Golden Son (Red Rising Saga 2)

“Declare yourself, knight!” I shout.

The knight allows his helm to melt back into his armor. His flaxen hair falls over an ugly hatchet face. Wet from sweat, lined with age and stress. I bark out a laugh when he smiles out that sideslash of a mouth. I draw stares. Now they’ll only think me madder. The Rage Knight falls from the sky, and I laugh in his face.

He cackles. “Don’t you recognize me, you little shiteater?”

“Fitchner, you look uglier than I remember!”

“Fitchner?” Tactus snorts. “How nostalgic.”

“Hello, boyo.” Fitcher laughs at seeing Tactus in the ArchGovernor’s cloak. “Nice cape, but you’re not ArchGovernor Augustus.” Fitchner clucks his tongue and sets his hands on his hips. “ArchGovernor! ArchGovernor! Darling, where the devil are you?”

The ArchGovernor rolls his eyes and steps past me. “Proctor Mars.”

“There’s the darling! And that’s an old title, didn’t you know?”

“I see you have a new helmet.”

“It is pretty, isn’t it? The ladies love it. Can’t remember when I was laid so much by Golden stock.” Fitchner moves his hips suggestively. “It was such a bother getting it. Thought there’d never be an end to the duels and tests! We did it in front of the Sovereign, boyo. Each man, each woman, making their case. Everyone who thought the post should be theirs. Time and again. But fortune favors the nasty!”

“How …,” I wonder aloud. “You beat everyone?”

“Hardly,” my ArchGovernor sneers. “It goes to the great warriors.” He strafes Fitchner with his eyes. “Which you are not, Fitchner. What did you promise the Sovereign for your new helmet?”

“Oh, I rode Darrow’s star when he beat your boy. Hello, Jackal, you little rugrat. Then there was a gorydamn contest and, well, you can ask Tactus’s oldest brother and Proctor Jupiter about the specifics.…” He strikes a pose. “I’m more than meets the eye, eh?”

“So you don’t have a new master with the new helmet?” Augustus asks.

“Master? Pfah!” Fitchner comically puffs up his chest. “Olympic Knights have no master but our conscience. We defend the Society’s Compact, subservient only to our duty.”

“Once. Now you are the Sovereign’s servants,” Daxo declares.

“As are we all, my dear Telemanus,” Fitchner replies. “Great admirer of your brother and your family, by the bye. Wonderful warhammer you carried at that tournament on Thebos. Gorydamn scary lineage. I’ve always meant to ask, which of your ancestors screwed the rhinoceros?”

Daxo raises his eyebrows in delicate offense. Kavax grumbles like his son Pax might have.

“Sorry. Was it a grizzly instead?” Fitchner grunts another laugh. “A joke. Keen? We’re all servants, though, eh? Gorydamn slaves to the one with the scepter.”

“I assume, then, your loyalty to Mars is gone and cannot be … remembered?” Augustus asks. “Since you’re a servant.”

Fitchner claps his gloved hands together. “Mars? Mars? What is Mars but a gorydamn hunk of rock? It’s done nothing for me.”

“Mars is home, Fitchner.” Augustus waves to those around us. “The Sovereign bid you to find us. Well, here we are—kin from your own planet. Will you join your loyalty to us? Or will you give us up?”

“Oh, you are a jokester, Augustus! A prime jokester. My loyalties are to the Compact and to myself, as yours are to yourself, my liege. Not to a rock. Not to false kin. And it benefits me to be loyal to the Sovereign. Now, I’ve been told to place you and your kin under house arrest. You recall we set aside a prime villa for your pleasure? It’d be dandyfine if you could scamper on back there. Enjoy our hospitality, eh, boyo?”

“You forget yourself,” Augustus hisses.

“I forget much. Where I put my pants. Who I’ve kissed. Who I’ve killed.” Fitchner touches his arms, his belly, his face. “But forget myself? Never!” He points to the Obsidians around him. “And I’ve certainly not forgotten my dogs.”

“And where are mine? Where is Alfrún?”

“I killed your Stained mutts. Both of them.” Fitchner smiles. “They were barking, Augustus. Barking so loudly.”

Rage burns across Augustus’s face.

“I hope they weren’t expensive, boyo,” Fitchner says with a smile.

“You speak as though we are familiars, Bronzie.”