Red Rising by Pierce Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

dislike the thin, womanish Gold. And there is an HC camera crew of Greens, tiny creatures compared with the Crows. Their hair is dark. Not green like their eyes and the Sigils on their hands. Frenetic excitement shimmers in those eyes. It’s not often they have Helldivers to make into an example, so they make a spectacle of me. I wonder how many other mining colonies are watching. All of them, if the ArchGovernor is here.
    They make a show of stripping away the frysuit they only just dressed me in. I see myself on the HC display above, see my wedding band dangling from the cord around my neck. I look younger than I feel, thinner. They jerk me up the stairs and bend me over a metal box beside the noose where my father hung. I shiver as they lay me across the cold steel and tighten my hands in restraints. I smell the synthleather of the lashes, hear one of the headTalks cough.
    “Forevermore, let justice be done,” Podginus says.
    Then the lashes come. Forty-eight in all. They aren’t soft, not even my uncle’s. They can’t be. The lashes bite and wail into my flesh, making a strange keening noise as they arch through the air. Music of terror. I can barely see by the end of it. I pass out twice, and each time I wake I wonder if you can see my spine on the HC.
    It’s a show, all a show of their power. They let the Tinpot, Ugly Dan, act sympathetic, as though he pities me. He whispers encouragement in my ear loud enough for the cameras. And when the last lash slashes my back, he steps in as if to stop another from coming down. Subconsciously, I think he saves me. I’m thankful. I want to kiss him. He is salvation. But I know I’ve had my forty-eight.
    Then they are dragging me to the side. They leave my blood. I’m sure I screamed, sure I shamed myself. I hear them bring out my wife.
    “Even the young, even the beautiful cannot escape justice. It is for all the Colors that we preserve Order, Justice. Without, we would find anarchy. Without Obedience, chaos! Man would perish upon the irradiated sands of Earth. He would drink from the blasted seas. There must be unity. Forevermore, let justice be done.”
    MineMagistrate Podginus’s words ring hollow.
    No one is offended that I’m bloody and beaten. But when Eo is dragged atop the gallows, there are cries. There are curses. Even now she is beautiful, even drained of the light I saw in her three days ago. Even as she sees me and lets the tears come down her face, she is an angel.
    All this for a little adventure. All this for a night under the stars with the man she loves. Yet she is calm. If there is fear, it is in me, because I feel a strangeness in the air. Her skin prickles as they lay her across the cold box. She flinches. I wish my blood had warmed it better for her.
    When they whip Eo, I try not to watch. But it hurts more to abandon her. Her eyes find mine. They shine like rubies, twitch every time the lash falls.
Soon this will be over, my love. Soon we will go back to life. Just last the lash and we get everything back
. But can she even take so many lashes?
    “End it,” I say to the Tinpot beside me. “End it!” I beg of him. “I’ll do anything. I’ll obey. I’ll take her lashes. Just end it, you bloodydamn bastards! End it!”
    The ArchGovernor looks down at me, but his face is golden, poreless, and without care. I am nothing but the bloodiest of ants. My sacrifice will impress him. He’ll feel compassion if I abase myself, if I throw myself into the fire for love. He’ll feel pity. This is how the stories go.
    “Your Excellency, give me her punishment!” I plead. “Please!” I beg because in my wife’s eyes I see something that terrifies me. I see fight in her as they streak her back bloody. I see anger building inside her. There is a reason she is not afraid.
    “No. No. No,”
I plead to her.
“No, Eo. Please, no!”
    “Gag that wretched thing! He prickles the ArchGovernor’s ears,” Podginus orders. Bridge forces a knot of stone into