Iron Gold recap

Previously, in the first trilogy: Darrow was a Red, the lowest caste in a color-coded society, mining beneath Mars in the false belief his people were preparing the planet for humankind. After his wife Eo was executed for defiance, the rebel Sons of Ares revealed the truth and surgically remade him into a Gold, the ruling caste, then sent him to infiltrate the Institute, a brutal academy. Passing as a Gold, Darrow rose to prominence, gathered loyal allies such as Sevro, Victra, and the brilliant Virginia au Augustus, and spent years as a hidden agent climbing toward power. His rebellion, the Rising, endured betrayal, imprisonment, and enormous loss, and united Reds, Obsidians, lowColors, and sympathetic Golds against the ruling elite. In the end they overthrew the Sovereign, Octavia au Lune, and destroyed the treacherous Jackal, and Virginia founded a new government, the Solar Republic, meant to end caste tyranny and give every Color a voice. Darrow and Virginia married and had a son. But the war never fully ended: a remnant of Gold power fought on, and this book opens roughly a decade later, with the Republic strained, its promises unfulfilled for many, and its heroes divided over how to win a lasting peace.