Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

The shaman knows better than to call her bluff. Broken, he looks at me. Yeah, right, oldboy. You’re on your own. He stands and shuffles toward the door. “Ozgard.” He stops and turns to his Queen in hope. “I will find the truth. If this…Fá is known to you, there will be no mercy.”

The Valkyrie shove him out.

Of the four in Sefi’s council when first she hired me, only the human calculator remains. This fact almost makes me hold my tongue. Almost.

“Why would Volga be queen?” I ask.

Sefi nods, expecting the question. She gestures to the hearth and calls for the servant to bring wine. I do not join her in sitting. She watches Amel’s replacement open the bottle and pour the wine. Xenophon samples it, nods, and returns to his perch behind her shoulder. She drinks heavily and gestures for me to join her.

“I don’t think I’ll be drinking anything around here anytime soon. Why would Volga be queen? What was Valdir growling about?”

She twirls the wine with her gloved hand. Xenophon pipes up. “Your Majesty knows I was hesitant with regard to the hiring of Mr. Horn. I believe he has contradicted my assessment. More than ever, he is of value to the Alltribe. Show him or you will lose him.”

A shadow of herself, Sefi listens to her White. She takes off her coat, then her vest underneath, and rolls up her right sleeve and removes her glove and a thin layer of a medical wrap. The limb smells of rotting meat.

I recoil. “What is that?”

“Yellow death,” she replies.

Her skin is sulfur yellow and hideous. Mottled scales climb from her elbow down to her hand. Raw fissures crack the skin and wind through the patches to weep murky pus. Where she would have held her griffin’s reins, a strip of raw skin shows where the scales sheaved off. Fresh scales are already pushing their way to the surface. She winces as she moves the hand.

“A gift from Atalantia,” she says. “It is a designer poison. It corrupts the DNA itself, I am told. It cannot be contained by removing the arm. If the arm is removed, it moves to find another region of the body.” She rolls her hand around to inspect it. “It has not conquered me yet, despite what Valdir thinks. It disgusts him, as it should. That is why I let him lie with Freihild. It is why I grew cold to him. What it touches, it infects.”

“And it’s why you couldn’t draw the bow.”

“At times I grow weak until the pain passes. For all the medici and scientists, it is only Xenophon who slows it. But I was foolish. I did not take his medicine on the hunt. Old Creed.” She grimaces. “It cannot be stopped by any means we possess, or all our helium can buy.”

“When?”

“Several years still,” Xenophon says. “Her Majesty is strength.”

Sefi grimaces at that and tries to wrap the medical bandage back around, but fumbles. Tenderly, Xenophon kneels and helps her, taking care not to touch the skin. Gently, the White fits her glove back on and rolls down her sleeve. She smiles absently at the loyal servant in gratitude.

“In my time, I did what no one has done. I have united the tribes of all Ice.” She snorts. “Most Ice, at least. But they have not forgotten their old feuds or the Old Creed. When I die…Valdir would lead them to more of Tyr Morga’s wars. Only one thing can bind them, maybe in peace. The blood of Ragnar. I am not the last to carry it. Volga is Ragnar’s daughter.”

I feel hit by a train. “Naw. She was born on Luna. She was an experiment. A tube baby.”

“In a breeding stable run by the family Grimmus, the owners of my brother, my father, his father before him. My father, Vagnar the Pale Horse, was their prized stud. He begat scores of spawn. When he coupled with my mother to make thei

r brood, he had long been in the stars. It was his privilege to return to the ice on the condition he make more slaves. In time, he’d made enough. He took my brother and me hunting one last time before the gods called him back. I never saw him again. When they took Ragnar…” She shakes her head. “They found a more practical method. A way to make as many spawn as they desired and keep him at their wars.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred from his seed. We thought all died when the Jackal’s atomics destroyed the facility. But when the Julii captured Volga, she ran her DNA.”

“Who else knows?”

“Valdir, Ozgard, and Xenophon. This is second reason why I push toward modern age. So when I die, Volga will not be seen as abomination Golds made, but Queen. I heeded Xenophon’s warnings. Truly, I feared Ozgard’s ambition to seize the mines. It is too much to risk to make a kingdom for a prophecy, when I knew it would shatter at my death…My DNA is corrupt. It would transfer to any kin. But with a living heir with Ragnar’s blood…”

“You were going to use her.” So much for her benevolence, for giving her back to me. I wasn’t earning Volga’s freedom. Sefi was going to keep her all along. We’re all pieces on a board to her.

“I am going to give her a kingdom. My brother’s blood will fulfill our dream for our people.”

“And you wanted me to be your spokesman, to vouch for you,” I say, backing away from her. “That’s why you bought me with a ship, took me on the hunt, had Ozgard pour honey in my ear. Not for me but because you needed me to recruit her. To drag her into this…” I surprise her with applause. “What a clever lady you are.”

“Volga belongs here. With her people. Even if she is…”

“An abomination?” I smirk. “You’ve thought it all out. But you got one problem.” I tap my temple. “I know how the rest of this plays, and it’s all downhill. Dreamers die bad.”