Morning Star (Red Rising Saga 3)

“Lamentably, it seems as if voice doesn’t exist without violence,” the Pink says. She folds a leg over the other. “The greatest weapon a rebellion has is its spiritus. The spirit of change. That little seed that finds a hope in the mind and flourishes and spreads. But the ability to plant that idea, and even the idea itself has been taken from us. The message stolen. We are voiceless.”

When she speaks, the others listen. Not to humor her like Golds would, but as if her position was nearly equal to Dancer’s.

“None of this makes any sense,” I say. “What sparked open war? The Jackal didn’t publicize killing Fitchner. He would have wanted it quiet as he purged the Sons. What was the catalyst? And also, you say we’re voiceless. But Fitchner had a communication network that could broadcast to the mines, to anywhere. He pushed Eo’s death to the masses. Made her the face of the Rising. Did the Jackal take it out?” I look around at their concerned faces. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You didn’t tell him already?” Sevro asks. “The hell were you doing when I was gone, picking your asses?”

“Darrow wanted to be with his family,” Dancer says sharply. He turns to me with a sigh. “Much of our digital network was destroyed during the Jackal’s purges in the month after Ares was killed and you were captured. Sevro was able to warn us before the Jackal’s men hit our base in Agea. We went to ground, saved materiel, but lost massive amounts of manpower. Thousands of Sons. Trained operators. The next three months we spent trying to find you. We hijacked a transport going to Luna, but you weren’t on it. We searched the prisons. Issued bribes. But you’d disappeared, like you never existed. And then the Jackal executed you on the steps of the citadel in Agea.”

“I know all this.”

“Well, what you don’t know is what Sevro did next.”

I look to my friend. “What did you do?”

“What I had to.” He takes control of the hologram and wipes Jupiter away, replacing it with me. Sixteen years old. Scrawny and pale and naked on a table as Mickey stands over me with his buzzsaw. A chill trickles down my spine. But it’s not even my spine. Not really. It belongs to these people. To the revolution. I feel…used as I realize what he’s done.

“You released it.”

“Damn right,” Sevro says nastily, and I feel all their eyes settling on me, now understanding why my blade is painted on the roofs of Tinos’s refugees. They all know I was once a Red. They know one of their own conquered Mars in an Iron Rain.

I started the war.

“I released your Carving to every mine. To every holoSite. To every millimeter of this bloodydamn Society. The Golds thought they could kill you off. That they could beat you and make your death mean nothing. I’ll be damned if I’d let that happen.” He thumps his hand on a table. “Damned if I’d let you disappear facelessly into the machine like my mother. There’s not a Red on Mars that doesn’t know your name, Reap. Not a single person in the digital world who doesn’t know that a Red rose to become a prince of the Golds, to conquer Mars. I made you a myth. And now that you’re back from the dead, you’re not just a martyr. You’re the bloodydamn messiah the Reds have been waiting for their entire lives.”

I sit with my legs dangling off the edge of the hangar, watching the city beneath teem with life. The clamor of a thousand hushed voices rises to me like a sea of leaves brushing together. The refugees know I’m alive. SlingBlades have been painted on walls. On roofs. The desperate silent cry of a lost people. For six years I’ve wanted to be back among them. But looking down, seeing their plight, remembering Kieran’s words, I feel myself drowning in their hope.

They expect too much.

They don’t understand that we can’t win this war. Ares even knew we could never go toe-to-toe with Gold. So how am I supposed to lift them up? To show them the way?

I’m afraid, not just that I can’t give them what they want. But that by releasing the truth, Sevro’s burned the boat behind us. There’s no going back for us.

So what does that mean for my family? For my friends and these people? I felt so overwhelmed by these questions, by Sevro’s use of my Carving, that I stormed out without a word. It was petulant.

Behind me, Ragnar moves past my wheelchair and slides down next to me. Legs dangling off the edge like mine. His boots comically large. The breeze of a passing shuttle catches the ribbons in his beard. He says nothing, at ease with the silence. It makes me feel safe knowing he’s here. Knowing he’s with me. Like I thought I would feel near Sevro. But he’s changed. Too much weight in that helm of Ares.

“When I was a boy, we always wanted to know who the bravest of us was,” I say. “We’d sneak out of our homes at night and go down into the deeptunnels and stand with our backs to the darkness. You could hear the pitvipers if you were quiet. But you could never tell how close they were. Most boys would break and run after a minute, maybe five. I always stood the longest. Till Eo found out about our game.” I shake my head. “Now I don’t think I’d last a minute.”

“Because you now know how much there is to lose.”

Ragnar’s black eyes hold the shadows of a vast history. Nearly forty, he’s a man who was raised in a world of ice and magic, sold to the Gods to buy life for his people, and served as a slave longer than I’ve been alive. How much better does he understand life than I do?

“Do you still miss home? Your sister?” I ask.

“I do. I long for the early snow in the throes of summer, how it stuck to the fur of Sefi’s boots as I carried her on my shoulders to see Níðhoggr break through the spring ice.”

Níðhoggr was a dragon who lived under the world tree of the Old Norse societies and spent his days gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil. Many Obsidian tribes believe he comes up from the deep waters of their sea to break the ice that blocks their harbors and open the veins of the pole for their spring raiding boats. In honor of him, they send the bodies of their criminals to the deep in a holiday called Ostara, the first day of true spring light.

“I sent friends to the Spires and the Ice to spread your word. To tell my people their gods are false. They are in bondage, and we will soon come to free them. They will know Eo’s song.”

Eo’s song. It seems so fragile and silly now.

“I don’t feel her anymore, Ragnar.” I glance behind us to the Oranges and Reds who spare glances our direction as they work on the ripWings in the hangar. “I know they think I’m their link to her. But I lost her in the darkness. I used to think she was watching me. I used to talk to her. Now…she’s a stranger.” I hang my head. “So much of this is my fault, Ragnar. If I hadn’t been so proud, I would have seen the signs. Fitchner would be alive. Lorn would be alive.”

“You think you know the strands of fate?” He laughs at my arrogance. “You do not know what would have happened if they lived.”

“I know I can’t be what these people need.”