Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

He looks insulted as he joins me. “They are meditation totems. Each is for a human who preyed upon my prejudices. Daedra seemed harmless, kind, stupid. She brought my men figs and bread every day for a week, until her figs were laced with a nerve agent. A hundred and four men died because I could not see her for what she was.”

“A zealot?”

“A soldier,” he corrects.

I’m still in his peripheral vision.

I take a step back and look at the figures with a frown. “Where’s Darrow? Surely he’s fooled you a few times.”

“It’s a work in progress. I did the legs before I met him, but how can you understand a man at war with himself?” He turns his back to me to reach toward the far end of the nook. Clenching Daedra in my hand, I ready to swing at the nerve packet located behind his left ear. “If you strike me, I suggest you have a plan.” He doesn’t turn around to defend himself. It throws me off guard. “I assume you saw my escape map? The tunnels can be tricky, and memory for us mere mortals is fleeting.” He turns around and leans against the wall. “It won’t work, you know. Me as your Trojan horse.”

“It might.”

“Let’s say you did manage to subdue me. Possible, given your youth, but not probable, given your state and my vocation. You would then have to free the Arcosians, use my escape map to that blasted labyrinth, evade my men, flee across the desert, pray Darrow lets you inside Heliopolis, gamble that your thin ruse of Cato au Vitruvius holds, and then kill the most dangerous man alive.”

“I don’t intend on killing him.”

“And the rest?”

“Prescient.”

“Is it for auctoritas? Glory? To prove you are the heir?”

“No.”

“Revenge then?”

“No.”

“Humanitarian concern for your men? Or maybe you fancy the Love Knight,” he mocks. “Men will do strange things out of fear, but for love…well, death is hardly the limit.”

“Who are we if we kill a city that did not rebel?” I ask.

“Interesting. An idealist. Don’t fret, it’s a temporary condition.” He actually smiles. “They’re guarding the wall and the shield generator with an army of veterans, you know. Howlers abound.”

“Predictable targets.”

“What is your target then?”

“Glirastes.”

“He is a traitor.”

“I can turn him back.”

He goes quiet, thinking.

“Why are you not calling your men?” I ask.

“Because I have lived off the contributions of this planet. They have sheltered me and my men. They have fed us. They have informed for us. They have spied and died for us. Not the highColors. They turned their backs like craven. But the low, the mid, those with barely anything to their name, because this is not Mars. This is Mercury. If we just let them burn, what is the point of this?” He thrusts a finger to his scar. “Furthermore, for two weeks my men have failed to get me inside Heliopolis. What will you do with Glirastes?”

“I will know once I see the tools available. But I imagine Darrow knows an attack is coming, and so it likely will be necessary to hoist him on his own petard.”

“The chances of it working are…”

“Minute.”

He nods to himself. “Obviously, my men can’t know. Make it look real. Kill them if you must. They know their duty.” He waits for me to hit him. “Well? Let’s see how good the pupil of Bellona, Octavia, and Aja really is.”