Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; this is our summary of Darrow’s POV chapters in “Circus”, part 1 of book 6 – Light Bringer – as it was written to introduce Sagas & Sass Episode 79.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
We’re finally back with Darrow as “The Reluctant Messiah”…
Cassius might have rescued Darrow from Mercury at the end of Dark Age, but this didn’t mean some sort of immediate and triumphant return to Mars. Instead, when Light Bringer begins, we find out that Darrow, Thraxa, Screwface, and barely 200 Republic soldiers were dropped off at an old Sons of Ares base on (of all things!) a trash moon.
Aaaand then they were left to fix the Archimedes while Cassius and Aurae flew off in the only working ship to do…who knows what.
And yes, it’s THAT Aurae, the one from the Rim who supposedly had a Thing Going On with Diomedes…who of course saved Cassius, only for Aurae to help Cassius escape from Io so they could return to the Core and warn the Republic that the Rim was planning to enter the war!
Interestingly enough, before taking her leave with Cassius Aurae left a book with Darrow – a book that she says was her path through the darkness of her life as a slave in the Rim. A book that Darrow has been reading in his free time, and even listens to during his solo razor training sessions, because who doesn’t like a bit of philosophy during their battle prep?
Needless to say, Darrow isn’t doing too well, but he’s still in a better headspace than his old friend Screw, who not only lost a leg but was freakin’ scalped (well, partially) during the fighting in Heliopolis and is, um, understandably bitter about ::gestures:: allll of that.
Soon enough their pity party is interrupted by Cassius and Aurae’s return – and they’ve brought friends! Colloway xe Char is with them, along with two thousand and eleven others rescued from Mercury. But they also bring both fortunate and unfortunate news – while Virginia, Kavax, and Niobe are alive – as is Darrow’s brother, now-ArchGovernor of Mars Kieran – there’s no news of Pax, Sefi is dead, most of the Volk left Mars, Quicksilver seems to have quit the war, and Rhonna was apparently left behind on Mercury.
Oh, and that’s not even the worst of it – while Sevro isn’t dead, what has happened is somehow even worse – he was badly tortured, seemingly broken, then sold in a high-Society syndicate auction to the highest bidder: none other than Apollonius au Valli-Rath. And Apple has a message for Darrow: if he doesn’t come for Sevro within 90 days, Sevro will be brought to the Coliseum in the Venus dockyards, where Apple will hunt him down like an animal…and kill him.
Of course Darrow wants to rescue his best friend, but everyone else resists the idea because they’re all hanging on by a thread as it is and want nothing more than to go home to Mars – and to get Darrow there too, as Thraxa insists they need him to lead the fleet. Even Cassius tries to do his duty and convince Darrow to not take Apple up on his offer…and it’s only when Aurae speaks up and says that she wants to rescue the literal son of Ares that Cassius gives up trying to talk Darrow out of it and actually agrees to go along.
However, the rest of the trash moon peeps KNEW that Darrow was gonna Darrow, and they’re waiting for him when he tries to sneak off on his suicide – oops, I mean rescue – mission. Not that they’re able to stop him, so Thraxa even gives in and hands over Bad Lass – her family heirloom razor – for him to borrow.
But this time, no one salutes or responds to Darrow’s “Hail libertas” as he leaves. Big OOF.
Next we know, Darrow, Cassius, Aurae, and Dominus Portobello (their lone atomic bomb) are approaching the Dockyards of Venus, unseen thanks to the Archi’s specially equipped hull. Darrow and Cassius pass control to the Archi over to Aurae so that they can sneak into the Dockyards, capture a Green from one of their special delirium arcades, and use her to locate Sevro.
They experience little resistance along the way, but when Darrow bursts into Sevro’s cell and rips off the wolf head helmet on the person inside, despite the tattoos and even the face matching, the eyes that blink up at him aren’t red. He calls out to Cassius that IT’S A TRAP, but when the cell door begins to close Cassius dives INTO the cell rather than out of it. The gravity increases, driving them to the floor, and then Apple’s voice comes through the speakers…welcoming them to the Dockyards of the Minotaur.
Big. OOPS.
Oh, and when Apple said he meant to duel Darrow, he really meant it. Two days later finds a beaten-up Cassius and a well-fed Darrow being led to the infamous Hanging Coliseum, where tens of thousands of people – including 50,000 Grays – wait in the stands. Darrow and Cassius guess that these troops are courtesy of Lysander, but the why of it escapes them for now….because soon a horn blows, Apple appears, and the Crowds! Go! Wild!
No, they seriously do, and there’s even a whole SONG about the Minotaur and his legions…followed – but of course! – by a Big Flowery Apple Speech, which Cassius interrupts to clarify that the man in the cell wasn’t Sevro, leading Darrow to insist that if Apple has Sevro, he should bring him out.
But Apple refuses, calling Darrow ungrateful for sneaking in like a thief and arriving in such a feeble state, to boot. Not that this stops him from starting the duel – one that Darrow might not have won even if he WAS in top form, though it’s cut short when a bomb goes off!
Not Dominus Portobello, mind you, because Apple somehow found wherever they planted it…but we suppose that’s neither here nor there because again, another bomb exists, and now Cassius and Darrow are herded back inside while Carthii ships swarm the dockyards in hopes of taking them back from Apple. The boys are caught in the thick of it, and even though they’re able to retrieve their weapons from a Gray named Vorkian, sealed bulkheads are preventing any real forward movement…
That is, until one of them opens and someone in a starShell clomps out and saves them! It’s Sevro, y’all, and he’s brought medical supplies, vacuum helmets, and a datapad for hailing Aurae. They wait for her in a viewing garden, and when she brings the Archi around, Sevro blasts out the windows. They’re sucked into space but soon float into the Archi’s cargo bay, and then they’re off on a slower but safer path to Mars.
Unfortunately Darrow and Sevro, while they can’t bear to be far from each other, have forgotten how to talk to each other. This of course makes things super awk, and Aurae doesn’t make it better by announcing she has a communication for Sevro from friends in the Rim – a recording that has a message within a message, from none other than Fitchner!
Oh, and it turns out that the book Darrow has been reading belonged to Sevro’s mother Bryn, passed down by her mother, and is a collection of their clan’s oral wisdom! But perhaps more importantly (considering the situation they’re in right now) is Athena’s pronouncement that the Daughters of Ares in the Rim have a fleet and weapons…and want Sevro to come be their god of war.
But Sevro doesn’t WANT to go to the Rim. He wants to go home, and Darrow says he will go to the Rim instead – but on the way there, he’ll need to get in tip-top fighting shape, so Cassius steps in and offers to train Darrow…and that’s where we leave our boys for now!
