Red Rising (50 page)

“Good,” Fitchner says. “You trust them all. Splendid, then there is no third complication. My mistake.” I press him for what he means, so he sighs and relents. “Oh, only that you sent Mustang and half the army to deal with the Jackal.”

“And?”

“It’s really nothing. You trust her.”

“No. Tell me. What do you mean?”

“Well, fine. If you must know, if there’s simply no other way of going about it: she is the Jackal’s twin sister.”

Virginia au Augustus. Sister to the Jackal. Twin. An heir of the great family, the
gens Augusta
. The only daughter of ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus. The man who made all this happen. Kept cloistered and out of the public eye to ward off assassination attempts, just like her brother. That’s why Cassius didn’t know the daughter of his family’s archrival. But when I sat with the Jackal, Mustang knew who he was. Her brother. Had she known before of the Jackal’s identity? Nothing can explain her silence if she knew who he was and said nothing. Nothing except for family—which is a loyalty above friendship, above love, above a kiss in the corner of a room. I have sent half my army to the Jackal. I have given him recoilArmor, gravBoots, ghostCloaks, razors, pulseWeapons, enough tech for him to take Olympus.
Dammit
.

The Proctors all know. And when I pass them at a run, they are laughing. They laugh at my stupidity. The rage grows inside of me. I want to kill something. I marshal my forces. They are spread throughout the castle, eating its food, taking its pleasures. Fools. Fools. My best are where I need them. Sevro, left to his work. That is the most important thing. I order Tactus to hunt down the remnants of Venus and Mercury in the southern lowlands and enslave them, and I set Milia out to marshal the rest of my army with Nyla. I need to go to House Mars now. I cannot wait for my soldiers to assemble. I need fresh bodies, because when the Augustus twins
come, they will have weapons and technology to match mine, and they may have more soldiers. The game has changed. I did not prepare for this. I feel a fool. How could I have kissed her? My heart is swallowed by darkness. What if I had given her the haemanthus? I tear it to ribbons as I jump from the edge of Mount Olympus in my gravBoots and let the petals fall.

I take only the Howlers with me, passing the petals as we soar down.

We wear gravBoots and armor and carry pulseFists and pulseBlades. The snow in the land of House Mars is gone. Muddy soil churned by the feet of invaders replaces it. The highlands are swaddled in mist. The smell is of earth and siege. Our towers, Phobos and Deimos, are rubble. The catapults gifted to the besiegers have done their work there. So too have they made progress on the walls of my old castle. The front façade is in ruin and strewn with arrows, broken pottery from pitch jars, swords, armor, and some students.

Nearly a hundred strong besiege Mars. Their camp is near the tree line, but an enclosing fence has been built around Mars Castle to prevent any sallies from the fortress. It has been a long winter for both sides, though I note the solar cooking pots, the portable heaters, the nutrition packets of the Jackal’s besieging force—comprised of Jupiter, Apollo, and a quarter of House Pluto. Several crosses stand high at the bottom of the slope. They face the castle. On the crosses are three bodies. Crows tell me their state. The only sign of resistance I see from House Mars is our flag—the wolf of Mars, tattered and scorched. It hangs slack in the poor wind.

The Howlers and I come from the sky like golden gods. Our ragged cloaks flap behind us. But if the besiegers expected us to be Proctors bringing more gifts, they could not have been more mistaken. We land hard on the earth. The Howlers first, and I land at their head, and as I hit, the enemy scatter before me in utter terror.

Reaper has come home.

I let the Howlers make ruin of the enemies on our soil. This is as close as I’ve been to home, to Lykos, in months. I bend down and take a handful of House Mars soil as my men do my work around me. Mars. Home. I have flown a different banner, but I have
missed my House. Enemies run to attack me. They see my blade, know who I am. I walk impervious. My pulseArmor is my shield. Sevro and the Howlers act as my sword.

I walk to the three crosses and peer up to see Antonia, Cassandra, and Vixus.

The betrayers. What did they do now?

Antonia is still alive, as is Vixus, barely. I have Thistle cut them down and take them back to Olympus for the medBots. They will have to live with the knowledge that they slit Lea’s throat. I hope it hurts them. I stand for a moment at the bottom of the hill. I call up to tell them who I am. But they already know, because the flag of Mars comes down and in its place is raised a soiled bedsheet with a hastily drawn slingBlade arching across.

“The Reaper!” they cry, as I am their salvation. “Primus!”

The defenders are ragged, dirty, and thin. Some are so weak we have to carry them from the rubble of the castle. Those who can, come to salute me or tip their heads or kiss my cheeks. Those who cannot, touch my hand as I pass. There are broken legs and crushed arms. They will be mended. We ferry them back to Olympus. House Mars will not be useful in the coming battle, so I will use besiegers from Pluto, Jupiter, and Apollo. I have Clown and Pebble enslave them all with the standard of Mars. A thin boy I hardly recognize delivers it to me. But when he grabs me in a skeletal embrace, a hug so hard it hurts, I know who he is.

A silent sob echoes in my chest.

He is quiet as he hugs me. Then his body shudders like Pax’s did as he met death. Except these shudders come from joy, not pain.

Roque lives.

“My brother,” he sobs. “My brother.”

“I thought you were dead,” I tell him as I clutch his delicate frame. “Roque, I thought you were dead.” I clasp him to me. His hair is so thin. I feel his bones through his clothing. He’s like a wet rag around my armor.

“Brother,”
he says. “I knew you would come back. I knew it in my heart. This place was hollow without you.” He grins at me with such pride. “How you now fill it.”

The Primus of House Diana was right. House Mars is a wildfire. And it does starve. Roque has scars on his face. He shakes his head, and I know he has stories to tell—where he was, how he came back. But later. He limps away. Quinn, one-eared and tired, goes with him. She mouths a thank-you and puts her hand along the small of the thin poet’s back in a manner that lets me know she’s left Cassius.

“He told us you would return,” she says. “Roque never lies.”

Pollux is still humorous when I see him. His voice is gravel and he clasps my arm. Quinn and Roque kept the House together, he says. Cassius gave up a long while ago. He waits for me in the warroom.

“Don’t kill him … please. It ate his mind up, man. Ate it all up what he did to you; we all found out. So just let him get some time away from this place, man. It does things to your head. Makes you forget we don’t have a choice.” Pollux kicks a piece of mud. “The bastards put me in with a little girl, you know.”

“In the Passage?”

“Matched me with a little girl. I tried to kill her softly … but she wouldn’t die.” Pollux grunts something and claps me on the shoulder. He tries a sour chuckle. “We’ve got it raw, but at least we’re not Reds, you register?”

Righto
.

He leaves and I’m alone in my old castle. Titus died on the spot where I stand. I look at the keep. It’s worse now than it was in his time. Everything is worse now, somehow.

Bloodyslag
. Why did Mustang have to betray me? Everything is dark now that I know. A shadow cast over life. She could have told me so many times. But she never did. I know she wanted to speak with me when I was with the Jackal, but likely just to tell me something idle. Some tidbit. Or would she betray her blood for me? No. If she would have done that, then she would have told me before I gave her half my army. She took her standard too, and Ceres’s. Why did she need so many except to make war with me? It feels like
she
killed Eo. It feels like she put the noose there and I jerked the feet. She is her father’s daughter.

I feel that little snap go through my hands. I’ve betrayed Eo.

I spit on the stones. My mouth is dry. Haven’t had anything to drink all morning. My head aches. Time to drop my balls, as Uncle Narol used to say. Time to see Cassius.

He sits with his ionBlade out on House Mars’s table. He’s in the seat I carved with my sigil. The old House flag lies across his knee. The Primus hand dangles around his neck. So much time has passed since he put that sword in my belly. The weapon looks silly now. A toy, a relic. I am so far past this room, past his blade, past his reach, yet his eyes stop my heart. The guilt is like black bile in my throat. Fills my chest and drains me.

“I’m sorry for Julian,” I tell him.

His hair is golden curls but matted with grit and grease. Fleas make their home there. He is still beautiful, still more handsome than I ever will be. But I am the greater man. The spark in his eye has cooled. Time and space away from this place are what his soul needs. Months of siege. Months of anger and defeat. Months of loss and guilt have drained him of all that makes him Cassius. What a poor soul. I feel sorry for him. I almost laugh. After he put a sword in my belly,
I
pity
him
. He has never lost a battle. He alone of all the Primuses can say that. Yet he takes the badge and flips it to me.

“You’ve won. But was it worth it?” Cassius asks.

“Yes.”

“No hesitation.…” He nods. “That’s the difference between you and me.”

He sets the standard and his sword down and walks close to me, so close I can smell the stink of his breath. I think he’s going to hug me. I want to hug him, to apologize and beg for his forgiveness. Then he pulls open a scab on his knuckles, sucks the blood from it and spits in my face, startling me.

“This is a blood feud,” he hisses in highLingo. “If ever again we meet, you are mine or I am yours. If ever again we draw breath in the same room, one breath shall cease. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another till one rots in hell.”

It is a formal, cold declaration that requires one thing of me. I nod. And he leaves. I stand trembling for a moment after he’s gone.
My heart thuds in my chest. So much pain. I had thought it would be over, but not all scars heal. Not all sins are forgiven.

I take the Mars flag and pin the Primus badge to myself. I watch the map on the wall. My slingBlade banner flutters over every castle there; my men secured the rest even as Tactus makes ready Olympus for Mustang’s assault. Now those castles belong to me, not to the wolf of House Mars. My slingBlade looks like the
L
of Lambda. My clan. The place where my brother, my sister, my uncle, my mother, my friends, still toil. They feel a world apart, yet their symbol, a symbol of our rebellion—a working tool made into a weapon for war—flies over all the Houses of the Aureate except one. Pluto.

I leave the castle through the spire. I am a Red Helldiver of Lykos. I am Gold Primus of House Mars. And I am going to my last battle in this bloodydamn valley. After that the real war begins.

Tactus has assumed command in my absence. The man is a cruel beast, but he’s my cruel beast. And with him at my side, my forces are fit for bloodshed. Our armor glistens. Three hundred strong. Ninety new slaves. They will not have a chance to earn their freedom. There were not enough gravBoots for all. Or enough armor. But everyone has something. The DeadHorses and the Howlers group together near the edge of Mount Olympus. They stare down, a thin arc of gold, at the ground a mile below. Our adversaries are in the mountains. When Mustang and the Jackal come from the snow peaks, they will be at a disadvantage. We have the highest ground. The rest of my force—Pax’s former squad and Nyla’s—guard the golden fortress and the Proctors. The slaves are there as well. I wish Pax were at my side. I always felt safer in his shadow.

I’ve sent Nyla and Milia and a dozen others in ghostCloaks to scout the mountains for the Jackal’s movements. Who knows what intel Mustang has given her brother? He will know our weaknesses, our disposition, so I shift everything as much as possible. Whatever she knows will be useless. Alter the paradigm. I wonder if I could
beat her as mercilessly as I beat Fitchner. The girl who hummed Eo’s song? Never. I’m still Red at heart.

“Hate this gory part,” Tactus sighs. He leans his wiry body past me to peer out over the edge of the floating mountain. “Waiting. Pfah. We need some optics.”

“What?”

“Optics!”
he says loudly.

My hearing goes in and out. Popped eardrums are nasty things.

He says something about Mustang and cutting her thumbs off for starters. I don’t catch most of it. Probably don’t want to; he’s the sort to make braids of someone’s entrails. “There!” Then we see a golden flier pierce a cloud. Three more follow. Nyla … Milia. Mustang … and something else.

“Hold!” I call to Sevro and his Howlers. They echo the command as Mustang approaches carrying something odd.

“Lo, Reaper,” Mustang calls to me. I wait for her to land. Her boots bring her quickly to the ground.