Red Rising

374 Pages·2.01 MB·English

by  Pierce Brown (Red Rising Series Book#1)

Red Rising is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Pierce Brown
Map copyright © by Joel Daniel Phillips
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random
House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Pierce
Red Rising / Pierce Brown.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-345-53978-6 (acid-free paper)—ISBN 978-0-345-53979-3 (e-book)
1. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 2. Dystopias.
3. Science fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R7226R43 2013
813′.6—dc23 2013020634
www.delreybooks.com
Cover design: Faceout Studio/Charles Brock
Cover illustration: © Sail
v3.1_r6
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map
Prologue
Part I: Slave
1: Helldiver
2: The Township
3: The Laurel
4: The Gift
5: The First Song
6: The Martyr
Part II: Reborn
7: Lazarus
8: Dancer
9: The Lie
10: The Carver
11: Mad
12: The Carving
13: Bad Things
14: Andromedus
15: The Testing
16: The Institute
17: The Draft
18: Classmates
19: The Passage
Part III: Gold
20: The House Mars
21: Our Dominion
22: The Tribes
23: Fracture
24: Titus’s War
25: Tribal War
26: Mustang
27: The House of Rage
28: My Brother
29: Unity
30: House Diana
31: The Fall of Mustang
32: Antonia
33: Apologies
Part IV: Reaper
34: The Northwoods
35: Oathbreakers
36: A Second Test
37: South
38: The Fall of Apollo
39: The Proctor’s Bounty
40: Paradigm
41: The Jackal
42: War on Heaven
43: The Last Test
44: Rise
Dedication
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from Golden Son

I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.
I watch twelve hundred of their strongest sons and daughters.
Listening to a pitiless Golden man speak between great marble pillars.
Listening to the beast who brought the flame that gnaws at my heart.
“All men are not created equal,” he declares. Tall, imperious, an eagle
of a man. “The weak have deceived you. They would say the meek
should inherit the Earth. That the strong should nurture the gentle. This
is the Noble Lie of Demokracy. The cancer that poisoned mankind.”
His eyes pierce the gathered students. “You and I are Gold. We are the
end of the evolutionary line. We tower above the flesh heap of man,
shepherding the lesser Colors. You have inherited this legacy,” he
pauses, studying faces in the assembly. “But it is not free.
“Power must be claimed. Wealth won. Rule, dominion, empire
purchased with blood. You scarless children deserve nothing. You do not
know pain. You do not know what your forefathers sacrificed to place
you on these heights. But soon, you will. Soon, we will teach you why
Gold rules mankind. And I promise, of those among you, only those fit
for power will survive.”
But I am no Gold. I am a Red.
He thinks men like me weak. He thinks me dumb, feeble, subhuman. I
was not raised in palaces. I did not ride horses through meadows and eat
meals of hummingbird tongues. I was forged in the bowels of this hard
world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.
He is wrong.
None of them will survive.
PART I
SLAVE
There is a flower that grows on Mars. It is red and harsh and fit for
our soil. It is called haemanthus. It means “blood blossom.”