Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6)

by Pierce Brown

“Were you two in touch these last weeks? You’re acting like you share a secret language all of a sudden.” “Isn’t that always the case with those who’ve read the same books?”

“Fine. By the balls then,” I say. “I beg your pardon?” “You don’t have me by the throat. You have me by the balls. You can wrench and twist and it will cause me terrible agony. But in the end, they are just balls, and I am a woman, so I will go on, enduring without my balls and I will pester you with death by a billion cuts. Except it won’t be me. I am not a captain who goes down with his ship. I am a Sovereign, who will delegate to people more suited for tunnels and darkness and the horrors that happen there.”

Stilling myself, I breathe out the memories of past mistakes and doubts, and then breathe in fresh perspective.

“My goodmen, it’s uncivilized to do anything but laugh in the face of death. Why do you think I’m always so jaunty these days?” Cassius grins when a third cheer comes, the loudest of all. “That must have been for my sentence.” I roll my eyes. “Come, come, Darrow, am I not allowed to be the best at anything?” “Fine. You can be the most despised,” I say. “Thank you, contrition at last.”