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“It’s always pride.”
“Pride is a hollow thing.”
He shrugs, voice deepening. “I will die. You will die. We will all die. And the universe will carry on without care. All that matters is how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.” He leans forward. “So you see, pride is the only thing.” His eyes leave mine and look across the room. “Pride, and women.”
I follow his eyes and I see her then.
She wears black amid a sea of gold, white, and red. Like a dark specter, she glides in out of the lift near the edge of the fake forest. She rolls her flashing eyes, twists her smirking mouth at the heads that turn her direction to stare at her funeral gown. Black. A color to show disdain for all the merry Golds about. Black like the color of the military uniform I now wear. I’m reminded of the warmth of her flesh, the mischief in her voice, the smell at the nape of her neck, the kindness of her heart. I stare so hard I almost miss her escort.
I wish I had missed him.
It is Cassius.
He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo’s dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.
His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft. His hands steady. Form powerful. Shoulders made for war. Face made for the women of court. And he wears a crown badge. The Sovereign has appointed him as one of the Olympic Knights. Despite the fact that I won at the Institute, he’s risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I’ve watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death. He stalks like a famished beast as if one life cannot sate the hunger that roils inside him.
Here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile, he is the man fit for stories of romance, a Lancelot galloping from myth to steal a woman who could have been, but never was, my Guinevere. His is a charmed birth. He has all I have in his Golden body and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. He is more handsome. Wealthier. A golden knight. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. He does not have my burdens. Why does he deserve this girl, who makes all but Eo pale in comparison? Does she not know how petty he is? Is she blind to his hypocrisy? To how he cares only for fame and pride and all their stupid vanities?
I cannot go to her, not even when she draws close enough to hear her laugh. If she saw me, I think I would shatter. Would there be guilt in her eyes? Awkwardness? Am I a shadow over her happiness? Will she even care that I see her with him? Or will she think me pathetic for approaching her?
It aches, not that I suspect Mustang is being petty in seeking my enemy, but because I know she is not petty. If she is with Cassius, it is because she cares for him. It aches deeper than I thought it would. I work on breathing.
“And so you see …” Karnus’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder, “… you are not wanted here.”
Tightness spreads through my chest as my shoulders carve a path out of the gala. I take a smaller lift down, away from these people who know only how to hurt. Away into the woods where the violinists play to one another till I find a bridge that spans a fast flowing stream. I lean over the polished railing, gasping for air, each breath a statement.
I do not need Mustang.
I do not need any of these greedy creatures.
I’m done with their games of power.
Done with trying to go it on my own.
I was not good enough to be a husband.
Not good enough to be a Gold.
Now I’m not good enough for Mustang.
I’ve failed to do what I set out to do.
Failed to rise.
But I won’t fail now. Not now.
I take the ring. Hand trembling. Nerves stampeding inside me. I want to retch, there’s so much wrong inside of me. I take the cold ring to my lips. Say the words and the corrupt perish. Say “break the chains” and Victra vanishes. Cassius evaporates. Augustus melts. Karnus dissolves. Mustang dies. Across the Solar System, bombs ripple and Red rises to an uncertain future. Trust in Ares. Just trust he knows what he is doing.
Break the chains.
Break the chains.
I try to say the words, Eo’s last before she hanged. But they do not come. Force it out. Dammit. Make my mouth work. But it won’t. It can’t, because inside I know that this is wrong. It isn’t the violence. It isn’t compassion for the people I would kill. It’s anger.
They reject me at every turn. I know it was never meant to be fair. It is a corrupt Society and that is why it must be destroyed. But I am a human. I still want them to respect me. But they don’t. And nothing I do will make a damn bit of difference about it. I will always be a Red. Always be less than them in their eyes, even after I destroy them. It’s only now, only in this moment that I realize how desperately I wanted to believe I could beat them at their own games. I wanted to prove that I was as good as any of them. That a Red could rise above these bastards.
Killing them proves nothing. It solves nothing.
