Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

. She was thinking I’d ditched her. That’s what you always think when you’re alone. That you’ll always be alone, and any present company is an aberration.

Cold inside, I feign a smile and touch my leg. “A thousand apologies, love. No, a million! My leg, the old limb, has been the black death of me today.”

She pales and looks at my cane. “Oh Jove, I’m sorry…was only a jest.”

“You couldn’t know.”

“You should have messaged me. I could have met you….”

“An old tinman’s rust should never jeopardize a lady’s enjoyment of an afternoon as splendid as this.”

“You should have told me,” she says crossly. “We don’t have to walk the park….” We’d planned to stroll the park and take a taxi to the wharf to see the water of the Sea of Serenity—an idea I couldn’t get her to drop. But to go to the water, we’d have to cross through a security checkpoint, and checkpoints have advanced sensors and my Philippe credentials are hardly unimpeachable. Say what you want about the Republic, whoever created their ID system was a razor-smart bastard.

“We could find a café if that would be easier for you,” she says. “Or maybe go to the stalls and get a picnic on the grass?”

“No, the wharf would be lovely!”

“Philippe…” She crosses her arms. Subborn little rabbit.

“Well…only if you insist.” I emphasize a sigh of relief. “I believe you’ve saved my life this time. The water makes my leg ache so. Are you sure you don’t want to walk? I could grin and—”

“We’re having a picnic,” she concludes. “And that’s the end of it.”

“Then I insist on shopping with you, paying for everything, and escorting you properly as I do it. Young Lyria…” I proffer my arm. She smiles, delighted by the courtly manners and how dashing she must look in her new black jacket; she slips her arm in mine. We cross the park, where lowColor children fly their kites through the twilight sky—slate blue stained with fingers of whorehouse pink—and my sight lingers on indiscreet lovers who lie in the deep shade. The rabbit’s eyes seek out families playing and lounging along the edge of a pond.

In the market, we amble through stalls of foods from four planets and ten continents. Fatty strips of beef bubble over charcoal grills. Seafood simmers in oil. Squid steams in marrow vapor. Vegetables, flash-frozen and shipped from Earth, like all the rest of it, glimmer wetly in clear plastic. The air is soupy with the scent of cloves and Martian cumin and curry, making my mouth water. We choose two foils of Pacific sweet fried cod, a plastic bowl with olives swimming in oil, European Gruyère cheese wrapped in South American prosciutto and baked in a flaky pastry, and for dessert a pint of jasmine ice cream and custard-stuffed dates. We lay the spread on the grass and eat while watching the children’s kites bank in the sky.

“I like watching them,” Lyria says about the children.

I mutter something neutral.

“All they know is that their parents love them and they like kites. Do you like kites?”

“Who doesn’t like kites?”

“I don’t imagine the Sovereign likes kites.”

“No?”

“No.” She takes on a pompous, hilarious Martian Aureate accent: “What are these bits of paper, floating in yonder air? For what efficacious purpose do they exist? The betterment of man? I think not. Put the paper toward the troops! The string to the nurses! The children to the munitions plants!”

I smile, but with a half dozen milligrams of zoladone in the veins, I can’t find it in me to laugh. “Children fly them on Mercury, you know. From the parapets and rooftops. Thousands of kites in midsummer.”

“Have you seen it yourself?” she asks.

“Just once. On a work trip for a former employer.”

“That must have been beautiful,” she says dreamily.

I feel the sudden need to quash her enthusiasm. “But they use glass string and angle them to cut each other’s kites out of the sky till there’s only one left.”

“Why?”

“What’s more human than competition?”

“Thousands of losers and one winner? That’s so sad.”

I snort. “Sounds like something Volga would say.”