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How my own shift. I will make a Red die because he killed Golds. He dug the earth like me.
My name, three bars beside it now, floats nearer the Primus hand. Cassius has risen too. But there can be only one Primus.
“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.”
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.
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.
“This will be your last bar of merit,” Cassius tells me. “That makes you Primus, brother.” He pats my shoulder, and I see only a twinge of jealousy in his eyes. “Couldn’t be a better pick.”
I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.
Cassius is Primus. Winter has come. Ceres is no longer under siege. Jupiter’s soldiers sometimes come into the woods. There are sounds of battle between the two superpowers of the North, Jupiter and Mars. Jupiter to the west, Mars to the east. Since the river froze, they’ve been able to cross and raid one another. Our buzzards have risen out of their winter gulches. Hungry wolves howl at night. Crows flock from the south. But Mustang really knows very little, and I grow impatient with her.
I won Primus and they never gave it to me. Now I know why the Jackal will win. They are getting rid of his competition.
Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.
Even when I am ruining their Society at the vanguard of a billion screaming Reds, they will tell their children that Darrow of Mars once clapped them on the shoulder and paid them a compliment.
“I see.” Her eyes go cold. “So they are cheating for the ArchGovernor’s son.”
The best shall rise. Or is it the best connected?”
“You’re Sevro’s father,” I say.
That’s when I break his nose and slam my elbow into his temple till he no longer moves.
She’s been dead now longer than we were married. I’m surprised how much it hurts to realize that.
“I thought we should become better acquainted,” I say. I point to myself. “Jackal, I am Reaper.”
I scream out the rage that’s been building in me since I went under Mickey’s knife.
They stare at me as I descend, my knifeRing wet with the blood of a Peerless Scarred. I had not intended to kill him. But he should not have taken her. And he should not have called me a puppet.
Funny thing, watching gods realize they’ve been mortal all along.
she is the Jackal’s twin sister.”
Virginia au Augustus. Sister to the Jackal. Twin. An heir of the great family, the gens Augusta. The only daughter of ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus.
She is her father’s daughter.
I am a Red Helldiver of Lykos. I am Gold Primus of House Mars.
I have won.
She is what Golds can be, should be. Yet her father and brother are what Golds are.
I will do all these things for your silence if you become one of my lancers, an aide-de-camp, a member of my household.”
But when I hang him, he will not receive our song. His life will not echo. It will simply stop.
“I will forsake my father. I will abandon my name. I will be your sword. Nero au Augustus, I will make my purpose your glory.”
“Darrow, Lancer of House Augustus. Rise, there are duties for you to fill.
