Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

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Sefi leads me from the training ludus through hangars that once held Bellona warcraft. Within the stone caverns, a nation of people is set to one industry: knowledge. Obsidian youths labor beside old women, young men, war-tested braves, learning skills that ten years ago were forbidden to them under pain of liquidation. They study under Orange master mechanics, Blue navigators mapping astral trajectories and training in flight simulators. They work with Green coders, Yellow doctors, and Red builders. It is an odd sight.

Sefi says nothing as we walk, and by the time we end our little tour in another garden of broken Bellona statues, my head is full, my eyes are struggling to stay narrowed in contempt, and my bare feet ache like hell. Sefi gestures for me to sit at a long table set for two. Pale faces marked with black runes watch from the shadows of the garden. Skuggi. A chill goes down my spine as I sit. The spirit assassins. Valdir’s eyes linger on them before he sits on the rubble of a statue.

The chair is a relief for my leg. A bowl of warm water filled with black flowers is brought for my feet by a stunning Pink servant. I sigh as I dip my feet in and feeling returns to them along with a peculiar tingling that must be from the flowers. Ozgard murmurs there is nightgaze in the water before wandering to the garden.

Night is coming. The sun ebbs in the sky. Battered Olympia sulks beneath Eagle Rest toward Loch Esmeralda like a centurion’s wet cape and I sit with the queen.

“You’re breaking with the Republic,” I say, tightening my fur coat. “That’s what you mean by Alltribe.” She says nothing. “You already united Obsidians in war, promising them a homeland, didn’t you? Looks like you found one.” I glance down at Olympia, but Sefi’s eyes are on the horizon beyond. That’s trouble.

“On the ice, when a limb is sick, it is cut away to save the body. The Republic rots from inside with weakness, like you before we cured you. My people must prosper. This is the burden my brother set upon me. To prosper, we must become one tribe. So I will found a kingdom for my people, for all Obsidians.”

“Volkland,” her Valkyrie whisper, rattling their torcs at the holy word. I begin to laugh. First the Reds, now the coldbloods.

From his seat at the base of a statue, Valdir pulls his axe.

“He does not mock me, Valdir,” Sefi says. “He mocks life. Is that not right, Mr. Horn?”

“Close enough. You’re buying yourself another war.”

“We know war,” Valdir says in dismissal.

“With your old pal the Reaper?” I ask, causing him to stand up. “Ask Gold how fun that is.”

“Valdir is a warrior. Honest and proud,” Sefi says, waving her mate down. Valdir simmers in discontent, and I don’t think it’s just aimed at me. “He speaks truth, because he lives true. We know war. But it is not all we know or will know. Seven centuries, they say kill. So we kill. Seven centuries, they say send sons to stars. So we send sons. Republic says we are free. Then Senate says obey. Send sons and daughters to stars. Kill for us. Die for us.

“We ask only for homeland, they give rocky islands on Earth. We ask for city, because we are not savages who want to fish all day.” She waves at Eagle Rest and Olympia. “They give broken ruins, and say be satisfied. What is there for us on Mercury? We cannot live under weight of sun. We are hated there. So now we say the word Ragnar taught us: no. Now we embrace the truth Morning Star taught us: destiny is not given, destiny is taken.”

So much for Sefi the Quiet.

I look for Ozgard. I wonder if it was this destiny he saw in the bones of a fire, as he claims

to have seen mine. I find him climbing a tree toward an owl’s nest. Fitting.

I sigh. “What do you need me to steal? Come on, you don’t have to butter me up.” Not feeling very masculine with my feet in the little bowl of water, I slap my leg. “Call in your debt.”

Sefi remains quiet as the slender Pink now brings a bottle of wine. He shows her the seal to prove it has not been tampered with and pours it into three golden goblets. “Thank you, Amel,” Sefi says.

The White logos steps forward to sip the wine, swishes it in its mouth, swallows, and nods as it detects no pathogens. Straight eerie logos shit. Even Arbiters like Oslo, my Ophion Guild contact, are wary of logos. They’re null as a doll down below and on a permanent zoladone high. Only the richest Golds could afford them for trophies.

It seems Sefi collects rare creatures. And rare wine. She sniffs the wine in her goblet.

“What do you want me to steal?” I repeat as she takes a sip.

She looks both insulted and mildly amused by my tone. How long since anyone’s had the guts to give her lip when she’s got men like Valdir by the balls? “Of all the words in Common, do you know my favorite?” she asks.

Jove on high. “Destiny? Voluble? Captive audience?”

She leans forward. “Practical. Nagal is the superior language to Common. It conveys the soul better and has more beautiful words. Weldschmer. The pain in discovering the world fails to fulfill expectation. Fenwehr. The longing to be somewhere else. But we have no word for practical. Only honorable or shameful.”

Her eyes look through me. “You are this way. I need practical men. As master mechanics teach our lame and weak, as Blues teach our small and bright, you will teach my skuggi.” She makes a clicking sound, and Freihild, the instructor from the training, steps from the shadows of the garden along with several other skuggi.

They are all young, but none are beautiful like Freihild. Her face, though tattooed with subtle black markings, is unscarred. Her cheekbones are sharp, her eyes slanted and as close to dark blue as Obsidian black. All the skuggi are more slender than Valdir or the brutish Valkyrie, more like deer than elk. Freihild even has the eyelashes of a deer. Valdir notices too, don’t you, boy?

“Teach them what exactly?” I ask. “I’m no assassin. They’re the best.”