The Lesser Devil (The Sun Eater, #1.5)

by Christopher Ruocchio

Get up. A voice urged him. Go again. How many times had he heard those words before, sparring with Sir Felix when he had Hadrian were boys together? How many times had his older brother put him on the ground? Get up. He could remember lying on the floor in Hadrian’s room at Haspida, could remember the Summer Palace. Stay down! Hadrian had screamed. Stay down! Get up. A shadow fell across Crispin, a figure standing over him, dressed all in black. Get up, Crispin! He said in a voice that Crispin had not heard in more than thirty years. Hadrian stood above him, thin as a blade. His hands were in his pockets, in one of those long, black coats he always wore. Crispin had forgotten so much of what his brother had looked like: the knife-edged lines of his face; the pointed nose and chin; the slanting, saturnine eyebrows. Why was he here? Was this what the gladiators meant when they said they saw their lives flash before their eyes when Death came near? Were those Death’s feet coming towards him? Or only Lady Lyra’s guards? Hadrian looked down his nose at Crispin where he lay, but he smiled that crooked Marlowe smile. Get up, he said again. Fight, if you have something to fight for. Get up? Crispin thought. That wasn’t right. Hadrian had said Stay down!