Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

I barely recognize the man I once called “brother.”

Only the long lashes of his eyes are the same.

In the eleven years since I last saw him, his plump features, often an item of hushed ridicule on the Palatine, have melted away to reveal an Adonic visage so surly, so passionate, so manly even Cassius might, in a drunken moment, declare some minor flaw in the man in hopes of diluting his own utter jealousy.

Octavia was always disappointed in her little genetic experiment. She would not be now. Ajax, son of the loveless genetic union of Aja and Atlas au Raa, is a masculine specimen.

By the phalera that bedeck Ajax’s armor, I see he has already fulfilled his childhood dreams. He wears not just his Peerless scar, but insignia signifying the office of Storm Knight, and the rank of a full Legate infantry commander.

With my scarless face and my drab civilian vestments, before the two Olympic Knights, I feel my ten-year absence more acutely than ever.

“You are the man who claims to be Lysander au Lune,” Ajax sneers.

“Ajax.” Mistaking his tone for banter, I reach to embrace him. The Stained block my path. I actually feel wounded. “Don’t you recognize me?”

Ajax’s eyes narrow to slits. “Test him with the Manteío.”

In Greek, it means “oracle.” I’ve played with oracles before. My heart sinks. Then a Pink slave glides forward to present me not with one of Grandmother’s pale truth-measuring creatures, but with a black metal orb ringed with serpents. In the center of the orb is an upturned needle.

“A drop of blood, if it please the dominus.”

Though it may look kinder than my grandmother’s oracles, I suffer no delusions. The needle will be coated with a DNA-coded poison. If I prove an imposter, my death will be a misery so profane it could only be designed by the cruelest of Venusian alchemists—the best of which Atalantia has on permanent retainer. Even if I prove my identity, the fate may be the same.

The fact that Atalantia has my DNA at all suggests the depth of her intelligence operations. Owing to two sophisticated poisonings of Sovereigns and one dreadful incident of cloning, my family guards their DNA as if it were life itself.

Why else would we convince the rest of the Aureate to embrace the ritual of shooting the deceased into the sun? Because it looks pretty? Nothing is to be left behind.

I prick a thumb with the needle.

The Core Golds watch as a single drop of blood rolls down the needle to be absorbed into the metal. Whatever poison it contained does not activate. If Atalantia didn’t have my DNA before, now she does. The orb ripples with wonderful ingenuity as the serpents carve paths along its exterior until a bust of my preadolescent face stares back at me. The slave returns it to Ajax.

He examines the face.

“DNA profile confirmed,” a bald Green adjunct says. His pupils glow from his uplink. “Security helix processing.” A lengthy pause. Kalindora turns, but Ajax’s eyes never leave my face. “DNA profile authenticated. Forgery probability one in thirteen trillion.”

“I concur,” Kalindora says. Her demeanor softens.

The Core Golds stiffen at the news, their competitive brains calculating how my return affects their individual machinations.

Still unconvinced, Ajax tosses the Manteío to the slave. “What did my grandfather say to my mother the night he had her execute Flavius au Grecco?”

I don’t smile at the memory. “Now that the pig is filleted and eaten, what’s for dessert?”

His eyes widen.

“Brother!” He springs through the Obsidians to rattle my bones with a powerful hug that lifts my feet clean off the deck. This is the Ajax I remember. The kind, generous brother who could never bridle either affection or fury. “I’m sorry, we had to be certain. The enemy is devious in his gambits.” When he sets me down, he clutches my face between his long-fingered hands and kisses me firmly on the mouth. “Little Lysander. Haha! They said you were dead. But look at you…” He dusts off my shoulders. “Corporeal as a cormorant and still a spry dandy of a thing after so long in captivity.” He makes a feint at my face. “Not that spry.”

Captivity.

Cassius would laugh.

I’m not eager to disabuse Ajax of the notion just yet.

“They said you were your mother’s spitting image,” I reply. “They didn’t say you were taller.”

It’s an understatement. He’s far larger.

Awash with joy, he claps my shoulders and leans his forehead down to press it against mine. He breathes deep. Scent has always been his favorite sense.