Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

We grew together, and now are grown. In her eyes, I see my heart. In her breath, I hear my soul. She is my land. She is my kin. My love.

“Death isn’t empty like you say it is. Emptiness is life without freedom, Darrow. Emptiness is living chained by fear, fear of loss, of death. I

The Gray soldiers prowl the cities ensuring order, ensuring obedience to the hierarchy. The Whites arbitrate their justice and push their philosophy. Pinks pleasure and serve in highColor homes. Silvers count and manipulate currency and logistics. Yellows study the medicines and sciences. Greens develop technology. Blues navigate the stars. Coppers run the bureaucracy. Every Color has a purpose. Every Color props up the Golds.

“In the densest places of man, humanity most easily breaks down,” he says.

Here, other Colors slam into me and offer not even a faint apology. This is a city, and I do not like it. I feel alone.

There are one thousand cities on Mars, each ruled by a Governor, the ArchGovernor presiding over all. Each city is set in the center of a hundred mining colonies. The Governors manage these colonies, with the individual MineMagistrates like Podginus overseeing the day-to-day.

“Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence.”

must learn better than them, not simply beat them. That is how I will help Reds. I am a boy. I am foolish. But if I learn to become a leader, I can be more than an agent of the Sons of Ares. I can give my people a future. That is what Eo wanted.

Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.

“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”

Loyal Pax.

Yet the question remains, is Mustang her father’s daughter? Or is she the girl who hums Eo’s song? I think I know the answer. She is what Golds can be, should be.

One of my last words was bloodydamn. What does Sevro know? What does he think he knows? The fact that he deleted it means he thinks it is important enough to cover up.

“I am something different. I freed the enslaved and let the broken mend themselves. I gave them something you older generations can’t understand.”

I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.

“It is not funny at all. Steel is power. Money is power. But of all the things in all the worlds, words are power.” I look at him for a moment. Words are a weapon stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart.

I will give my soul. I will dive to hell in hopes of one day rising to freedom. I will sacrifice.