Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; this is our summary of Darrow’s POV from chapter 46 to 56 in “Tempest”, part 3 of book 6 – Light Bringer – as it was written to introduce Sagas & Sass Episode 86.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Darrow & Co. discover some of what’s actually going on in the Rim in “THE RUIN OF RAA”…
No one but Sevro is laughing when the Archi arrives in Ilium after a month and a half.
They expected to see a battle; what they find is a massacre. And as much as Sevro finds it hilarious, Cassius, Aurae, and Lyria are simply stunned. Sure, the Rim’s misfortune’s help their cause…but Kalyke City, which housed Athena’s contacts, is now a crater, and the Archi’s hull can’t handle them entering the debris field for further reconnaissance.
So they skirt the edge of it instead, and though it takes them hours they eventually come across a fallback message from Athena. Unfortunately, she’s calling all Daughters back to a secret base, the location of which Aurae doesn’t know…and can only find out by returning to Sungrave and utilizing a hardlink coms port that she calls her omega torch.
Sevro argues against this course, but in the end Darrow announces that they’ll head to Io. However, just just as they’re about to leave Kalyke behind, they receive a distress signal…one that actually has a heartbeat attached!
And the escape pod they pull in? Why, it contains none other than Diomedes! Whooo Sevro immediately suggests they torture for information, which everyone else refuses to allow…though Darrow is still jonesing for answers as to how all of this could have happened, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising when Cassius rouses him from bed later to save Diomedes from – you guessed it! – Sevro’s torture.
While they’re able to put a stop to it before Sevro goes too far, this leads to Cassius and Sevro having a down-and-dirty fight, during which Cassius goes too far because ::insert facepalm here:: Lyria told him about Victra and Ulysses. And like, SIGH, Lyria, WHY, but that’s all we’re gonna say about that because she suffers enough when she tries to break up the fight and Cassius mistakenly knocks her out. Badly. REALLY. Badly.
Thankfully this DOES finally lead to a confrontation – albeit a verbal rather than physical one – between Darrow and Sevro, with Sevro eventually explaining what happened with Victra and Ulysses and how he feels like he can’t return home because he wasn’t there to protect them. Darrow does his best to disabuse his BFF of this notion, though he knows he’ll have to wait and see whether or not his bolstering attempts worked…especially as in the days after, Sevro hunkers down in the machine shop and is rarely seen.
When they arrive at Io they have to hang out in orbit for days while they wait for the Volk ships to depart. When do finally approach, even Sevro doesn’t laugh about the ruin Fa made of the once well-defended moon.
They set down several hundred kilometers from their destination and Sevro and Darrow move in first to scout the area. Sevro might not be too happy when Cassius and Aurae show up with Diomedes in tow, but Darrow is more understanding – after all, Cassius dooooesss make a good point when he insists that “the Raa needs to see this”.
Still, there’s a good bit of back and forth about whether or not Diomedes can be trusted, at least until Sevro gets tired of it and eventually accepts the man’s parole, apparently believing that he’ll keep it.
When they finally enter Sungrave, it’s through the front door rather than the tunnels, as that door was blown wide open. The city is littered with corpses, including that of the dragon the Obsidians slayed. Soon Darrow insists that Sevro, Cassius, and Aurae split off to find the omega torch because apparently he has business with Diomedes. He also asks for the man’s parole, which is given, and then Darrow unlocks Diomedes’ cuffs…and lets him wander off on his own to look for his kin.
Diomedes discovers the bodies of his younger brothers, but his grandmother, younger sister, and aunt are nowhere to be found (as we know, they were taken captive). So they settle in to wait for Aurae to receive word back from Athena, and as they do Darrow tries his best to convince Diomedes that while they might not be on the same side, exactly, they share a common enemy – not Fa, but rather the person who is pulling his strings.
But before Darrow can get any thoughts or even EXPRESSIONS out of the ever-impassive Diomedes, Cassius calls in with news of an enemy party nearby. Darrow insists that he not engage, but when Cassius sees the Obsidians ushering a column of Pink and Violet children toward their shuttle, he insists on helping them.
Now, Cassius might not have been trying to call Darrow’s bluff, but knowing that Cassius can’t do the thing on his own, Darrow orders Cassius to wait for his support. Sevro refuses to come to their aid, and Darrow also has to leave Diomedes behind knowing that the man likely won’t head to the perfumery as promised…but after notifying Lyria that she needs to pick up Aurae and Sevro and lend additional support, he’s off to save some Moonies!
What follows is one hell of a fight, because despite these being much more well-trained Obsidians than Cassius is used to, he and Darrow have top-notch armor, are both in good form themselves, and, let’s be real, work VERY well in concert ::wink wink:: All of this leads to them downing the transport in the end, and while some of the captives are injured, they’re certainly wayyyy better off than they would have been in the hands of the Obsidians.
Of course it’s not all’s well that ends well just like that, as more Obsidians show up (just like Darrow thought they would). He spears the heads of some of the Obsidians they killed with his razor and confronts the braves who appear, specifically insulting their leader Skarde, whom he fought with in the Core years ago…before showing his face and announcing that he has come to declare ashvar – essentially a blood feud that only ends with death – on Fa.
Skarde insists this will never happen, and hey, the Rim is Darrow’s enemy too, so aren’t they doing him a favor? And even though his son Sigurd steps forward to remind dear old dad about how unfairly Fa treats them, further conversation is interrupted with the arrival of some….ghosts?
Okay okay, it’s just people wearing ghostCloaks who’ve come to take out the Obsidians – the Daughters of Athena have arrived, y’all!
…Sadly, though, they don’t have the upper hand for long, and once they lose it they’re pretty bad off. At least until Sevro arrives and helps Darrow capture Skarde, with Lyria and the Archi not far behind to lay down some fire from the sky.
Not surprisingly, Sevro wants them to kill all of the Obsidians, but Darrow needs them to carry a message back to their fellows – he’s here, he’s there, he’s every fuckin’ where, Tyr Morgaaaa!
Too much? Maybe? Fiiiine. Most important is the fact that Darrow repeats that he wants to challenge Fa to single combat and then leaves the Obsidians, trusting they’ll spread the word. Sigurd, meanwhile, agrees to come along essentially as Darrow’s prisoner because he’s Just. That. Tired. of everything going on with Fa…but when it comes down to where they’re going, Cheon – who is leading this particular group of Daughters – is only as forthcoming as she has to be.
What she does reveal is that they’re off to Europa, where Athena has taken the Deep, but as for what will become of Darrow and the other Golds, or to anyone on Europa’s surface when Fa arrives…that’s for Athena to explain. Maybe. Hopefully. Guess we’ll have to wait and see…
