Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

I failed the test. He’s right. It wasn’t justice. Justice is dispassionate; it is fair. I am the leader. I passed the sentence. I should have done it. Instead, I gave license to vengeance and vendetta. The cancer will not be cut away; I made it worse.

“But that’s the only thing you got right.”

I don’t know if it was his wife or his sister or his mother they hurt. I do not know what mine he came from. His pain is my own. His pain broke him as mine broke me on the scaffold. But I was given a second chance. Where was his?

I did not love him till he was dead; and he should be dead, but he is still my brother. So I pray he finds peace in the vale and that I will see him again one day and we’ll embrace as brothers as he forgives me for what I did to him, because I did it for a dream, for our people.

“Life is the most effective school ever created. Once upon a time they made children bow their heads and read books. It would take ages to get anything across.”

What we must study is humanity. In order to rule, ours must be the study of political, psychological, and behavioral science—how desperate human beings react to one

another, how packs form, how armies function, how things fall apart and why. You could learn this nowhere else but here.”

“I learn more when I make mistakes, so long as the...

first test, the Passage, was the measurement of necessity versus emotion. The second was tribal strife. Then there was a bit of justice. Now there will be more tests. More second chances, more lessons learned.”

“There is a limit set each year by the Board of Quality Control, but we’re well within the bounds despite what happened with the Jackal.” Fitchner smiles.

“He already killed Julian’s murderer. Apparently you weren’t watching.” “Of course. Of course. Mercury thinks you brilliant. Apollo thinks you’re uppity. He really does not like you, you know.”

“I think you are an ancient soul.” He watches me and leans against the rampart. The night is misty beyond the castle. From its depths, a wolf howls. “I think you’re like that beast out there. Part of a pack but deeply sad, deeply alone. And I can’t puzzle out why, my dear boy. This is all so much fun! Enjoy it! Life doesn’t get better.”

“My looks?” He barks a laugh. “What does that matter? Think I’m a Bronzie because I’m not an Adonis?” He leans forward, because he really does care about what I’m going to say.

“Goryhell,” I cough out, and fall to the ground. He wears pulseArmor. I can’t even see the generator. It’s like a pulseShield, but inlaid in the armor itself.

“The Jackal,” I say. “You mentioned him. The Minervan girl mentioned him. Who is he?”

“He’s the ArchGovernor’s son, Darrow. And he makes Titus look like a blubbering child.”

Quietus.

Kravat.

I forget that Cassius, Roque, Sevro, and I are enemies. Red and Gold. I forget that one day I might have to kill them all. They call me brother, and I cannot but think of them in the same way.

There are six: Sevro, Thistle, Screwface, Clown, Pebble, and Weed. When you look at them, it seems as though each of their passive faces stares out from the open, fanged maw of a wolf. I use them for quiet tasks. Without them, I’m not sure I would still be leader. My soldiers whisper slurs about me as I pass. The old wounds have not healed.

“Stupid idea,” Sevro grunts, and cleans a knife and slides it into his black sleeve. “Their castle is tactically inconsequential. No value. None. The land we need is near the river.”

“You snuck into the keep and stole our standard and buried it. Saving it. And then you managed to steal Minerva’s piece. Yet you don’t get a single bar of merit for Primus. Doesn’t strike you as odd?” “No.” “Be serious.” “What should I say? I’ve never been liked.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t born pretty and tall like you and your buttboy, Cassius. I had to fight for what I want. That doesn’t make me likeable. Just makes me a nasty little Goblin.”

“You were picked because you were the smallest boy. The weakest-looking. Terrible

scores and so small. They drafted you like they drafted all the other lowDrafts, because you’d be easy to kill in the Passage. A sacrificial lamb for someone they had plans for, big plans. You killed Priam, Sevro. That’s why they won’t let you be Primus. Am I on target?”

I don’t want him to ask about me, to see through me as easily as I saw through Titus. It is strange. This boy likes me. He insults me, but he likes me. Even stranger, I desperately want him to like me. Why? I think it is because I feel as though he is the only one, including Roque and Cassius, who understands life. He is ugly in a world where he should be

beautiful, and because of his deficiencies, he was chosen to die. He, in many ways, is no better than a Red.

I want to tell him I’m a Red. Some part of me thinks he is too. And some other part of me thinks he’ll respect me more if he knows I am a Red. I was not born privileged. I am like him. But I gua...

I look, as Quinn and Lea both confirmed, devilishly handsome. I do not want House Diana intimidated. That’s why I let Sevro come. He looks ridiculous and childish, so long as his knives are kept away.

Tactus.

Tamara.

Because you butchers are like a wildfire. In the early stages of the game, you burn everything you touch. You destroy. You consume. You ruin Houses because you can’t sustain yourselves. But then you starve because there is nothing more to burn. The sieges. The winter. The advance in technology. It kills your bloodlust, your famous rage. So tell me, why would I shake hands with a wildfire when I can just sit back and watch it run out of things to consume?”

vambraces

cuirass

Pax thumps his war axe on a shield emblazoned with a woman’s head, her hair all of snakes.

Medusa.

heft

Eo didn’t deserve to die a slave to the Society. And despite her Color, Mustang doesn’t deserve any sort of bridle.

House Diana had three choices before the battle. They could have betrayed me to Minerva and taken my House as slaves, but I had Cassius send pickets to intercept any rider. They could have accepted my proposal. Or they could have gone to our castle and tried to take it. I couldn’t care less if they chose that option; it was a trap. We left no water inside and could have besieged them easily.

Their leader, Tamara, does not receive me. She is too embarrassed at being caught in her betrayal.

“His mother’s a Senator, Father’s a Praetor.” Sevro spits. “Met him when we were children. Beat a girl half to death when she wouldn’t kiss him on the cheek. Mad bastard.”

“My master has put the mark on the Reaper. Before winter comes, he will be dead. By one hand or another.”

We must prepare to meet the Jackal’s army. That means consolidating my forces and eliminating lingering threats. I need the remainder of House Diana in the Greatwoods destroyed. And I need House Ceres. I send Cassius with the Howlers and a dozen horsemen to destroy the remainder of Diana. The rest of my army and slaves I take back to our castle to prepare for the Jackal. I’ve not yet devised a plan, but I’ll be ready for him if he rears his head.

I am the Gold here. I am the power. It’s the first time I’ve felt this way since sentencing Titus to death. Soon Fitchner will come down and give me the Primus hand from the stone and all will be well.

“Well, don’t waste the first kiss,” I say. “That’s my only advice.”

crevice.

The medBots did not take Lea’s body away. The Proctors left it so I would know she died, so I could not hold on to hope that somehow she lived. The bastards. Her body is fragile in death. Like a little bird that has fallen from the nest. I build a cairn over her. The stones are high but they will not keep the wolves away.

Antonia never returned to our castle. Neither did her henchmen, Vixus and Cassandra. They failed to kill me and must have fled. But to where?

“You’re a Pixie if you buy all that. Think your papa cut his way up to Imperator by being honorable?”

“Roque … and Lea.” I hear the gurgle in my mind. With it echoes all the sounds of death. Eo’s pop. Julian’s silence as he twitched in his own blood. I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.

I look over to Cassius. He has our two ionSwords, and suddenly a pit opens in my stomach as I realize what’s what. He doesn’t know where Roque is. But he knows something else.