Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga, #4)

by Pierce Brown

Sometimes I fear that this war is killing that boy inside. I ache to remember him, his raw, pure heart. To forget this city moon, this Solar War, and return to the bosom of the planet that gave birth to me before the boy inside is dead forever.

it feels so impossible that he could have come from me. That he could have thoughts of his own. That he’ll love, smile, die like the rest of us.

Because when the law is not obeyed, the ground is fertile for tyrants.” I sigh. “You’ve been reading again.” “Damn right. The Golds hoarded our history so they could pretend they owned it. It’s my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind, being led around by my nose.”

Her words carry away into the night, into the arms of the swaying trees, along with the current of the wind, up and up into the sky, where it seems all fantasies go.

Ten years recycling each other’s air will make the best of men devils to one another.

I often imagine what humans could do if there were no scarcity. Nothing to fight over. Just an unending expanse to explore and name and fill with life and art. I smile at the pleasant fiction. A man can dream.

“Do not let fear touch you. Fear is the torrent. The raging river. To fight it is to break and drown. But to stand astride it is to see it, feel it, and use its course for your own whims.”

“A man once said that a war fought by politicians will be lost by everyone,”

“Change isn’t made by mobs that envy, but by men who dare.

He turns to me with a mischevious smile. “Sometimes, little one, it’s best if the worlds think you a little mad.” He winks. “Inspiring what they’ll let you get away with.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “The worlds are very big and you are very small. Do you think you are ready, little one?” “Yes,” I say with a trembling voice. “Yes, I am.”

How hard it is to teach children that their parents’ money is not their own.

“A new wound can take a body. Opening an old one can claim a soul.”

“I think you’re my only friend.” “And what do friends do? Friends help each other. You carry my shadows. I carry yours for a spell.” I take an imaginary necklace from her neck and put it on myself and buckle my knees like it’s a great weight. She laughs. “Maybe then we’ll both be a bit lighter when next we meet.”

“You know, not everything you say to me has to be a lesson,” I say. “If you didn’t need them, I wouldn’t teach them.

“See? Pent-up sexual aggression.” “Just because I believe in actual romance instead of plundering the virtue from merchants’ daughters and buggering everything that moves like a gorydamn Gaul does not mean that I should be shamed.”

The key to learning, to power, to having the final say in everything, is observation. By all means, be a storm inside, but save your movement and wind till you know your purpose.

Don’t be ponderous, boy. Peerless aren’t the only ones with opinions. Pray tell, do you agree? Speak plainly or don’t speak at all. Were we meant to be more than just force? Weren’t we meant to inspire?”

“It is said that a life is made great by sorrow and joy.” Dido stares at me, then Cassius. “But you men are cursed. You will never really understand life because you do not know what it is to bear a child. To push a life from your flesh. To have two hearts beating inside you at once.” She looks at the empty seat beside Seraphina. She takes the flower there between her fingers. “To have had seven hearts beating beyond you, carrying your hopes, your dreams. And when one of those hearts stops…you feel it as if it were your own.”

“Don’t be such an asshole. It’s why there’s war in the first place.”

“Manners, brother; when at the mercy of your enemies, petulance demeans your entity.”