Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; this is our summary of book 3 – Morning Star – as it was written to introduce Sagas & Sass episodes 59, 60, 61, and 62.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Yes, Golden Son ended with one hell of a betrayal and more than a few deaths…not to mention leaving the readers wondering what the heck was going to happen to Darrow, incapacitated and captured by the Jackal…who it turns out was in league with the Sovereign!
And listen, Morning Star might open with Darrow thinking he is not alone like the Jackal says, and that he is NOT the Jackal’s victim – he’s the Reaper, after all, so the Jackal can do his worst, but Darrow knows suffering, knows the darkness, and knows that this is not how it ends for him…
He was tortured, and then he was put in a dark box, and he doesn’t know how much time has passed. The Jackal has offered him an out – that if Darrow admits he is broken, he will be released, but at the expense of his family’s lives, as the Jackal claims to have them imprisoned as well.
So Darrow considers this, but then decides to kill himself instead – and is about to do so when the ceiling of his box opens, the floor rises up, and he realizes that all this time he has been locked inside the Jackal’s dining room table…and now the Jackal is showing him off to his dinner guests, because OF COURSE he is.
Ugh, this dude.
Those guests happen to include Cassius and Aja, who have apparently arrived to finally collect Darrow for his dissection – something that should have happened a long time ago, but apparently the Jackal wanted more playtime with Darrow…whiiiich the Sovereign allowed for a long while, though now it seems the tensions between Camp Sovereign and Camp Jackal are even bigger than before due to the Jackal kind of sucking at running Mars.
After listening to them bicker and to the Jackal somehow be even creepier and more awful than usual, Darrow is taken to be cleaned up and examined before his Big Trip…but his appointment is interrupted when two Gray Sons of Ares show up to rescue him!
The Grays, siblings named Holiday and Trigg, have quite a bit of convincing to do, as poor Darrow can’t help but think the whole situation is just another of the Jackal’s fucked-up games. In the end, Trigg has to use the phone-a-friend lifeline – and who answers but Sevro in the Ares helmet! Because bee tee dubs he’s alive and kicking and did in fact organize this rescue.
Darrow might finally believe in the rescue, but physically he’s a wreck, and Holiday and Trigg can’t exactly carry him…so here’s where a little cocktail named Snakebite comes in! It packs quite the punch, so even though it doesn’t fix atrophied muscles or any of the other numerous things wrong with him, Darrow is at least able to walk on his own.
Buuut there’s yet another surprise in store! Vixus – yeah, that Vixus, asshole from the Institute and the Triumph – joins them in the elevator and mentions another prisoner…and who is it?
It’s none other than Victra! Which of course means that Darrow & Co. have another stop to make before they leave Casa Jackal. They force Vixus to take them to Victra’s cell, and find her scarred and paralyzed but still full of fight. Holiday has to stun her, and she WILL have to be carried out…oh, and even though they originally planned to leave Vixus alive, he mouths off about killing Fitchner – and about Sevro being next – so Darrow slashes his throat, and yeah, goooood riddance!
Unfortunately, it’s right then that the alarm sirens finally begin to wail…
Granted, Darrow & Co. have more to worry about than just alarms – their elevator is being redirected and they can’t override the controls. This means that it’s time for Plan C a.k.a. ESCALATION…which basically means Holiday and Trigg have to prepare for just about anything while they wait for extraction.
And turns out they really did plan for just about everything they could, including bringing an EMP to incapacitate the enemies’ weapons…aaaand “ancient” weapons of their own that aren’t affected by the EMP! (Because OF COURSE there’s always an EMP, lolz)
They make it to a landing pad and Holiday announces that they only have to wait it out for “JUST” three more minutes – but then Darrow notes that the snow has stopped falling, and looks up to see that a defensive shield has been activated around the Jackal’s fortress.
Holiday still insists their rescuers will come, even after Aja shows up and takes down Trigg. There is no time for mourning, but Darrow can’t understand how their saviors will get past the shields. Holiday gestures toward the edge of the landing pad and tells him to listen…but before we know what he’s listening for, Cassius arrives to taunt them, and all Darrow knows is that he will NOT let them take him and Victra again.
Thankfully Cassius being the big blowhard that he is, even after Darrow drags the badly injured Holiday and paralyzed Victra from their hiding place to stand at the edge of the pad, a whole-ass conversation happens…at the end of which Darrow tells Aja and Cassius to listen to the wind, even though he knows his enemies won’t understand what they’re hearing – because a son and daughter of Gold would never recognize the sound of a clawDrill gnawing through rock, OR guess that Darrow’s people wouldn’t come from the sky, but from the heart of their planet.
So with Holiday and Victra in hand, Darrow flings himself into the open air…
…and falls…
…and loses his grip on Victra…
…and the ground is rushing up…
And then BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! (literally, a whole chorus of sonic booms) – the air is filled with howling armored figures, and Ragnar catches Darrow and Holiday, Sevro has hold of Victra, and in the midst of battle, Darrow briefly loses consciousness.
He wakes on a ship, surrounded by dying men, but almost immediately blacks out again.
The next time he gains consciousness, he’s hearing the sound of his Uncle Narol’s voice – Narol, who is Definitely Not Dead just like Darrow’s mother Deanna assumed. Oh! And Deanna is there as well, and soon Dancer arrives, and even though Darrow is worried about having been tracked and about Sevro and Ragnar and Victra, his family – both blood and found – reassures him at every turn.
But he has one more question that needs answering – how the heck the Jackal knew who and what he was! Darrow is worried that it was him, that he screwed up and left clues for the Jackal to pick apart…but it turns out that Harmony gave him up first. That said…Darrow showing up and being present during Mickey and Evey’s rescue cemented everything, so ya know, SIGH, good job there Darrow.
It doesn’t help that the Golds held a V.P.E. – Very Public Execution – that was also a trap for the Sons who tried to rescue Darrow before he could be killed. The Sons lost thousands of people, and in the end thought they lost Darrow as well, because the person the Golds did kill looked just like him…
…Not to mention the fact that they executed the fake Darrow as a Gold, not a Red – just another Gold who thought he could be king – so ya know, one heck of a warning.
And everyone but Sevro truly believed that Darrow was dead…until some of Theodora’s informants caught wind of the fact that Olympic Knights were heading out to escort a package from Attica to Luna. (Quick aside: Yes! That Theodora! She’s with the Rising now! ::snaps for Theodora, y’all::)
As we know, the rescue was planned and executed – though not without quite a few hitches – and here Darrow is! Buuuut when Dancer immediately starts talking about next steps, Darrow stops him, because he just wants some time with his family – and so he gets just that, including meeting his nieces and nephews, seeing Eo’s sister Dio, and sitting with Kieran and Narol for a while, even reassuring them that he has a plan.
(And even though they all know that’s a lie, it’s one they all have to tell themselves…at least for now.)
The morning after Darrow’s family time, Sevro and Ragnar come a-calling – loudly and roughly, with Sevro wrapping Darrow in a bone-crushing hug. Granted, this is only after he greets one of Darrow’s nieces, because it’s clear that the whole fam is, well, besties with Darrow’s besties! (And listen, we are HERE FOR IT!)
Seriously, the kids are asking for presents and using Ragnar as a jungle gym and it’s kind of the cutest…although when Darrow notices Sevro’s eyes, things take a bit of a weird turn…
Because Sevro has Red eyes now, y’all. And yes, that’s Red with a capital R, and they aren’t just ANY Red eyes – they’re DARROW’s. And uhhh yeah Ragnar is right when he says it’s odd that Sevro had Darrow’s former eyes implanted in him…buuuut this is Sevro we’re talking about, so maybe not all that odd?
Anyway, now it’s time for them to take Darrow for a walk, during which he learns that thanks to Mickey, Ragnar has fancy new teeth AND knows how to read! Oh, and that thanks to Fitchner, they have this place called Tinos – a stronghold built below the surface of Mars, in which they are currently occupying an inverted stalactite.
And from within that inverted stalactite, Darrow looks down and sees a sprawling refugee camp packed full of clans from the mines that the Jackal has been purging.
Problem is, as much as the Sons want to fight against the Jackal’s attempts at genocide, they don’t have enough space, food, or meds for everyone. The refugees even rioted at one point, though Ragnar descended to put a stop to that – apparently in a firm but nice enough way to earn himself the nickname “The Shield of Tinos”.
As if the conversation wasn’t dark enough already, it comes to a close with Sevro revealing that Cassius was the person who killed Fitchner. Because of course he was. UGH, Cassius, ptuh ptuh.
So now that Darrow is debriefed on ::waves hands:: alllll of that, it’s time for him to get caught up on all of the war news, including that Mustang is alive and has made common cause with the Rim Moon Lords in their new rebellion against. Ya know. The OTHER moon. (That being Luna, ofc.)
Granted, THEIR rebellion is due to a combination of their own general hatred of the Sovereign, disdain for the Core and its people, and the fact that the ArchGovernor of Io and his 9-year-old grandaughter were killed at the Triumph slaughter, but to Darrow that’s neither here nor there because again, Mustang is alive! Oh, and because it also it means that the Rising isn’t the Sovereign’s only enemy.
Uuuunfortunately Roque au Buttsucking Fabii (Sevro’s words, but we! are! here! for! them!) stole a moonBreaker and has been keeping the Moon Lords quite tied up with ya know, space battles and stuff.
The tl;dr is that the Rising is running out of time. The Reds from the mines aren’t warriors, the Jackal’s media is blaming every civilian death on the Sons, and Harmony is leading her own Red Legion around massacring every highColor they can. It’s open rebellion – nay, open war – but Darrow for one is confused as to how shit happened to escalate.
Welp, it’s more like Sevro happened…happened to release the recording of Darrow’s Carving to, like, the entire universe, that is. Darrow feels used, but apparently all Sevro cares about is that now Darrow – who ya know, very obviously isn’t dead – isn’t a martyr, but a messiah!
This realization (revelation, even?) leaves Darrow in a pretty dark place, because he’s still of a mind that the Rising can’t go toe-to-toe with Gold. Even after he hears that Ragnar has sent envoys to the ice to tell the Obsidians of their bondage and that they will soon be freed, he’s too wrapped up in his own thoughts, worrying about all the should haves and what ifs.
But it’s Ragnar to the rescue again! He calls Darrow out for his attitude, and then takes him on a little field trip to the hospital.
Once there, Darrow ends up spending quite a bit of time talking, joking, and laughing with the injured Reds, until he’s finally ready to go back and face his allies – and make some demands of his own, including that they send an emissary to Mustang and bring Mickey back to Tinos to make Darrow into a weapon again.
Oh…and there’s one last thing – he wants to visit Victra, but obviously he’s not asking for permission to just go say hello. He finds her bound to her hospital bed, but when he tries to offer her an explanation about what/who he is, she merely scoffs – because she doesn’t care, never would have cared, that he was a Red, or a Son of Ares or, well, any of it.
In return, Darrow admits that he should have trusted her – and says he will give her whatever she desires, including allowing her to leave Tinos – but what HE really wants is for her to join the Sons of Ares (and, therefore, the Rising).
But what Victra really wants is revenge, cuz ya know, Victra gonna Victra, and even though Darrow reminds her that revenge is a hollow end, he still promises to get her Carved back into shape as well…and then they shake on it and hell YEAH Victra’s truly, officially, part of Darrow’s team now!
Months pass during which Victra and Darrow are carved (or maybe RE-carved?), and next we know, they’re now doing bench presses like bosses to get back up to par. They’ve been part of some forays into the Real World – not MTV-style; we’re talking supply runs, sabotage missions, and assassinations – and eventually got to be part of the B squad, which is known as the PitVipers and led by Uncle Narol (the Howlers being the A squad, obviously).
But Darrow…well, he isn’t feeling the best about all of this. He feels, tbqh, like a terrorist. In fact, the only mission he felt okay about involved them getting dispatched to the Red Legion’s hideout in an attempt to bring them back into the fold; sadly, all they found there was a bombed-out shell of a city and a mass grave.
Anyyyyway, back in the present, Darrow and Victra are in the midst of washing off their workout when they are attacked – and considering they were both recently prisoners and obviously still suffering from PTSD, damn right they think the worst has happened and the Jackal’s minions have come to call.
Buuuut lo! It’s just Sevro and the Howlers showing up to initiate them! The Howlers bring Holiday along as well, and she’s kinda the MOST excited because ya know, she didn’t just spend the better part of a year being tortured.
The initiation includes them being fed a whole lotta liquor AND a big ol’ bucket of creepy crawlies (seriously, cockroaches, pit vipers, who knows what else), and being told that they have a “sacred” Howler text to memorize – the most important bit being Howler Rule One: Never Bow.
And then, just as they’re wrapping up – drunk AF and covered in beastie bits and vomit – Narol and Dancer show up with some news: it’s time for a mission dubbed Operation Black Market – a.k.a. going to Phobos to straight up KIDNAP (or maybe, rather, SilverNap?) the Jackal’s silent partner, Quicksilver!
So the Howlers almost immediately hie off to Phobos, where before they can get to the whole breaking-into-Quicksilver’s-home part of their mission, they meet with a Sons of Ares contact – a Red named Rollo. And as Rollo leads them to their jump-off point, along the way they witness some of the hardships of those who are contracted to work on the moon…
But we don’t want to digress TOO much. The tl;dr is: Listen, there’s a whoooole lotta shit going on before, during, and after this mission, but for the sake of this being a SUMMARY, we’re just gonna say – Sevro clearly doesn’t have shit in hand the way he should, and Darrow is full-on worried about it.
They are able to enter Quicksilver’s tower, but again, Darrow senses that things aren’t quite right. He feels as if they’ve entered a museum, not a home, and tells Sevro he thinks ::insert Admiral Ackbar voice here:: IT’S A TRAP!.
Darrow’s concern only grows when they finally find Quicksilver’s bedroom…and it’s empty. Or at least it appears to be, until they realize that there is a Pink sleeping in Quicksilver’s bed. A Pink who they immediately take hold of and start questioning – roughly.
But when the Pink speaks, Darrow recognizes his voice – and you guys, it’s MATTEO, the same Matteo who taught Darrow how to be a Gold wayyyy back at the beginning of Book 1! Darrow tries to stop the Howlers from destroying his friend, and while Sevro insists that Matteo must have turned, Darrow is feeling even more unease about this whole…mission…quest…thing.
Granted, they DO eventually search out Quicksilver, but WOW, their intel was obviously not complete. Sure, DARROW totes realized things probably weren’t what they seemed, but still, even he didn’t expect that they would bust into a conference room where Quicksilver is chillin’ with a few dozen people, including the Death Knight, Aja’s sister and fellow Fury, Moira, fuckin’ CASSIUS, Kavax and Daxo AU TELEMANUS, and…
…Wait for it…
…MUSTANG!
Despite Darrow’s initial attempts to control the situation – attempts that cause Sevro to cut off his output signal so that no one can hear him (BIG OOF) – a full-on brawl erupts. The Death Knight and Moira are taken out, and most of the Coppers and Silvers as well, but Cassius, the Telemanuses and Mustang fight on, and it’s clear the Howlers have bitten off more than they can chew…
It’s only when Mustang comes at Darrow and his mask is shattered, revealing his face, that there’s a true pause – because Mustang believes she saw him die, and as soon as she realizes he’s not ALL dead (in fact he’s not even MOSTLY dead), she calls to the Telemanuses to fall back.
The Howlers do get hold of Kavax, though, who roars at Mustang that she should run – which she does, but only after telling Darrow that she has the Pax, and Orion is alive.
Kavax soon confirms that the Pax is in fact safe, but Darrow is confused and also PISSED – and for good reason, because remember, Sevro cut his comms. And on top of that, they could have killed Mustang! Unfortunately there’s no time to discuss how and why they ended up in this situation, because Quicksilver’s security personnel are swarming toward them and there’s no way their little crew can cut through more than a hundred guards.
Granted, Sevro tries to argue that they absolutely CAN do that – which, ya know, DUDE, that’s a big ol’ NOPE – but thankfully at this point Darrow finally reminds his fellow Howlers “I AM BACK” and effectively takes over.
What does this mean? Welp, that they’re gonna bust out a window and launch themselves through the vacuum of space into their escape ship…which they do, all but Sevro howling all the way and, errr, just hoping that they can make it back into a pressurized space with oxygen before their bodies fail.
Oh, and don’t worry, they DO make it…because as Ragnar says, the Abyss will not claim them yet…
After they’ve escaped Quicksilver’s tower, Holiday lands their ship in the docking berth of a Sons of Ares safehouse…but their previous disguises have deteriorated, and people start recognizing Darrow for who he really is – a totally-not-ALL-or-even-MOSTLY-dead Reaper of Mars! It’s clear that their time is limited, so Darrow tightens his gloves and goes to get answers – from Kavax, of course!
Mustang apparently told Kavax that Darrow was a Red immediately after she left him in the mines, which is why they weren’t at the Triumph – she went to the Telemanuses because she didn’t know what to do, and respected their counsel to stay outta things for a hot mo’.
Side note: Rightfully fucking so, we are ALL here for the TELEMANUSES
(And uhhh, their advice/that choice is why they’re all still alive.)
So while the Jackal and his people were ravaging Darrow’s supposed Triumph, Mustang was rallying his other troops, even saving Orion from assassins…and when Darrow asks where his friends are imprisoned, Kavax corrects him – the Pax is as he left it; Mustang left Orion in command and the rest follow. Because HELL YEAH Kavax is the person who raised Mustang – raised her on stories of heroes who wished only to protect the weak, so of COURSE she believes that a Blue can run a whole dang ship.
It turns out that the only reason they were meeting with the Sovereign’s minions on Phobos is because they are losing their part of the war…buuuut they ALSO knew that the Jackal is a Grade A fuck-up and that the Sovereign wants to remove him from his position as ArchGovernor of Mars. However, even hearing all of this, there’s one thing that Darrow still doesn’t understand – that being: if all of this is true, why didn’t Mustang or anyone on her team try to contact Sevro?
Ohhhh but they did, months before they attempted this new alliance, so yet another BIG OOF about the fact that Sevro never told Darrow about THAT.
However, we have to set this aside for a moment, because the Big Problem right now is how the fuck they’re gonna get off Phobos…and do so without simply abandoning the Sons who reside there to slaughter. Thankfully, their new friend Rollo has an idea – he believes that if Darrow heads down to the Hive and shows everyone he’s alive, the lowColors will rise for him.
Unfortunately, Sevro is still stuck on his own plan – to use Quicksilver to get them off Phobos – and he stomps off (with Darrow hot on his heels) to question their prisoner…until Quicksilver realizes just WHO is questioning him, and reveals that he is one of them – that being, a Son of Ares – and a founding MEMBER of the Sons, at that! Oh, and turns out he’s ALSO married to Matteo!
Once Quicksilver has convinced Sevro and Darrow that he is in fact on their side, he admits that he hadn’t been helping Sevro directly because WELP, he sees Sevro as a bad investment, a boy lashing out because he was hurt over his losses. However, now that Quicksilver knows that Darrow is alive, he’s apparently ready to go all in…and while Darrow recognizes that things have changed and therefore their plan must change, Sevro still wants to just blow shit up…whiiiich leads to him and Darrow actually coming to blows!
Don’t worry, though! After a few minutes of them duking it out, Sevro breaks down crying and then they HUG it out…well, and talk it out. When they join back up with the Howlers, everything is copacetic, and Sevro announces that Darrow is back to being Howler One, while he, Sevro, is Howler Two.
And oh yeah, remember Rollo’s plan? Turns out that’s the one they’re going with, after all (and thank the gods for that), so after a quick call to the Jackal – ya know, to brag about how they kidnapped Quicksilver, because hey, why not? – Darrow makes his way out to show the people of Phobos that he’s totes alive and well. He moves through the Hollows in his new blood-red armor, unmasked, and of course the lowColors immediately take note of him.
But this being Darrow, obviously there’s more to the show. First, Quicksilver’s Greens hijack every broadcast in the system and play the video of Eo’s song and death…and when it’s over Darrow speaks, and yes, it’s the usual Big Moving Darrow Speech, punctuated by him removing his gloves to show that he no longer has Sigils – the first person in hundreds of years without them. Darrow reminds the lowColors that they aren’t fighting for hate, vengeance, or justice, but for their children and their future…and then he tells the Golds that the lowColors are rising and their rule is at an end.
To punctuate the end of the speech, Sevro begins a rhythmic beat of his fest against his chest, a beat that is picked up by the other Howlers, by the Sons of Ares, and then by everyone around them. “Break the chains!” Darrow roars, before giving Ragnar an order – the end result of which is the Phobos military spire going completely dark, followed by a live video feed showing a slave become a hero, as Ragnar and a pack of lowColor welders and laborers take control of the spire.
At this point Sevro takes charge of the battle that was roused by Darrow’s speech, because as usual there are more plans and plots within plots and plans, and one of them is for Darrow to join back up with Ragnar to go, well, obviously somewhere very cold based on the gear they’re donning…
Only before they can leave, who shows up in the hangar but MUSTANG! Because Ragnar having a mind of his own and all now, he set Kavax free and told him to inform Mustang where she could find Darrow…none of which Darrow is very happy about, but Mustang wants a second chance, dangit, and she’s kiiiinda used to getting what she wants.
While Darrow might not be all that happy with Ragnar for pulling this little stunt, let’s be real, Ragnar is right – they need Mustang on their side if they don’t want this to be a fight that isn’t won until every Gold is dead.
So their ship takes off and joins the flood of refugee ships trying to flee the fighting on Phobos, and they are well on their way to their destination when a blip pops up on their display…and it’s approaching fast. They dive through Mars’s atmosphere, but they aren’t fast enough, and their pursuers get in a kill hit on their ship. Ragnar rushes off, presumably to fight, and before Darrow can ascertain what happened to Ragnar or Holiday, their ship plummets into the icy sea below…
Darrow and Mustang cut themselves free of their crash webbing as their ship sinks into the depths of a freezing cold ocean populated with Carved monsters meant to keep the Obsidians trapped on their icy continent…because oh yeah of COURSE they were headed to the Spires to meet with the Obsidians!
Anyway, their emergency supplies are nowhere to be found and they have no choice but to vacate the ship with just a standard emergency kit, swimming in what they hope is the direction of the surface…which they reach, and have just pulled themselves free of the water when Holiday busts through the ice as well.
Ragnar, however, is still missing.
Of course Darrow wants to go after his friend, but Holiday threatens to shoot him in the leg if he tries – and then here comes Mustang, rushing past them and diving into the water, razor in one hand and flare in the other. Darrow follows the light of her flare until it fades away, at which point he begins cutting into the ice, eventually opening a hole and finding Mustang with Ragnar in her arms, and hauling them out of the water.
Only they aren’t exactly alone – there are nasty creatures latched on to Mustang and Ragnar’s backs and they’re FREAKING EATING THEM ALIVE. But even after the monsters are cut away and Ragnar is CPR’d back to life, their situation is still pretty dang dire – the only weapons left to them are the ones in their hands; they have no food or water, and it’s, ya know, really fuckin’ cold. PLUS there’s a storm coming because things always have to be like WORSE than worst…needless to say, they need shelter ASAP.
They are at least able to see that the other ship crashed as well, and while sure, their enemies may or may not have survived the crash, if they did, hitting them while they’re still piecing themselves back together is Darrow & Co’s best (shoot, possibly ONLY) chance.
Especially as Mustang is certain Cassius is one of them, and is worried that Aja might also be with him…
But what they actually find when they reach the wreckage is death. Anyone who was still alive has fled in the wake of a new attack by something far worse than “mere” Carved beasts: Eaters, a.k.a. Obsidians who eat the flesh of men. And why yes, they are absolutely eating the dead Golds whose bodies were left behind, and are clearly bent on eating Darrow and his friends, too.
It’s pretty much only thanks to Ragnar that they survive this encounter, though Mustang is injured, Darrow straight-up had some bites taken out of his pretty face, and in the end they find that most of the ship’s gear was taken by the survivors who fled.
Still, they are able to seal themselves inside for the night and even get in a good meal and some…well, if not pleasant conversation, at least revealing conversation. Because as if we had enough reasons to dislike Mustang’s dad, turns out her birth mother died after losing a baby because Nero wouldn’t let her get medical treatments that would ruin the “purity of the product”.
(Whatever, good thing no one was missing Nero at this point anyway. Jerk.)
The next day they have a decision to make – go straight to the Spires, or chase down Cassius – oh yeah, and Aja, because yup, she’s there as well. Darrow convinces Mustang that they should take the chance to waste their enemy, because when else will they be so exposed? So off they go, with a ghost of a plan that involves Darrow and Ragnar confronting the two Olympic Knights while Mustang and Holiday hide in the trees and play sniper.
Shockingly (yeah, or NOT) their plan doesn’t work. Cassius figures out where the danger is coming from just in time and knocks Aja out of the way when Holiday shoots. Then, when Ragnar tries to use one of his razors as a throwing knife, Aja catches it in midair?! The four of them crash together, with Cassius and Darrow soon pairing off as Ragnar presses down on Aja.
Darrow is on the verge of losing to Cassius – he’s pinned down, with his former friend’s razor poised to kill – when Mustang interrupts, bow at the ready, shouting at Cassius to stop. Cassius doesn’t think she’ll shoot him – but as he begins to say as much, she does just that. Straight through the neck.
Unfortunately things don’t go quite so well for Ragnar. Darrow realizes that his friend is about to fall into Aja’s trap a moment too late, and before he or Mustang can offer any help, Aja has speared Ragnar through with her razor. There’s an odd moment where she seems distracted, but even in that moment, when Mustang shoots at her, Aja is able to spin away…though she at least spins herself right off the damn cliff, disappearing into the darkness below.
Mustang insists that they can’t stay, but Darrow refuses to leave Ragnar, and then Aja’s distraction is realized – and it isn’t Eaters.
It is, in fact, Ragnar’s sister Sefi the Quiet, come with her Valkyries on their griffins, just in time to see their Prince die.
And even as he does, Ragnar reveals so much. First to Darrow – that words will not suffice with his mother, which leads Darrow to the conclusion that Ragnar actually came to the ice to kill her. Then to Sefi – who tries to put her axe in his hand so that he can die a warrior and secure his place in Valhalla, but Ragnar wants her to see that he prefers to die with his friends…and that she should live for more.
He nods to Darrow, who does what he must, much as he hates it, and ushers his friend from this world.
And now they ride to the Spires on the backs of the Valkyrie’s griffins, injured and nearly weaponless, no Ragnar to light the way for them. So it probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that things turn from bad to worse, as their remaining weapons are confiscated, their arms and legs shackled, and they’re thrown into a cell…while Cassius (because oh yeah somehow that mother-effer is still alive) is taken elsewhere.
That, and when they DO finally meet with Ragnar’s mother, she is – to say the least – gross and horrible and clearly knows allll about the lies of the Golds. Basically she’s the Obsidian version of a Gamma, and ya know, slag Gamma, and slag Alia Snowsparrow!
In the end, Ragnar was right, and their words do nothing. Alia tasks Sefi with bringing them to Asgard – in chains, of course – but while the Obsidian queen wouldn’t listen to them, when Darrow finally gets Sefi alone for a moment, she DOES listen.
They arrive on Asgard with Darrow, Mustang, and Holiday disguised as Obsidians (I guess we’re just gonna gloss over the fact that Holiday really shouldn’t be able to pass as an Obsidian, but whatever) and present Darrow’s razor as proof of having seen his ship crash. Buuut as soon as they’re brought before “Loki” and “Freya”, they reveal themselves and quickly prove that these gods are just other Golds – just humans, really, who bleed like anyone else.
After killing or capturing these so-called gods and pillaging Asgard, they return to the Spires on a shuttle and bust in on Alia, who is holding council with her warchiefs…and yet even as Darrow drags the captured Golds forward as proof that their gods are false, Alia names her daughter traitor and calls for her people to free their gods and kill the blasphemers.
Not to worry, though…now that Sefi understands that her mother knew the truth, she is BIG TIME ANGY, and, welp, she has a razor to boot.
A razor that she promptly uses to lop off her mother’s head.
It is only when Sefi dons Alia’s crown and ascends to the throne to announce that the Valkyrie ride to war that Darrow and Mustang look to each other and really begin to wonder what they have unleashed…
In the wake of Ragnar’s death and winning Sefi to their cause, Mustang organizes a massive movement, filling a thousand ships with Obsidians – families who will be dispersed to their new homes underground and warriors who will be sent to the military ships in orbit. Once this is accomplished, Darrow, Mustang, and Holiday return to Tinos with Cassius as their prisoner, Sefi and her Valkyrie as their allies…and Ragnar’s body. ::pause for emotion::
Sevro and the Howlers greet them, with Sevro producing Ragnar’s bear cloak and announcing himself as Ragnar’s blood brother before asking permission to drape his body with the cloak. In a promising show of generosity, Sefi passes stewardship of her brother’s body to Sevro, and he and Darrow hold vigil over it, discussing the past, Darrow’s regret over allowing Ragnar to fight Aja, and what their lives might have been like had they been regular people.
When Darrow finally leaves, he runs into Victra on his way out, and after telling him that Mustang and Dancer have already been at each other’s throats, she goes to join Sevro, because DUH if Victra and Sevro haven’t been bangin’ yet, they’re sure as hell about to be, and We! Are! Here! For! It!
Darrow, for his part, is off to find Mustang, who happens to be hanging out in the commissary with his Uncle Narol, Kavax and Daxo AU TELEMANUS, a bunch of Pitviper guards, aaaaand Darrow’s brother and mother! And, um, Darrow is kinda shocked and mayyyybe a little bit worried at seeing the two halves of his life collide without his supervision.
(Let’s be real, it probably doesn’t help that when he walked in, Mustang was telling kind of embarrassing stories about their time at the Institute.)
Soon, though, his mother announces that it’s time for bed, and figuratively drags Kieran, Narol, and the Pitvipers along with her, leaving Darrow, Mustang, and the Telemanuses to talk shop. Apparently the current plan is to use clawDrills to allow the Obsidians to invade key Martian cities, but the Golds don’t agree with this. Sefi might be Ragnar’s sister, but they don’t trust the Obsidians as a whole; additionally, Mustang insists that the Jackal will smell this plan a mile away.
The other issue is their need for assurance that Darrow isn’t trying to begin a dictatorship OR a full demokracy WITH A K, but before they can get too deep into that conversation, Holiday shows up to let Darrow know that Cassius is asking for him…and claiming that he has information.
So Darrow heads off to the infirmary, where he and Cassius kick off their conversation by speaking of honor and duty…until Darrow eventually insists that they get down to brass tacks. So Cassius asks him why he thinks the Sovereign was suing for peace, and it turns out that while thanks to Mustang, Darrow knows a litany of reasons as to why the Sovereign wanted to remove the Jackal from power, she in fact made Cassius hold back the most important piece of intel they had. That being: not only has the Jackal been stockpiling helium, he ALSO robbed a warehouse on an asteroid located between the Core and the Rim…
A warehouse that contained five hundred world-killing nuclear warheads. FFS.
Obviously a meeting is called so that Darrow can bring this extremely-beyond-worrisome news to everyone’s attention, but the leaders of the rebellion end up questioning whether Cassius is telling the truth…with their argument punctuated by Sevro’s constant reminders that they could just torture the truth out of Cassius, as well as some discussion as to whether or not Mustang belongs in their war councils. (Though that point seems to fall flat considering, ya know, ALL OF THE OTHER SHIT THEY HAVE GOING ON.)
Anyway, they eventually come to the conclusion that Cassius must be telling the truth, thanks to Victra remembering a passing comment she once heard from her mother that clearly referred to the nukes in question. The meeting moves on to the next issue in question – that being Darrow trying to convince them that the clawDrill plan isn’t going to work…and that instead, they should create their own paradigm – one the Jackal won’t expect.
Basically, Darrow wants them to leave Mars…but that’s not all.
His New and Improved Plan is for them to head out to the Rim to smash the Sword Armada!
And so the Red Armada is off to war, leading to tearful goodbyes between Darrow and Dancer and – strangely enough – between Mustang and Deanna as well. As Darrow boards his shuttle with his friends, Dancer calls out to him – and when Darrow turns, he sees a sea of people – Blues, Reds, Greens, Grays, Obsidians – raising their fists in solidarity. With him, and with each other. Dancer bellows, “Break the chains!” and Darrow raises his own fist in salute before stepping into the shuttle to sail off to war…aaaaagain.
Darrow arrives on Io to meet with Romulus au Raa, though from the start things don’t go as planned. Mustang set up the meeting and Darrow believes the so-called “Moonies” will show, but he also knows that they are a proud people – a people who ONLY bent to the Sovereign’s authority after she destroyed their moon Rhea, and who rose against her AGAIN when Mustang delivered their captive children from Luna after the massacre at Darrow’s Triumph.
Eventually Mustang arrives, buuuut Romulus isn’t with her – instead, it’s his sister Vela, come to fetch Darrow to a meeting at Romulus’s home.
Now, this was decidedly NOT part of the plan, and Sevro is especially wary of treachery – as is Darrow when he realizes it will be just him and Mustang along for the ride – but Mustang insists that Romulus would rather die than kill a guest, and even Sefi agrees that he should go. And so they do, though not before Sevro promises to “lay waste” if they aren’t back within six hours.
At the home of Romulus au Raa, Mustang is escorted inside to meet with him first, while Darrow is left in the gardens and is soon approached by a little girl. They have a pleasant conversation, but it’s soon obvious that she clearly doesn’t watch holos because, err, she doesn’t know who Darrow is. (Which, okay dude, yeah we get it, you’re soooo big and important…lolz)
When Romulus finally appears and shoos his daughter away, he and Darrow discuss the differences between growing up in the Core versus the Rim…and the similarities between the exploitation enacted by people who feel entitled to power, and the subjugation of lowColors by Golds as a whole. Romulus also asks Darrow how his father and daughter died at the Triumph – and it’s a gruesome tale.. Really, how could it not be, considering Vixus and Antonia (that bitch) were involved? Regardless, it bears no repeating.
There’s more discussion to be had, but at this point it needs to involve far more people – including Romulus’s surprise guest: none other than that buttsucker, Roque au Fabii!
Despite Mustang and Darrow revealing that it was Octavia who ordered Aja’s attack on Quinn and that the Jackal killed her when she might have lived, Roque just sits there being the buttsucker that he is and blaming alllllll the things on Darrow. MASSIVE EYEROLL.
A good bit of back-and-forth ensues, with Mustang calling out Roque on his bullshit from the very start, Roque promising things like tax and export tariff reductions, licenses for mining in the Belt, an eventual reformation of the Sovereign election process, and that he will deliver Antonia to them so they can mete out justice for the murders she committed.
Darrow, for his part, begins with the pledge that if the Rim helps them take out the Sword Armada, they will have full independence…and he even agrees to abandon the lowColors in the Rim. So for a moment, he has them…
Uuuntil Roque opens his big wannabe-poetic mouth again and pushes the idea of “Aureate, united over all”…at which point Darrow knows he has to make another move, and so he does – promising to give them the 350 Sons of Ares cells spread throughout their territories and to return to the Core, never coming through the asteroid belt as long as he lives…if only they will help him kill Roque’s bloodydamn fleet.
When Roque attempts to denounce all of this as a passel of lies, Darrow reminds him that it’s the Sovereign who lies, the Sovereign who burned Rhea…and with his outburst about Rhea being a mistake that will never be repeated, Roque falls right into Darrow and Mustang’s trap.
Because while it’s obviously not the whole truth and nothing but, they do have proof that there was an asteroid located on the space road from the Core to the Rim.
An asteroid that housed hundreds of nuclear warheads…warheads that are, in fact, no longer there…and with a slip of wording, Roque at the very least reveals that he knew of its existence, and so the Moon Lords slip through his fingers and he storms out like a bratty little child.
Darrow being Darrow, though, insists on following him, wanting to know when he lost Roque as a friend – that apparently being when Quinn died, because Darrow being a Gold or a Red doesn’t matter – in Roque’s mind, Darrow’s “spirit is black”. YAWN just shut up my dude. And man Darrow, we alllll wish you’d stop chasing after these assholes like a poor abused puppy.
Back with the fleet, it’s time for another pre-battle benediction and heartfelt goodbyes, as the Telemanuses and Mustang go one way and Darrow goes another – but not before Kavax reminds Darrow that thanks to Pax and Mustang, he IS one of them – if not a Gold, per se, then a friend…family, even.
Oh, and not before Darrow gets in one good kiss with Mustang, too ::wink wink::
Meanwhile, Orion is off on a mission of her own as well. By the way, she’s a full-on Admiral now, and something of a pirate, to boot! Oh, and she REALLY wants a parrot – a red one, specifically – so Darrow promises to find one for her if they pull off the destruction of the Armada.
There is, however, one surprise in store – Victra was supposed to be elsewhere, but she decided to stay with Darrow to protect him…ya know, for Sevro’s sake, of course. “Once more into the breach,” she says, and Darrow goes live to broadcast yet another Big Darrow Speech . He reminds his fleet that they are not Red, not Blue or Gold or Gray or Obsidian. They are humanity. They are the tide. And they will reclaim the lives that were stolen from them and build the future they were promised.
As the battle begins, it’s clear that Roque wants to board Darrow’s ships – meaning there’s no ‘slugging it out and hoping for the best’…but at the same time, Darrow believes that Roque doesn’t understand Red psychology and therefore won’t suspect his REAL plan – which as usual includes plots and plans within plans and plots.
Orion technically begins the battle, but it’s kind of all a ruse for Darrow to run the Pax in close…and sacrifice her to the cause, because while the leechCraft they launch at Roque’s Moonbreaker are empty and the Pax is dying around them, Roque is wrong to believe they’re ‘dead in the water’…the ship might be, but again – plans and plots and plots and plans, y’all!
Darrow orders the remaining crew of the Pax to abandon ship, while he, Victra, Holiday, and a whole-ass regiment of Valkyrie meet up with a crew of Helldivers to board retrofitted clawDrills that they then use to fly through space and punch into Roque’s ship.
They’re prepared for close-quarters combat – some of them perhaps too much so, as the Valkyrie are high AF on berserker fungus – but Darrow is quickly frustrated by the slow going…even more so when Mustang hails him and reveals that Roque used EMPs on her ships. (Because. It’s. Always. EMPs. lolz)
Darrow knows that it’s only a matter of time before Roque announces that he must surrender or watch Mustang die, because ugh of course Roque would do that and honestly fuck him.
So Darrow and his platoon charge for the bridge, but it’s been sealed off by a door that will take them at least 14 minutes to burn through – oh, and they’re also about to be cornered by a bunch of Golds. It all seems very dire…until the door merely slides open?!
Obviously they surge through it ready to fight, but what greets them is a calm, clean, dimly lit bridge with Beethoven being piped through the speakers. It turns out that the Pink valet who opened the door for them, instead of listening to the classical music, was listening to Darrow’s message that was playing on the ship’s com unit! So LOL joke’s on YOU, Roque!
It’s mere seconds before one of the Golds catches sight of them. Hilariously, as the fight begins, one of them starts announcing herself as “Felicia au – “ and earns a well timed (if cheesy) “Bye, Felicia” from Victra. Soon enough Roque is the only person left who hasn’t died or surrendered…well, other than the Blues in the pit who clearly have no idea what to do, because it’s not as if THEY are fighters.
Roque being Roque, he refuses to stand down, continuing his barrage on Mustang’s ship even after Darrow reminds him that it’s MUSTANG he’s attacking…but hey! Remember all those plots and plans we keep mentioning? Because this is when the Pax comes back into play! They reversed the coolant flow, causing the reactors to overheat, and because it’s, ya know, positioned in the midst of Roque’s fleet, when it implodes it destroys his destroyers. So long Pax (the ship), and thanks for all the good times!
However, Roque’s fleet DOES have Darrow’s in flight, and he believes they will come back to save him…except apparently Roque didn’t think to wonder where SEVRO of all people is, and it turns out that some Helldivers melted caverns into the nearby moon of Thebes…where Sevro and 6,000 soldiers were loaded into starShells and waiting for their call.
Granted, once upon a short time ago there were also leechCraft filled with Golds from Team Romulus in some of those caverns, buuuut the Reds on Team Darrow collapse THOSE caverns right as Sevro launches, because Darrow needed that additional insurance plan (at least in HIS mind).
And yet Roque CONTINUES being a big ol’ brat because waahh wahhh he swore an oath to the Society. And even after alllllll of this, Darrow STILL tries to convince Roque that “the worlds need him” (which gahhh shut UP Darrow you are the ONLY person who feels this way right now)…only for Roque to step away and wax on about “god and glory and Gold” before taking his own life.
Aaaanyway moving on because no one but Darrow cares about what just happened and ALSO because there’s still one thing left for Darrow to take care of…and y’all, it’s…well, NOT great. Especially when Antonia – who, yes, was part of the battle, commanding a ship that she basically stole from Victra – full-on abandons the rest of the Sword Armada. Victra wants to go after her bitch half sister (remember, Darrow DID promise her that revenge), but Darrow insists that first things first, they need to set course for Ganymede.
Of course Romulus notices, but when he hails Darrow, Darrow, ummm, pretends to still be fighting in the halls of Roque’s ship.
Becauuuuse yeahhhh, he’s totally on his way to destroy the docks of Ganymede and blame it all on Roque.
At the last moment, Victra tells Darrow to share the load, and she is the one who gives the official order. They watch the destruction, Sefi and Holiday by their side, and when it is over Darrow asks that Sefi rename Roque’s ship.
“Tyr Morga,” she says, without hesitation – Morning Star.
With the Sword Armada broken, Darrow sends Victra after Antonia, whose forces have captured Kavax. He then has a holo conference with Romulus au Raa. Obviously Romulus’s forces didn’t find any nuclear weapons, but Darrow claims his forces did, and anyway, the Rim now has their independence and shouldn’t be looking that gift horse in the mouth.
As Darrow’s ships leave the Rim behind, he and the Howlers gather with Mustang and even Cassius to say goodbye to Roque as they shoot his torpedo casket toward the sun. Later, Darrow has Holiday bring Cassius to his stateroom – the room that had been Roque’s – and they get drunk and watch some of Roque’s holos…holos that are in fact from their time at the Institute. Memory, all alone in the moonlight….
When they part ways, Darrow sends Cassius back to his cell with another holocube – one that apparently contains some hard truths. Darrow then goes to bed…only to be woken mere hours later, because Victra has engaged Antonia and is calling for reinforcements. But by the time they get there she has won the day, because as it turns out not only did Antonia’s ships legally belong to Victra, but they were also packed full of people who are actually loyal to her!
So Antonia is in the brig, but she’s not alone – Thistle is there as well. Darrow tells them he wants to know what the Jackal is planning and that whichever one of them gives him more information will get to live…aaand then he leaves them in their adjacent cells.
Victra quite literally turns up the heat, hoping their discomfort will lead to irritation which will lead to one of them spilling the beans. But just when Thistle seems like she’s about to crack, Antonia reaches through the bars and bashes Thistle’s head in. Honestly…it’s one of the most upsetting scenes in the book because of how visceral it is. And of course Antonia is the fucking worst and they should have realized she had something up her sleeve. But since they didn’t, Darrow and the others are too late to save Thistle…so Victra breaks her sister’s face, and she clearly would have taken it further had Sevro not stopped her. Once Sevro releases her, Victra simply says “Told you”…because oh yeah, he had professed his love before the battle and she called him an idiot – she thinks she has poison in her veins and will ruin everything, and her sister being the literal worst (in our humble opinion, now that Roque is dead) only proves her right.
This means that Darrow has to say goodbye to another former friend, and when Holiday tries to comfort him with alcohol and conversation, they are unfortunately interrupted by a broadcast from the Jackal. It turns out that three weeks prior, he had somehow captured Uncle Narol and executed him “live on television”, as it were…and considering Darrow had told Orion to keep the ships scanning the frequencies, he knows the recording will leak, if it hasn’t already.
Ohhh and it has – and Uncle Narol was beloved by the lowColors of the Rising, so shit immediately starts hitting the fan…and Sefi is apparently leading the charge?! The lowColors are hunting down every Gold they can find, including Mustang and Cassius!
Darrow, Sevro, and Victra rush to Mustang’s aid…unfortunately, so do the Telemanuses. Mustang is nowhere to be found, and Kavax wants to storm the ship, but thankfully Darrow convinces Kavax that his children should stay behind. During this exchange Sevro scampers off to who-knows-where, and even though it’s just Darrow, Victra, and Kavax who show up in the hangar where the lowColors have gathered, Darrow immediately knows it was a mistake to bring any other Golds with him – seven of their kind have already been scalped and hanged, and Cassius, while still alive, has been beaten bloody and is clearly about to suffer the same fate.
Sefi isn’t convinced by Darrow’s attempts to diffuse the situation, but then Sevro appears to claim Cassius for himself – after all, Cassius DID kill Sevro’s father, and what do they do to murderers? Why, hang them, of course! So Sevro pushes Cassius from the walkway to hang…but then Sevro confesses that he, TOO, is a murderer!
Aaaand he puts a noose around his own neck and does a backflip off the walkway to die beside Cassius!
Sefi seems to think about what’s happening a bit longer than she should, but she does eventually cut both Sevro and Cassius down.
Sevro then announces that this needs to be a new age, a new world, and that it needs to be a better one…basically, he’s the one who succeeds in diffusing the situation…and also succeeds at getting into Victra’s head, because she bursts into the infirmary while he’s being patched up, causing Sevro to order everyone else out, and when he and Victra emerge a little while later, THEY’RE ENGAGED!
HEART EYES MUTHAFUCKAS!
They’re married a week later in a sweet ceremony that is punctuated by Victra taking Sevro’s last name despite hers being the older house, and everyone is having a grand ol’ time at the reception, but remember how we can’t have nice things in this series?
Welp, Holiday comes to fetch Darrow because he has a phone call…from the Jackal, of course! Obviously he has spies in Darrow’s fleet and as per the usual for a miserable person like him, he can’t stand anyone else having a good time…and needs to try to make everyone else feel shitty just because HE does. But while he might strike a nerve with some of his comments to Darrow, Mustang shows up to make a few good points of her own, and in the end Darrow tells the Jackal they are coming for him, they will defeat him, and they will bring him to justice.
Oh, and after hanging up, instead of going back to the party, he insists that he and Mustang spend some alone time together. BOW CHICKA WOW WOW!
The story can’t possibly end there, so next we learn that it has been 500 years since a foreign fleet has passed beyond the border of Rubicon Beacons that encircle the innermost domain of the Sovereign,. But now, 2 months and 3 weeks after the Rising smashed the Sword Armada, they sail past the transponders on their approach to not Mars, but LUNA!
They’re soon hailed by a diplomatic envoy, but Darrow immediately – and kind of hilariously – refuses, saying that if the Sovereign wants to speak with him, she can do it herself, not through a lackey’s mouth…because they’re here for war, not words.
But before the fight begins, we learn that they’ve decided to release Cassius – something that Sevro has apparently agreed to, but which Orion questions when she figures it out. Darrow tells Orion that he doesn’t want Cassius’s throat slit in the midst of battle and insists that Cassius will not rejoin the war, though for good measure he makes Cassius promise as much before they do in fact release him.
Of course, Antonia is in a cell nearby, mocking the idea that they might actually be letting Cassius go…but they do, and after a moment’s hesitation, he steps out of his cell and even shakes hands with Darrow, Mustang, and Sevro…but then Cassius pulls Sevro toward him and strips his pistol from its holster!
At Antonia’s urging and despite Darrow and Mustang’s protests, Cassius shoots Sevro…seven. Freakin’. Times.
Darrow falls to the floor, begging Sevro not to die, but the life leaks from him and his pulse fades away, while Antonia lets loose a mocking howl because that’s the type of bitch she is. Cassius then aims the gun at Darrow, but Mustang stops him from pulling the trigger with a desperate reminder that the Sovereign would want Darrow alive.
Cassius and Antonia truss Darrow up in a prisoner rig and then toss him, Mustang, and Sevro’s body into the container that was meant to sneak Cassius off the Morning Star. Soon they are on the provided shuttle, which Orion has cleared for departure as promised, and the moment they’re clear, Cassius transmits an Olympic distress signal that is answered by none other than Aja au Grimmus herself.
Because of COURSE Aja is still alive. If you don’t see a big bad die on page, and all…
First things first, Cassius makes them promise that no harm will come to Virginia, which Aja agrees to before giving him the order to dock on The Lion of Mars.
Because of COURSE the Jackal knew Darrow wasn’t actually going to Mars and is with his entire fleet on the far side of Luna, waiting to spring a trap on the Rising fleet.
Seriously, can NOTHING go right for the good guys?!
Once aboard the Jackal’s ship, they are greeted by a group of his Boneriders, including nasty piece of work Lilath and Tharsus au Valii-Rath, aka older brother of Darrow’s deceased sometimes-friend Tactus. They banter about buying Sevro’s bones and what to do with Virginia, but Lilath promises Cassius that no one will touch his ‘prizes’…well, except for the Reaper, because before taking them to the Sovereign, the Jackal is coming to collect a little debt: Darrow’s right hand.
Or rather, he lets – or would it be gets? – Cassius to collect that debt for him.
Really. What else did we expect from someone who is wearing Fitchner’s rib cage as armor?
And then they’re finally on their way to the Dragon Maw – aka the near-mythical underground bunker from which the Sovereign can wage war even if Luna falls to ruin. The war room is packed with people – not just the Sovereign, but her grandson Lysander, Aja, two Olympic knights, and ten Praetorians.
The Knights greet Cassius and converse with him as if there isn’t a giant battle happening just off-planet, but it isn’t long before Mustang inserts herself into the conversation, striking more than a little fear into the Sovereign with her tales of Sefi, aka “Queen of the Obsidian”, who’s on her way to lead a ground attack on the Citadel. In fact, Mustang has no problem informing them that the Obsidians are already on Luna, having arrived in grain ships from Earth hours before.
This news causes Octavia to send seven of the Praetorian guards away to reinforce the surface, and once they’re gone Aja seals the sanctum up tight before they attend the “other matter”…that being the matter of Antonia, who, as we well know, is a Huge Bitch who also happened to abandon the Sword Armada in the midst of battle.
Because she’s Antonia, she at first thinks they’re going to commend her (though for what, who the heck knows) and instead receives a death sentence – one that she begs the Jackal to save her from, but lol she has no ships and no more pretty face so Aja dispatches her forthwith. BYE FOREVER BITCH
Unfortunately that means now it’s Darrow’s turn, and they plan to broadcast his execution live. Normally an Olympic Knight would carry out the sentence, but Darrow taunts the Jackal, who then insists that he wants to do it himself. The Sovereign defers to him, which is odd to say the least…especially as she defers to him again when he insists that he use Sevro’s gun so that Darrow can go like his uncle.
The broadcast goes live and the Sovereign begins to speak his sentence to the worlds – until Darrow interrupts her with a howl, at which point she nods to the Jackal, permission to carry out the unfinished sentence…only the gun backfires BECAUSE PLOTS WITHIN PLANS WITHIN PLOTS WITHIN PLANS, Y’ALL!
It turns out that Cassius has been on their side this whole time! He takes out the three Praetorian guards and releases Mustang and Darrow’s prison vests, allowing Darrow to withdraw the knife that has been hidden inside his this whole time and STAB THE SOVEREIGN RIGHT IN THE GUT, followed by reclaiming his razor from the Jackal and using it to stake him to the floor.
This isn’t the end, though – not even close. Lysander might be a child intent on protecting his grandmother (such as he can), but there are still two other Olympic Knights to contend with in addition to Aja who as we all know is the deadliest person in the whole dang Solar System. And sure enough, saying she’s giving them a fight for their money is the understatement of the series. There might be three of them, but Aja quickly wounds Cassius and then Mustang as they try to protect a one-handed Darrow, and the situation seems more than a little bit dire.
Uuuuuntil Cassius tosses Darrow a syringe, which he plunges into his best friend’s chest.
Sevro, that is, he plunges it into SEVRO’S chest, through the combat vest made of Carved flesh, shooting him up with a fuck ton of snakebite and waking him from HIS DEATH THAT WAS TOTALLY FAKE THIS WHOLE TIME WTF Y’ALL!
Not only that, but he springs up, and because he’s Sevro, he shouts, “I’m going to kill you, Aja! I’m going to kill you in your face!” as he scoops up a pulseFist, firing at her, then using his razor to jab her in the back as she spins away from Cassius’s attack. And then, with four of them coming at her from all sides, they finally wear Aja au Grimmus down, with Sevro unceremoniously lopping off her head at the end.
All that’s left now is Octavia, who is already bleeding out on the floor nearby. While Lysander still attempting to guard her, he backs off when Mustang orders him to drop his weapon, and Octavia focuses on Cassius and simply asks him, “Why?” Of course we all know what she’s really asking, and it turns out that Cassius QUOTE UNQUOTE betrayed her because she played a part in the deaths of his family…in that she cooperated with and kept silent about the Jackal murdering more than forty members of House Bellona.
To the very end, Octavia still insists that she merely did what she had to to keep the peace, though her very last words are that they must stop Adrius. Darrow is chilled by her passing, her words, her fear…and dread rises in him when the Jackal begins to laugh…
So why does the Jackal start cackling as the Sovereign dies? Welp, because Adrius do be Adrius-ing, and before he reveals exactly what he’s been up to, OBVIOUSLY he has to wax on about how he turned cannibal at the Institute just to make the point that if no one sacrifices, then no one survives.
And somehow, from this little tidbit, our heroes glean that all of those nukes the Jackal stole aren’t on Mars. They’re on LUNA! And when Mustang tries to reason with him, he simply taps the little com that he had implanted in his ear and orders Lilath to detonate one, killing more than 5 million people in one fell swoop.
What is it that he wants, exactly? Why, for Darrow to martyr himself and then to be crowned Sovereign, of course! And when Mustang tells him NO, well, he simply detonates ANOTHER bomb!
At this point Darrow’s friends look to him, and while part of him believes that his death is not the end, but the beginning of something new, he knows that Mustang wants him to choose life, and he also realizes that his friends have made him want to live, want to build…so when the Jackal presses him for his answer, Darrow punches him in the throat instead, and finally divests Adrius au Augustus of the body part he SHOULD have taken in the first place, way back at the institute – his bloody. Damn. TONGUE.
ABOUT FREAKIN TIME, DARROW! Yeesh.
Unfortunately, Lilath just keeps detonating bombs, and when Darrow calls up Victra they find out that the Jackal’s ship has shielding that prevents them from jamming the signal or using EMPs. (Which, come on now, not shocking, eventually the ol’ EMP trick was gonna stop working, guys.) But as they’re discussing how the heck they can stop this nuclear slaughter, Lysander of all people steps up, suggesting that they hail his godfather – the Ash Lord, that is – and ask for his help.
Mustang knows the boy is right and immediately hails the Gold Praetors of Octavia’s fleet to tell them that the bombings are being orchestrated by Lilath from The Lion of Mars and the only way to stop the complete destruction of Luna is to stop HER.
Before the Ash Lord – or anyone else – can voice too much protest, Lysander insists that they have no time for recrimination, that Mustang is not a traitor but their conqueror, and to prove as much he hands her his grandmother’s scepter.
And sure enough, this ploy works. The Lion of Mars is fired on from all sides by loyalist and rebel alike, though unfortunately after it is defeated this still leaves the bombed moon in turmoil and the Gold Armada fractured as Praetors flee back to their home planets on their personal ships.
Meanwhile, Darrow, Mustang, Sevro, and Cassius might be battered and bloody, but there’s still more work to be done. Lysander joins them as they leave the bunker and make their way to the Senate Chamber, collecting a following of Praetorian guards, Obsidians, and Grays along the way – and facing little opposition due to their constantly growing following…well, and because Mustang is totes carrying Octavia’s severed head and her Dawn Scepter, while Darrow has the Jackal draped over his shoulder, lolz.
When they arrive in the Senate Chamber, it appears as if an election was already taking place, but Mustang immediately takes the podium. As Darrow is the bridge to the lowColors, so she needs to be the bridge to the highColors, and when she declares the beginning of a new age first Darrow, then Cassius, then Sevro, fall to their knees, quickly followed by Lysander, the Praetorians, and finally the Senators, all hailing Mustang as the new Sovereign.
Now, what a great ending that could be! But we’re lucky enough to get even MORE – as we actually SEE the Jackal die on page as he is FREAKIN FINALLY hanged for his crimes. And in what is possibly the most heartbreaking moment, Mustang does in fact pull his feet, despite her earlier insistence that no one would do so.
This doesn’t mean the war is completely over and done with – the Ash Lord has hied off to rally Mercury and Venus, Gold warlords are trying to stake their own claims, and Luna is a disaster of riots, food shortages, and spreading radiation. But hey, Darrow got his hand reattached and even though he knows change will come slower than the Sons of Ares expected, at least the Society won’t fall into full-blown anarchy.
Well, hopefully not, anyway.
It’s in this blend of turmoil and hope that Darrow says goodbye to Cassius, who is off to see what else is out there…with Lysander by his side, no less! And then Darrow and Mustang finally get to fly off to Earth for a little alone time…or so Darrow thinks, until a ship lands on their secluded beach in the Pacific Northwest. A ship full of Barcas, Telemanuses, and Darrow’s family…including his mother, who is carrying a golden-haired child: Pax, his and Mustang’s SON!!! What the whaaaat?!
The tl;dr is that Pax was born nine months after the Lion’s Rain on Mars, while Darrow was in captivity, but Mustang wanted to make sure that Darrow could do more than break – that he could build. And then later Deanna insisted that the secret continue, because if Darrow knew he had a son, he wouldn’t do what needed to be done.
But now he can be both sword and father, a builder as well as a destroyer, and he can’t wait to tell Pax of “the rage of Ares, the strength of Ragnar, the honor of Cassius, the love of Sevro, the loyalty of Victra, and the dream of Eo, the girl who inspired” Darrow to live for more.
