Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

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Defense barricades and screening facilities have been erected around the mouth of the Tyche-Heliopolis GravLoop Station, which towers at the east end of the Water Plaza. With the power severed in Tyche, the loop’s cars stranded many refugees in the tunnel. I stood in silence watching our first convoys ferry the refugees through. I thought it would be a miracle if Alexandar saved a thousand. But the convoys continued to flow for nearly three days—families and children of all Colors. Each sharing the same story of the Griffin Knights who held back an army to give them time to escape the sea.

Whether or not they know we summoned that sea is another matter. Some blame the Society. Some us. Others blame nature herself.

Eventually the flow became a trickle and the trickle became no one at all and the fragment of me that held out hope submitted to reality. Alexandar will not appear staggering behind the last survivors, with a limp, a wry smile, and somehow perfectly coiffed hair. He is drowned in the sea. Sentimentality is no reason to allow this potential enemy highway to continue to exist.

“How long has she been here?” I ask the centurion in charge of the barricade. A Red, he wears a bandage over his eye and a necklace of Red charms around his neck. A rat skull is most prominent. Rat Legion. Toughest of those who fought in the Rat War in the tunnels of Mars. Of course they survived the storm, and labor while the others lick their wounds.

“Going on six hours, sir. She’s in the atrium. Do you need an escort?”

“No. We’ll be out in a minute. I put Rat Legion on R&R. What are you doing here?”

“Nineteenth lost most of their men to a gravity bomb. Thought they wouldn’t mind us picking up the slack, sir.”

I nod. After holding Heliopolis against Ajax’s army for half a day, if anyone deserves rest, it’s Rat Legion. “Prepare the charges.” With my bodyguards scanning the surrounding roofs for snipers, I head up the station’s main steps.

I find Rhonna sitting against the base of a broken statue inside the atrium. The right side of my niece’s head is shaved from where the surgeons repaired the gash a Gray digger bullet made as it tore open her helmet.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the medWard?” I ask.

“Ain’t you supposed to be running an army?” She chews her nails as she watches the stairs leading up out of the tunnel.

“Can I sit?” She shrugs and I slide down next to her with a sigh.

“Didn’t want to miss the Princess’s dramatic entrance,” she says.

“If he were coming by tunnel, he’d be here by now.”

“I know.”

“Then you know we have to collapse the tunnel. It would be difficult to explain to my brother why I did it on his daughter’s head.”

“Yeah.” She swallows, thinks about saying something, then forgets it. We sit in silence watching the stairs. In truth, I’ve been afraid to see her since we took the city. I’m not so distracted I couldn’t see the tension between her and Alexandar was growing into something else. For two people who can’t stand each other, they certainly found enough reasons to always be in the same room.

“He may still have taken the Kylor Pass,” I say.

“I know what’s what. Even if he got through the storm and the Votum, those mountains will be crawling with Gorgon.” She looks over at me. “If it had been me instead of Alexandar, would you have let me go?” My first instinct is shame, because I’ve always resented the sort of Gold Alexandar represented—haughty, entitled, rich. But it wasn’t enmity that sent him to Tyche, it was respect.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t just…dispose of him…” she asks plaintively.

“Of course not.”

That answers something for her. “Such an asshole. Just when he starts being worth a damn…” She shakes her head and looks once more at the stairs. “All right. Slag it.” She forces herself up. She wobbles, still woozy from the operation. I steady her and we walk out together to join the centurion behind the barricade.

“What’s the final refugee count?” I ask the centurion.

“Eighty-three thousand four hundred and twenty-six souls, sir.”

“Eighty-three thousand four hundred and twenty-six souls,” I say to Rhonna. “Not many are lucky enough to know how much their life is worth.”

She gives a small nod of appreciation. I signal the centurion. The engineers go to work and soon two thousand meters of tunnel caves in on itself. Rhonna watches dust billow out from the mouth of the station and then turns to me at attention. “Request permission to return to duty, sir. I’m no good to you in the medBay.”

“Granted.”

She nods and heads back to my transport. She looks so small against the towering statue of Poseidon. The god of the Water Plaza holds up ninety-nine disks of water, and thousands of thirsty birds. Rhonna disappears inside the shuttle. She’s a soldier now. Like me.