Morning Star: Book III of the Red Rising Trilogy (48 page)

“Look at the Institute you attended. Sexual slavery, murder, cannibalism of fellow Golds?” He shakes his head. “Barbaric. It’s not what the Ancestors intended. But the Coreworlders are so

desensitized to violence they’ve forgotten it’s to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock.

To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like.”

“Just as they’ve done to your people,” I say.

“Just as they’ve done to my people,” he repeats. “Just as we do to yours.” He finishes peeling the tangerine, only now it feels more like a scalping. He tears the meat of it gruesomely in half and tosses one part to me. “I won’t romanticize what I am. Or excuse the subjugation of your people. What we do to them is cruel, but it is necessary.”

Mustang told me on our journey here that he uses a stone from the Roman Forum itself as a pillow.

He is not a kind person. Not to his enemies at least, which I am, regardless of his hospitality.

“It’s hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant,” I say. “You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint.” I gesture to the simple house. “But you’re not more civilized,” I say. “You’re just more disciplined.”

“Isn’t that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulse for stability?” He eats his fruit in measured bites. I set mine on the stone.

“No, it’s not. But I’m not here to debate philosophy or politics.”

“Thank Jove. I doubt we’d agree upon much.” He watches me carefully.

“I’m here to discuss what we both know best, war.”

“Our ugly old friend.” He glances once at the door to the house to make sure we’re alone. “But before we move to that sphere, may I ask you a question of personal note?”

“If you must.”

“You are aware my father and daughter died at your Triumph on Mars?”

“I am.”

“In a way it’s what began all this. Did you see it happen?”

“I did.”

“Was it as they say?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know who they are or what they say.”

“They say that Antonia au Severus-Julii stepped on my daughter ’s skull till it caved in. My wife and I wish to know if it is true. It’s what we were told by one of the few who managed to escape.”

“Yes,” I say. “It is true.”

The tangerine drips in his fingers, forgotten. “Did she suffer?”

I hardly remember seeing the girl in the moment. But I’ve dreamed of the night a hundred times,

enough to wish my memory was a weaker thing. The plain-faced girl wore a gray dress with a broach

of the lightning dragon. She tried to run around the fountain. But Vixus slashed the back of her hamstrings as he walked past. She crawled and wept on the ground until Antonia finished her off. “She suffered. For several minutes.”

“Did she weep?”

“Yes. But she did not beg.”

Romulus watches out the iron gate as sulfur dust devils dance across the barren plain beneath his

quiet home. I know his pain, the horrible crushing sadness of loving something gentle only to see it ripped apart by the hard world. His girl grew here, loved, protected, and then she went on an adventure and learned fear.

“Truth can be cruel,” he says. “Yet it is the only thing of value. I thank you for it. And I have a truth of my own. One I do not think you will like…”

“You have another guest,” I say. He’s surprised. “There’s boots at the door. Polished for a ship, not a planet. Makes the dust stick something awful. I’m not offended. I half expected it when you didn’t meet me in the desert.”

“You understand why I will not make a decision blindly or impetuously.”

“I do.”

“Two months ago, I did not agree with Virginia’s plan to negotiate for peace. She left of her own

accord with the backing of those frightened by our losses. I believe in war only insofar as it is an effective tool of policy. And I did not believe we stood in a position of strength to gain anything from our war without achieving at least one or two victories. Peace was subjugation by another word. My logic was sound, our arms were not. We never made the victories. Imperator Fabii is…effective. And the Core, as much as I despise their culture, produces very good killers with very good logistical supply and support. We are fighting uphill against a giant. Now, you are here. And I can achieve something with peace that I could not with war. So I must weigh my options.”

He means he can leverage my presence into suing the Sovereign for better terms than she would

have given if the war had continued. It’s boldly self-interested. I knew it was a risk when I set this course, but I’d hoped he’d be hot-blooded after a year of war with the woman and would want to pay her back. Apparently Romulus au Raa’s blood runs a special kind of cold.

“Who did the Sovereign send?” I ask.

He leans back in amusement. “Who do you think?”

Roque au Fabii sits at a stone table in an orchard along the side of the house, finishing a dessert of elderberry cheesecake and coffee. Smoke from a brooding dwarf volcano twirls up into the twilight

horizon with the same indolence as the steam from his porcelain saucer. He turns from watching the smoke to see us enter. He’s striking in his black and gold uniform—lean like a strand of golden summer wheat, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, but his face is distant and unyielding. By now he could drape a dozen battle glories across his chest. But his vanity is so deep that he thinks affectation a sign of boorish decadence. The pyramid of the Society, given flight with Imperator wings on either side, marks each shoulder; a gold skull with a crown burdens his breast, the Sigil of the Ash Lord’s warrant. Roque sets the saucer down delicately, dabs his lips with the corner of his napkin, and rises to his bare feet.

“Darrow, it’s been an age,” he says with such mannered grace that I could almost convince myself

that we were old friends reuniting after a long absence. But I will not let myself feel anything for this man. I cannot let him have forgiveness. Victra almost died because of him. Fitchner did. Lorn did. And how many more would have had I not let Sevro leave the party early to seek his father?

“Imperator Fabii,” I reply evenly. But behind my distant welcome is an aching heart. There’s not a hint of sorrow on his face, however. I want there to be. And knowing that, I know I still feel for the man. He is a soldier of his people. I’m a soldier of mine. He is not the evil of his story. He’s the hero who unmasked the Reaper. Who smashed the Augustus-Telemanus fleet at the Battle of Deimos the night after my capture. He does not do these things for himself. He lives for something as noble as I.

His people. His only sin is in loving them too much, as is his way.

Mustang watches me worriedly, knowing all I must feel. She asked me about him on the journey from Mars. I told her that he was nothing to me, but we both know that isn’t true. She’s with me now.

Anchoring me among these predators. Without her I could face my enemies, but I would not hold on

to so much of my self. I would be darker. More wrathful. I count my blessings that I have people like her to which I can tether my spirit. Otherwise I fear it would run away from me.

“I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Roque,” she says, taking the attention away from me.

“Though I am surprised the Sovereign didn’t send a politico to treat with us.”

“She did,” Roque says. “And you returned Moira as a corpse. The Sovereign was deeply wounded

by that. But she has faith in my arms and judgment. Just as I have faith in the hospitality of Romulus.

Thank you for the meal, by the bye,” he says to our host. “Our commissary is woefully militaristic, as you can imagine.”

“The benefit of owning a breadbasket,” Romulus says. “Siege is never a hungry affair.” He

gestures for us to take our seats. Mustang and I take the two facing Roque as Romulus sits at the head of the table. Two other chairs to the right and left of him are filled with the ArchGovernor of Titan and an old, crooked woman I don’t know. She wears the wings of Imperator.

Roque watches me. “It does please me, Darrow, knowing you’re finally participating in the war you

began.”

“Darrow isn’t responsible for
this
war,” Mustang says. “Your Sovereign is.”

“For instilling order?” Roque asks. “For obeying the Compact?”

“Oh, that’s fresh. I know her a bit better than you, poet. The crone is a nasty, covetous creature. Do you think it was Aja’s idea to kill Quinn?” She waits for an answer. None comes. “It was Octavia’s.

She told her to do it through the com in her ear.”

“Quinn died because of Darrow,” Roque says. “No one else.”

“The Jackal bragged to me that he killed Quinn,” I say. “Did you know that?” Roque is unimpressed

with my claim. “If he’d let her be, she would have lived. He killed her in the back of the ship while the rest of us fought for our lives.”

“Liar.”

I shake my head. “Sorry. But that guilt you feel in your skinny little gut. That’s gonna stick around.

Because it’s the truth.”

“You made me a mass murderer against my own people,” Roque says. “My debt to my Sovereign

and the Society for my part in the Bellona-Augustus War is not yet paid. Millions lost their lives in the Siege of Mars. Millions who need not have died if I had seen through the ruse and done my duty to

my people.” His voice quavers. I know the lost look in his eyes. I’ve seen it in my own in the mirror as I wake from a nightmare and stare at myself in the pale bathroom light of that same stateroom on Luna. All those millions cry to him in the darkness, asking him why?

He continues. “What I cannot understand, Virginia, is why you abandoned the talks on Phobos.

Talks which would have healed the wounds that divide Gold and permit us to focus on our true enemy.” He looks at me heavily. “This man wanted your father to die. He desires nothing but the destruction of our people. Pax died for his lie. Your father died because of his schemes. He’s using your heart against you.”

“Spare me.” Mustang snorts contemptuously.

“I’m trying to…”

“Don’t talk down to me, poet. You’re the weeping sort here. Not me. This isn’t about love. This is about what is right. That has nothing to do with emotion. It has to do with justice, which rests upon facts.” The Moon Lords shift uncomfortably at the notion of justice. She jerks her head in their direction. “They know I believe in Rim independence. And they know I’m a Reformer. And they know

I’m intelligent enough not to conflate the two or to confuse my emotions with my beliefs. Unlike you.

So since your rhetorical plays here are going to fall on deaf ears, shall we spare ourselves the indignity of verbal jousting and make our propositions so we can end this war one way or another?”

Roque glowers at her.

Romulus smiles slightly. “Do you have anything to add, Darrow?”

“I believe Mustang covered it quite thoroughly.”

“Very well,” Romulus replies. “Then I shall say my peace and let you say yours. You are both my

enemies. One has plagued me with worker ’s strikes. Anti-government propaganda. Insurrection. The

other with war and siege. Yet here on the fringe of the darkness away from both your sources of power, you need me, and my ships, and my legions. You see the irony. My lone question is this. Who can give me more in return?” He looks first to Roque. “Imperator, please begin.”

“Honorable lords, my Sovereign mourns this conflict between our people, as do I. It spawned from the seeds sown in previous disputes, but it can end now as Rim and Core remember that there is a greater, more pernicious evil than political squabbling and debate over taxes and representation. And that is the evil of demokracy. That noble lie that all men are created equal. You’ve seen it tear Mars apart. Adrius au Augustus has nobly fought the battle there on behalf of the Society.”

“Nobly?” Romulus asks.

“Effectively. But still the contagion has spread. Now is our best chance to destroy it before it can claim a victory from which we may never be able to recover. Despite our differences, our ancestors all fell upon Earth in the Conquering. In remembrance of that, the Sovereign is willing to cease all hostilities. She requests the aid of your legions and armada in destroying the Red menace that seeks to destroy both Rim and Core.

“In return, after the war she will remove the Societal garrison from Jupiter, but not Saturn or Uranus.” The ArchGovernor of Titan snorts contemptuously. “She will enter into talks in good faith regarding the reduction of taxes and Rim export tariffs. She will grant you the same licenses for Belt mining which Core companies currently hold. And she will accept your proposal for equal representation in the Senate.”