Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(106)

“And what do you say?”

“I said you are five meters tall, you’re followed by a midget and a giant, and you eat glass with your eggs.” We share a laugh. “I don’t like that you brought me here. I don’t believe you’re being the man you want to be. If you survive this and I don’t, be better than the man who tricked his friend.”

A dull ache grows behind my eyes. It’s a plea he makes. Not for me to feel guilty, but because he truly cares. I should be better. I want to be. I am being better in the end. But with the means to reach that end … am I just like all the other lost souls? Am I just another Harmony? Another Titus?

“I promise,” I say, meaning it even as I intend to hurt him again and again.

“Good. Good.” He pops his leathery neck. “So after Agea, you take the northern hemisphere. I’ll take the southern. And we meet back here for whiskey. Deal, my goodman?”

I nod, but still he does not separate.

He stares at me for a moment and glances down, unable to meet my gaze. Emotion thickens his voice. “Each time I returned to my wife, I told her that her boys died well.” He fidgets with his ring. “There’s no such thing.”

“Achilles died well.”

“No. Achilles let his pride and rage consume him, and in the end, an arrow shot by a Pixie took him in the foot. There’s much to live for besides this. Hopefully you’ll grow old enough to realize that Achilles was a gorydamned fool. And we’re fools all the more for not realizing he wasn’t Homer’s hero. He was his warning. I feel like men once knew that.” His fingers tap his razor. “It’s a cycle. Death begets death begets death. It’s been my life. I—I don’t think I should have killed the boy. Your friend.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I see the way the rest of them look at you. I think they’d do anything for you because you believe in them.”

I move suddenly, leaning down to kiss him on his weathered cheek the way Reds kiss fathers and uncles. “Tactus wouldn’t have blamed you. And neither do I. You’ve another grandson to raise. Maybe you can teach him the peace you couldn’t teach me. So do us a favor, don’t die, old man.”

“Ha,” the grizzled lord laughs, falsely at first. Then more forcefully as he turns on a heel. “Ha! They’ve yet to make a man who can kill me!” His old knights, craggy men and women, flank him, not one younger than seventy, but I recognize all their faces from the histories of the Moon Rebellion and other great battles. Their friends and former comrades wait for us on Mars.

I leave for the hangars, saying a quick farewell to Victra. She calls me back. I feel Roque watching us. She looks about to say something. The red sun of her black armor weeps blood. Black warpaint streaks diagonally across her face. Eyes burning out of it, yet they are vulnerable, gentle as they search mine for a reflection of what she feels.

“After today, the name Julii will mean more than money,” I say. Her plan will turn the tide of the space battle.

“I don’t care about that.” Her fingers touch my breastplate and I see her lips sliding sharply into that wicked smile of hers. “If you die, I want your last thought to be how great a mistake it was to spend all those nights alone in your stateroom at the Academy.” She flicks my armor, making a pinging noise. “What a beautiful mess we could have made of each other.

Theodora waits for me in the hall, giving me a look.

“Oh, shut up.”

“She would have eaten you up and spit you out, dominus.”

“Why aren’t you in the staterooms where it’s safe?”

“It’s not safe anywhere.” Theodora motions me to bend my head. She puts a small red flower clip, the sort a young girl would wear, into my hair. “All knights need their tokens,” she says, tearing up. “Don’t be too much a hero. You’re too clever to die in a stupid battle.”

She leaves, squeezing Ragnar’s forearm as she passes. I didn’t know they were familiar. Ragnar follows along, hanging back like a hesitant shadow as Sevro and I speak on the way to the hangars.

“So it is done?” I ask Sevro.

He shrugs. “I sent it.”

“You spoke to him?”

“A holoNet dropCache,” he says. “I send a message. They get it. Hopefully.”

“You mean you don’t know if they got it?”

“How should I know? I said I sent it. Followed protocol.”

I curse quietly. He whistles that damn tune he sang Pliny. I swat at him. We turn a corner and pass six dozen Gray special ops troopers heading for the tubes at a jog. Six Obsidians follow behind them, opening their palms to Ragnar and me as signs of respect.

“You see what they were wearing? SlingBlades on their armor.” Sevro smirks over at me. “It spreads.”

“Have you thought about what happens if your father is down there?” I ask.

“No,” he says, losing his smile. “No, I haven’t.”





37

War

The forward hangar bay is massive. A giant cave in the belly of my ship crawling with men and women of all Colors. Six hundred meters in length. Along its left side are hundreds of spitTubes. Each row is accessed by a network of giant causeways where men in starShells can walk. Thousands stand ready to disperse, grouped according to legion.