Red Rising(106)

Apollo’s eyes harden, though his smile remains.

“To be quite frank, your Proctors don’t know what you children are playing at. You had your chance, Virginia. You lost. Don’t allow yourself to be bitter. Darrow here beat you fair and sound. Or did your winter together blind you to the fact that there can only be one winning House, only one victorious Primus? Were all of you truly so blinded? This … boy can give you nothing.”

He looks around at each of them.

“I shall repeat, since you are a rusty lot: Darrow’s win will not mean you win. No one will offer you an apprenticeship, because they see him being the key to your success. You merely follow—like General Ney or Ajax Minor, and who remembers them? This Reaper does not even have his own standard. He is using you. That is all. He is embarrassing you and ruining your chances for careers beyond this First Year.”

“You’re quite annoying, all due respect, Proctor,” Nyla says without her usual kindness.

“And you’re still a slave.” Apollo points to her mark. “Fit for all sorts of abuse.”

“Only till I earn the right to wear one of those.” Nyla gestures to Mustang’s wolfcloak.

“Your loyalty is touching, but—”

Pax interrupts. “Would you let me whip you bloody, Apollo? Darrow did. Let me whip you, and I’ll obey like a Pink. Promise on the graves of my ancestors, those of Telemanus and the—”

“You’re nothing more than a bureaucratic Pixie,” Milia hisses. “Do us a favor and piss off.”

My lieutenants are loyal, though I shudder to think what Tactus or Sevro would have said had they been around the fire with us. I lean forward to stare down Apollo. Still, I must provoke him.

“Do us solid, eh? Take your advice, shove it up your ass, and piss off.”

Someone laughs in the air above us, a woman’s laugh. Other Proctors watch from inside the jamField. I see silhouettes in the smoke. How many watch? Jupiter? Venus, maybe, by the laugh? That would be perfect.

The fire flickers over Apollo’s face. He is angry.

“Here is the logic I know. The winter could get colder, children. When it gets cold outside, things die. Like wolves. Like bears. Like mustangs.”

I have a reply and it is perfectly longwinded.

“I wonder, Apollo, what happens if the Drafters find out that you are arranging to have the ArchGovernor’s son win? If you were, say, rigging the game like a bazaar crime lord.”

Apollo freezes. I continue.

“When you tried killing me in the woods with that stupid bear, you failed. Now you come here like the desperate fool you are to threaten my friends when they do not slaver at the idea of betraying me. Will you really kill us all? I know you can edit what you like from the footage the Drafters see. But however will you explain to all our Drafters how we all died?”

My lieutenants feign their shock.

I go on.

“Say an Imperator of a fleet, say a Legate, say any of the Drafters of any of the other Houses, found out that the ArchGovernor was paying the Proctors to cheat, to eliminate the competition so that his son would win and their children would lose. Do you think there would be consequences for the Proctors being bribed? For the ArchGovernor? Do you think they might care that their children are dying in a rigged game? Or that you’re getting paid to ruin the meritocratic system? The best shall rise. Or is it the best connected?”

Apollo’s jaw tightens.

He looks up to the other Proctors. They wisely stay invisible. He must have drawn the short straw to come down here and be the face of their cheating. My lieutenants stay silent as he speaks.

“If they did find out, children, then there would be consequences for everyone,” Apollo threatens. “So feel free to guard your tongues while you have them.”

“Or what?” Mustang asks violently. “What do you think you’re going to do?”

“You of all people should know,” he says. I don’t understand his point, but this charade has run its course. I’ve counted the seconds since Sevro left. The Proctors have not. I turn to Mustang.

“How fast can Sevro run two kilometers?”

“A minute and a half, in this gravity, I do believe. Though he’s a little liar, so likely faster.”

“And how far is Apollo’s castle?”

“Oh, I’d say three kilometers, maybe a little more.”

Apollo jumps to his feet, looking around for Sevro.

“Splendid,” I say. “Say, Mustang, do you know what I like most about jamFields?”

“That no sound can get out?”

“No. That no sound can get in.”

Apollo disengages the jamField and we hear the howls. They come from the distance, two miles away. From ramparts. From Apollo’s castle. MedBots wail toward the cries, streaking across the distant sky.

“Venus! Were you not watching them? You stupid …” Apollo snarls at the empty air.

“The little one took off his ring,” an invisible woman cries. “They all took off their rings! I can’t see anything without their rings on, and not in a jamField!”

“But they’re all back on by now,” I say. “So pull up your datapad and tell me what you see.”

“You little …” Apollo’s hands clench. I flinch back. Mustang steps between us, as does Pax.