Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

“Did you know the Reaper?” Diomedes asks Cassius. I don’t mind being relegated to the background. Grandmother thought talkative men the most hilarious of creatures, so busy projecting that they never notice anything until the jaws of the trap close around their legs. The key to learning, to power, to having the final say in everything, is observation. By all means, be a storm inside, but save your movement and wind till you know your purpose. It’s a pity Darrow and Fitchner au Barca were better students than the last generation of Gold.

“I did not know him personally, no. He was Augustus’s lancer,” Cassius answers. “Peerless don’t socialize with men like me.” He taps his scarless face.

“Then you’ve come up in the world,” Bellerephon says.

“Did you ever see him fight?” Diomedes asks.

“Once.”

“They say he slayed the Storm Knight of Earth and defeated Apollonius au Valii-Rath in single combat. They say he is a true blademaster, the heir of Arcos. That not even Aja au Grimmus could stand against him now.” The dark spirit in me bucks against that claim. I almost break my silence.

“They say many things,” Cassius replies.

“What was your measure of him?”

Cassius shrugs. “Overrated.”

Diomedes booms a laugh.

“Diomedes is the Sword of Io. A blademaster,” Seraphina says proudly. “One of six left in the Rim. He also studied with Arcos on Europa—became a stormson.”

I feel a spike of envy.

“Lorn taught me how to fish with Alexandar and Drusilla,” Diomedes corrects. “His last student misused his gifts.” The understatement of the millennium. “He had no desire to make better warriors, only better men.”

“In that he succeeded.” Seraphina smiles at her brother. “One day, Diomedes will test the Reaper for himself.”

Bellerephon watches as Diomedes humbly returns his attention to his younger siblings. I smile at his jealousy and watch Diomedes with growing respect. We eat in silence for a time. I nurse the small fish on my plate. Cassius is already finished with his. Always a man of appetites. I’m more practiced than he in the art of self-deprivation at the dinner table.

Doesn’t feel so long ago that I was a knobby-kneed boy sitting at my grandmother’s dinner table when she turned her long neck to me and peered down that peregrine nose, and, in a kindly manner, inquired if I intended to sleep outside in the gutter instead of in my bedchamber, because by virtue of the fact that I’d eaten three whole tarts I’d clearly abdicated being a man in favor of being a little pig. It was two days after my parents had died. I seldom eat sweets any longer.

Cassius makes a show of looking around for more food.

“Pardon the portions,” Dido says with the faint hint of apology. “They’re more conservative than you’re accustomed to, I’m sure. We’re in the midst of a ration cycle.”

“Thought you were sitting on a breadbasket here. And Europa is just one big sea. Or did you already eat all the fish?” Cassius asks.

I wait in trepidation. This line of inquiry is dangerous. An innocent observation that will lead inexorably to a casual inquiry about the new ships we’ve seen and the state of their docks and their stores of helium-3. I fear him asking that question.

Dido smiles obligingly. “On the contrary, the fisheries and latifundia have never been more productive.”

“Then a lack of ships, I warrant.”

“Many were destroyed by the Sword Armada,” Dido admits. “And there were…lean years. But no. Not a lack of ships or helium-3. In fact, it was disruption of agriculture on Titan last month that forced us to part with more of our bounty than anticipated.”

It isn’t natural for her to tell us so much.

“A daughter of Venus must have found this place…strange,” I say diplomatically, trying to pull Cassius away from his obvious endgame.

“Ah, so you know my lineage. Aren’t you a well-studied merchant?” she says.

“You’re rather famous,” I reply, playing the overwhelmed youth. I spare a glance at Bellerephon, who has not stopped watching Cassius since he sat down at the table. Something is wrong here. I can sense the sharks beneath the surface. “Even on Mars we know of Dido au Saud.”

“I doubt my father would let me still claim his name.” She leans forward. “Tell me, am I as famous as my husband?”

Seraphina tenses at mention of her father. She’s barely touched her food, and looks uncomfortable, furthering my unease.

“Few are as famous as your husband,” I say to Dido.