Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(143)

“Golds aspire to be great, and we force the Colors to war,” I say, taking a perch on the black lion’s paw. Augustus has not moved from his place at the center of the floor.

“Yet there are men like me,” he replies so sincerely I nearly believe him. “I do not truly fight because I want to be king or Emperor or whatever word you slap above my name in the history texts. The universe does not notice us, Darrow. There is no supreme being waiting to end existence when the last man breathes his final breath. Man will end. That is the fact accepted, but never discussed. And the universe will continue without care.

“I will not let that happen, because I believe in man. I would have us continue forever. I would shepherd us out of the Solar System into alien ones. Seek new life. We are barely in our infancy as a species. But I would make man the immutable fixture in the universe, not just some passing bacteria that flashes and fades with no one to remember. That is why I know there is a proper way to live. Why I believe your young ideas so dangerous.”

His mind is vast. Worlds beyond my own. And perhaps for the first time, I really understand how this man can do what he does. There is no morality to him. No goodness. No evil intent when he killed Eo. He believes he is beyond morality. His aspirations are so grand that he has become inhuman in his desperate desire to preserve humanity. How strange to look at the rigid, cold figure he casts and know all these wild dreams burn inside his head and heart.

“What about all you said? What about the things you’ve done?” I ask, thinking of his first wife, whose mouth he stuffed with grapes. “You take advice from creatures like Pliny. You bomb innocent civilians, who haven’t broken any laws. You embrace a civil war … and you say you’re trying to save humanity?”

“I do what I need to do to protect the greater good.”

To defend himself. To benefit himself. “To protect mankind,” I echo.

“Yes.”

“Eighteen billion draw breath across this empire. How many would you kill to protect mankind? A billion? Ten?”

“The number doesn’t change the necessity.”

“Fifteen billion?” I ask. Red, Gold, every part of me is shocked.

“Someone must make these choices,” he says. “The rest of our race grows sicker by the day. The Pixies chase pleasure instead of achievement, while the Peerless have grown so hungry for power that our Sovereign is a woman who cut off the head of her own father in order to take his throne. They must be ruled.”

“By you.”

“By us.” His unblinking gaze does not waver. “By us,” he repeats. “I treated you poorly, because I feared your brashness, your impudence. But I promised I would make amends, and so I will, because you have shown the capacity for growth, for learning. Become my heir. Not my Praetor. I have enough lords of war. What I need … what I want is a son.”

“You have a son.”

“I have a parasite that wants my power. That’s all. He has no use for it. No plan once he gains it. He simply hungers as our Society has taught him to hunger.” His face shows a flicker of intrigue. “Yet, remarkably, this was his idea. You have his blessing.”

I don’t doubt I have his blessing. Knowing my ally, I merely wonder what it’s going to cost me. He’s a businessman. He’ll want return on his investment. Especially this investment. He should have told me.

“What about Virginia? You don’t need your heir to be male.”

“But I want it to be. And I want you for her. A husband fitting her mind.”

“You’re using me,” I say suddenly, seeing through his scheme. “I tie her to you. Especially if we marry. We both know you don’t want reform.”

Even now Reformers from across the Society flock to Mars to rally behind the man who said he would give them the Senate when he defeats Lune and her allies.

“The Reformers are cancer,” he says.

“But you’re promising them that you will—”

“Promises were necessary to gain their support. When we have defeated Octavia, I will put the Reformers in prison, or execute them for treason.”

“Mustang will never forgive you. She believes you’re changing. Whatever conversation you had with her, whatever you promised her, you gave her hope in you.”

Maybe she won’t forgive either of us.

“You will make her understand once you’re part of the family, Darrow. By then, I suspect you’ll be married, and she won’t abandon you even if she hates me. Our family will stay strong, as we must. But you must always be mine. Answering to me. Not my children.”

He takes a step toward me.

“Octavia steers humanity to slow decline. The Reformers, like the Sons of Ares, would slam us into the ground at a thousand kilometers a second. We must protect our species. Help me.”

He is a noble man doing what he thinks best for humanity.

Damn him.

We never asked to bow. Who is he to say Reds and Browns toiling to death is for the greater good? Who is he to say Pink children being harvested for rape, Obsidians and Grays for battle, is a necessity? How can he sit there and say that he alone knows what is best for me, for my family? It is not his right. Just as it was not his right to come into my world and take Eo. And if he thinks might makes it is his right, then it’s my bloodydamn right to cut off his head right now.