by Pierce Brown
“Julian was your brother, man.”
“He pissed the bed as a boy. Pissed the bed. He was a boy who did not deserve his mother’s favor or his father’s name.” He grabs another glass of wine from a passing Pink. “They try to make it tragedy, but it isn’t. It’s natural law.”
“Julian was more a man than you are, Karnus.”
Karnus laughs in delight. “Oh, do explain that one.”
“In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and I, we’re just passing time before death reaches down for us.”
“Which will be soon for you.” He nods to my razor. “Pity you weren’t raised in our house. We learn the blade before we learn to read. My father had us make our blades, had us name them and sleep beside them. You might have stood a chance then.”
“Wonder what you would have been if he had taught you something else.”
“I am what I am,” Karnus says, taking another drink. “And they sent me after you, me of all the sons and daughters, because I am the best at what I am.”
I watch him for a moment. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet … here you are, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to killing me. Why?”
“Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives.”
“So it’s pride.”
“It’s always pride.”
“Pride is a hollow thing.”
He shrugs, voice deepening. “I will die. You will die. We will all die. And the universe will carry on without care. All that matters is how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.” He leans forward. “So you see, pride is the only thing.” His eyes leave mine and look across the room. “Pride, and women.”
I follow his eyes and I see her then.
She wears black amid a sea of gold, white, and red. Like a dark specter, she glides in out of the lift near the edge of the fake forest. She rolls her flashing eyes, twists her smirking mouth at the heads that turn her direction to stare at her funeral gown. Black. A color to show disdain for all the merry Golds about. Black like the color of the military uniform I now wear. I’m reminded of the warmth of her flesh, the mischief in her voice, the smell at the nape of her neck, the kindness of her heart. I stare so hard I almost miss her escort.
I wish I had missed him.
It is Cassius.
He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo’s dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.
His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft. His hands steady. Form powerful. Shoulders made for war. Face made for the women of court. And he wears a crown badge. The Sovereign has appointed him as one of the Olympic Knights. Despite the fact that I won at the Institute, he’s risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I’ve watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death. He stalks like a famished beast as if one life cannot sate the hunger that roils inside him.
Here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile, he is the man fit for stories of romance, a Lancelot galloping from myth to steal a woman who could have been, but never was, my Guinevere. His is a charmed birth. He has all I have in his Golden body and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. He is more handsome. Wealthier. A golden knight. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. He does not have my burdens. Why does he deserve this girl, who makes all but Eo pale in comparison? Does she not know how petty he is? Is she blind to his hypocrisy? To how he cares only for fame and pride and all their stupid vanities?
I cannot go to her, not even when she draws close enough to hear her laugh. If she saw me, I think I would shatter. Would there be guilt in her eyes? Awkwardness? Am I a shadow over her happiness? Will she even care that I see her with him? Or will she think me pathetic for approaching her?
It aches, not that I suspect Mustang is being petty in seeking my enemy, but because I know she is not petty. If she is with Cassius, it is because she cares for him. It aches deeper than I thought it would. I work on breathing.
“And so you see …” Karnus’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder, “… you are not wanted here.”
Tightness spreads through my chest as my shoulders carve a path out of the gala. I take a smaller lift down, away from these people who know only how to hurt. Away into the woods where the violinists play to one another till I find a bridge that spans a fast flowing stream. I lean over the polished railing, gasping for air, each breath a statement.
I do not need Mustang.
I do not need any of these greedy creatures.
I’m done with their games of power.
Done with trying to go it on my own.
I was not good enough to be a husband.
Not good enough to be a Gold.
Now I’m not good enough for Mustang.
I’ve failed to do what I set out to do.
Failed to rise.
But I won’t fail now. Not now.
I take the ring. Hand trembling. Nerves stampeding inside me. I want to retch, there’s so much wrong inside of me. I take the cold ring to my lips. Say the words and the corrupt perish. Say “break the chains” and Victra vanishes. Cassius evaporates. Augustus melts. Karnus dissolves. Mustang dies. Across the Solar System, bombs ripple and Red rises to an uncertain future. Trust in Ares. Just trust he knows what he is doing.
Break the chains.
Break the chains.
I try to say the words, Eo’s last before she hanged. But they do not come. Force it out. Dammit. Make my mouth work. But it won’t. It can’t, because inside I know that this is wrong. It isn’t the violence. It isn’t compassion for the people I would kill. It’s anger.
They reject me at every turn. I know it was never meant to be fair. It is a corrupt Society and that is why it must be destroyed. But I am a human. I still want them to respect me. But they don’t. And nothing I do will make a damn bit of difference about it. I will always be a Red. Always be less than them in their eyes, even after I destroy them. It’s only now, only in this moment that I realize how desperately I wanted to believe I could beat them at their own games. I wanted to prove that I was as good as any of them. That a Red could rise above these bastards.
Killing them proves nothing. It solves nothing.
How could this be Ares’s plan?
Eo said if I rose, others would follow. But I’ve not yet risen. I’ve not yet done as she asked of me. I do not have an excuse to give up. To hand over her dream to others. Ares never knew Eo. He never saw the spark in her. I did. And my charge is to spread her love. Before I draw my last breath, I must build the world she wanted to raise a child in. That was her dream. That was why she sacrificed everything. And I will not let others decide my fate. Not now. Not if it makes me reject Eo, not if it make me sacrifice my trust in myself.
I wipe the tears from my face, anger replaced by purpose.
There is another way. A better way. I have seen the cracks in their Society, and I know what I must do. I know what the Golds most fear. And it has nothing to do with Reds rising. It has nothing to do with bombs or plots or revolution. What terrifies the Golds is simple, cruel, and as old as mankind itself.
Civil war.
THE WILLOW
I stalk back into the gala.
The Golds have taken their seats and formalities have begun in earnest. I am not subtle as I duck beneath the table and scrounge around on the ground to find the Pegasus pendant. I put it in my pocket. Straighten my jacket. Ignore the questioning glances and move boldly away from Augustus’s table toward the object of my interest. Pliny hisses my name. I pass him by. I blow him a kiss. He know
s nothing of what I have in store. Pliny is a man to make rules. I’m more the breaking type.
I weave through the tables that seat the noble families, gathering eyes as a stone rolling down the mountain gathers snow. I feel them adding to my velocity. My gait is careless, my hands coiled with danger, like the muscles of a pitviper. Thousands watch me. Whispers form a cloak behind me as they realize my target; he sits at his long table surrounded by his family members—a perfect Golden man attentively listening to his Sovereign speak. She preaches of unity. Order and tradition are of paramount importance. No one rises yet to challenge me. Perhaps they don’t understand. Or perhaps they feel the force of me now and dare not rise.
The Bellonas notice the whispers now, and they turn, almost as one, a family of fifty and more, to see me—a martial man. All in black. Young, untested in war. Unblooded beyond the halls of the Institute and the asteroids of the Academy. Some have reasoned me mad. Some have called me brave. Tonight, I’m both. The weight is gone. All the pressure I let crush me as I worried about expectations, as I gentlefooted around making a decision. Keep moving, I tell myself. Don’t freeze. Don’t stop. Never stop.
The Sovereign’s voice falters now.
Too late to go back. I dive in.
Smile.
And the gala goes dead silent as I spring thirty feet in the low gravity and land hard on the Bellona table. Dishes crack. Servers scatter. Bellonas fall back. Some shout at me. Some do not move even as their wine spills. The Sovereign watches, struck by curiosity. Pliny looks about to die. He’s gripping his knees in panic. Beside him, the Jackal is as strange and unreadable as a lonely desert creature.
I did not wear dress shoes tonight. I never do. My boots are thick and heavy. They crack the porcelain as I trod along the Bellona table, shattering dishes of pudding and squishing tender steaks despite the low gravity. My blood pumps through me. Intoxicating. I lift my voice.
“I’ll have your attention.” I crush a plate of peas underfoot.” You may know me,” I call to the thousands in assembly. There’s nervous laughter. Of course they know me. They know everyone of worth, though mine is more of rumor than substance. I see the Ash Lord whispering to the Sovereign. See Tactus laughing his ass off, choking for breath. Karnus leans forward with a cruel smile. Victra’s in heat. Even see Antonia nudging a tall, serene Gold. I avoid looking at Mustang. Pliny gibbers in Augustus’s ear. Augustus raises a hand to shut him up. “Do I have your attention?” I ask.
Yes. I do.
“Boy, sit down!” someone shouts.
“Make him,” Tactus replies drunkenly. “No? That’s what I surmised!”
“For those of you who do not know, I am a lancer of the House of Augustus, for another hour or so.” They laugh. “I am the one they call the Reaper of Mars, who struck down a Proctor, who stormed Olympus. My name is Darrow au Andromedus, and I have been wronged.
“We Peerless come from Golden ancestors. From conquerors with spines of iron. Honorable men, honorable women. But before you today, I see a family that is dishonorable. A family with spines made of chalk. A corrupt and fraudulent family of liars and cowards that conspires to steal my master’s Governorship, illegally.”
I crush a serving plate with my boots. Who knows if they conspire to do it or not? It sounds good. It seems like they conspire. And it’s the mask I need them to wear. Karnus replies beautifully by whipping out his razor and surging toward me. His father, the Imperator, waves him back. Praetor Kellan looks about to grab my feet and jerk me down where Cagney would no doubt cut my throat. The younger girls of their family think me a demon. A demon that killed their cousin, brother. They have no idea what I really am. But perhaps Lady Bellona does. Cadaverous in her grief, she sits surrounded by her brood like a withered lioness. They look to her as much as to her husband. The last thing I note of her is the trembling of her long right hand, as though it aches for a knife with which to cut me.
“Twice I have been wronged by this family. Once in the mud of the Institute. Again at the Academy by that one … and this one … and that one.” I point out all those who beat me in the gardens. I see Cassius now near the head of the table, just by his father and mother. Mustang sits beside him. Her face, a mask. Disappointed? Upset? Bored? When she quirks an eyebrow at me, I meet her eyes, walk toward her and set my foot on the edge of the wine decanter that sits in front of Cassius. All eyes focus there, like light falling into a black hole. Pausing time, space. Bending all forward. Breaths catch. “All courts of Golden law permit a man to defend his honor against any force that would desecrate it unjustly. From the old lands of Earth, to the icy bowels of Pluto, the right of challenge exists for any man and any woman. My name, gentle lords and ladies, is Darrow au Andromedus. My honor has been pissed upon. And I demand satisfaction.”
I tip the wine over onto Cassius’s lap.
He explodes up at me. Golds all over the grand party burst up from their seats in a great roar. Tactus rushes from our table, joined with Leto, Victra, all of the aides and bannermen of the vassals to my ArchGovernor—the Corvos, the Julii, the Voloxes, the huge Telemanuses, Pax’s family. Razors snap into hands. Curses splinter the winter air. And the Ash Lord, bent and gnarled as a lightning-blasted tree, leans down from the Sovereign’s table and screams, “Stop this madness!”
It’s only begun.
My hands shake like they used to in the mine.
Serpents surround me.
You could never hear them, the pitvipers. Could rarely see them. Black as pupils, they slither in the shadows till they strike. But there’s a fear that comes when they near. A fear separate from the rumbling of the drill. Separate from the throbbing heat that builds in your balls as you carve through a million tons of rock and all the friction radiates up, making a bog of piss and sweat inside your suit. It’s fearing the coming of death. Like shadow has passed across your soul.
That fear fills me now as these Peerless stand around me, a mass of serpentine gold. Whispering. Hissing. Deadly as sin.
Snow on the ground crunches under my heavy boots. I bend down as the Sovereign speaks. She tells of honor and tradition, how martial duels mark the greatness of our race. So she makes an exception for the day. We may duel beyond the gaming grounds. This blood-feud must be put to rest here, now, in front of the august of our race. So confident is she in her newest Olympic Knight. But why wouldn’t she be? He’s killed me before.
“Unlike the cowards of Old, we settle flesh to flesh. Bone to bone. Blood to blood. No politico throws millions to slaughter for vendettas. Vendettas die in the Bleeding Place. Virtute et armis,“ the Sovereign recites.
By valor and arms. No doubt, she has already spoken to her advisors. They will say I am outmatched. That Cassius is the better swordsman. It never would have gone this far if she wasn’t assured a beneficial outcome.
“As it was with our ancestors, it is now, to the death,” she declares. “Are there any contentions?”
I hoped for this.
Neither Cassius nor I say a thing.
“Then today, res, non verba.“ Actions, not words.
I speak with my master before stepping into the center of the circle that now forms as Browns cart away the tables from the snowy plain. Pliny hovers beside Augustus. As do Leto, Tactus, Victra, and the great Praetors of Mars. So many famous faces, so many warriors and politicians. The Jackal stands farther away, shorter than the rest, impassive, speaking to no one.
“Is this spectacle for me? For vanity? For love?” Augustus asks as I stand before him. His eyes dig into me, trying to find meaning. I can’t help but glance over at Mustang. Even now, she draws me from my task.
“You’re so young,” he nearly whispers. “What they tell you in the storybooks is wrong; love does not survive things like this. Not the love of my daughter, at least.” He pauses, reflecting. “Her soul is like her mother’s.”
“I don’t do it for love, my lord.”
“No?”
“No.” I bow my head to him and rem
ember Matteo’s highLingo. “The duty of the son is to the father’s glory. Is it not?” I fall to a knee.
“You are not my son.”
“No. The Bellona killed him. Your firstborn son, Claudius, was all a man could hope for—a son better and wiser than his father. So let me make you a present of their favorite son’s head. Enough quibbling. Enough of their politics. Blood for blood.”
“My lord, Julian was one thing. But Cassius …” Pliny tries.
Augustus ignores him.
“I weep for your blessing,” I say, pressing my master. “How long will you keep the Sovereign’s favor? A month? A year? Two? Soon she will replace you with the Bellona. Look how she favors Cassius. Look how she steals your child. Look how the other goes the way of a Silver. Your heirs are depleted. Your time as ArchGovernor will end. And it should. For you are not a man fit to be ArchGovernor of Mars. You are a man fit to be king of it.”
His eyes flash. “We have no kings.”
“Because none have dared craft themselves a crown,” I say. “Let this be the first step. Spit in the Sovereign’s eye. Make me the sword of your family.”
I pull a knife from my boot and make a quick cut beneath my eye. The blood falls like teardrops. This is an old blessing, from the iron ancestors, the Conquerors. And it will chill those who see it—a relic of a bygone, harder age. It is a Mars blessing. One of iron and blood. Of the raging ships that burned the famed Royal British Armada above Earth’s North Pole, and dashed the fastkillers from the land of the Rising Sun amid the asteroid belt. My master’s eyes ignite like dormant coals, slowly, then all at once.
I have him.
“I give my blessing freely. What you do, do in my honor.” He leans toward me. “Rise, goldenborn. Rise, ironmade.” Augustus touches his finger to the blood and then presses the mark beneath his own eye. “Rise, Man of Mars, and take with you my wrath.”