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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.
“It’s not just some dream, Darrow. I live for the dream that my children will be born free. That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.” “I live for you,” I say sadly. She kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”
“They told us we were man’s only hope,” I say quietly. “That Earth was overcrowded, that all the pain, all the sacrifice, was for mankind. Sacrifice is good. Obedience the highest virtue …”
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 will apply to the Institute. He will be accepted. There, he will excel well enough to reach the ranks of the Peerless Scarred; as a Scarred, he can train to be a Praetor, a Legate, a Politico, a Quaestor. Anything. He will advance to a prime position, the primer the better. From there, he will be in a position to do as Ares requires for the Cause.”
You think like the rest of them.” I nod to the HC’s reflection. “Things are set in stone. Things are well ordered. Reds at the bottom, everyone else standing on our backs. Now you’re looking at me and you’re realizing that we don’t bloodydamn like it down there. Red is rising, Mickey.”
“Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence.”
“Even the nations of Earth grew jealous of one another. The United States of America exacted this idea of equality through force. And when the nations united, the Americans were surprised to find that they were disliked! The Masses are jealous! How wonderful a dream it would be if all men were created equal! But we are not.
The rules and manners and morals of society are pulled away. All it takes is a stone room and two people needing the same scarce thing.
Freedom costs too much. But Eo disagreed. Damn her.
“If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown,” he says, and raises his thin eyebrows. “So keep swimming, right?”
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.”
“Darrow, Lancer of House Augustus. Rise, there are duties for you to fill. Rise, there are honors for you to take. Rise for glory, for power, for conquest and dominion over lesser men. Rise, my son. Rise.”
