Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten him killed.”

The old Holiday wouldn’t hit me. “It’s been ten years, asshole. You have to let him go or it’s gonna eat you up.”

I shrug. “What’s left to eat?” I didn’t deserve her brother’s love, and I sure as shit don’t need her pity. I flag down the bartender and he comes over with another bottle. Holiday shakes her head as I pour myself a glass.

“I’m not coming back here next year.”

“So sorry. Will miss you. Break the chains, and all that.” She stands and stares down at me, about to say something spiteful, but she swallows it down, enraging me because I can smell the pity. “You know what just rubs me raw?” I say up to her. “You look down at me because you’re in that little uniform and you think me cheap. But you’re the one too stupid to realize you’re wearing a collar. You’re the one he’d be ashamed of.”

“The only good thing about him being dead is that he doesn’t have to see you like this. So long, Eph.” At the door, she glances back down at her datapad and a shadow of fear passes over her face from what she s

ees there. Then she’s gone into the rain.

Two glasses later, I abandon the bottle and stumble out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. Rain drips its way through the labyrinth of city above and below, growing fouler by the level. I go to the edge of the sidewalk and peer over the rusted metal rail down into the airway thoroughfare. It’s a thousand-meter drop to the Mass’s fetid ground level. Flying cars and taxis blink through the gathering fog. From the sides of hulking buildings, advertisements seep miasma stains of neon greens and violent reds into the air like rainbow pus. On a digital billboard, a six-story Red child is wandering alone in the desert. Lips cracked. Skin burnt absurdly. His foot strikes something in the sand, and eagerly he begins to dig and lo, he discovers something buried. A bottle. Feverishly he twists off the top and takes a drink. He laughs with delight and holds the glistening bottle up to the sun, where it sparkles and beads with divine drops of perspiration. The word AMBROSIA sparkles onto the screen, a little wing-heel logo in the corner.

A distant roar comes from the sky as a large passenger ship leaves its berth at AID, aimed at the invisible stars. I drink from my bottle, wishing I’d never left Hyperion for the Mass. Wishing I’d gone to a Pearl club and found a Pink to swallow my attention. Holiday was right about one thing; this just picks at the wound. But if I don’t pick, then it feels like it didn’t matter. And if didn’t matter, then neither do I.

I pull my datapad out with one hand, almost dropping it over the rail, and pull up the last video played. Security cam footage. A wintery landscape fills the air in front of me. Careless raindrops punch through the holo. Trigg is stranded on the bridge to a landing pad that juts out from a mountainside like a waiter’s arm bringing a tray. A huge Gold in blue armor charges him as he runs back to the Reaper. She plunges her blade through his spine out his stomach and hoists him in the air like a street vendor’s kebab. Then she hurls him off the side of the bridge. My love spatters against the rocks beneath. His blood darkens the white snow.

I hurl the datapad down into the abyss, tears and rain blurring my vision. The railing is slippery against my hands as I find myself climbing it. Standing on the edge, looking at the cars beneath and the darkness beyond them. I feel the pain just as sharply as I did ten years ago when Holiday called me. I was in the Piraeus Insurance offices. Didn’t even make a sound when I hung up. I just took off my uniform, ditched my badge, and left that office for the last time.

I could leave that quietly now.

But as I lean forward to go over the edge, something stops me. A hand gripping the back of my jacket. I feel my feet slide out from under me as I’m jerked off the rail back onto the sidewalk. I land hard on the wet concrete, the air rushing out of me. Three pale-faced men in black leather dusters and chrome glasses stare down at me.

“Who the fu—”

A fist the size of a small dog sends me to darkness.

IN THE COCKPIT, PYTHA has gone silent, now locked into the ship’s battle sync. Her eyes stare distantly as her mind and the ship’s computer function as one. “Better start thinking about how you want to die,” Cassius says to me as I slide into the observation seat behind Pytha’s. “One engine’s down thanks to you playing Lorn. This is worse than the astral dump on Lorio.”

“Nothing’s worse than that.” I look at the sensor displays and the data readouts. “Never mind.” We’re being pursued by the three craft. Not slapped-together pirate ships, but military vessels. Doesn’t matter that they’re old. Their engines seem to be in prime shape. Pytha’s returning mid-range fire with our own railguns. Can’t see the drama of it—it’s all displays and sensor readouts in here. I feel the familiar shudder in the ship as her munitions funnel out of their magazines into the magnetic firing rods and race across space toward our pursuers. How many more shots till we run dry?

“Can we lose them in the asteroid field?” I ask.

“Not dense enough,” Cassius says.

“Can we set down?”

“They’re too close.”

“Can we—”

“No,” he says. “Can’t hide. Can’t run. Can’t fight. Dammit.” He slams his hand on the console. “You should have listened to me.”

“I’m sorry, Cassius.”

“Don’t use my name. We have guests on board.”

“She’s unconscious.”

“That crew isn’t. You want one of them trying to collect a Core bounty while we’re dodging Ascomanni?” He shakes his head, marveling at my stupidity.

“I wasn’t going to stand by and let those savages eat one of us.”

“?‘One of us’…”

“My grandfather would have tried to save her.”