Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

As I drive us back over the lake and feel his heart beating against my back, I sense the yawning distance growing between us, the stretching of the years and the passing of time and life we can never have back, and I know there’s one thing I can do to stop it. Stay.

But I won’t. I can’t. And I hate that this is who I have to be. Worse. I hate that this is who I’ve allowed myself to become, but still not enough to change. Not enough to surrender.

The last I see of him is as he goes up the stairs into the house. The heel of his shoe pauses on the last stair, as if he’s going to come back, as if there’s a last thought of love on his tongue. But the shoe disappears into the house and he’s gone and I’m left in the thunderous silence of the garage, wondering what happened to the life I imagined when I first saw him on that beach in my mother’s arms.

I wipe my eyes and put the key in my pocket.

In the hall upstairs, I still hear Sevro speaking to his girls. We were all meant to be here together for a month upon our return. So much is in shambles. I leave Sevro his last moments with his girls and walk back out of the house, across the wooded lawn to the landing pads.

“Were you going to say goodbye?” a voice says from the darkness. I look under the bough of a cypress tree and in the shadows see the moonlit face of my wife. She sits on a stone bench, watching me, her hands folded on her lap, her guards nowhere to be seen. She wears a purple silk jacket with a high collar that’s open to the base of her neck. Circles ring her eyes.

“I was going to call you from orbit,” I say.

“When you were out of my reach.”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

“I see. It is the only way to maintain that I was not complicit in your treason. Reasonable, I suppose.”

I walk toward her and, feeling awkward towering over her, sit on the edge of the stone fountain nearby to face her. Water bubbles out of the half-broken face of a winged cherub, leaking out his eye and ear through a crack.

“It’s not treason,” I say.

“Yes, it is. Euphemisms only go so far. You’re leaving me a mess. Dancer will seek my impeachment.”

“He needs two-thirds of the vote for that. He might get the majority for a peace vote, but never an impeachment.”

“You think they’ll really believe I didn’t know you were leaving? You’re my husband. They think we share everything.” My wife, I’ve often thought, can be two people. One is her, full of life and light and awkward innuendos and snorting laughter and imperfection. The other is the imperious lion. In her face, I feel the shadow of Augustus, my two great enemies, her brother and her father.

“You’re leaving tonight with the Howlers?” she asks.

“Holiday already told you?”

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“To Mars?” I say nothing. “To Orion on Venus?” Again, I do not answer. “The Vox Populi think you’re going to storm the Senate with the Seventh.”

“I don’t want a civil war.”

She looks toward the landing pads. I reach for her hand. She pulls it back.

“What is the point of this—marriage—if there’s no faith between us?” she asks. “No trust? I know you love me. I know you love our son. But love isn’t enough. You can’t hide things from me just because I’ll disagree with you. This war isn’t your burden to bear alone. It is shared by all of us.” She looks over at me. “But maybe you think you’re meant to die. Maybe you think you’re supposed to follow her.”

I feel sudden pain for my wife.

“This isn’t about Eo.”

“No, it’s about you praying for storms, believing that when they come they’ll bring you peace.” She shakes her head, on the verge of tears. “I already lost my mother, my father, and my brothers. I will not bury you.” She snorts. “And if you die out there, I won’t even get to do that. You’ll disappear, like you never existed. Claimed by space or our enemies. And Pax will grow up without a father. It’s like you want me to shut myself off to you. Is that what you want?”

“If I don’t end this, how many more will die?” I ask.

Her face hardens and she pulls back from me, standing.

“And how many will die if you do leave. The Republic is cracking. If you reject its authority, it will shatter. The laws that you mock have protected demokracy for ten years. Ten. Without civil war. Without assassination and coups. But if you spit on those laws, you tell the worlds that the laws themselves do not matter. Stay here with me. With your son. Together we can change Dancer’s mind or stop him. We can finish this the right way.”

“There’s only one way to finish this.”