The Red Rising: Golden Son Part 16

"Do ask, boy. We have no secrets here. But it must be the last. Agrippina au Julii has been kept waiting long enough." Aja opens the box so the Oracles may go back inside.

"Tonight, at the gala, during the sixth course of the meal, did you plan to allow the Bellona to a.s.sa.s.sinate ArchGovernor Augustus and all those who sat at his table?"

Aja freezes. Mustang slowly turns to look at the Sovereign, whose face shows no hints of dishonesty. The woman breathes easily and with a soft smile lies through her teeth. "No," she says. "I did not."

The Oracle's barbed tail strikes at her flesh.

16.

THE GAME.

Fitchner's razor buzzes, and he chops away the tail faster than a bee beats its wings. It flops to the floor, transparent stinger hissing out poison. On the Sovereign's arm, the wounded creature screams. Wailing and writhing like a dying cat. The Sovereign rips it off and throws it at the wall. My own releases slowly, as if connected with the other. Mewing pathetically, it retreats to its box to hide in the darkness. I dab away the faint trail of blood it left on my forearm.

"So you do lie," I say with a wicked grin.

The Sovereign exhales a long sigh.

Mustang stands, enraged. "You promised you would not hurt them. You lied."

"Yes." Octavia rubs her temples. "A matter of necessity."

"You said there were no lies here," Mustang hisses. "That was a precondition of my allegiance to you. The only thing I asked for, and you planned to do it while I watched?"

"Sit." The Sovereign stands, drawing nose-to-nose with Mustang. "Sit down."

Mustang sits, breathing heavily. She won't look at me or the Sovereign. She's surrounded by betrayal. The Sovereign notes this, piecing together a new strategy as Mustang draws a gold ring from her pocket and rolls it compulsively through her fingers.

"Do you know why I need your family gone?" Octavia asks Mustang. She doesn't reply. "I asked you a question, Virginia. Put aside petulance and answer."

"He is a threat to peace," Mustang replies flatly, slipping the ring on her finger. "He disregards your orders. He does not obey financial directives. He delays helium-3 experts for political gain."

"If I tried removing him from power, what would happen?"

Mustang looks up at her. "He would rebel."

"So what am I to do? If he rebels while on Mars, it becomes his planet fortress. The monies it would take me to pry him out-to find him, to kill him, to reinstate order-is ... incomprehensible. s.h.i.+ps. Men. Food. Munitions. Trade. Helium-3 shortages. The Society would not recover for years.

"We cannot afford an enemy like him. But we also cannot afford an ally to so publicly affront us. What if the Governors of the Gas Giants thought they were immune to my orders because we're lenient with your father? Because we let him manipulate helium prices or ignore Sovereign directives? Forty years ago, in the first year of my reign, the Moons of Saturn rebelled. The war did not end until I destroyed the moon, Rhea, outright. Fifty million dead. That is how stubborn our race is. They know how difficult it is for me to flex my hand billions of kilometers from the Core. But still they are afraid. So much of a ruler's reign is a figment of the people's imagination. My power isn't s.h.i.+ps. Isn't Praetorians. My power is their fear. But they must have fresh reminders."

"And so my family is to be the reminder."

"Yes. Tell me that doesn't make sense."

Mustang stays quiet for a long moment. "It is the logical political move. But he's my father...."

"Which is why I didn't tell you. Consider this."

She waves her hand and a holo ignites on the floor, rising to fill half the room. It's a riot. Buildings smoke. Grays mow down women and men with pulse weapons. She changes the image. A dozen more dance across the room. A woman falls in front of me, dead. Hole in her skull. Smoking still.

I stare down at the sudden horror.

"Is this Mars?" I ask, fearing for my family.

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" The Sovereign traces a finger through the muzzle of a pulseRifle as it fires. "It's Venus."

"Venus?" Mustang whispers. "There are no Sons of Ares on Venus."

"Nor will there be after tonight. The flame spreads even to the Core. Two hours ago, multiple bombings racked this Society. My Politicos and Praetors and various high-level personnel throughout the empire have initiated Order Zero. No media will report this. Wherever there are flames, we make quarantine. We will snuff them out. Something your father did not do, Virginia. In fact, he allowed the Sons to thrive. To spread here."

I warned Harmony. I only hope the Sons aren't all lost.

The Sovereign crouches in front of Mustang. "Your father must die. He hanged the very woman the Sons of Ares used to start all this. His face burns across their propaganda. If he goes, if we strike them, then they fade. We will kill two birds with one stone. Arrange the transfer of power to Bellona, and Mars is at peace for the first time in my reign. All it costs is fifty lives. I know he is your father, but you came into my fold for a reason."

Looking at Mustang, I understand that reason now, and it breaks my heart.

She stands slowly, walking to the window as if fleeing the decision. She stares out at a s.h.i.+p pa.s.sing in the distant fog. "When Mother was alive, he used to ride with me through the forest. We'd stop at this wildblossom clearing and lay in the red flowers, arms out, pretending we were angels. That man is dead. Do with the new one as you like."

17.

WHAT THE STORM BRINGS.

The Obsidians escort me to new quarters, Fitchner trailing along behind, pacing jovially on the marble floors. When we reach my door, he takes my hand.

"Well played, boyo. Good reading on her-knowing she wants what she can't have. Goryd.a.m.n clever. Warms my heart to finally see you playing the game and winning, you little p.i.s.ser." He slugs my shoulder. "Tomorrow, we'll go to market and buy you servants. Pinks. Blues. Obsidians of your very own. For now ... I left you a present." He gestures into my room where a lithe Pink lies on the bed. "Enjoy."

"You don't know me at all. Do you?" He sighs and leans forward.

"This is the hand life has dealt you. It's not a bad hand. Imagine the things you can do as a personal emissary of the Sovereign. She makes your Governor look like a small-town slumlord. You have your girl. You have opportunity. Embrace your new life."

The door slams.

A new life, but is it worth the cost? I don't know what's happening with the Sons. That's something I can't affect. But he expects me to let Roque die? To let Tactus and Victra and Theodora perish to Praetorian death squads?

I walk around my suite, ignoring the Pink. Luna's night clouds sprawl as far as the eye can see beyond the huge bank of windows that comprises the suite's north wall. Buildings puncture the clouds like glittering spears.

I am trapped by opulence.

Rain continues to pour. The storms of Luna are enigmatic creatures. For a man of Mars, it is a slow rain. Lethargic. As though the drops tire of their own fall in this low gravity. But the winds that come are gales. There are no cracks in the Citadel's windows through which the wind can whistle. I miss the moans of my old castle on Mars. Miss the laments of the deepmines. Those moments when the drill cooled and I sat there touching my wedding band through my frysuit, thinking of how soon it would be that I had her lips to mine, her hands on my waist, her body drifting light as dust over my own.

But I cannot think only of the Red girl. When I see the moon, I think of the sun: Mustang burns in my thoughts. If Eo smelled of rust and soil, then the Golden girl is fire and autumn leaves.

Part of me wishes I would remember only Eo. That my mind belonged to her, so I could be like one of those knights of legend. A man so in love with one lost that he closes his heart to all others. But I am not that legend. In so many ways, I'm still a boy, lost and afraid, seeking warmth and love. When I feel dirt, I honor Eo. And when I see fire, I remember the warmth and flicker of the flames across Mustang's skin as we lay in our chamber of ice and snow.

I examine the empty room, which smells neither of leaves nor soil, but cardamom. The room is too vast for my taste. Too rich. There is ivory on the walls. A sauna. A ma.s.sage parlor adjacent to a pleasure-Chamber. There's a commChair, a bed, a small swimming pool. These are my chambers now. I see on a dataFile that I've been given a fifty-million-credit stipend to choose my attendants. They left me an additional ten million to populate my harem. This is the price they pay me for betraying my friends. It is not enough.

My eyes now fall on the Pink who lies on my bed. Naked, covered only by a blanket. I threw it on her to mask her form, thinking of poor Evey when I first saw her. But the longer I look at this new girl, the harder it is to remember Evey, to remember Eo or Mustang. That's what Pinks are for, to help you forget. So effective they even make you forget their own sad plight. When she grows old, she'll be sold off from the Citadel staff to some high-cla.s.s brothel. And a few more lines will form and she'll be sold down the ladder and down the ladder till she has nothing more to give. It happens to men. It happens to women. And, I'm beginning to realize, it happens to Golds.

The Pink asks me to join her. To let her soothe what ails me. I don't reply. I sit on the edge of the windowsill, my hands kneading my thighs, waiting. I don't have my razor. Obsidians guard the hall outside. The gla.s.s window won't break by any means I have at my disposal, but I do not worry. I sit watching the storm, feeling another brew inside myself.

With a hiss, the door opens. I turn, a smile already cracking my face.

"Mustang, I-"

Through the door slips a demure male Pink with white hair and eyes that'd break a thousand hearts in Lykos. It breaks mine now. I was wrong.

"Who are you?" I ask.

He sets a small onyx box down on my bed in front of the other Pink.

"Who is it from?" I demand.

"You'll see, dominus," he says. Daintily, he extends a hand to the other Pink, who, confused, takes it and follows him from the room. The door closes. I'm just as confused as the Pink. I rush to the box, opening it, and find a small holoCube. I activate it.

Mustang's face appears, glowing. "Take cover," she says.

The power goes out and the door locks by default. The room is plunged into darkness. Lightning lashes through the clouds outside; thunder rumbles. And I hear something. A howling. It is not the wind.

Another flash of lightning and he appears, floating in the bitter storm like the ugliest angel ever s.h.i.+t out of heaven. A wolfpelt hangs from his shoulders, whips in the wind. His black metal helmet is that of a wolfshead, and he's armed to the b.l.o.o.d.y teeth.

Sevro has come, and he's brought friends.

Lightning. Thunder again and this time it illuminates his slash of a smile and the eight floating killers behind him. Nine Howlers in all. Small, cruel little devils waiting in the darkness, silhouetted by the crackling of the storm's electricity. Long-legged Quinn is there too.

I duck into the sauna as Sevro touches the gla.s.s with a pulseFist after setting up a jamField to absorb the sound. The gla.s.s ruptures inward. The distorted sound of the storm follows them as they thump down onto the carpeted marble floor. Wind whips at my bedsheets and tapestries. One by one they kneel-pudgy Pebble, cruel Harpy, spindly, open-faced Clown, and all the others.

"Friends. Get up!" I bellow. "You're already short enough."

They laugh and rise. Pebble and Clown rush forward and weld shut my metal door with plasma torches.

Water drips from Sevro's hook nose as he nods toward me, his helmet absorbed into his armor. Hair buzzed in the shape of dragons. Quiet, and so full of derision, he hefts a huge, heavy bag in his other hand. And when he walks, he moves with disdain for this low gravity. As though it were a thing for weaklings and fools.

"Lord Reaper. You look like a Pixie ponce in this lady-den." Sevro sweeps into a theatrical bow after he places the bag at my feet. "Perhaps that's why Mustang believed you were in dire need of your goryd.a.m.n pack."

"She brought you back from the Rim?"

"All of us," Quinn says. "We've been here several weeks on standby. She needed men she knew wouldn't be loyal to the Sovereign."

An insurance policy. I can't believe I ever doubted her.

In no world would Mustang help kill her father. I realized during my conversation with the Sovereign that it had to be why she's here in the first place-to infiltrate the Sovereign's family like I infiltrated the Golds. As she entered the Sovereign's suite, I remembered how before the duel she mentioned having her own plans. Now it finally clicks into place. They were both playing their own games, but I helped reveal the Sovereign's hand.

The Sovereign wasn't worried about me knowing anything, else why play the game? But as soon as Mustang entered the room, the paradigm altered. She should have concluded the game then and there. But her pride got the better of her.

As for Mustang, I knew she was with me as soon as she took the gold horse ring I gave her from her pocket and slipped it onto her finger. My heart leaped in that moment, and I knew she'd find our way out of this.

"Sevro." I smile and clasp his hand. "Our ArchGovernor is-"

"I know. Mustang briefed us."

"Come here, you tall devil." Quinn steps past the others and slips her thin arm around my waist and kisses my cheek. She smells like home. I have missed these people. The wind howls as it pa.s.ses through our jamField. Sevro's bionic eye glitters unnaturally. Quinn has brought me gravBoots, ebony in color. I slip them on.

"Mustang might have brought us from the Rim. But we didn't come for her. We didn't come for Augustus. We came for you, Reaper," Sevro snarls. Quinn frowns as Sevro spits on the pretty carpet. "We saw what you did to Ca.s.sius. And we want what you're trying to make."

"And that is?" I ask, more than a little confused.

"What poor killers always want. War," he growls. "And all its spoils."

"What of your father? He has a high place now."

"Fitchner is a s.h.i.+teater," he sneers. "He's made his bed. Let him sleep in it while we burn the house down."

"Well, if you want war, if you want spoils, we better move. The ArchGovernor's the one with an army."

Quinn nods. "And Roque's down there. And Tactus."

"Tactus," Sevro mutters, though I know the sneer on his face is for Roque. He watches Quinn, eyes sad for the smallest moment, before adjusting his armor.

"So what's the plan?" I ask, and take the razor Pebble offers me.

Sevro and Quinn look at each other and laugh. "Mustang's fetching a s.h.i.+p. She said you'd figure out the rest," Quinn says.

Just then the door behind me shudders and glows with a dilating pupil of red-hot metal, and I notice something. The bag that Sevro threw down. It moves.

Sevro smiles at me. I know that smile.