Morning Star (Red Rising Saga 3)

“Yes, father,” they say.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I turn back to my men. “Where’s Sevro?”

—

Sevro snuck away while we argued, to what purpose I don’t know. We rush after him through the corridors, Victra behind us. Holiday leads, taking information from other Sons of Ares in through the optic implant in her eye. Her men have spotted the mob in the main hangar. They’re holding a trial for Cassius for the murder of several dozen Sons of Ares, and, of course, Ares himself. No sign of Mustang. Where is she? She was supposed to stay out of sight. Meet us if she could. Did they catch her? Worse? When we reach the corridor that leads to the hangar, there’s such a press of people we can barely get through, shoving Reds and Obsidians out of the way as I pass.

They’re all shouting and pushing. Over their heads, near the center of the hangar, I see several dozen Obsidian and Reds astride the twenty-meter-high walkway that spans part of the hangar, high over the crowd. Sefi’s at their center. Seven Golds hang dead from the walkway, suspended by rubber cable ligature, feet dangling five meters above the crowd, scalps hewn off. Aureate spines are tougher than average humans. Each of these men and women would have died horribly over several minutes from cerebral anorexia, watching the crowd beneath them curse and spit at them and hurl lugnuts and wrenches and bottles. Blood clots in a long ribbon cover their chins to their chests. Tongues removed by Sefi the Quiet. Cassius and several other prisoners await their own executions upon the walkway, kneeling beside their captors, bloody and beaten. Mustang is not with them, thank Jove. They’ve stripped Cassius to the waist and carved a bloody SlingBlade across his broad chest.

“Sefi!” I shout, but I can’t be heard. Can’t see Sevro anywhere. There’s more than twenty-five thousand in a space meant for ten. Many are armed. Some wounded from the battle the week prior. All pressing into the hangar to watch the execution. The Obsidian stand titanic amidst the masses, like great boulders amidst a sea of lowColors. I never should have condensed most of the wounded and rescued crews into this hotbed of grief. The crowd has realized I’m here now and they part for me and begin to chant my name as if they think I’ve come to see justice done. The barbarity of it chills me. One of the men holding Cassius down is a Green tech who gave me coffee on Phobos. Most of the others I don’t recognize.

One by one those Sons nearby recognize my presence. The quiet spreads around me.

“Sefi!” I snarl. “Sefi.” At last she hears me. “What are you doing?”

“What you will not,” she calls down in her own language, not in wrath, but acceptance that she performs an unsavory but necessary deed. Like a spirit of vengeance has drifted up from Hel. Her white hair hangs long behind her. Her knife is bloody from the tongues it has claimed. And to think I vouched for her. Let her name this ship. But just because a lion lets you pet it doesn’t mean it’s tame. Kavax is horrified by the scene. He’s almost ready to call to his children, and would if Victra did not grip his arm and talk him down. There’s fear in her eyes, too. Not just at the sight above, but at what could happen to her here. I shouldn’t have brought the Golds with me.

There’s moments in life where you’re walking ahead so intent on your task that you forget to look down until you feel knee-deep in quicksand. I’m right there now. Surrounded by an unpredictable mob, looking up at a woman with the blood of Alia Snowsparrow running through her veins. My only defense a small circle of Sons of Ares and Golds. Holiday’s pulling a scorcher. Victra’s razor moves beneath her sleeve. I was too brash in storming in here. All this could go so wrong so quickly.

“Where is Mustang?” I call up to Sefi. “Did you kill her?”

“Kill her? No. The daughter of the Lion brought us from the Ice. But she stood in the way of justice, so she is in chains.” Then she’s safe.

“That’s what this is?” I call up. “Justice? Is that what was given to Ragnar’s friends who your mother hanged from the chains of the Spires?”

“This is the code of the Ice.”

“You’re not on the Ice, Sefi. You’re on my ship.”

“Is it yours?” This doesn’t sit well with the lowColors among the crowd. “We paid for it in our blood.”

“As did we all,” I say. “What about the Ice was good? You left that place because you knew it was wrong. You knew your ways were shaped by your masters. You said you’d follow me. Are you a liar now?”

“Are you? You promised my people they would be safe,” Sefi bellows down to me, pointing her axe, the weight of loss heavy upon her. “I have seen the works of these people. I have seen the war they make. The ships they sail. Words will not suffice. These Golds speak one language. And that is the language of blood. And so long as they live. So long as they speak, my people will not be safe. The power they have is too great.”

“Do you think this is what Ragnar wanted?”

“Yes.”

“Ragnar w

anted you to be better than them. Than this. To be an example. But maybe the Golds are right. Maybe you are just killers. Savage dogs. Like they made you to be.”

“We will never be anything more until they are gone,” she says down to me, voice echoing around the hangar. “Why defend them?” She drags Cassius toward her. “Why weep over one who helped kill my brother?”

“Why do you think Ragnar gripped your hand instead of the sword when he died? He didn’t want you to make your life about vengeance. It’s a hollow end. He wanted more for you. He wanted a future.”

“I have seen the heavens, I have seen the hells, and I know now that our future is war,” Sefi says. “War until they fade in the night.” She drags Cassius toward her and lifts her knife to carve out his tongue But before she does, a pulseFist fires and knocks the weapon from her hands and Ares, lord of this rebellion, slams down on the walkway wearing his spiked helmet of war. The Obsidians recoil from him as he straightens, dusts off his shoulders and lets the helmet slither back into his armor.

“What is he doing?” Victra asks me.

“You dumb shits,” Sevro sneers. “You’re touching my property.” He stalks across the bridge toward Sefi. “Tsst. Get away.” Several Valkyrie bar his way. He stands nose to chest with them. “Move, you albino sack of pubic hair.”

The Obsidian moves only when Sefi tells her to. Sevro walks past the bound Golds tapping their heads playfully as he goes. “That one’s mine,” he says, pointing at Cassius. “Get your hands off him, lady.” She doesn’t move her knife. “He cut my father’s head off and put it in a box. And unless you want me to do the same to you, you’ll do me the courtesy of letting go my property.”

Sefi backs away but does not sheath her knife. “It is your blood debt. His life belongs to you.”

“Obviously.” He shoos her away. “Stand up, you little Pixie,” he barks at Cassius, kicking him with his boot and hauling him up by the cable around his neck. “Have some dignity. Stand up.” Cassius rises to his feet, awkwardly. Hands behind his back. Face swollen from the beatings. The slingBlade livid on his chest. “Did you kill my father?” Sevro flicks him on his broad chest. “Did you kill my father?”