Morning Star (Red Rising Saga 3)

He pulls a short gold baton up from his lap. With the press of a button, the baton extends to a scepter. One with the skull of a jackal overtop the pyramid of the Society. I had it commissioned for him more than a year ago. “I’ve not parted with your gift,” he says. He traces the head of the jackal. “All my life I’ve been given lions. Nothing of my own. What does it say about me that my greatest enemy knows me better than any friend?”

“You the scepter, I the sword,” I say, ignoring his question. “That was the plan.” I gave it to him because I wanted him to feel loved. To feel like I was his friend. And I would have been, then. I would have helped him change like Mustang did. Like Cassius might. “Is it what you thought it would be?” I ask.

“What?”

“Your father’s seat.”

He frowns, considering which tack to take. “No,” he says eventually. “No it is not what I expected.”

“You want to be hated. Don’t you?” I ask. “That’s why you killed my uncle when you didn’t need to. It gives you purpose. That’s why you called me. To feel important. But I don’t hate you.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t.”

“I killed Pax and your uncle and Lorn…”

“I pity you.”

He recoils. “Pity?”

“ArchGovernor of all Mars, one of the most powerful men in all the worlds. With the might to do anything you like. And it’s not enough. Nothing has ever been enough for you, nor will it be. Adrius, you’re not trying to prove yourself to your father, to me, to Virginia, to the Sovereign. You’re trying to matter to yourself. Because you’re broken inside. Because you hate what you are. You wish you were born like Claudius. Like Virginia. You wish you were like me.”

“Like you?” he asks with a sneer. “A filthy Red?

”

“I’m no Red.” I show him my hands, bare of Sigils. It disgusts him.

“Not even evolved enough to have a Color, Darrow? Just a homo sapiens playing in the realm of gods.”

“Gods?” I shake my head. “You’re no god. You’re not even a Gold. You’re just a man who thinks a title will make him great. Just a man who wants to be more than he actually is. But all you really want is love. Isn’t that right?”

He snorts in derision. “Love is for the weak. The only thing you and I have in common is our hunger. You think that I cannot be satisfied. That I always yearn for more. But look in the mirror and you’ll see the same man staring back at you. Tell your little Red friends what you like. But I know you lost yourself among us. You yearned to be Gold. I saw it in your eyes at the Institute. I saw that fever on Luna when I proposed that we should rule. I saw it when you rode that triumphal chariot up to the steps of the citadel. It’s that hunger that makes us forever alone.”

And there he strikes the core of me. That abyssal fear that the darkness made my reality. The fear of being alone. Of never finding love again. But then Mustang steps out to join me. “You’re wrong, brother,” she says.

The Jackal leans back at the sight of his sister.

“Darrow had a wife. A family he loved. He had just a little bit and he was happy. You had everything, and you were miserable. And you always will be because you covet.” His foundation of calm begins to crumble. “That’s why you killed Father and Quinn. Why you killed Pax. But this isn’t a game, brother. This isn’t one of your mazes….”

“Do not call me brother, whore. You are no sister of mine. Opening your legs for a mongrel. For a beast of burden. Are the Obsidians next? I bet they are all queued up already. You are a disgrace to your Color and to our House.”

I move angrily toward his holo, but Mustang puts a hand in the center of my chest and turns back to her brother. “You think you never had love, brother. But mother loved you.”

“If she loved me why didn’t she stay?” he asks sharply. “Why did she leave?”

“I don’t know,” Mustang says. “But I loved you too, and you threw that away. You were my twin. We were bound for life.” There are tears in her eyes. “I defended you for years. Then I find out that it was you who had Claudius killed.” She blinks through the tears, shaking her head as she finds her resolve. “I cannot forgive that. I cannot. You had love and you lost it, brother. That is your curse.”

I step forward till I’m even with Mustang. “Adrius, we are coming for you. We will break your ships. We will storm Mars. We will burrow through the walls of your bunker. We will find you and we will bring you to justice. And when you hang from the gallows. When the door beneath you opens, when your feet do the Devil’s Dance, then you will realize in that moment that this has all been for nothing, because there will be no one left to pull your feet.”

The pale light of the holo vanishes as we close the connection, leaving us to the glass ceiling and stars beyond. “Are you all right?” I ask Mustang. She nods, wiping her eyes.

“Didn’t expect to start crying like that. Sorry.”

“To be fair, I think I cry more. But, forgiven.”

She tries a smile. “Do you actually think we can do this, Darrow?”