Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

Without me, she would not eat. Without her, I would not live.

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 live for you,” I say sadly. She kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

The buildings seem to pinch together. A hundred balconies form ribs in the alleyway’s heights.

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

And me? It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror. I’m what I know the devil to be. I am arrogance and cruelty, the sort of man who killed my wife. I am Gold. And I am as cold as it.

“See. That’s what I don’t get. If I am a good man, then why do I want to do bad things?”