Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2)

by Pierce Brown

“No. Don’t speak. It’s not your turn just because I pause.”

I am a genius. I say this because it is a fact. I am smarter than any person you’ve ever met, except perhaps my twin. My heart does not make my brain a fool.

“You meet a man, you know him. You meet a woman, she knows you.” He laughs to himself about some memory. “Might be easier thinking her some terror in the night. But she’s flesh and blood. She has friends. She has family. And she thinks you a threat to them.”

I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one. I would have given you the quiet strength to grow old with the woman you love. Now all I can give you is a chance.

She puts a small red flower clip, the sort a young girl would wear, into my hair. “All knights need their tokens,” she says, tearing up. “Don’t be too much a hero. You’re too clever to die in a stupid battle.”

And what is the bloodydamn point of surviving in this cold world if I run from the only warmth it has to offer?