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But I am no Gold. I am a Red.
It is called haemanthus. It means “blood blossom.”
I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing but without his dancing shoes.
I am the Helldiver. It takes a certain kind—and I’m the youngest anyone can remember.
No Red from the mining colonies sees the stars.
The Laurel. Twenty-four clans in the underground mining colony of Lykos, one Laurel per quarter.
Gamma clan has had it since anyone can remember.
Our overlords, the Golds? Their minions, the Grays?
We of Lambda just try to scrape by on our foodstuffs and meager comforts.
Tinpots (Grays, to be technic about it),
My suit is bubbling and I smell something sweet and sharp, like burned syrup. To a Helldiver, it is the smell of death.
Without me, she would not eat. Without her, I would not live.
The voice of Octavia au Lune, the Society’s aged Sovereign, narrates the struggle man faces in colonizing the planets and moons of the System.
The Sons think we are mistreated, so they blow things up.
They did not dally. They died.
Gamma gets the Laurel. And we don’t.
“Act. I want you to use your gifts for your father’s dream. You see how people watch you, take their cues from you. I want you to think owning this land, our land, is worth the risk.” “How much a risk?” “Your life. My life.”
All ears yearn for a voice to lead them through darkness.”
“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.”
All this for a little adventure. All this for a night under the stars with the man she loves.
For this, they will kill her.
Hang the rusty bitch lest she continue to howl.”
like my father, Eo is hanged.
“Live for more,” she mouths to me.
Death is easy when you’ve already tried to find it.
“I can’t do many things. But I can bring you justice.”
Beyond the glass sprawls a city.
This is the future. It should not be this way for generations. My life is a lie.
Earth has come to Mars and we pioneers were left below, slaving, toiling, suffering to create and maintain the foundation of this … this empire. We are as Eo always said—the Society’s slaves.
an empire built on Red backs.”
Eo always preached something of the like, though she never knew the truth. If she had known this, how much more passionately would she have spoken?
We’re empire-breakers, not terrorists.”
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.
“Ninety-seven have failed the Carving … that we know of.”
If violence is the Gold sport, manipulation is their art form.”
“In the densest places of man, humanity most easily breaks down,” he says.
Two golden wings, the Sigils of a Gold, clatter onto the table. Dancer sits. “We want you to make our boy here into a Gold.”
“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.”
They lied to me. Said I was a pioneer.” “And would you have been happier if you knew you were a slave?” Mickey asks.
Even your wife would not recognize you.” That is all I’ve ever feared.
There are twelve loosely based on underlying personality traits. Each is named for one of the gods of the Roman pantheon. The SchoolHouses are networking tools and social clubs outside of school.
Oh, how well my rulers lied.
An Imperator commands each fleet; a Praetor commands squadrons within that fleet.
“Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence.”
I am chosen tenth. Tenth out of one thousand.
“Vixus, Vixus, Vixus. There are no boys like me.”
That’s how I steal their cook.
“How can you be so cold?” “Little girl,” Antonia sighs, “Gold is a cold metal.”
“My Proctor calls him the Jackal. He is smarter and crueler and stronger than you, and he will win this game and make us his slaves if the rest of us go about acting like animals.”
Titus said bloodydamn. No Gold says that. Ever.
