“More unicorns?”
I laugh. “I think he has a problem.”
Roque pats my hand. “Thank you. But you’re like a hound apologizing for wagging its tail. You’re always distant, Darrow. You don’t have to apologize for how you are, not to me.”
“More distant, perhaps?”
“Perhaps,” he agrees, allowing it. “We all have our own tides inside. They go in. Out.” He shrugs. “Not really ours to control. The things, people, that orbit us do that, at least more than we’d like to admit.” After watching me a moment, he furrows his brow in thought. “Is this about Mustang? I know it was hard for you to leave her, no matter what you said at the time. You should seek her out while we’re here. I know you miss her. Admit it.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar, liar, cheeks afire.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, we’re not talking about her.”
“Fine. Fine. Then you’re worried, aren’t you? About the auction?” He pauses, smiling and watching me. “You shouldn’t. I’ve settled that matter. I’m going to bid on you.”
“Roque, you don’t have the money.”
“Do you know how badly a Pixie would pay to get a Peerless with my pedigree and connections in their debt? Millions. I could even go to Quicksilver if I need. He loans to Golds all the time. Point is, I’ll have the money, even if my parents won’t help me. So never you worry, brother.” He pokes me with his foot. “House Mars has to mean something, eh?”
“Thank you,” I say, stuttering out the words, unable to really grasp what he’s done. And why? It puts his neck out. It endangers him and crosses his parents. “No one else has even mentioned the auction to me.”
“They’re afraid your bad luck is contagious. You know how it is.” He pauses, waiting because he knows me so well. “There’s something else. Isn’t there?”
I shake my head. “Do you …” My words fail me. “Do you ever feel lost?” The question hangs between us, intimate, awkward only on my end. He doesn’t scoff as Tactus and Fitchner would, or scratch his balls like Sevro, or chuckle like Cassius might have, or purr as Victra would. I’m not sure what Mustang might have done. But Roque, despite his Color and all the things that make him different, slowly slides a marker into the book and sets it on the nightstand beside the four-poster, taking his time and allowing an answer to evolve between us. Movements thoughtful and organic, like Dancer’s were before he died. There’s a stillness in him, vast and majestic, the same stillness I remember in my father.
“Quinn once told me a story.” He waits for me to moan a grievance at the mention of a story, and when I don’t, his tone sinks into deeper gravity. “Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love. In those days, they raised such animals to carry messages across great distances. These two were born in the same cage, raised by the same man, and sold on the same day to different men on the eve of a great war.
“The pigeons suffered apart from each other, each incomplete without their lover. Far and wide their masters took them, and the pigeons feared they would never again find each other, for they began to see how vast the world was, and how terrible the things in it. For months and months, they carried messages for their masters, flying over battle lines, through the air over men who killed one another for land. When the war ended, the pigeons were set free by their masters. But neither knew where to go, neither knew what to do, so each flew home. And there they found each other again, as they were always destined to return home and find, instead of the past, their future.”
He folds his hands gently, a teacher arriving at his point. “So do I feel lost? Always. When Lea died at the Institute …” His lips slip gently downward. “… I was in a dark woods, blind and lost as Dante before Virgil. But Quinn helped me. Her voice calling me out of misery. She became my home. As she puts it, ‘Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.’ ” He grasps the top of my hand. “Find your home, Darrow. It may not be in the past. But find it, and you’ll never be lost again.”
I’ve always thought of Lykos as my home. Of Eo as my home. Perhaps that’s where I’m going now. To see her. To die and find home again in the Vale with my wife. But if that’s true, why am I not full? Why does the hollowness grow inside me the closer I draw to her?
“It’s time to go,” I say, rising from the bed.
“As sure as I am your friend”—Roque begins to rise as well—“you will recover from this. We are not our station in life. We are us—the sum of what we’ve done, what we want to do, and the people who we keep close. You’re my dearest friend, Darrow. Mind that. No matter what transpires, I will protect you as surely as you would protect me if ever I needed it.”
I surprise him by clasping his hand and holding it for a moment.
“You’re a good man, Roque. Far too good for your Color.”
“Thank you.” He squints at me as I release his hand and he straightens the wrinkles in his uniform. “But whatever do you mean by that?”
“I think we could have been brothers,” I say. “Were this a different life.”
“Why do we need another life?” Then he sees the automatic syringe in my left hand. His hands are too slow to stop me, but his eyes are quick enough to widen in trusting fear, like a loyal dog’s as he’s put slowly to sleep in its master’s lap. He doesn’t understand, but he knows there’s a reason, yet still comes the fear, the betrayal that breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.
The syringe pierces Roque’s neck and he sinks slowly down onto the bed, eyes drifting closed. When he wakes, everyone he has worked with and for over these past two years will be dead. He will remember what I did to him after he said I was his closest friend. He will know that I knew what was going to happen at the gala. And even if I don’t die tonight, even if they do not discover I was the bomber by other merits, saving Roque’s life means I will be found out. There is no going back.
11
RED
Tonight, I kill two thousand of humanity’s great. Yet I walk with them now, untouched by decadence and condescension as never before. Pliny’s arrogance raises none of my blood. Victra’s immodest dress does not disconcert me, not even when she slips her arm in mine after Tactus offers her his. She whispers in my ear how silly she is for forgetting her undergarments. I laugh like it’s a merry joke, trying to mask the coldness that’s taken me over.
This is static.
“I suppose Darrow deserves some consolation before he leaves,” Tactus says with a sigh. “Have you seen Roque, my goodman?”
“Said he was feeling ill.”
“That’s very Roque of him. Likely coiled around a book. I should fetch him.”
“If he wanted to come, he would come,” I say.
“I want him to come,” Tactus replies. He shrugs at the other lancers who jockey for position close to our master.
“If you need him so badly, go fetch him,” I say, tactically.
He flinches. “I need no one on my arm. But if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re still bitter about the whole escape-pod affair.”
“You mean when you launched it without him?” Victra asks. “Why would that ever bother him?” Even now that betrayal stings me.
“I thought he was dead! It was simple calculation.” He bumps my shoulder with his fist and nods to Victra. “You understand. Had to watch out for the lady here.”
“She is a delicate little flower,” I say, pulling her away.
“Woe for the lone god of the sea,” Tactus hums melodically. “His friends, like mine, abandoned he!”
Victra adjusts the gold pauldron on her shoulder, which winds its way down her arm in a series of golden cuffs. “That darling boy is so vain he could make a thunderstorm be about him.” She notices my lack of care. “The bidding won’t begin till after the gala.” She nods to a landing aircar. “Well, I was wondering when he’d show.”
The Jackal exits the car, skin faintly pink only in patc
hes. His Yellows did him well. He bows faintly to his father, ignoring the murmurs of the aides.
“Father,” he says, “I thought it fitting if the Family Augustus arrived at the gala with at least one of your children. We must present a united front, after all.”
“Adrius.” Augustus eyes his son for something to criticize. “I wasn’t aware you enjoyed banquets these days. I’m not sure the fare will be to your liking.”
The Jackal laughs theatrically. “Perhaps that is why my invitation was not delivered! Or was it the furor over the terrorist attacks? No matter. I am here now, and ever eager to attend your side.” The Jackal falls in, smiling broadly to all, knowing his father will never escalate family quarrels in public. He offers me a particularly sinister sneer, one others see and shrink away from. All stage. “Shall we?”
I mind myself and say little as I follow with Victra at the end of the long procession that snakes its way through labyrinthine marble halls from our villa to the Citadel Gardens some two kilometers distant. The Sovereign’s tower juts from the floor of the garden there, a grand, two-kilometer-high sword piercing a groomed garden thick with rose trees and streams.
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.
Hundreds of long tables spread concentrically around a frozen lake at the center of the winter land. The Pinks wear skates to serve here. Beneath the ice, shapes move. Not sexualized perversities as one would find entertaining Pixies and lowColors. But mystical creatures with long tails and scales that glitter like the stars. In another life, it would have been Mickey’s dream to have a creature commissioned for this feast. I smile to myself. I suppose, in a way, he already has.
The tables are neither named nor numbered. Instead, we find our place as we see a great lion seated upon the center of our table, nearly motionless. Each family’s table is so claimed by their sigil. There are griffins and eagles, ice fists and huge iron swords. The lion purrs contentedly as Tactus steals a serving tray of appetizers from a Pink and sets it between the beast’s massive paws. “Eat, beast! Eat!” he cries.
Pliny finds me. His hair is bound behind him in a tight, complicated braid. His clothing, for once, is as severe as his pointed nose, like he means to impress the Peerless about him with his hawkish features and sparse accoutrements. “I’ll be introducing you to several interested parties later in the evening. When I signal for you, I expect you to join me.” He looks around distractedly, seeking important persons for his own aims. “Till then, cause no trouble and mind your manners.”
“No trouble.” I take out my pegasus pendant. “On my family’s honor.”
“Yes,” he says without looking. “And what a noble family it is.”
I gaze around the gala. Hundreds mill about already, with more arriving by the minute. How long should I wait? It is difficult to hold on to the rage that made me embrace this decision. They killed my wife. They killed my child. But no matter the anger I summon by reminding myself, I cannot burn away the fear that I steer the rebellion toward a cliff.
This will not be for Eo’s dream. It will be for the satisfaction of those living. To sate their lust for vengeance rather than honoring those who have already sacrificed everything. And it will be irreversible. But so is the course that has been set.
So many doubts. Is this me being a cow
ard? Rationalizing inaction?
I’m thinking too much. That makes a bad soldier. And that is what I am. A soldier for Ares. He gave me this body. I should trust him now. So I take the pegasus and slap it on the underside of Augustus’s table, just near the table’s end.
“A toast?” someone says. I turn and find myself face-to-face with Antonia. I’ve not seen her since the Institute, when Sevro pulled her down from the cross she was nailed to by the Jackal. I flinch away, mind flashing to the night she cut Lea’s throat, all to draw me out of the dark.
“I thought you were on Venus studying politics,” I say.
“We’ve graduated,” she replies. “I did enjoy your christening. Watched it several times with my friends. Odious scent, urine.” She sniffs me. “Hard to get out.”
Nature was cruel to make her so terribly beautiful. Full lips, legs nearly as long as mine, skin smooth as river stone, and hair like spun golden yarn from that storybook about the princess of cinders. All a mask for the wretched creature beneath. “I can tell you missed me while I was away.” She hands me a goblet of wine. “So let us toast to a good reunion.”
It makes little sense to me that we live in a world where she can stand here weaving her evil webs when my wife is dead, when kind Golds like Lea and Pax have been ground to ash and shot into the sun.
“Fitchner once said something to me, Antonia. It seems appropriate now.” I raise my goblet in a polite toast.
“Oh, Fitchner,” she sighs, her breasts rising aggressively from her too-tight golden dress. “The bronze rodent has been making a name for himself here. Whatever did he say?”
“ ‘A man can never miss chlamydia.’ ” I dump the wine out in front of her and push past. She grabs my arm and pulls me back to her, bringing me close enough that I feel the heat of her breath. “They’re coming,” she says. “The Bellona are coming for you. You should run now.” She looks at my razor. “Unless you think you’re good enough with that to beat Cassius in a duel?” She releases me. “Good luck, Darrow. I will miss having an ape at the ball. More than Mustang will, at least.”
Golden Son (The Red Rising Trilogy, Book 2) Page 10