The Red Rising: Golden Son Part 18

She turns on me in all her fury. Razor snapping out. Eyes gleaming. But she can't touch me. Not now. Not this night.

"Darrow," Sevro calls with a sudden, odd pleasantness to his voice.

"Yes, Sevro?"

"All that talk about remembering. Aren't you forgetting something right now?"

"I think he is," Quinn agrees. "Our wise ..."

"... but forgetful Reaper," finishes Clown in a very frivolous fas.h.i.+on.

"Hmmm. Apologies, Aja. I forgot what I even came here to tell you." I stand there looking flummoxed.

Quinn sighs. "The bag."

"Oh, yes! Thank you for reminding me, Sevro!" I cry theatrically. Aja doesn't know what the h.e.l.l to make of this sudden banter. "Tell Weed to get down here."

Sevro speaks into his com and a moment later Weed disengages his ghostCloak and flies from the wall a kilometer distant. We watch him approach. Pebble whistles a merry tune, earning a scowl from Harpy and a chuckle from Sevro, who picks it up as well. The Praetorians think they are insane. Wolfpelts hanging from their backs. Black, custom armor. Wolf helmets. And no one over two meters except for Quinn and me. It's like a Violet traveling circus.

"What are you playing at?" Aja demands.

"Has no one ever bartered with you?" I ask, surprised. "More's the pity."

Weed lands in front of me and hands me the bag Sevro gave me as a present. Aja asks what is in the bag.

"Order your men in the villa to stop the killing, and I will tell you."

"I don't negotiate with boys," Aja says.

I nudge the bag lightly with my boot, showing Aja that whatever is inside is alive. She frowns and perhaps she begins to understand what it is. She speaks in her com for her men to stand down. "What's in the goryd.a.m.n bag?"

I open it up and pull out the heir to the Morning Throne like he's a freshly caught rabbit. Lysander's hands and feet are bound gently, and a silk scarf has been tied over his mouth to keep him from making noise. I untie it.

"h.e.l.lo, Aja," he says.

Aja lunges at him. I pull him backward. "Ah! Ah!" I hold my razor to the boy's neck, letting it curl around, just as the affectionate Oracle wrapped itself around my wrist.

Aja freezes. Her Praetorians watch quietly-black helmets and purple capes making them shadows. The few Bellona take steps forward. Aja motions them back. "Next person that moves, I cut them down. How did they get you, Lysander? Your guards-"

"It was Mustang," he says. "Came to say h.e.l.lo. Cut open my window and gave me to the Howlers."

"Have you been hurt?"

"Your turn to speak is at an end, Aja," I interrupt. "You will let my Housemembers rise from the pool. You will let them board the shuttle I have inbound. You will tell the ripWings and fighters in the sky and s.p.a.ce above Luna to let us pa.s.s. Or I will have my Howlers kill the boy."

"You promised to protect the Sovereign," Aja whispers. "And you do ... this? He is a boy. He is helpless."

"It's part of the game," Lysander says very seriously. "You play it too, Aja. We're all on the board."

"You see, he's less helpless than the servants you slaughtered tonight," Quinn replies. "Less than those your father burned on Rhea. But he's one of yours. So of course you care."

"You would kill a family to ensure the safety of your Sovereign," I say coldly. "I would kill a child to ensure the safety of my friends. Speak again, and I take his left hand."

She knows I would kill the boy.

I know I would not. I'm not Karnus. Not Evey or Harmony, despite what I'd have these Golds think. So even if they called my bluff, I would balk. Anyway, the moment I kill him, they kill everyone I know. The murder would be in vain.

This is exactly why I build my reputation as a killer, to leverage in situations like these. If they knew my heart, they'd kill my friends one by one. This is a gamble.

I gamble on pride of two sorts. The first pride is that the Sovereign will not let me kill her only grandson, whom she trained from childhood to take her place when the time comes. The second sort of pride is that deep down, she will believe it no great loss if Augustus and his family escape today. She has the will and the means to hunt us to the ends of the System. Why call my bluff and risk having her grandson die? I know this because of how she killed her father-not outright, but only when she had the support of all his former followers, only when they asked her to rise up against the tall tyrant and rule in his stead.

A woman like her has patience. If the Sovereign told me to do my worst, if she shouted to kill the boy and suffer the consequences, that would be foolhardy. A blunt, brutish demonstration of power, as if saying 'Take my grandson, you cannot hurt me.' No, instead she will feign weakness, let me have this victory, and then bring eternal ruin on me and mine. Fair enough. We'll play that game another day.

A s.h.i.+p roars overhead. A stork-built to deploy men in starSh.e.l.ls to drop points, but slower than mola.s.ses sliding uphill. The bay doors open two hundred meters up, as I instructed. So long as we have the boy, the s.h.i.+p's speed doesn't matter a lick. Of course Mustang planned that.

"We're going to fetch our people now, Aja. Let your men know they're to do nothing to impede us."

Aja just stares at me, watching like a taunted panther in a zoo, eyes silent, horrible, as if willing the bars between us to disappear.

"Sevro, Thistle, check the villa. See if anyone managed to survive." They shoot away. "Quinn, guard the boy. The rest of you, get the ArchGovernor and his retinue out of the pool.

"You'll want to call off the ripWings," I say to Aja. They blink in the darkness kilometers above. "Too much noise and this whole thing will turn into a nightmare for all of us. The Sovereign ma.s.sacring a house ... but the house escapes! What a dastardly testament to her hunger, her impotence. What a debacle that might cause." I smirk at her. "Why, I fear some houses might rally around the offended house. Some may fear they too will be snuffed out like candles in the night. What would happen to the poor Pax Solaris then?"

Quinn stays with me, fingers twitching toward her weapons as Aja obeys my commands. I keep my hand on the boy as the other Howlers splash into the water and emerge with members of House Augustus clinging to them, soaked and gasping for air-some in formal wear, some in armor, most without helmets. They were sharing oxygen, it seems.

Augustus holds on to Harpy's back. The Jackal holds on to Clown's arm. Pliny hangs on to his feet. Where are my friends?

The Howlers deposit the survivors into the bay of the hovering stork high above and return to fetch the rest. Victra is the next they bring out. She's helmetless and wounded on her neck. But she clings to her razor as though it were the thing carrying her aloft. Her eyes strafe the gathered Praetorians wrathfully, and when they find me, they spark against mine like bits of flint. Her anger falls away for a moment and I see a smile of joy, then it's gone and she shouts.

"I will remember you all with great joy!" She laughs madly. "Starting with you, Aja au Grimmus. I will make a coat of your hide."

She disappears into the belly of the craft overhead. Roque is the next one borne aloft. Theodora is with him. I say a quiet prayer of thanks. Quinn touches my shoulder and gives him a wave. His thin face bursts into a smile at the sight of her. He doesn't even notice me. Then he's gone too, landing in the back of the s.h.i.+p. Thistle soon joins us from the manor, helping along several survivors, including the Telema.n.u.ses and Tactus, who bleeds from a dozen holes in his gold armor. He put up a nasty fight.

"Darrow?" he cries. "You mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" He sees the Sovereign's son and cackles gleefully. "Oh, that's ripe. That's ripe. I owe you a drink, my goodman...." His voice fades away as he slips higher in the sky, though he managed to throw his fingers into the crux and wave them in Aja's direction.

"Tactus," Lysander whispers. "He's taller than in holos."

"That's the last of them," Sevro says to me.

"Tell your master we of Mars do not bow so easily," I say to Aja.

The rain beats down between us. Dripping over her dark face, so her eerie eyes blaze in the night. She breaks the silence I imposed on her.

"That is what the Governor of Rhea said when my Ash Lord came to put down his rebellion." Her voice does not sound like her own. It's as though someone speaks through her. "He looked at the thin man I sent with the armada and he laughed and asked why he should bow to me, the b.i.t.c.h patricide of a dead tyrant."

The Sovereign is speaking in Aja's ear, through her com, with Aja repeating the words. My blood runs cold.

"The Governor of Rhea sat upon his Ice Throne in his famed Gla.s.s Palace and asked one of my servants, 'Who are you to breathe fear into a man such as I? I who have descended from the family that carved heaven from a place where once there was nothing but a h.e.l.l of ice and stone. Who are you to make me bow?' Then he struck the Ash Lord here under the eye with his scepter. 'Go home to Luna. Go home to the Core. The Outer Reach is for creatures of sterner spines.' The Governor of Rhea did not bow. Now his moon is ash. His family is ash. He is ash. So run, Darrow au Andromedus. Run home to Mars, for my legions will follow you to the ends of this universe."

"I hope so," I say.

"You have one bargaining chip," the Sovereign, through Aja, reminds me. "My grandson is your safe pa.s.sage. If he dies, I wipe your s.h.i.+p from the sky. Spend him wisely."

Why is she telling me something I already know?

"It's time to go, Darrow." Quinn leans into my shoulder. She sets a hand on my low back, as if to remind me I am not alone. I nod to her. She covers my retreat as I rise upward with the boy, razor slithering around his neck.

Quinn eyes the Praetorians warily and rises to follow. I have one bargaining chip.

What did the Sovereign mean by that? Was she reminding me that I could spend it only once? Only kill Lysander if my back was to the wall? Then I see why as Aja looks at Quinn rising from the ground as a cat looks at a mouse.

"Aja, no!" Lysander yells.

"Quinn!" I shout.

In a flash, Aja lunges forward, quicker than any cat ever born. She grabs Quinn's hair. Frantically, Quinn brings her razor around to fend the giant woman off. But she's too slow. Aja slams her head into the ground with her left hand. Punches her temple. Armored fist on bone. Four times before I can even blink. Quinn's legs kick and twitch and she curls inward like a dying spider, contorting from seizures. Aja backs away, watching me with a smile.

19.

STORK.

They know I am rash. Quinn is bait. Aja is the hook. They'll take Lysander if I bite and attack Aja. They'll use the split second my razor is away from him to stun or kill me. I hear the weapons primed behind me, so I keep the razor to the little boy's throat. Tears distort my vision as I float there impotently. I shake my head as the agony wells. I can't leave her. Reversing my boots, I return to pick her from the ground. But before I can reach her, another Gold flashes past me, descending from above, this one without armor, to scoop her from the ground and bear her aloft.

The Jackal.

I shoot up and away, through the rain into the bay doors and land inside the stork. My boots clank on the metal deck and I kneel, shoving Lysander forward into the bay toward Sevro. The boy sprawls to his knees. Several dozen dripping Augustans stare at me. They turn their eyes to the boy. The Jackal follows, clutching Quinn awkwardly with one arm.

Our s.h.i.+p rises and the doors hiss closed behind us. Roque pushes through the others to see me, then his eyes go to the Jackal, to Quinn, strength slipping from him with each second. The Jackal sets Quinn gently on the ground and kicks off the ill-fitting gravBoots he borrowed from one of the Howlers.

Roque's mouth works. No sound comes out. "Is she ...," he murmurs finally.

"Are there any Yellows on board?" the Jackal asks me. I look to Harpy.

I point Harpy toward the main cabins. "Find Mustang. Ask her."

She sprints off.

"The medkit," the Jackal snaps, feeling Quinn's pulse. He checks her pupils. No one moves. "Now!" Roque stumbles up to find it. Pebble rips it off the wall and tosses him the kit. He brings it back to the Jackal. Mind turned to static, I stare down at Quinn as another seizure racks her body and an inhuman sound rattles from her nose and mouth. Roque's face is bloodless beside me. His hands reach helplessly for the girl he loves, as though his will alone can mend what was broken; but inside he knows he is powerless. He sinks to his knees.

The Jackal opens the medkit and riffles through its contents.

His single hand moves confidently over the devices inside till they find a silver bar no larger than my index finger. He s.n.a.t.c.hes it and activates the device. It hums softly, emitting a faint blue light.

"I need someone's datapad. Mine was fried in the EMP." No one moves. "The girl will die. A goryd.a.m.n datapad. Now."

I hand him mine. He doesn't look up at me, though he pauses a second when he sees my distinctive hands.

"Thank you for the rescue, Reaper," he says hastily.

"Thank your sister."

Lysander rises and comes to my side. He watches quietly, no tears in his eyes. Pebble and Clown sit on their heels. No one touches Roque, though they glance at him, hands clutched on knees or razors, whispering whatever prayers to luck Golds whisper.

The Jackal moves the silver magnetic resonance imager over Quinn's head, watching the hologram on my datapad. He curses.

"What is it?" Roque asks.

The Jackal hesitates. "Her brain is swelling. If we can't control the pressure, we have a problem." He fumbles with the medical equipment and unwinds a machine with a transparent cord. "That pressure will deprive the brain of proper blood flow. It will starve itself as the vessels tighten under the swelling."

"Is she going to die?" I ask.

"Not from swelling," the Jackal says. "Not if I can drain the fluid and release the pressure as it builds. But we'll need to get her head tilted so the blood can flow through the neck veins. Keep blood pressure steady. Get her a supply of O2." He looks up, so thin and wet I'd think him a Red instead of a Gold were it not for the dusty hair. "Pebble, isn't it? Find her oxygen. A breathing mask will do so long as it doesn't cover her face past her forehead."

Pebble slips away.

A fresh seizure contorts Quinn's body. I look on helplessly and set my hand on Roque's shoulder. He flinches against the touch.

Harpy slides back into the room. "No slagging Yellows."

"s.h.i.+t," Clown swears. "s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t." He kicks the wall.

The Jackal pauses, glances at Roque, then acts. He points to Clown, Harpy, and several Housemembers. "I need someone for each of her arms and her head. She's going to keep seizing, and for some reason, I suspect this is going to be a b.u.mpy ride. We're going to move her out of this d.a.m.n bay and hold her down for the surgery." He pulls her hair back into a ponytail, asks me to hold it, and pulls a small ionizer from the medkit. He squeezes it with his teeth over his hand, wincing as it destroys bacteria and dry skin follicles. "Clown, get her hair-all of it."

The Jackal stands and tosses the ionizer to Clown, who bends and is about to scan it over Quinn's golden hair when Roque takes it from his grasp. He hovers over Quinn, unable to move.

"What's her name?" the Jackal asks Roque.

"Quinn."

"Talk to her. Tell her a story."

Trembling slightly, Roque sniffs and speaks quietly to Quinn. "Once, in the days of Old Earth, there were two pigeons who were greatly in love...." He toggles the ionizer and moves his hand. It is intimate. Like he's bathing her. Just the two of them in some far-off place. Long before she told stories by the campfires of the Inst.i.tute. Long before the horror.

I smell hair burning as the Jackal stands and comes to me.

"What happened down there?" he asks. "Was it a pulseFist?"