Stained," I whisper into the commlink. She's bought one, a colossus of an Obsidian wielding an ionAxe. Other warColors race through the villa, setting a hasty ambush. My arrival was unexpected. Her trap is not prepared. "Odds are three to one."