Pierce Brown - Golden Son: Book 2 of the Red Rising Saga

Golden Son is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2015 by Pierce Brown
Excerpt from Morning Star by Pierce Brown copyright 2015 by Pierce Brown

Chart on copyright 2015 by Joel Daniel Phillips

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

D EL REY and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Morning Star by Pierce Brown. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Pierce
Golden son / Pierce Brown.
p. cm.(The Red Rising trilogy; bk. 2)
ISBN 978-0-345-53981-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-345-53982-3 (ebook)
1. Government, Resistance toFiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R7226G65 2015
813.6dc23 2014031015

www.delreybooks.com

cover design: Faceout Studio and David G. Stevenson
cover illustration: David G. Stevenson

v3.1_r10

House Augustus and Allies

NERO AU AUGUSTUS ArchGovernor of Mars, head of House Augustus, father to Virginia and Adrius

VIRGINIA AU AUGUSTUS/MUSTANG daughter of Nero, twin sister to Adrius

ADRIUS AU AUGUSTUS/JACKAL son of ArchGovernor, heir to House Augustus, twin brother to Virginia

PLINY AU VELOCITOR chief Politico of House Augustus

DARROW AU ANDROMEDUS/REAPER ArchPrimus of the Institute of Mars, lancer of House Augustus

TACTUS AU RATH lancer of House Augustus

ROQUE AU FABII lancer of House Augustus

VICTRA AU JULII lancer of House Augustus, half sister to Antonia, daughter of Agrippina

KAVAX AU TELEMANUS head of House Telemanus, ally of House Augustus, father to Daxo and Pax

DAXO AU TELEMANU heir and son of Kavax, brother to Pax

House Bellona

TIBERIUS AU BELLONA head of House Bellona

CASSIUS AU BELLONA heir to House Bellona, son of Tiberius, lancer of House Bellona

KARNUS AU BELLONA son of Tiberius, elder brother of Cassius, lancer of House Bellona

KELLAN AU BELLONA Praetor, cousin of Cassius, nephew of Tiberius

Notable Golds

OCTAVIA AU LUNE reigning Sovereign of the Society

LYSANDER AU LUNE grandson of Octavia, heir to House Lune

AJA AU GRIMMUS the Sovereigns chief bodyguard

MOIRA AU GRIMMUS the Sovereigns chief Politico

LORN AU ARCOS former Rage Knight, head of House Arcos

FITCHNER AU BARCA former Proctor Mars, father of Sevro

SEVRO AU BARCA/GOBLIN lead Howler, son of Fitchner

AGRIPPINA AU JULII head of House Julii, mother to Victra and Antonia

ANTONIA AU SEVERUS-JULII former House Mars, half sister to Victra, daughter of Agrippina

Sons of Ares

ARES Terrorist Leader, color unknown

DANCER Ares lieutenant, a Red

HARMONY Dancers lieutenant, a Red

MICKEY Carver, a Violet

EVEY former slave of Mickey, a Pink

Once upon a time, a man came from the sky and killed my wife. Beside him now, I walk on a mountain that floats over our world. Snow falls. Battlements of white stone and shimmering glass yawn out of the rock.

Around us swirls a chaos of greed. All the great Golds of Mars descend upon the Institute to lay claim to the best and brightest of our year. Their ships swarm the morning sky, cutting over a world of snow and smoking castles for Olympus, which I stormed only hours before.

Take a last look, he tells me as we near his shuttle. All that came before was but a whisper of our world. When you leave this mountain, all bonds are broken, all oaths dust. You are not prepared. No one ever is.

Across the crowd, I see Cassius with his father and siblings as they make their way to their shuttle. Their eyes burn at us over the white, and I remember the sound of his brothers heart as it beat its last. A rough hand with bony fingers lays claim to my shoulder, clutching possessively.

Augustus stares at his enemies.

Bellonas do not forgive or forget. They are many. But they cannot harm you. His cold eyes peer down at me, his fresh prize. For you belong to me, Darrow, and I protect what is mine.

As do I.

For seven hundred years, my people have been enslaved without voice, without hope. Now I am their sword. And I do not forgive. I do not forget. So let him lead me onto his shuttle. Let him think he owns me. Let him welcome me into his house, so I might burn it down.

But then his daughter takes my hand, and I feel all the lies fall heavy on my shoulders. They say a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. They made no mention of the heart.

PART I

BOW

Hic sunt leones. Here be lions.

N ERO AU A UGUSTUS

1

WARLORDS

My silence thunders. I stand on the bridge of my starship, arm broken and held in a gelcast, ion burns still raw on my neck. Im bloodydamn tired. My razor coils around my good right arm like a cold metal snake. Before me, space opens, vast and terrible. Small fragments of light prick the darkness, and primordial shadows move to block those stars on the fringes of my vision. Asteroids. They float slowly around my man-of-war, Quietus, as I search the blackness for my quarry.

Win, my master told me. Win as my children cannot, and you will bring honor to the name Augustus. Win at the Academy and you earn yourself a fleet. He likes dramatic repetition. It suits most statesmen.

Hed have me win for him, but Id win for the Red girl with a dream bigger than she ever could be. Id win so that he dies, and her message burns across the ages. Small order.

I am twenty. Tall and broad in the shoulders. My uniform, all sable, now wrinkled. Hair long and eyes Golden, bloodshot. Mustang once said I have a sharp face, with cheeks and nose seemingly carved from angry marble. I avoid mirrors myself. Better to forget the mask I wear, the mask that bears the angled scar of the Golds who rule the worlds from Mercury to Pluto. I am of the Peerless Scarred. Cruelest and brightest of all humankind. But I miss the kindest of them. The one who asked me to stay as I bid her and Mars goodbye on her balcony almost a year ago. Mustang. I gave her a horse-crested gold ring as a parting gift, and she gave me a razor. Fitting.

The taste of her tears grows stale in memory. I have not heard from her since I left Mars. Worse, I have not heard from the Sons of Ares since I won at Marss Institute more than two years ago. Dancer said he would contact me once I graduated, but I have been cast adrift among a sea of Golden faces.