Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

“I’m sorry for Julian,” I tell him. His hair is golden curls but matted with grit and grease. Fleas make their home there. He is still beautiful, still more handsome than I ever will be. But I am the greater man. The spark in his eye has cooled. Time and space away from this place are what his soul needs. Months of siege. Months of anger and defeat. Months of loss and guilt have drained him of all that makes him Cassius. What a poor soul. I feel sorry for him. I almost laugh. After he put a sword in my belly, I pity him. He has never lost a battle. He alone of all the Primuses can say that. Yet he takes the badge and flips it to me. “You’ve won. But was it worth it?” Cassius asks. “Yes.” “No hesitation.…” He nods. “That’s the difference between you and me.” He sets the standard and his sword down and walks close to me, so close I can smell the stink of his breath. I think he’s going to hug me. I want to hug him, to apologize and beg for his forgiveness. Then he pulls open a scab on his knuckles, sucks the blood from it and spits in my face, startling me. “This is a blood feud,” he hisses in highLingo. “If ever again we meet, you are mine or I am yours. If ever again we draw breath in the same room, one breath shall cease. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another till one rots in hell.” It is a formal, cold declaration that requires one thing of me. I nod. And he leaves. I stand trembling for a moment after he’s gone. My heart thuds in my chest. So much ...