Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.

I was forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.

The first thing you should know about me is I am my father’s son. And when they came for him, I did as he asked. I did not cry.

anger. 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.

A nightmare is coming to my heart. I can feel it like a nail dragged along the bones of my spine as she murmurs an epigram in my ear. “Break the chains, my love.”

The world is swimming. I am drowning.

Those golden eyes examine my wife as though a worm had suddenly sprouted a butterfly’s wings.

In the face of cold power, she is fire.

“Live for more,”

“Break the chains!”

I panic as suicides do when they realize their folly.

An empire cannot be destroyed from without till it is destroyed from within.

“In the densest places of man, humanity most easily breaks down,” he says.

if a fish has 3,453 scales on its left side and 3,453 on its right side, which side of the fish has the most scales? The outside.

And sowed a song Against their greed

“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”

“The measure of a man is what he does when he has power.” She

I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.

Steel is power. Money is power. But of all the things in all the worlds, words are power.”

Words are a weapon stronger than he knows.

And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melod...

I will sharpen myself into a sword. I will give my soul. I will dive to hell in hopes of one day rising to freedom.

I am the hope of my people. Of all people in bondage.