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I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.
But I am no Gold. I am a Red.
I was forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love. He is wrong. None of them will survive.
I’m busy wondering what Eo will do with sugar this month. We’ve never earned sugar before, only ever won it at cards. And fruit. I hear the Laurel gets you fruit. She’ll probably give it all away to hungry children just to prove to the Society she doesn’t need their prizes. Me? I’d eat the fruit and play politics on a full stomach. But she’s got the passion for ideas, while I’ve got no extra passion for anything but her.
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.
“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.”
“Is that all your strength?” My people sing, we dance, we love. That is our strength. But we also dig. And then we die. Seldom do we get to choose why. That choice is power. That choice has been our only weapon. But it is not enough.
“In the densest places of man, humanity most easily breaks down,”
“Why is it so horrible?” I ask him. “Life. All this. Why do they need to make us do this? Why do they treat us like we’re their slaves?” “Power.” “Power isn’t real. It’s just a word.”
“See. That’s what I don’t get. If I am a good man, then why do I want to do bad things?”
“Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence. The great rise because of Savagery. They rule in Ascendance. They fall because of their own Decadence.”
What we must study is humanity. In order to rule, ours must be the study of political, psychological, and behavioral science—how desperate human beings react to one another, how packs form, how armies function, how things fall apart and why. You could learn this nowhere else but here.”
Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.
“No one grasps the game, because no one knows the rules. No one follows the same set of rules. It is like life. Some think honor universal. Some think laws binding. Others know better. But in the end, don’t those who rise by poison die by poison?”
“Nothing binds like pain shared.”
Do you think they might care that their children are dying in a rigged game? Or that you’re getting paid to ruin the meritocratic system? The best shall rise. Or is it the best connected?”
“Promises are just chains,” she rasps. “Both meant for breaking.”
Quid pro quo.”
“Humans are always negotiating. That’s what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something.” His smile is pleasant, but his eyes … There is something wrong with him. A different soul seems to have filled his body since the time he was Lucian. I have seen actors … but this is different. It is as though he is reasonable to the point of being inhuman.
I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.
Words are a weapon stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart.
