Red Rising (Red Rising Saga 1)

“I contest the sentence,” Titus says. “And issue a challenge to you, turdlicker.”

“I accept, goodman.” I bow curtly.

“Then a duel per custom of the Order of the Sword,” Roque announces.

“I choose then,” Titus says, eyeing my slingBlade. “Straight blades. Nothing curved.”

“As you have it,” I say, but as I step forward, I feel a hand at my elbow and feel my friend come close behind.

“Darrow, he is mine,” Cassius whispers coldly. “Remember?” I make no sign of acknowledgment. “Please, Darrow. Let me honor House Bellona.”

I look to Roque; he shakes his head “No.” As does Quinn, who stands behind Cassius. But I am leader here. And I did promise my friend, who now recognizes my ascendance. He requests instead of demands, and so I make a show of considering and then accepting his request. I stand aside as Cassius steps forward with a straight blade held in his fencer’s grip. It is an ugly weapon, but he’s sharpened it on stones.

“The little prince,” Titus snickers. “Wonderful. I’ll be happy to drench your corpse with piss again when we’re through.”

Titus is meant for brawls. Meant for muddy battlefields and civil wars. I wonder if he knows how easily he will die today.

Roque draws a circle in ash around the two combatants. Clown and Screwface walk out with arms full of weapons. Titus picks a long broadsword he took from a Ceres soldier five days before. The metal scrapes over stone. Echoes around the courtyard. He swings it once, twice to test the metal. Cassius does not move.

“Pissing your pants already?” Titus asks. “No fretting, I’ll be quick about it.”

Roque performs the necessities and commences the fight.

Cassius is not quick about it.

The ugly blades sound brittle against each other. The clangs are harsh. The blades chip. They grind. But how silent they are when they find flesh.

The only sound is Titus’s gasp.

“You killed Julian,” Cassius says quietly. “Julian au Bellona of House Bellona.”

He pulls his blade free of Titus’s leg and slides it in somewhere else. He rips it out.

Titus laughs and swings feebly. It is pathetic at this point.

“You killed Julian.” A thrust accompanies the words, words he repeats until I no longer watch. “You killed Julian.” But Titus is long dead. Tears stream down Quinn’s face. Roque takes her and Lea away. My army is silent. Thistle spits on the cobbles and puts her arm over Pebble’s shoulders. Clown looks even more dejected than usual. Even the Proctors make no comment. It is Cassius’s rage that fills the courtyard, a cruel lament for a kind brother. He said he did it for justice, for the honor of his family and House. But this is revenge, and how hollow it seems.

I grow cold.

This was meant for me. Not for my poor brother, Titus—if that was ever really his name. He deserved better than this.

I’m going to cry. The anger and sadness well in my chest as I push through the army. Roque looks at me when I pass him. His face is like a corpse’s.

“That wasn’t justice,” he murmurs without looking me in the eyes.

I failed the test. He’s right. It wasn’t justice. Justice is dispassionate; it is fair. I am the leader. I passed the sentence. I should have done it. Instead, I gave license to vengeance and vendetta. The cancer will not be cut away; I made it worse.

“At least Cassius is feared again,” Roque mutters. “But that’s the only thing you got right.”

Poor Titus. I bury him in a grove near the river. I hope it speeds him on his way to the vale.

That night I do not sleep.

I don’t know if it was his wife or his sister or his mother they hurt. I do not know what mine he came from. His pain is my own. His pain broke him as mine broke me on the scaffold. But I was given a second chance. Where was his?

I hope his pain fades in death. I did not love him till he was dead; and he should be dead, but he is still my brother. So I pray he finds peace in the vale and that I will see him again one day and we’ll embrace as brothers as he forgives me for what I did to him, because I did it for a dream, for our people.

My name, three bars beside it now, floats nearer the Primus hand.