Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(79)

“Is this information reliable?” Augustus asks.

I nod. “Very.” My fingers twitch, rotating the image of the docks. In the shadow of an orbital dock floats a ship like my Pax, but newer, larger. Black as night, and eight kilometers in length. “The Sovereign herself commissioned it as a present for her grandson.”

Kavax nearly drools at the sight of the monster of a ship. “What a loving woman.”

“Assuming this is not contrived.” Pliny inspects the holo. “How did you come upon the information?”

“Little birds whisper into my ears too.”

“Don’t be coy. It is important.”

“My sources are mine, just as yours are your own, Pliny.”

“So you want to steal the moonBreaker from Ganymede?” Pliny asks. “That’s an act of war.”

I chuckle. “No. You misunderstand. I want to steal all of the ships.”





26

Puppet Master

Pliny glances worriedly at Augustus. “Do this, and this war does not end till one side is ash.”

“It’s already that way …,” Kavax begins.

“This is different,” Pliny crows. “It expands the scope.”

“My father is right,” Daxo declares. “We are already in open rebellion.”

Pliny slaps his hand down. “This is different. This declares war on the Society, not the Bellona, not the Sovereign as a singular person. Ganymede has not harmed us. This will fracture everything.”

Augustus sits quietly, his cold eyes staring at the moonBreaker on the holo. Without looking at me, he asks, “You said there were two parts to this plan. What is the second?”

I change the holo. The Academy replaces the shipyards. Ships ring its dull gray surface. Asteroids rotate in the backdrop.

“Those ships are ancient,” a balding Praetor named Licenus says before I can begin. “Useless in a fight. Is your plan to steal them too?”

“No, Praetor Licenus. My plan is to steal the students.” I add another visual. Mars’s Institute joins the Academy. Then another Institute, Venus’s. Then Earth’s two Institutes. Then the Galilean Institutes and Saturn’s. Then more till nearly a dozen images float in the air. “I want to steal all of the students. Not to fight. But to ransom.”

“Goryhell.” Mustang bursts out laughing. “Are you insane, Darrow?”

Augustus frowns. “Virginia, control yourself.”

“I am under control, Father. Your attack dog isn’t.”

“You forget your place.”

“And you forget how Claudius looked, dead on the ground. Leto too. Do you want that for the rest of us?” She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips.

“Shut your mouth, girl.” Augustus shudders with wrath. His bony fingers clutch the edge of the table till it creaks. “You’ve been unhinged since you let that Bellona boy between your legs. Walking in here like a Pixie pomp. Eating that apple like a child. Stop being a sideshow whore and live up to your name.”

“Like your remaining son?” she asks.

He takes a long, calming breath. “You will be quiet or you will leave.”

Mustang grinds her teeth together, but stays uncharacteristically silent. Pliny’s lips curl in a rather pleased smile.

“Don’t blame her, my goodmen, if she’s already tired of war,” Pliny says, softly placing a knife in a wounded enemy. “After so many nocturnal summits spent engaging in horizontal diplomacy with the Bellona, her stamina isn’t what it used to be.”

Kavax lunges at Pliny. Daxo pulls him back just in time. But it’s Mustang who is first to speak over the uproar.

“I can defend my own honor, my goodman. But from Pliny, such insults are to be expected After all, I would be bitter too if my wife bent over backwards to make sure so many of your young mercenaries learned how to properly sheathe their swords.”

Pliny stares angrily at her as she rises, continuing, “I left Mars to pursue knowledge in the Sovereign’s court. I did not abandon my family, as so many of you have suggested. And I’m not sorry I left and missed conversations such as this. For you goodmen seem good only at one thing, and that is bickering. Yet you quickly come to agreement upon me as an item of ridicule. Curious. Is it because you see me as a threat to your power? Or is it simply because I’m a woman?” She peers at the few scattered women around the table. “If that is the case, you forget yourselves. This Society was founded by men and women based on merit.

“The dear Politico Pliny is right, however: I would have avoided this war. In fact, I tried. Why else do you think I allowed Cassius au Bellona to court me? But war is here. And I will protect my family again from all threats, those from without and from within.”

Augustus lets slip the smallest, barest of smiles, a twin to the first. His love is the most conditional I’ve ever seen. How quickly he can call his daughter a whore, then smile as she reclaims what power she lost in the room. Suddenly, she matters.

“Then what do you think of my plan?” I ask.

“I think it is dangerous. It spreads the war without ensuring our benefit. It is immoral and sets dangerous precedent. But then again, war is inherently immoral. So we must simply decide how far we want to go.”