Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

“No.”

He wipes his ass with snow and pulls up his trousers. He considers me and nods in approval. “You come from no one. I too come from no one.” Then he turns and stumbles back to the fire.

“The Queen knows about you and Freihild,” I say.

He wheels back, and with one step closes the distance. I have to step back to look into his eyes.

“It’s not my business what you do with your cock. But at least have the decency not to undress Freihild with your eyes like a titanium-hard teenager. Your Queen doesn’t seem the forgiving kind. And others notice, even if they’re too afraid of you to say it.”

I slip past him and leave him to his dung.

THE OBSIDIANS ARRANGE THEMSELVES in a crescent and groan a song of farewell to the last sliver of sun as it dips beneath the horizon, not to be seen again until summer. It has a faintly tragic quality, this sendoff. The dark months of winter are a reality the Obsidians have left behind. While Olympia undergoes repairs, they will return to their cities and highrise penthouses and skyhook bars and brothels in the cities of Cimmeria, leaving only the sparse remnants of savage clans to suffer the season.

Sefi gives us a blessing before we go, dipping her finger in blood and pressing it to my forehead, then Ozgard’s. When she comes to Freihild, her jaw locks and she presses hard enough with her nail to leave a small gash.

I wave dramatically at Pax as the Snowball takes off to the clamor of drums and horns, the skull of the dragon dragging behind on a tow cable. As I fly, Freihild looks joyfully ahead while Ozgard plays with his jeweled rings.

Half an hour’s flight finds us beside the ruins of the Valkyrie Spires. We drop the skull by the site Ozgard and his acolytes have prepared for the Godspeak at a rise. We set down south of it and hike up. I raise our thermal tent while Ozgard and Freihild douse the skull and timber with dragon fat and lay out a circle of scales etched with runes.

Soon fire leaps along the skull and the pine beneath. Freihild and I sip heated grog to ward off the chill as Ozgard finishes laying his runes. She looks so young in the firelight I can barely remember thinking her a savage. She catches me watching her finger the small scratch Sefi gave her.

“I saw you and Valdir speaking in the shadow,” she says. “He returned haunted. Did you give him some Gray wisdom?”

“Nothing he doesn’t already know.”

The fire crackles between us. She knows I know.

“I have tried to end it before. It is a war in here.” She opens her hand over her heart. “Sefi gave me purpose. Valdir…everything else.” She looks out at the snow. “She is stubborn. She is the strength in the bond. She must release him. But she will not. I do not know what to do.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she mocks. “No funny joke? No cruel cuts? Just ‘yeah’?”

I rub my hands together trying to soak up the warmth of the fire. “I don’t know what you want me to say. It is what it is. Maybe she loves him too. I don’t know. But you know it ain’t just between you and Sefi and Valdir. How many others have found out?” Her jaw clenches. “Take that number and triple it. Hell, multiply it by ten. Gossip like that…exponential echoes.” I sigh, knowing I should mind my own business. But I care about this weird assassin, and I guess I care about Sefi. “Seriously, what’s Sefi supposed to do? Have you killed?”

“No. That is dishonorable. My Queen is honorable. She would challenge me. Out here, I would win. In a circle, no.”

“Lucky for you, she’s forbidden challenges, remember? Her New Path? Alltribe no kill Alltribe. Anyway, do you want to kill your Queen?”

“No,” she snaps. “She is all.” Her face goes blank. “Maybe she will find another mate.”

“And what does that tell the others? You saw her fail to draw that bow. Others did too. Some’ll buy the Pax bit, but not all. Are you trying to be queen?”

She reels back, offended. “No.”

“Well, maybe you make that clear to everyone, especially Sefi. Right now, she’s being the big girl. You’re spitting in her eye. She might have the throne, but you’re the only one who can fix this.”

She weaves a dragon tooth into her valor tail. “I have never feared the enemy. But speaking to Sefi…” Her expression becomes tragic. “Valdir is my heart. I do not want it to be so, but he is. When I wake, when I sleep, he is a warm shadow that goes with me always.”

“Well, kid. It’s on you. I’d like to say there’s another shadow or whatever out there for you, but I found mine and he’s stuck with me….”

“But some things are more important,” she says.

I stare into the fire. “Maybe.”

“Alltribe is more important than me. I know what I must do.” She claps my shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Like I said. Gray wisdom.” She grows dour, sinking into the weight of her decision. Restless from all the thinking, she stands up and tells Ozgard she will find the nightgaze, and he can warm his old bones by the fire, and maybe learn something from the Gray.

The old shaman wheezes as he sits down. “What did you say to her?”