Golden Son

“Let’s skip the foreplay, Ragnar.” Mustang twirls her razor. Its horrible hum fills the tunnel. “Come at me, dog, and show Darrow what your kind lives for.”

The silence stretches long.

“One,” Mustang growls, stomping out her own lamp. No light, no color but darkness. The silence is deeper than the tunnel. It meanders through the heart of Mars, stretching forever, echoing to places only the lost have ever been.

Ragnar shatters it with his voice.

“I live for my sisters.”

There is no scorcher flash. No scream of the razor. No movement. Just the echoing of the words down and down with the fragments of silence.

“I live for my brother.”

A light blossoms from Ragnar. He steps forward like some wayward pilgrim, white light glowing along the knuckles of his armor. I see no weapons. Mustang tenses, confused.

“I am and always have been son to the people of the Valkyrie Spires. Born free to Alia Snowsparrow on the wild pole of Mars, north of the Dragon’s Spine, south of the Fallen City.”

He walks past Mustang, arms at his side.

“Forty-four scars have I earned for Gold since the slavers of the Weeping Sun came from the stars to take my family to the Chain Islands. Seven scars from others of my kind when they placed me in the nagoge, where I was trained.”

He kneels at my side.

“One from my mother. Five from the talons of the monster who guards Witch Pass. Six from the woman who taught me to love. One from my first master. Fifteen from men and beasts I fought in an arena for the pleasure of the Ash Lord and his guests. Nine I earned for the Reaper.”

The ground sighs under the weight of his knees.

“For Gold, I have buried three sisters. One brother. Two fathers.” He pauses in sadness. “But … for them I have never earned a scar.”

Through his armor’s pale light, his black eyes burn like witch-flames.

“Now, I live for more.”

Ragnar closes his eyes, putting himself at the mercy of a Gold. Having faith like I have faith. Like Eo had faith in me. Like Sevro, and Dancer and all the rest.

My eyes meet Mustang’s, perhaps for the last time, and I imagine I feel the same as did my ancestors, the first pioneers to Mars, as they looked back across the darkness to Earth. In her I had a home. I had love. And then I poisoned her to me. I know this was always destined to be our end. But still I hope like a desperate child.

“What do you live for?” I ask.

51

GOLDEN SON

Today is my Triumph.

The day is crisp. Sky robin’s-egg blue, stars peeking through the atmosphere. I stand dripping in gold, purple sash across my chest, head naked and waiting for the laurel wreath at the end of the procession. By the end of the day, I will be given a Triumph Mask created by Violets in honor of my victory.

My chariot rumbles under me. Wooden wheels pulled over pavement. Over rose petals. Over haemanthus blossoms. Over a hundred thousand flowers thrown from the open windows of the skyscrapers that stand sentinel to either side of the grand avenue. Hands flourish in the air. Arms reach out. Faces peer down, beaming smiles. So many Colors. They’re on the street too, surrounding the parade route. Cheering for the things that went before me, the wonderful floats. The fire breathers. The dancers. The griffins and drakes and zebracores. The few remaining Bellona prisoners. The heads of Imperator Bellona and his brothers and sisters adorn pikes. For all Augustus’s personal austerity, he knows the importance of grandeur. RipWings zip overhead. Storks buzz through the air.

But he knows the importance of brutality too. Flies buzz about the heads. And they nip at the four white horses that pull my chariot from the grand boulevard into the white-stoned Field of Mars that stretches before the Citadel’s grounds.

I wave to the crowd, holding up my slingBlade. Mania grips them. Fathers hold up their children, pointing to me and telling them that they’ll be able to tell their own children that they saw my Triumph in person. They throw fig leaves and cheer wildly, climbing the Field’s martial statues and marble obelisks to see me better.