Lorn’s scouts capture the camel vessel as it brings foodstuffs to Pliny’s fleet gathered around Hildas Station, a star-shaped hub of trade and communications on the fringes of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. For fifteen hours, I hide with Roque, Victra, Sevro, the Howlers, the Telemanuses, Lorn, Mustang, and Ragnar among boxes and crates of vacuum-sealed protofiber meals. Ragnar crushed the first box he sat on, sending meals scattering everywhere, before he left the humid cargo bay for the subzero freezer unit.
Sevro cuts open a half dozen of the meals and nibbles throughout the journey, sharing with the Telemanuses and his Howlers while Roque sits speaking with Victra in the corner. Mustang leans against Daxo, sharing stories with Kavax about Pax. She avoids my gaze.
I tried apologizing before we boarded the ship, but she cut me off fastlike. “Nothing to apologize about. We’re adults. Let’s not sulk and bicker like children. There’s things to be done.”
The words grow colder as I roll them over and over again through my mind.
Lorn nudges me with his boot. “Try to be less obvious, boy. You’re staring.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Love and war. Same coin. Different sides. I’m too wrinkled for either.”
“Maybe war will breathe some life into your old bones.”
“Well, I tried love last month.” He leans close. “Didn’t work like it used to.”
“Too honest, Lorn.” I can’t help but laugh.
He grunts and adjusts himself on the boxes, groaning audibly as something pops in his back. “So that’s the reason for all this. Helping poor old man Lorn get his fix of war.” His anger has not yet dissipated, nor do I expect it to. “Let me return the favor to you. The key today will be tact. The Praetors, Legates, and bannermen you attempt to woo are not fools. And they do not suffer fools. Pliny has given them valid argument. He’s aligned their interests with his. You must counter with the same.”
“Pliny is a leech,” I say. “A liar as much as you’re an honest man.”
“And that makes him dangerous. Liars make the best promises.” Lorn plays with his griffin ring, no doubt thinking of the beast and of the grandchildren on his ships in the fleet. He brought his whole household off Europa, three million men and women of all Colors. “I could not leave them,” he told me when I noted the size of his fleet as we left that water moon. “Octavia would come and burn the home while we’re away.” So they left their floating cities and set to the stars. The civilians will separate from my fleet soon, hiding in the infinite black space between the planets. His three surviving daughters-in-law will guide them.
“And Pliny has the power of the Sovereign behind him,” Lorn continues. “It will be difficult to dissuade them. Speaking of the Sovereign … I noticed that you have something of hers.”
“The Pax ?”
“No. Smaller. Though not much smaller. The Stained that was here.”
“Ragnar?”
“If that’s its name,” Lorn says.
“ His name,” I say. “He was meant to be a gift to the Julii for betraying Augustus.”
“Saw it in the Citadel’s arena once—scary as some of the creatures that hide in Europa’s seas.”
“He might be an Obsidian, but he’s still a man.”
“Biologically, maybe. But he’s bred for one thing. Don’t forget that.”
“You treat your own servants kindly. I expect you to treat mine the same.”
“I treat people kindly. Pinks, Browns, Reds are people. Your Ragnar is a weapon.”
“He chose me. Tools don’t choose.”
“Have it your way, but know the consequences.” Lorn shrugs and mutters something further under his breath.
“Say what you want to say.”
“You will fall to ruin because you believe that exceptions to the rule make new rules. That an evil man can shed the trappings of wickedness just because you want him to. Men do not change. That is why I killed the Rath boy. Learn the lesson now, so you don’t have to learn it with a knife in your back later. The Colors exist for a reason. Reputations exist for a reason.”
For the first time, he seems small and old to me. It’s not his wrinkles. It’s what he says. He is a relic. Thoughts like his belong to the age I am trying to destroy. He can’t help what he believes. He’s not seen what I’ve seen. He’s not come from where I’ve been. He had no Eo to push him, no Dancer to guide him, no Mustang to give him hope. He grew up in a Society where love and trust are as scarce as grass in the Helion waste. But he’s always wanted both. He’s like a man planting seeds, watching them grow into trees, only for his neighbors to cut them down. It will be different this time. And if all goes well, I will give him back a grandson.
“You taught me once, Lorn. I’m a better man for it. But now it’s my turn to teach you. Men can change. Sometimes they have to fall. Sometimes they have to leap.” I pat his knee and gain my feet. “Before you die, you’ll realize it was a mistake to kill Tactus, because you never gave him the chance to believe he was a good man.”
I find Ragnar lying on the ground in the freezer unit, at home in the bitter chill. His shirt is off, so I see the frightening angles of his tattooed body. Runes everywhere. Protection over his back. Malice over hands. Mother over his throat. Father over his feet. Sister behind his ears. The mysterious skull marks of Stained upon his face.
“Ragnar,” I say, sitting. “Not much for company, are you?”
He shakes his head, the white ponytail curls on the floor. Eyes like stains of pitch stare at me, measuring. Second eyes, tattoos on the backs of his eyelids, are strange, pupils like those of a dragon or a snake, so that when he blinks, his animal soul sees into the world around.
I sit watching him, wondering how to say what I want to say. Obsidians are the most alien of the Colors.
“By offering me stains, you are bound to me. What does that mean to you?”
“It means I obey.”
“Unconditionally?” He does not answer. “If I asked you to kill your sister or your brother?”
“Are you asking me this?”
“It is a hypothetical.” He does not understand the notion when I explain it.
“Why plan?” he asks. “You plan. You decide. I do or I do not, there is no plan.” He considers his next words carefully. “Mortals who plan die a thousand times. We who obey die but once.”
“What is it that you want?” I ask. He doesn’t stir. “I’m speaking to you, Stained.”
“Want.” He chuckles. “What is want?” The derision in his voice comes from a deeper place than our godless realm. He’s alien here, because we grow his kind in worlds of ice and monsters and ancient gods. We get what we pay for. “You name it, so you think I know it . Want.”
“Don’t play games with me and I won’t play them with you, Ragnar.” I wait a long moment. “Must I repeat myself?”
“Gold plans. Gold wants,” he rumbles slowly. Time between each sentence. “Wanting is your heartbeat. We of the Allmother do not want. We obey.”
“On your knees?” He says nothing in reply, so I continue. “You once wore shackles, Ragnar. Now the shackles don’t weigh you down. So … what do you want?” He doesn’t respond. Is it petulance? “Surely you want something.”
“You struck off the shackles of others and seek to bind me with the shackles like your own. Your wants . Your dreams . I do not want.” He says it again. “I do not dream. I am Stained . Destined by Allmother Death to deliver her promise.” His face shows me nothing, but I feel petulance in the man. “Did you not know?”
I examine him warily. “You make yourself look dumber than you really are.”
“Good.” He sits up swiftly, before I even have time to move back. Bloodydamn, he’s fast. He takes out a knife and very quickly cuts his palm. “When I offered stains, I bound myself to you. Forever. Till nothing.”
I know this is their way. And I know what horrors he went through to gain the title of Stained. He is not a man of half oaths or half measures. To be an Obsidian is to know misery. To be a Stained is to be misery. And it is to angle themselves one way in life—to serve their Golden gods, like myself, if they are so lucky. We take their strong. We leave their weak. We send Violets with tech to make lightning shows on hillsides. We sow famine, then descend with food. We send plagues, then bless them with Yellows to heal their sick and cure their blind. We have Carvers seed monsters in their oceans and griffins and dragons in their mountains. And when we are displeased, we destroy their cities with bombardments from orbit. We make ourselves their gods. And then we bring them into our world to serve our greedy aims. We want. They obey. How could Ragnar ever be what I need him to be?
“What if I wanted you to be free?”
He flinches back. Eyes expressing a deep fear. “Freedom drowns.”
“Then learn to swim.” I set a hand on his massive shoulder. Muscles like rocks beneath the skin. “One brother to the other.”
“We are not brothers, Sunborn,” he says, his voice wavering. “You are master. Do you not understand? I obey. You command.”
I tell him he chose me for his master. I did not take him, as he thinks. And it was he, not I, who commanded the assault team that took Kellan au Bellona’s ship. He did that. There was no Gold to guide him. No Gold to make him a leader. But that alone is not enough. What would Eo say to him? What would Dancer say?
“Our Color is the same,” I tell him. He doesn’t understand, so I cut my finger. Red blood comes out and I smear this on the black Sigils that mark his Color on his hands. Then I take his blood and smear it over the gold on the back of my hands.
“Brothers. All water. All flesh. All made from and bound for the dirt.”
“I do not understand,” he says fearfully, actually scooting back and away from me till I have him cornered like a little child. “We are not the same. You are from the sun.”
“I am not. I was born six inches from the dirt. Ragnar Volarus, I release you from my service, whether you like it or not. I will not let you be bound. I will not let you be led. You stay in this icebox till you are man enough to decide what you want. You shoot yourself in the head. You freeze yourself to death. Go ahead. But whatever you do, it will be because you chose to do it. Perhaps you’ll choose to follow me. Perhaps you’ll choose to kill me. Whatever it is you decide, you must decide for yourself.”
He stares at me, eyes wide with terror.
“Why?” he rumbles. “Why do you shame me? In all the worlds, no man would reject a Stained. I choose to offer myself and you spit on me. What have I done?”
“When you offer yourself, you offer your brothers and sisters and people into slavery as well.”
“You do not know.” Ragnar seethes. “We live to serve. If we do not, Gold will end us. We will be no more. I have seen fire rain from the sky.”
Centuries ago, in the Dark Revolt, the Golds killed more than nine-tenths of his Color. Exterminated them like culling a population of predators. That is the only history they know. The one we give them. Fear.
“The history of men is kept from you, Ragnar. The Golds teach you that you have always been slaves. That Obsidians exist to serve, to kill. But there was a time before Gold where man was free.”
“Every man?” he asks.
“Every man. Every woman. You were not born to serve Gold.”
“No,” he rumbles. “You tempt me. You bait me. I have seen this before. I have seen false words meant to trick. The true words are known to me, to us. Our mothers teach them. ‘Fear and serve the men of Gold. Or they will come with iron from the sky. Gold will treat you with fire of the Sunborn. For they are not bound by love. Not bound by fear. Not bound to earth, but to sky and sun. Fear and serve the men of Gold.’ ”
“I do not serve them.”
“Because you are one of them.”
“What if I told you I was not?”
He stares at me. No answer. No movement. Nothing. Just confusion. And so I tell him. I tell him in that freezer what Dancer told me in the penthouse. We have been deceived. “I had a wife,” I tell him. “They took her from me. They hanged her. They made me pull her feet so that her neck would break and she would not suffer. I killed myself after that, burying her, letting them win. Letting them hang me. I drowned in grief.” I tell him how the Sons came for me. “And Ares gave me a second chance, the same chance you now have to rise.
“For seven hundred years we have been enslaved, Ragnar. Your people. My people. We have languished in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light. It will not come from their mercy. It will not come by fate. It will come when brave hearts rise and choose to break the chains, to live for more. You must choose for yourself. Will you choose the hard path? Will you choose to be my friend? Will you rise with me? Or will you go as all who have gone before, never knowing what might have been?”
I leave after that. I do not swear him to silence. I do not demand an answer. Dancer demanded none from me. I had to make the choice. If I had not, if I had been forced into service, then I would have given up a thousand times. Slaves do not have the bravery of free men. That is why Golds lie to lowReds and make them think they are brave. That is why they lie to Obsidians and make them think it is an honor to serve gods. Easier than the truth. Yet it takes only one truth to bring a kingdom of lies crashing down.
Ragnar must join me, because Red alone will not be enough.