Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(67)

He not practiced at hiding his hate. It is cold as the ice the man was born into.

“Will you accept these stains, godchild?” he asks, leaning forward, voice plaintive, a strange worry creasing the corners of his mouth. Golds did this after the Dark Rebellion, the only uprising to ever threaten their reign. We took their history, took their technology, wiped out a generation, and gave their race the poles of planets, the religion of the Norse, and told them we were their gods. A few hundred years later, I stand looking up at one of their most terrifying sons, and wonder how he can think of me as a god.

“I accept these stains in my name, Ragnar Volarus.” Terrified, I reach forward and, with superheated metal surrounding our arms, clasp hands, nearly equal in size, though mine is sheathed in metal. I take the blood that his hand spreads to mine and wipe it over my exposed brow. “I accept their burden and their weight.”

“Thank you, Sunborn. Thank you. I will serve on the honor of my mother and her mother before her.”

“I have friends aboard the stork in hangar bay three. Save them, Ragnar, and I will owe you a debt.”

Yellow teeth are revealed as he smiles, and from him undulates a war chant deeper than the ocean at storm. It fills the halls with dread. Fills me with joy and fear and primal curiosity. What did I just gain?





22

Fire Blossom

My body trembles in the aftermath of the giant’s departure. Steadying myself, I turn back to the Blues, who stand transfixed, unsure of whether to look to me or the HC displays or the scanners that show the Sovereign’s men-of-war encircling us. “You have nothing to fear here,” I say. “The captain of this ship was demoted because he left his viewports open. Foolishly. Rank does not excuse mistakes. I wish for a new captain. We haven’t much time. So I will decide in sixty seconds.”

The dark-skinned Blue comes forward past her fellows. At first, I thought the tattoos on her hands featured floral lines. Then I note a stream of mathematical notations: the Larmor formula. Maxwell’s equations in curved-space time. Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory. And a hundred others that even I don’t recognize.

“Give me the badge and I’ll carve you a hole back to Mars, boy.” Her voice has no inflection. It is flat. Precise and lazy all at once. Emotion bled out of it till only the letters and sounds of the words remain like equations in the air. “I swear it on my life.”

“‘Boy’?” I ask.

“You’re half my age. Shall I call you ‘lord boy’? Or will you be offended?”

Sevro raises an eyebrow, flummoxed at the Blue’s bland audacity.

“Forgive her, dominus,” another Blue says smoothly. “She is an ensign with—”

I hold up a hand. “What’s your name, Blue?”

“Orion.”

“That’s a boy’s name,” Sevro says.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” Blues can be sarcastic? “My Sect intended for me to be a man. I surprised them.”

“What Sect?” Sevro asks.

“She has no Sect. She was appropriated by the Copernican Sect, but dismissed shortly thereafter, for obvious reasons,” that officious Blue interrupts again. “She’s a Docker.”

Orion flinches. She swivels on the other Blue. Her voice does not rise. “And what are you but a pedantic little gasp of a fart, Pelus? Hm?”

“You see,” Pelus explains placidly, “she is a Docker. Emotional metrics are unmanageable. Not her fault. She is a product of her greasy environment.”

“Bolly that,” she says, stepping forward quickly.

She punches Pelus in the face. He wails, falling backward like he’s never been hit before. Likely because he hasn’t. Why would a Blue hit another Blue? They’re test takers, math makers, star charters. But not fighters.

“I like the rude one,” Sevro observes.

“Wait, dominus! I desire the ship!” Another Blue slides forward, staring at Pelus on the ground. “I … I deserve it? Orion is no more than a … a … laggard! Her mastery of astrophysics leaves much to be desired, to say little of her understanding of extraplanetary mass kinetics. She didn’t even attend the Observatory.”

Another Blue pushes forward.

“Forget Arnus! He’s a dodderhead at astrophysics and his assumptions in theoretical calculus are imprudent at best! I was second in command of this vessel for six months under the Ash Lord. I served upon it while it was in its dry berth. Logic supports the maneuver to place me as your captain, dominus.”

The armada’s ships continue to hail us over the coms. Men-of-war slide closer. Inside their bellies, brave men and women will be donning suits of armor; they’ll board leechCraft and shoot into space to land on my hull, burrow their way through, praying that they will make it home to have a meal made by their mother, their spouse. All that while my Blues shove and push to lead my ship, howling insults at one another’s math skills and academic integrity.

“Don’t listen to either of them, dominus!” shouts a woman in that slow accent. She falls to her knees. “My name is Virga xe Aquarius. I have studied the physics of astral drift in the Midnight School—far superior to the Observatory. I hold, amongst others, a doctorate on dark matter and gravitational lensing. Let me guide your vessel, dominus. To decide in favor of another would be specious and worse: illogical!”