Red Rising

“You’re making a savior,” he accuses, looking over at Dancer. “Dancer, you bastard. You’re making a messiah for your gorydamn cause.”

“We want you to make our boy here into a Gold.”

If violence is the Gold sport, manipulation is their art form

“Then what is your purpose?” I ask.

She holds up her hands, caked with dirt and blood.

“The same as yours, little Helldiver. To make the dream come true.”

“Live for more,” she mouths to me. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the haemanthus I gave her. It is smashed and flat. Then loudly she screams to all those gathered, “Break the chains!”

“Break the chains, my love.”

“I live for you,” I say sadly.

She kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

“What do you want me to do, Eo?”

“Act. I want you to use your gifts for your father’s dream. You see how people watch you, take their cues from you. I want you to think owning this land, our land, is worth the risk.”

“What do you want me to do, Eo?”

“Act. I want you to use your gifts for your father’s dream. You see how people watch you, take their cues from you. I want you to think owning this land, our land, is worth the risk.”

We have claim over this land, Darrow. Our sweat and blood watered this soil. Yet it belongs to the Golds, to the Society. How long has it been this way? A hundred, a hundred and fifty years of pioneers mining and dying? Our blood and their orders. We prepare this land for Colors that have never shed sweat for us, Colors that sit in comfort on their thrones on distant Earth, Colors that have never been to Mars. Is that something to live for? I’ll say it again, your father had the right of it.