Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; this is our summary of Lysander’s chapters in book 4 – Iron Gold – as it was written to introduce Sagas & Sass episodes 68 and 74.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
So teeeechnically Dark Age kicked off with a speech from the Sovereign – Virginia au Augustus, aka Mustang – but she doesn’t appear again until the beginning of part 2, at which point we get the director’s cut version of her speech.
And listen, it’s a long one. Too long to revisit in full in what’s supposed to be a summary, so the tl;dr is that she chides the people – and more so the Senators – who allowed their union to erode to tribalism while they hoarded wealth and threw tantrums…aaaand then left Darrow alone on Mercury, to boot.
Afterward, with Holiday by her side, Mustang receives a call from Dancer, who isn’t too happy that she basically called him a traitor in the aforementioned speech. Oh, and he seems more than a little worried that he’s going to end up assassinated…
Obviously it wouldn’t be at Mustang’s order, but that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t act…which leads Mustang to think about Sevro, who by the way has been back on Luna wreaking his own sort of havoc in the wake of Electra’s kidnapping. But while Mustang is intent on doing what she can to protect Dancer, there are only a few days before the big vote over whether or not they’ll actually send help to Darrow, and she has work to do.
First up is a stop at Daxo’s personal offices, which are located in a supposedly-brain-shaped skyhook floating over the Citadel. When she arrives, he happens to be meeting with Publius…a meeting that, Daxo being Daxo, he tricked Publius into, not that the senator seems any the wiser. And anyway, apparently Publius now believes that the legions on Mercury might be worth saving! But oooof course he’ll only help if Mustang ensures that the Silvers don’t get anything out of it.
Listen, it DOES sound like the Silvers have gotten quite enough out of the government over the years, but still, Publius could definitely stand to back off Mustang a little bit. Yeesh.
After reassuring Publius, Mustang sends out the soldiers of her political army to rally more support, while she herself goes to meet with Quicksilver and his buddies and hear their requests – okay yeah no, their demands. But Mustang has an apple…and Holiday has a railrifle…so after taunting the Silvers by eating said apple, boots-on-table and all, Mustang borrows said railrifle and gives her answer…
Which happens to be using the gun to destroy one of Quicksilver’s priceless pieces of art, but it certainly sends a message that the other Silvers in the room can understand…if not hear, now that they’re deaf from the shot. And when Quicksilver still tries to insist that Mustang needs him, she reminds him that there are other Silvers.
All in a day’s work, we’d say…only Mustang’s day isn’t done yet, because it turns out that Sevro has made a new mess, this time killing the Duke of Heads – and putting this Duke’s head on display, to boot.
Not to mention the fact that the whole city is nearing a boiling point – an anti-highColor boiling point, of course.
Thankfully, though, Mustang has been keeping herself busy! Because it turns out that the Duke of Hands did in fact survive being shot by Gorgo, and not only does Mustang have him in custody…but she’s also been utilizing some of Octavia’s toys to…shall we say…’interrogate’ him. For…lack of a better word.
Well that, and to measure the fidelity of his brain patterns and predictive behavior to help her develop an evolving technology…buuuuut on this particular day she’s really mostly paying a visit to the Duke of Hands – and having a conversation of sorts with him – to kill time until Sevro shows up. Because this is Mustang and of COURSE she knew that’s what would happen next!
And yeah, Sevro is piiiiissed and here to take out his rage on the Duke, but again, this is MUSTANG, and of COURSE she’s able to talk him down! Granted, it she does have to play a few cards, including (a) revealing her knowledge of where their children are and what Victra is up to regarding them, and then reminding him that (b) she’s not an idiot and (c) she’s still Sovereign, before ordering him to report for duty.
It’s pretty clear that neither Sevro nor the Howlers who are with him care for this whole schism, and when he announces that they will in fact report for duty, Mustang pretty much immediately rewards him by handing him a psychospike – a piece of technology that is part of her little interrogation game – and giving him access to the Duke.
Now, when Sevro first showed up the Duke was begging Mustang to protect him, but when Sevro enters the cube that holds the man, the Duke changes his tune and tries to claim that he’s not afraid and won’t tell them anything…except as it turns out, Mustang has already done the work to essentially extract the Duke’s memories.
One of which happens to be of an intimate moment with…
…wait for it…
…DANCER, of all people!
Sevro is immediately in ‘deal with the traitor’ mode, but Mustang insists that they’re just going to have a conversation with their old friend. Granted, she has to use Darrow’s mom Deanna to, erm, trick Dancer into meeting with them…and while he isn’t too happy about the situation, Mustang eases him into their conversation by admitting that Pax and Electra were kidnapped.
Before, ya know, playing the Duke’s memory for him and freaking him TF out because Dancer immediately assumes they are going to use this intel to blackmail him. Which obviously Mustang wasn’t going to do, and she’s kinda hurt that Dancer would even assume that about her…but when they actually start REALLY communicating – and she reveals that Publius is allied with the Syndicate Queen – Dancer’s true wrath is FINALLY awakened.
Turns out that him finding out that it was still a Golden hand poisoning what he was trying to do is all that was needed to sway him to give Mustang his votes…so like, SIGH, but also, PHEW.
So now Mustang is sending Sevro off to Earth to take the Syndicate Queen’s refuge in Old Tokyo, and although she herself is still facing a whole litany of things that need to be taken care of, Kavax is there to reassure her – and to heap some praise on Daxo, who he’s also very proud of, even if Daxo has yet to give him grandbabies…something that Daxo actually seems to be considering after this conversation.
And although Daxo’s musing about possibly cloning his father and raising said clone isn’t an idea that Sevro and Mustang are very fond of, he IS right in that he has a great example to follow in Best Red Rising Saga Dad Kavax!
…if only that was where things ended for Mustang and her friends. But alas, this book is called DARK Age, and probably the “best” thing we can say about what happens next is that hey, at least Kavax didn’t go to the Senate vote?
Sure, the vote starts off well enough, with a great speech from Daxo and Dancer clearly about to voice his agreement regarding rescuing the Free Legions…and then it all goes to hell.
First Mustang receives a private call via her internal com – a fearful Sevro claiming there are Boneriders in Old Tokyo! – but she only has time to send a call out for the Pegasus Legion units to come to the Citadel before Dancer’s speech is interrupted by him vomiting blood and lung tissue, collapsing, and dying.
And who leaps up to accuse Mustang of Dancer’s murder? Why, Publius the Obviously-Totally-Corrupted, of course!
Seriously this guy is THE. WORST.
More calls come in notifying Mustang that her forces are under attack, and as she and Daxo are attempting to escape, the shield keeping the Vox Populi mob out of the Forum collapses and a tide of humanity storms in to murder whoever they can get their hands on. Obsidian and Gray senators join with Gold to make a stand, but even as those at the front of the mob hesitate, those in the back press them forward…and even Daxo, with his immense strength and his wielding of the Dawn Scepter as a weapon, and Mustang with her razor, are soon overwhelmed.
The horde beats Mustang into submission, and with the roar of the mob singing Eo’s song ringing in her ears, she sees Daxo beheaded by a demon from the past who she had thought long dead.
Y’all. Lilath, the Jackal’s most loyal dog, is alive (?!?!) – and apparently also the Queen of the Syndicate!
Like damn. Everyone else needs A Moment here, too, right?
Interlude: Rumors are soon bandied about by both Sefi and Atalantia that Mustang is dead, but – PHEW – it turns out that is not, in fact, the case.
…Though let’s be real, there are some points in these chapters where it’s hard not to wish – at least a little bit – that she was, because for the most part this is her Darkest Timeline.
After all, when her story picks back up she is having her memories drawn from her by means of the Pandemonium Chair – and her being the Sovereign, those memories include hiding places, secret bases, fleet orders, doomsday protocols, nuclear launch codes…we could go on and on, but the GOOD news is (sorta? maybe?) that the pyrotechs they are using to extract this information are no match for the conditioning Mustang went through to prevent anyone from being able to get real, TRUE information from her.
But that’s…kinda where the sorta-maybe-”good” news ends, because Mustang realizes that Lilath has used the psychospikes to paralyze her body and disable her language abilities. Oh, and they also hijacked the dopamine and oxytocin levels of her brain so that she’s happy when she SHOULD be furious.
Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.
And then. And THEN. Her captors then make her watch the executions of many of her remaining friends – friends who die crushed under the weight of a huge stone obelisk. At least until Publius interrupts her regular viewing with his Big Corrupted Asshole Speech about how it’s totes fine that he allied with Syndicate Queen and goes on to tell Mustang about all of the plans he has for getting rid of the Syndicate and remaking the world.
Like, sure, good luck with that, dude.
Seriously, Publius DEFINITELY spoke too soon, because before he can show Mustang the “justice of the meek”, who drops in but Lilath and a group of Bone Riders!
Mustang is obviously Not Surprised, but Publius sure is! And while some of the other Vox senators present protest – and lose their lives for the effort – Publius crawls to Lilath like the dog he is.
Only…it’s not really Lilath who’s in charge, y’all! Because she announces, “My Emperor, your slaves await” – and Mustang knows the voice that responds all too well, because it belongs to an abomination wearing the face of a ten-year-old boy who calls her “sister”.
Guys, it’s a clone of the Jackal, in case that wasn’t yet clear.
But also, what the FUCK?!
And listen, it somehow only gets WORSE, because soon Sevro, Pebble, and Clown are dragged before the Abomination – hereafter known as Abominadrius per the fandom, btw – who tells them the story of how he came to be. You see, the Jackal wasn’t sure he would be able to wrest control of the Sovereigncy from Octavia, so he left Lilath instructions and DNA samples. Oh, and instructions for his future self as well, because one can never be TOO careful!
PS, Lilath apparently proved her loyalty by growing Abominadrius in her womb, the news of which literally causes Sevro to throw up. We’re with you, dude. Blech.
The show continues with Abominadrius revealing that Lilath has been working with Atalantia and Atlas, and that the reason they were able to orchestrate All The Things is because the pachelbel birds that flit all over the Citadel – you know, the ones Sophocles kept trying to kill! – are some sort of sophisticated spyware.
Mustang hears all of this and remains silent, but Sevro of course does NOT…unfortunately, his mouthing off leads to some Syndicate thorns appearing with a giant iron statue of a howling wolf.
A statue that is stuffed with several actual Howlers, who Abominadrius orders roasted alive right in front of everyone before then threatening the lives of Victra and Sevro’s daughters.
At this point Sevro breaks and lunges for the clone, only to be beaten within an inch of his life. Mustang finally tells Abominadrius to just kill them and end this ridiculous show, but he insists that as family, she deserves a second chance…which leads to her being the guest of honor at a Bonerider banquet. (The worst kind of banquet, if we’re honest.)
However, as awful as having to sit through this so-called ‘banquet’ is for Mustang, doing so does allow her to watch and learn. She quickly realizes that Lilath is a suffocating sycophant with the clone, and wonders how long he’ll be able to watch the Boneriders’ depravity before coming to the conclusion his adult self made very quickly: that they’re loathsome and only worthy of mockery.
Mustang does in fact get her chance to start sowing seeds of doubt VERY soon, thanks to the fact that Abominadrius throws some puzzles at her and is surprised and delighted when she solves them. This allows her to inform him that it used to anger him when she solved his puzzles…at which point of COURSE Lilath busts into the conversation to insist that Mustang always thought her brother was a monster – that she, in fact, hated him – to which Mustang replies, “If I hated him, why did I pull his feet? If I didn’t love him, why would I keep those puzzles?”
Only Abominadrius doesn’t know that Mustang kept his puzzles, because despite him ordering that her quarters be left as they were, Lilath hid the puzzles from him. He orders that they be restored to their original places, and then they take a little field trip to Mustang’s office, where he demands that Lilath leave them…and proceeds to question Mustang, while also readily submitting to her questions, admitting that the Boneriders are ridiculous and that he plans to kill Lilath some day.
I mean, good? But also, wow this child is fuuuucked up. And while Mustang knows there is a patient, longer scheme available to her, she also understands that she doesn’t really have time to follow through with something like that. So she lures him close by teasing him about how he hasn’t yet cracked how to REALLY use the Pandemonium Chair, and then plucks a night lily from a nearby vase of flowers, holding it out to him as a Bellona knight would to a loved one when returning from war.
And ya know, being a spoiled ten year old who hasn’t spent enough time outdoors, Abominadrius grabs hold of it. Roughly.
Oh, and Night Lilies, bee tee dubs, do NOT abide rough handling. The flower suddenly bursts with necrotic needles, and while they do prick Mustang, the clone gets the lion’s share of the poison. (Ha! See what we did there?)
Knowing she has little time to escape, Mustang fights the poison’s effects and drags her partially-paralyzed body toward the puzzle wall – and toward the secret tunnel that exists behind it, but can only be opened if one of the puzzles is there for her to press.
When Lilath bursts in and attacks, Mustang fights back as best she can, eventually throwing first the flower, and then her hatchet, at the other woman. This buys her enough time to dive into the tunnel, which deposits her into a secret bunker that thankfully, her enemies had yet to find. She calls Kavax and immediately offers to go back for the other prisoners if he thinks she can reach them…but once he sees her injuries, the answer to that is a resounding NO.
Regretting every moment of what she does, Mustang crawls into the escape compartment. Despite it spitting her into the center of a Vox mobile infantry legion headquarters, Holiday comes to the rescue at the head of a special forces troop, and as their escape shuttle lands on Kavax’s ship, Mustang finally passes out.
While she first awakens to an excited Sophocles and the comfort of Darrow’s mother, when Mustang has worked up the strength to see others they don’t have much in the way of good news to tell her: Heliopolis will soon fall, they don’t know what’s up with Darrow, Pax has been abducted by Ephraim yet again, the Pandora was hit and Victra is missing, ArchGovernor of Mars Rollo was assassinated, their current fleet is nowhere near strong enough to help with the whole Mercury problem…oh, and the Rim has made a secret alliance with the Core.
In the end, regrouping on Mars is basically their only option, but Kavax does have at least one hopeful piece of news – he sent someone to Mercury to bring Darrow home…
And so Mustang returns home herself, and while she’s grateful for the help that was sent to Darrow on Mercury…while deep down she knows that she had no choice but to leave Sevro and Clown and Pebble behind on Luna…while she knows that she made the right choice in QUOTE running away UNQUOTE (listen, her words not ours)…she feels undeserving of her welcome back to Mars.
Oh, and she’s deeeefinitely worried about facing Victra…feeling bad about allowing the Obsidian to take Cimmeria only to see it ravaged…and wondering if her nostalgia for her home planet merely stems from missing her innocence…
Listen, it’s…not a great time for Mustang, for, ya know, obvious freakin’ reasons. And it doesn’t help that even the indomitable KAVAX! AU! TELEMANUS! is at a physical and mental low point…and yet even a short conversation between the two of them perks both of them up just a bit – in fact, perks them up enough for Kavax to suggest that they run an “Iron Circle” around the planet.
Okay okay okay, we’ve never heard of this before, but apparently the Iron Circle was popularized by good ol’ Silenius au Lune (ptuh ptuh), who would fly his shuttle – without escort – in a ring around a planet or moon upon his arrival, to, err, prove he owned said planet or moon.
…Soooo it’s basically a circle piss without the piss?
Yeah yeah, har har har. Thing is, Mustang reluctantly agrees to Do The Thing, and in the midst of their Circle Piss – oops, sorry, Iron Circle – they see lines of fire racing across the Martian landscape, lines that, to be seen from their flight, must be hundreds of feet long.
Lines that form the shape of a slingBlade.
Listen, if you don’t get chills over that, why are you even still reading these books?
Aaaaanyway, when they land in Agea, millions of people wait to greet them – people who raise clenched fists that have been dipped in red. Also there to greet them is Pax – taller, scarred, with eyes that no longer “gleam in childish wonder” but are “dull with his passage into wisdom”. Mustang wants to gather him in her arms, kiss him and apologize to him, but she believes that because they’re at war, and she’s the Sovereign, she must wait her turn.
Thankfully Kavax breaks from their procession and, laughing like a madman, scoops up Pax, perches the boy on his shoulder, and crows about the Boy Who Killed a TorchShip. KAVAX FOR THE WIN Y’ALL! (as per the usual, lbr)
Mustang then meets with Kieran, is debriefed on All The Things (such as they are), gets a brief moment alone with her son, and finally goes to find Victra…who, being Victra, is working out her feelings by training like a woman possessed.
And when Victra sees that Mustang is there, she has just one question – does Mars ride for Luna? Which of course they can’t do, and really Victra knows that, but she still comes at Mustang with a litany of accusations, chief amongst which is her reminder that Mustang “abandoned” Sevro to Abominadrius.
But y’all, this is Mustang, and she’s not only badass, she’s smart as fuckin’ hell, so she just strips off her tops to show Victra her scars – divots in her stomach made by Lilath’s hatchet and hundreds of punctures on her flanks and arms courtesy of the Vox Populi mob – more scars than even Victra herself has, now.
This causes Victra to, shall we say, come to her senses. She clutches Mustang’s shoulder and pulls her close to swear that if they cannot save their men, they will avenge them.
But uhhh how many times do we have to remember y’all that this book is DARK Age? Needless to say, their sweet moment (for lack of a better term) is short-lived.
Because Pax rushes in with a datapad to announce that now EARTH has fallen – to both the Rim AND the Society remnants – claiming that “Lune” (a.k.a. THAT BITCH LYSANDER) has bridged the divide.
So. Ya know. Fuuuuuuuck….
