Red Rising — Chapter 43: The Last Test

43

The Last Test

I nd her asleep in a suite beside Jupiter’s own. Her golden hair is

wild. Her cloak dirtier than my own. It hangs brown and gray, not

white. She smells like smoke and hunger. She’s destroyed the room,

upturned a dish of food, buried her dagger into the door. The Brown

and Pink servants are scared of her, and me. I watch them skitter

away. My distant cousins. I see them move, alien things. Like ants.

So void of emotion. I feel a pang. Perspective is a wicked creature.

This is how Augustus saw Eo as he killed her. An ant. No. He called

her a “Red bitch.” She was like a dog in his eyes.

“The food was laced with something?” I ask one of the Pinks.

The beautiful boy murmurs something, looking at the ground.

“Speak like a man,” I bark.

“Sedatives, lord.” He does not look at me. I don’t blame him. I’m a

Gold. A foot taller. Worlds stronger. And I look positively insane.

How wicked he must think me. I tell him to go away. “Hide. My

army does not always listen when I tell them not to toy with

lowColors.”

The bed is grand. Sheets of silk. Mattress of feathers. Posts of

ivory, ebony, and gold. Mustang sleeps on the oor in the corner.

For so long we have had to hide where we sleep. It must have felt so

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wrong lying in perfect comfort, even with sedatives in her. She tried

breaking the windows too. I’m glad she didn’t. It’s a far drop.

I sit beside her. The breath from her nose stirs a single coil of

hair. How many times I’ve watched her sleep with a fever. How

many times she’s done the same. But there’s no fever now. No cold.

No pain in my stomach. Cassius’s wound has healed. Winter is

ended. Outside, I saw the rst of the owers blossoming. I picked

one on the mountainside. It’s in the hidden compartment of my

cloak. I want to give it to Mustang. Want her to wake with the

haemanthus by her lips. But when I take it out, a dagger slips into

my heart. Worse than any metal blade. Eo. The pain will never go

away. I don’t know if it is supposed to. And I don’t know if this guilt

I feel is owed. I kiss the haemanthus and tuck it away. Not yet. Not

yet.

I wake Mustang gently.

Her smile spreads before she even opens her eyes, as though she

knows I am beside her. I say her name and brush the hair from her

face. Her eyes utter open. Golden akes spiral there in the irises.

So strange next to my calloused, dirty ngers with their cracked

nails. She nuzzles my hand and manages to sit up. A yawn. She

looks around. I almost laugh as I see her digest what has happened.

“Well, I was going to tell you about a dream I had about dragons.

They were purple and pretty and liked to sing songs.” She icks my

armor with a nger. It rings. “Way to upstage me. Jerk.”

“It happens.”

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She groans. “I’ve become the maiden in distress, haven’t I? Slag! I

hate those girls.”

I tell her the news. The Jackal is split. His forces besiege Mars as

he and Lilath hide in the deep mountains. We’ll be able to nd him

easily.

“If you want, you can take our army and root the bastard out.”

“Done,” she smirks, and raises an eyebrow. “But can you trust

me? Maybe I’ll want to be big Primus of this weird army.”

“I can trust you.”

“How do you know?” she says again.

This is when I kiss her. I cannot give her the haemanthus. That is

my heart, and it is of Mars—one of the only things born from the

red soil. And it is still Eo’s. But this girl, when they took her … I

would have done anything to see her smirking again. Perhaps one

day I’ll have two hearts to give.

She tastes how she smells. Smoke and hunger. We do not pull

apart. My ngers wend through her hair. Hers trace along my jaw,

my neck, and scrape along the back of my scalp. There is a bed.

There is time. And there’s a hunger dierent from when I rst kissed

Eo. But I remember when the Gamma Helldiver, Dago, took a deep

pull from his burner, turning it bright but dead in a few quick

moments. He said, This is you.

I know I am impetuous. Rash. I process that. And I am full of

many things—passion, regret, guilt, sorrow, longing, rage. At times

they rule me, but not now. Not here. I wound up hanging on a

scaold because of my passion and sorrow. I ended up in the mud

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because of my guilt. I would have killed Augustus at rst sight

because of my rage. But now I am here. I know nothing of the

Institute’s history. But I know I have taken what no one else has

taken. I took it with anger and cunning, with passion and rage. I

won’t take Mustang the same way. Love and war are two dierent

battleelds.

So despite the hunger, I pull away from Mustang. Without a word,

she knows my mind, and that’s how I know it’s in the right. She

darts one more kiss into me. It lingers longer than it should, and

then we stand together and leave. We hold hands till the door, then

I turn to her.

“Fetch me the Jackal’s standard.”

“Yes, Lord Reaper.” She gives a mock bow and a little wink. Then

she is gone.

The place is a madhouse of looting. In all the chaos, Sevro has

found the holoTransmitter. It has our sensorial experiences stored in

its harddrives and is queued to send them back to the Drafters

wherever they may be. It is not a streaming feed, so the Drafters do

not yet have today’s events. There is a half-day delay. That is all it

will take. I give Sevro instructions and have him get to work

splicing out the story I want told. I would trust no one else.

I have Fitchner brought up from Castle Apollo’s dungeons. He

reclines in a chair in Olympus’s dining hall. His face is purple from

when I hit him. The oor is made of condensed air, so we are

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suspended above a mile vertical drop. His feet are on the table and

his mouth twists into a smile.

“There’s the manic boy,” he calls, ngering his chin. “I knew I

liked your odds.”

I give him a greeting with my middle nger. “Liar.”

He returns the nger. “Turd.” He reaches for my hand. “Don’t tell

me you’re still bitter about the poisoning, the sicknesses, the setup

with Cassius, the bears in the woods, the shitty tech, the terrible

weather, the assassination attempts, the spy.”

“The spy?”

“Messing with you. Ha! Still a child. Speaking of which, where are

your soldiers? Running around, eating themselves stupid,

showering, sleeping, screwing, playing with the Pinks? This place is

a honey trap, my boy. A honey trap that will make your army

worthless.”

“You’re in a better mood.”

“My son is safe,” he says with a wink. “Now what are you up to?”

“I already sent Mustang to deal with the Jackal. And after this, I

go to Mars. Then it will all be over.”

“Ooo. Except it won’t be.” Fitchner pops a familiar gumbubble

and winces. I did a number on his jaw. It makes me laugh. I’ve felt

like laughing since Sevro took down Jupiter. My leg throbs with

pain from that blasted man. Even with the painkillers, I can hardly

walk.

“No riddles. Why isn’t it over?”

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“Three things,” Fitchner says. His hatchet face examines me for a

moment. “You’re a peculiar creature. You and the Jackal both.

Everyone always wants to win. But you two stand apart, freaks.

Golds won’t die to win. We value our lives too much. You two don’t.

Where did it come from?”

I remind him he’s my prisoner and he should answer my

questions.

“Three things are not nished. Here’s what’s what. I’ll tell you

what they are if you answer my question: what drives you.” He

sighs. “The rst thing, good man, is Cassius. He will simply have to

duel you until one of you little sods keels over and dies.”

I was afraid of that. I answer Fitchner’s question.

I tell him the Jackal wanted to know the same thing. What drives

me. The right-o answer is rage. From point to point, it is rage. If

something happens, and if I was not anticipating it, I react like an

animal—with violence. But the deepspine answer is love. Love

drives me. So I must lie a bit to him.

“My mother had a dream that I could be greater than anyone in

my family. Greater than the name Andromedus. The name of my

father.” Fake father. Fake family. Point still the same. “I am not a

Bellona. Not an Augustus. Not an Arcos.” I smile wickedly,

something he can appreciate. “But I want to be able to stand above

them and piss on all their gorydamn heads.”

Fitchner likes that. He’s always wanted the same, but he’s found

that without the pedigree, merit takes you only so far. That

frustration is his condition.

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“The second thing that is not nished is this.” Fitchner waves his

hands about. I got the crust of this deal—he’s making no revelations.

I killed a Proctor. I have evidence that the ArchGovernor bribed

others and threatened more so that his child could win. Nepotism.

Manipulation of the sacred school. This is not idle news. It will

shatter something. Perhaps even remove the ArchGovernor from

oce. Charges. Punishment? The Drafters will want blood. “And the

ArchGovernor will want yours. This will embarrass him, and

potentially make room for a Bellona ArchGovernor.”

Fitchner asks me why I trust the soldiers in my army who were

slaves.

“They trust me because they’ve seen how they would have done

in all this had I not come along. You think they want the Jackal as

their master?”

“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, ne. If you must know, if there’s simply no other way of

going about it: she is the Jackal’s twin sister.”

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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 o 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 before? Nothing can explain her silence if she knew who he

was before 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 and enslave them, and I set Milia

out to marshal the rest of my army with Lea. 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

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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

treeline, 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 ag—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 ap behind us. But if the besiegers expected us to be

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Proctors bringing more gifts, they could not have been more

mistaken. We land hard on the earth. The Howlers rst, 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 own a dierent 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 ag 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

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cannot, touch my hand as I past. 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 ll it.”

The Primus of House Diana was right. House Mars is a wildre.

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. “Should have known.”

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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

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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 ag 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 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,

except for the Jackal. Yet he takes the badge and ips it to me.

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

“Yes.”

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“No hesitation.…” He nods. “That’s the dierence between you

and I.”

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 until one heart beats no more.

Now rot.”

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 ag and pin the Primus badge to myself. I watch

the map on the wall. My slingBlade banner utters 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—ies over all the Houses of the Aureate except one. Pluto.

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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.

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