Dark Age (Red Rising Saga #5)

by Pierce Brown

This is the domain of the Obsidian. A world within an unseen world. Beneath the hallucination, I feel the beauty and inevitability of this day. For ten years, the Obsidians were to the Republic as Volga was to me. Doggedly carrying the weight of all the rest. Only to be denied the fruits of their labor. Fight, the little ones said to them. Kill for us, Valdir. Leave your homeland, but have none of our land, Sefi. Don’t shop in our stores, Volga. Don’t stand too tall, Volga. Because we are afraid of you. Well, a pox on hypocrites one and all. They had their chance, and now the Queen of the Valkyrie has come for their helium mines. I find myself proud of them as I laugh with the mad shaman, because in all this stupid, greedy world, the spirit comes alive when you see someone say, no more. “Do you see!” Ozgard shouts beside me with tears in his eyes. His face is like that of a child, not a monster. “We have come home! Do you see! This is our Volkland!” “Yes!” I proclaim, pumping my dread rifle in the air.