Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(45)

Her face is creased but not faded by time. A hundred years, or so I hear, not cracked by the pressures of office. If anything, pressure has made her like those diamonds she scattered. Unbreakable. Ageless. And she will be without age for some time longer, if the Carvers continue their cellular rejuvenation therapy.

That is the problem. She will cling to power far too long. A king reigns and then he dies. That is the way of it. That is how the young justify obeying their elders—knowing it will one day be their turn. But when their elders do not leave? When she rules for forty years, and may rule for a hundred more? What then?

She is the answer to that question. This is not a woman who inherited the Morning Throne. This is a woman who took it from a ruler who had not the courtesy to die in a timely fashion. For forty years others have tried to take it from her. Yet here she sits. Timeless as those fabled diamonds.

“Why did you disobey me?” she asks.

“Because I could.”

“Explain.”

“Nepotism shrivels under the light of the sun. When you changed your mind to protect Cassius, the crowd rejected your moral and legal authority. Not to mention, you contradicted yourself. That in itself is weakness. So I exploited it, knowing I could get what I wanted without consequence.”

Dangerous Aja, the Sovereign’s favorite killer, sits in a chair near the window—a powerful panther of a woman with skin duskier than her siblings’, and eyes with slitted pupils. She is one of the Olympic Knights, the Protean Knight to be technic. She was Lorn’s last student before me. Though he didn’t teach her everything. Her armor is gold and midnight blue and writhes with sea serpents.

A young boy enters quietly from another room to sit beside Aja. I recognize him immediately. The Sovereign’s only grandson, Lysander. No older than eight, but so very composed. Regal in his quiet, thin as a scarf. But his eyes. His eyes are beyond gold. Almost a yellow crystal, so bright they could nearly be said to shine. Aja watches me appraise the boy. She takes him onto her lap protectively and bares her teeth, their whiteness fiercely bright against her dark skin. Like a great cat playfully saying hello. And for the first time I can remember, I glance away from a threat. The shame burns hot and sudden in me. I might as well have kneeled to her.

“But there are always consequences,” the Sovereign says. “I’m curious. What did you want out of that duel?”

“The same as Cassius au Bellona. The heart of my enemy.”

“Do you hate him so much?”

“No. But my survival instinct is … enthusiastic. Cassius, as far as I am concerned, is a stupid boy crippled by his upbringing. His stock is limited. He talks of honor but he stoops to ignoble things.”

“So it wasn’t for Virginia?” she asks. “It wasn’t to claim her hand or sate your jealous rage?”

“I’m angry, but I’m not petty,” I snap. “Besides, Virginia isn’t the sort of woman who would stand for such things. If I did it for her, I would have lost her.”

“You have lost her,” Aja growls from the side.

“Yes. I realize she has a new home, Aja. Easy to see.”

“Do you lash out at me, my goodman?” Aja touches her razor.

“My goodlady, I do but lash out.” I smile slowly at her.

“She’ll gut you like a pig, boyo,” Fitchner says quickly. “Don’t give a piss if Lorn taught you how to wipe your ass. Think twice on who you insult here. The true blades of the Society do not duel for sport. So mind your gorydamn tongue.”

I touch my razor.

He snorts. “If you were a threat, do you think they’d let you keep that?”

I nod to Aja. “Another time, perhaps.” I turn back to the Sovereign, straightening. “Perhaps we should discuss why you are holding my house under military guard. Are we under arrest? Am I?”

“Do you see shackles?”

I look at Aja. “Yes.”

The Sovereign laughs. “You’re here because I want you to be.”

An idea comes to me. I try not to smile. “My liege, I should like to apologize,” I say loudly. They wait for me to continue. “My manners have always been … lacking. And so I find the manner of my actions nearly always distracts from their purpose. The base fact is, Cassius deserved worse than what I supplied. That I disobeyed you was not meant as insult by myself or the ArchGovernor. Were he not unconscious on account of your dog”—I glance at Fitchner—“I wager he would do what needed to be done to make amends.”

“Make amends,” she repeats. “For …”

“For the disturbance.”

She looks to Aja. “Disturbance, he says. Dropping a dish is a disturbance, Andromedus. Helping yourself to another man’s wife is a disturbance. Killing my guests and cutting off the arm of an Olympic Knight is not a disturbance. Do you know what it is?”

“Fun, my liege?”

She leans forward. “It is treason.”

“And you know how we treat with treason,” Aja says. “My father taught my sisters and me.” Her father, the Ash Lord. Burner of Rhea. Lorn did not like him.

“An apology from you is insufficient,” the Sovereign says.

“Wrong,” I reply.

The Sovereign is caught off guard by my tone.

“I said I should like to apologize. But the problem is, I cannot, because it should be you who apologizes to me.”