Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
Darrow's uncle, captured sabotaging deep-space beacons, is executed on broadcast by the Jackal—a martyr whose murder nearly shatters the Rising's alliance.
Narol, Darrow's drunkard uncle and Sons of Ares informer—the man who once faked Darrow's hanging in Lykos—succeeds in his mission of destroying the communication relays that blind Gold and Red alike, but is caught in the act by the Jackal's Boneriders sabotaging beacons in deep space. Rather than betray Darrow's mind, he tries to bite off his own tongue. The Jackal broadcasts his end across every frequency: shackled and bloodied in a gray interrogation room, Narol lifts his eyes to the camera—'Sorry, Darrow.
But I'll say hello to your father'—before the Jackal shoots him through the back of the head, wanting no ransom, only for Darrow to watch. The recording, timestamped three weeks old, reaches the Rising's fleet through the failing interference and leaks everywhere, and Narol—beloved among Reds nearly as much as Ragnar—becomes a martyr whose murder ignites Red-on-Gold killings that nearly tear the alliance apart. Darrow, remembering the frysuit helmet Narol fit over his head as a boy and his sad eyes beneath the gallows, feels another piece of himself slip into the darkness.
A weathered Red of Lykos, bloodied and shackled to an interrogation chair, his mouth ruined where he tried to bite off his own tongue, his eyes steady on the camera at the end.
Darrow's uncle and Sons informer; the relay-saboteur executed by the Jackal, whose martyrdom nearly fractures the Rising's Red-Gold alliance.
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