Golden Son (The Red Rising Trilogy, Book 2)

by Brown, Pierce

  I lean close to Mustang and kiss her forehead. Harder than I meant to. She wakes delicately, like a cat stretching itself out of a summer nap. Her eyes don’t open, but she nuzzles into my side.

  “You’re awake,” she murmurs. Her lashes flutter and she bolts upright, away from me. “Sorry. Must have fallen asleep.” She looks to the chair she’d been sitting in. “On the bed.”

  “It’s fine. Stay. Please.” I’d forgotten we’re supposed to be cold to each other. “How long has it been?”

  “Since the assault? A week.” She brushes loose strands of hair from her eyes. “I’m glad you’ve come back to us.”

  “Who did we lose?” I ask carefully.

  “Lose?” Her hands fidget awkwardly as she lists the casualties. A moment of silence stretches long. The numbers crushing me in my bed. I remember to breathe.

  “The Sovereign?”

  “Escaped. But not without a nasty wound courtesy of Fitchner.”

  “Your father?” I ask.

  “You don’t know?” She smiles awkwardly and sighs a bit too casually, trying to loosen her own tension. She scoots closer on the bed, still taking care not to touch me. “It’s going to be tedious catching you up.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

  “Father is alive. When the shields fell, several Golds already inside the Citadel led a lurcher squad to rescue him. Turns out my brother has a long reach. So when the Olympic Knights came to take him with Octavia, they left empty-handed.

  “The HC channels are calling Roque ‘Nelson reincarnate.’ He captured more than eighty percent of the Bellona fleet.” Her tone darkens. “Which means, as leader of the engagement, he has claim to at least thirty percent of the ships, the rest going to the House Augustus.”

  “Meaning he has more than I do, technically.”

  “The pundits are wondering how long his loyalty will last now that—”

  “The Jackal is playing his games,” I interrupt with a laugh.

  “He never stops.”

  “I don’t think Roque will take up arms against me,” I say. “Do you?”

  She shrugs. “Power creates opportunities. I told you to mend things with him.”

  “Roque is our ally. He always will be. You know him.”

  “He’s been here as much as Sevro.” She smiles slowly. “Fell asleep here last night. I shooed him away earlier. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I pretended he wasn’t a potential threat to us.”

  Us, I note.

  “Your job?” I ask. “Which is …?”

  “I’ve appointed myself your chief Politico.”

  “Have you now?”

  “I have. The game of court can be a nasty, duplicitous business. You’re much too earnest for it. Like a lamb thinking it an honor to be invited to a banquet thrown in its honor by wolves.”

  “And what if it’s you I need to be protected from?”

  “Well.” She arches her left eyebrow. “Then I suppose you’ve already lost.”

  I laugh and ask about Sevro.

  She pretends to look around. “He’s not asleep at the foot of the bed? I think he’s off with his father. I only returned from visiting Kavax in orbit last night, but Theodora says Sevro departed shortly after dinner with Fitchner. Thought he hated the man.”

  “He does.”

  “What’s changed?”

  I shrug and wonder how long Sevro has known about his father’s true identity. Seems impossible he was as blind as I. Was someone lying to me for a change?

  “And Lorn?” I ask.

  “He’s with that harpy, Victra.”

  “What’s wrong with Victra?”

  “Aside from the fact that she flirts with everything that moves? Nothing.”

  “Wait. She flirts with you? Tell me more about that.”

  “Shut it.” Mustang swats at me. But her smile falls just as quick and she pulls her hand back. “Lorn’s taken Victra under his wing. Seems he’s comfortable allying his family with the Julii. Victra’s mother has agreed to the pact. Three of the most powerful houses on Mars united under my family. A triumvirate against the Sovereign. The Governors of the Gas Giants are on their way to Agea for a summit. So too are the Reformers. You were right. We take Mars, we have a chance against Octavia. This isn’t just a battle any longer. It’s a civil war. And not a pointless one, it seems. Father is making talk of giving the Reformers a chance at the table. That … this means something.”

  I remember my conversation with the man. “And you believe him?”

  “I do, Darrow.” She smiles hopefully. “For the first time in a long time, I really do.”

  I am not so sure. “What about …”

  “Cassius?” she guesses quietly. “His father was killed by the Telemanuses, and he fought Ragnar on the wall. All his brothers and sisters are reported dead. But he and his mother are missing.”

  I note her quiet. “Are you worried he’s dead?”

  “He is our enemy,” she says flatly. “His welfare isn’t my concern.” She examines my eyes closely. “Are you worried?”

  “I don’t know.” I consider.

  “Goryhell. You’re so tender sometimes. Do you regret cutting off his arm, too?”

  “I regret killing Julian.”

  “We’re all stained by the past.” Mustang considers. “You forget I had to kill someone in the Passage too. Every Peerless Scarred you’ve ever met—Lorn, Sevro, Pebble, Tactus, Octavia, Daxo, we all started there. Often I think there’s too much to regret.”

  Is she talking about us? Am I a regret?

  “I want to hate Cassius,” I say slowly. “I really do. Even thinking of him makes me want to crush something. Break a window. Or, preferably, his ugly, smug face.”

  “Ugly?” she asks skeptically.

  “So pretty he’s ugly.”

  Mustang laughs at that. “But it’s hard to keep the hate going, isn’t it?” she asks.

  I nod. Hate is what made Cassius’s family throw themselves against Augustus’s. Look what that brought them. “I pity him. Wherever he is.”

  “Earlier I told you not to trust my brother,” Mustang says, redirecting the conversation. “I meant it. I know you continued your alliance with him. His companies are making you seem like a god. But it has to end. You owe him nothing. Be cordial. Be polite. Don’t disrespect him in public. But no more meetings. No more promises. Cut him off. You don’t need him anymore. You have me.”

  This girl. Would that I could introduce her to Mother, to Kieran and Leanna. They’d like her fire. My throat tightens slowly. Eo would like her too.

  “I don’t have you,” I say.

  “Darrow …”

  Something strange twists inside me. Like a tight spring of emotion finally allowed to uncoil. “When I was on the bottom of the river … I knew I wouldn’t see you again.”

  She hesitates, wanting to reach for me, but resisting because of all we’ve said before. “You know you don’t have my leave to die,” she jokes instead. “Anyway, Sevro and the Howlers would never forgive you if you tried. None of them would. You’ve so many friends, Darrow. So many who’d run through fire for you.”

  So many who have been burned. Shuddering, I take a long breath and close my eyes, trying not to let the guilt swallow me. The tears come quietly, trickling out the corners of my eyes.

  “Darrow. Don’t cry,” Mustang whispers, reaching for me now. She scoots closer, holding me. “It’s all right. It’s all over. We’re safe.”

  The sobs come, racking my chest.

  She’s wrong. It’s not over. All I see behind my eyelids is a world of war. There is no other future for me, for us. Yet how many times have I already been pieced back together? How much longer can all these stitches hold? In the end, will there even be pieces left of me? I can’t stop crying. Can’t even catch my breath. Heart thundering. Hands shaking. It all comes out of me. Mustang, barely half my weight, holds me with her gentle arms till I’m exhausted and can do nothing but sink back into th
e bed. In time, my heart slows, finding rhythm to match hers.

  We sit that way for what must be an hour. Eventually, she kisses my shoulder, my neck, lips pausing along the jugular as it pulses. I adjust my hands to move her away, but she pushes them to the side and cups my face with a hand.

  “Let me in.”

  I let my hands fall to the bed. Her mouth crafts a warm path to mine. There we share the taste of my tears as her top lip slides between my own and her tongue warms the inside of my mouth. Her hand slides up my neck, nails grazing the skin, till she finds purchase in my hair, tugging slightly at the tangle. Shivers lance my body.

  Gone is any semblance of resistance. All the guilt that kept me from betraying Eo with Mustang is swept away in the chaos inside me. All the guilt I have for knowing she is a Gold and I am a Red vanishes. I’m a man, and she’s the woman I want.

  My hands find Mustang, pulling her body onto mine, shadowing the length of her legs to the swell of her waist. Long-suppressed hunger wakes in me. Filling me with heat, aching for her. All of her. Forget my restraint. Forget my sadness. This is all I need. I won’t run. Not this time. Not when I know how close I came to never seeing her again.

  I peel apart her clothing with slow force. Under my hands, the fabric is like wet paper. Her skin is smooth, hot marble warmed in the sun. Muscles coil and tense underneath as she arches her back. Hers is a body made for movement, mocking, coiling around mine. I trace my fingers along the curve of her lower back. She pushes into me, pulsing with breath, hips grinding me into the bed.

  It may have been a week to her, but for me it was minutes, seconds ago that I kneeled against cold steel warmed by my own blood, waiting for men to cut off my head. This a moment I thought I would never have again as I dug Eo’s grave with my own trembling hands. A moment with a woman I want and love. And what is the bloodydamn point of surviving in this cold world if I run from the only warmth it has to offer?

  44

  THE POET

  I walk slowly down the stone hall with Mustang. Out the windows, guards patrol the estate. They’re here to keep us as much as protect us. Rain falls lightly. Laughter drifts out an open door with the smells of coffee and bacon.

  “What do you mean I can’t be funny?” Roque asks, offended.

  “Just that,” Daxo says smoothly. “I’m sure you can try, but you’re too … scholastic.”

  “Fine then, who was the first carpenter?”

  “Is this a joke?” Daxo asks.

  “It’s intended to be.”

  “Jesus of Nazareth …?” Daxo guesses. “It is a history joke, yes?”

  “Noah?” Pebble tries. Mustang and I pause outside the door, smiling to each other.

  “Jesus of Nazareth?” Roque laughs. “You can do better than that.”

  “If I knew I’d be mocked for guessing, I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Pax said you were the smart one,” Thistle says. “Disappointing, Daxo. Disappointing.”

  “Well, in comparison, he probably—” Clown begins before Pebble smacks him upside the head. “Ow!”

  “Don’t talk shit about Pax,” Pebble snaps. “Big man was a sweetie.”

  “Does no one care about the answer?” Roque asks melodically. “Fine. Fine. I understand. You all think I’m a bore.”

  “We’re dying to know,” Thistle snaps. “Do tell.”

  “Who was the world’s first carpenter?” Roque asks again.

  “You don’t have to start all over!” Pebble moans.

  “Well, it works best that way.” Roque sighs. “Eve.”

  “Eve?” Daxo asks.

  “Because …,” Roque leads. “She made Adam’s banana stand?”

  A collective moan.

  “That’s just embarrassing,” Pebble says with a sigh. “Never thought I’d miss Tactus.”

  Then a high-pitched whining laugh springs out of Daxo. Just like Pax. “Eve! Eve, he said. Banana stand. Ahh.” It’s like the giants have little ridiculous elves inside them just waiting to spring out and cackle. Just takes a lot of provocation.

  “I think he broke Daxo.” Pebble giggles.

  “Does anyone smell that?” Clown asks.

  “I smell bacon,” Daxo tries. There’s a crunch as he bites into a piece.

  “No,” Clown says. “Smells like a suicidal madman recently risen from the dead after conquering a planet and abandoning his friends to get himself cut to gory ribbons like a slagging fool.”

  Daxo sniffs. “That’s a particular scent.”

  “Oh, Darrow dear,” Clown calls. “Are you lurking behind the door?”

  Mustang pushes me out awkwardly.

  “You eavesdropping Pixie!” Daxo glides to his feet and pulls me into a surprisingly gentle hug. The golden angels on his bald head glitter in the morning light. “Glad to see you, my friend.”

  They all greet me in turn. More hugs than I’ve ever received from Golds. Roque hugs me mechanically. A perfunctory gesture. There is still mending to be done.

  I gorge myself on breakfast as my friends banter. We spend the day on the property, whiling away time in conversation and games. It’s been so long since I’ve had either that I’ve nearly forgotten how to do nothing. Mustang has to kiss my ear and tell me to relax three times before it really sticks. We’re in the library listening to music when she sees Roque out the window on the lawn. She nudges me.

  “Go.”

  I find Roque watching a pair of deer eat from a feeder underneath an old elm. He doesn’t turn to look at me as I sidle up next to him. It smells like fresh-cut grass. The sea somewhere over the hill.

  “It makes sense this is where Mustang grew up,” I say. “It’s wild and tranquil all at once.”

  “My home was meant to be in the city,” Roque says. “Though I snuck off to the country with my tutors whenever Mother was away. Which was often. She seemed to think there was nothing out here worthwhile. That the business of cities was more important than this. But this is why we fight, isn’t it?”

  “For land?” I ask.

  “For peace, in whatever way we find it.” He turns to me. “Isn’t that why you fight?”

  “Some of us weren’t born with peace,” I say, gesturing to the deer and the land. “I didn’t have this growing up. Anything I have now or will have in the future I have to earn. But you’re right. It’s why I fight, so I can have this for me and the people I care for.”

  His eyes search my face. “Fair enough.”

  “I want to apologize to you, Roque.”

  “Again?”

  “Since the Academy, I’ve kept you at arm’s length. I’ve taken you for granted. I shouldn’t have done that. Not when you’ve always been so kind to me.” He doesn’t meet my gaze.

  “I didn’t mind that it was always about you, Darrow. That was what burned Tactus, but not me. I’m not in love with you like Mustang. I don’t worship you like Sevro or the Howlers. I was a true friend. I was someone who saw your light and your dark and accepted both without judgment, without agenda. And what did you do to me? You used me like a man uses a horse. I’m better than that. Quinn was better than that.”

  “Are you better than this friendship?” I ask quietly, afraid of the answer.

  “I think I’m better than you,” he says. I step back, wounded. He watches the deer nibble at the grain in the feeder. “I’ve sat by the bedsides of three friends this year. Quinn, Tactus, and you. Each time I knew I would have gladly switched places with any of you. Would you wish the same?”

  “I’d give my life to bring them back,” I say, knowing it is a lie. Much as I love these Golds, I have greater responsibilities. Until this is over, it’s not my life to give.

  He turns from the deer to watch me, eyes warm and sad and carrying so much more weight than they ever should. He’s different from me, from Cassius. We called him brother, and he was one better than either of us deserved. “Have you ever wondered why they put me in House Mars? I’m not the typical draft. Most would probably put me in
Apollo or Juno.”

  “Quinn always had that competition in her blood. But you … Yes, I’ve wondered.”

  “Darrow.” I turn to see Sevro standing behind us in uniform. “It’s urgent.”

  “Not now, Sevro.”

  “Reap, I’m not shitting you,” he says.

  I look back to Roque. “Go,” he says, and walks toward the deer, pulling berries from his pocket.

  “Roque,” I call to him plaintively.

  “Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair,” he says, turning to glance over his shoulder. “We’ll talk again soon.”

  I watch him go, feeling a small bit of hope warm me. I turn to Sevro and clap his back. “Good to see you. Sorry about—”

  “Piss off. I’m not a whiny little bitch like the poet. It’s Ares. Your friends, the Red, the Pink, and the Violet, have gotten themselves captured.”

  “By whom?”

  “Who do you think? The Jackal.”

  45

  GIFTS

  My ship lands in the early morning snowfall of Attica, a southern mountain city set on seven peaks. Jagged buildings of steel and glass christen the peaks like icy thorn crowns, now dusted with fresh powder. The red morning sun rises over the mountain range to the east. Bridges link the seven peaks, and the city’s lesser wards spill around the roots of the mountains. My shuttle flies over them. Plows melt paths through the snow with pulsing orange blades. Soon, midColor landcars will flow along the avenues. And highColor shuttles will ferry Silvers and Golds to their offices on the mountain peaks. Remote and renowned for its banking, Attica is a prime seat of power. It belongs now to the Jackal.

  Under heavy guard by ripWings, I land on a platform surrounded by evergreens. Several lurchers wait there in white tactical gear. A lone Gold stands with them. Victra embraces me with a hug, a white fur pelt pulled tight about her shoulders. Jade earrings clatter in the breeze as the Grays inspect the outside of my ship.