“Of course not,” I answer slowly. “It must be me, then. Somehow.”
Tiora concedes too. She seems to shrink. “I’ll have my diplomats make contact. Discreetly as they can. What else do you need?”
I nod, feeling a numbness in my fingers. Rescue Bracken’s children. I don’t even know where to start.
The seconds drag as they pass, more difficult to ignore.
If we stay in here much longer, the Nortans will get suspicious, I think, biting my lip. Maven, especially, if he isn’t already. My legs turn to lead as I back away from Mother, my hands suddenly cold without her warmth.
As I pass the fountain, I run my fingers in the arcing water, wetting the tips. I draw the liquid over my eyelids, smudging the dark makeup on my lashes. False tears roll down my cheeks, black as the mourning flowers.
“Pray, Ti,” I tell my sister. “Trust the gods if you will not trust luck.”
“My trust in them is absolute,” she replies, mechanical, automatic. “I’ll pray for us all.”
I linger at the door, one hand on the simple knob. “As will I.” Then I pull, popping the bubble around us, ending what could be our last moments of security for years to come. Under my breath, I mumble to myself, “Will this work?”
Somehow Mother hears me. She looks up, her eyes inescapable as I back away.
“Only the gods know.”
FIVE
Mare
The dropjet feels sluggish on the air, heavier than usual. I sway against my safety restraints, eyes lidded. The motion of the craft paired with the comforting buzz of electricity has me half asleep. The engines chug calmly, despite the extra weight. More cargo, I know. The hold is filled to the brim with the spoils of Corvium. Munitions, guns, explosives, weapons of every kind. Military uniforms, rations, fuel, batteries. Even bootlaces. Half is going to Piedmont now, and the rest is on another jet, returning to Davidson’s mountains.
Montfort and the Scarlet Guard are not wasteful in their endeavors. They did the same thing after the Whitefire attack, stripping what they could from the palace in such limited time. Money, mostly, hauled out of the Treasury once it was clear Maven was beyond our reach. It happened in Piedmont too. It’s why the southern base seems empty, in the lodgings, in the administrative buildings once meant for grand war councils. No paintings, no statues, no fine plates or cutlery. None of the trappings great Silvers require. Nothing but what is necessary. The rest was pulled apart, sold, repurposed. Wars are not cheap. We can only maintain what is useful.
That’s why Corvium crumbles behind us. Because Corvium is no longer useful.
Davidson argued that leaving a garrison of soldiers was foolish, a waste. The fortress city was built to funnel soldiers into the Choke to fight Lakelanders. With that war ended, it has little purpose. No river to guard, no strategic resources. Just one of many roads to the Lakelands. Corvium had become little more than a distraction. And while we held the city, it was deep in Maven’s territory, and too close to the border. The Lakelands could sweep through without warning, or Maven could return in force. We might win again, but more would die. For nothing more than some walls in the middle of nowhere.
The Silvers opposed. Naturally. I think they must be honor-bound to disagree with anything someone with red blood says. Anabel argued the optics.
“How many dead, how much blood spent on these walls, and you want to give up the city? We’ll look like fools!” she scoffed, glaring across the council chamber. The old woman looked at Davidson like he had two heads. “Cal’s first victory, his flag raised—”
“I don’t see his flag anywhere,” Farley interrupted, dry as bone.
But Anabel ignored her. She pressed on, seeming like she might obliterate the table beneath her fingers. Cal sat silent at her side, his eyes ablaze as he stared at his hands. “It will look like weakness to abandon the city,” the old queen said.
“I care very little for how things appear, only for how they are, Your Majesty,” Davidson replied. “You are very welcome to leave a garrison of your own to hold Corvium, but no soldier of Montfort or the Scarlet Guard will remain here.”
Her lip curled at that, but any retort died in her throat. Anabel had no intention of wasting her own army in such a way. She slid back in her seat and turned away from Davidson, her eyes flitting toward Volo Samos. But he wouldn’t volunteer his own soldiers either. He kept silent.
“If we leave the city, we leave it in ruins.” Tiberias clenched his fist on the table. I remember that clearly, his knuckles bone-white beneath his skin. There was still dirt under his fingernails, and probably blood too. I focused on his hands so I wouldn’t have to look at his face. His emotions are too easily read, and I still want no part of them. “Special contingents from each army,” he said. “Lerolan oblivions, the newblood gravitrons and bombers. Anyone who can destroy. Strip the city of resources, then turn it to ash and wash away whatever’s left. Leave nothing Maven or the Lakelands can use.”
He didn’t look up as he spoke, unable to hold any gaze. It must have been difficult to order the destruction of one of his own cities. A place he knew, a place his father had protected, and his grandfather before him. Tiberias values duty as much as tradition, both ideals planted bone-deep. But I had little pity for him then, and have even less now as we hurtle toward Piedmont.
Corvium was nothing more than the gate to a Red graveyard. I’m glad it’s gone.
Even so, I feel unease deep in the pit of my stomach. Corvium still burns behind my eyelids, its walls crumbling, torn apart by explosive bursts, the buildings ripped away by manipulated gravity, the metal gates twisting into snaking knots. Smoke races the streets. Ella, an electricon like me, used her own storm to strike the central tower, furious blue lightning cracking stone. Montfort nymphs, newbloods of great power, used the nearby streams and even a river to sweep rubble away to the distant lake. No part of Corvium escaped. Some of it even sank, collapsing into the tunnels beneath the city. The rest was left in warning, like ancient stone monoliths weathered by a thousand years instead of a few hours.
How many other cities will share the same fate?
First I think of the Stilts.
I haven’t seen the place where I grew up in almost a year. Not since my name was Mareena, and I stood on the deck of a royal ship, eyeing the banks of the Capital River with a ghost at my side. Elara was alive then, and the king too. They forced me to watch as we passed my village, its people gathered at the water’s edge under the open threat of a whipcrack or a cell. My family stood among them. I focused on their faces, not on the place. The Stilts was never my home. They are.
Would I care now if the village disappeared? If no one was harmed, but the stilt houses, the market, the school, the arena—if it was destroyed? Burned, flooded, or simply gone?
I really can’t say.
But there are certainly places that should join Corvium in ruins. I name the ones I want to destroy, cursing them.
Gray Town, Merry Town, New Town. And all the rest of their like.
The techie slums remind me of Cameron. She sleeps across from me, jostled in her restraining belts. Her head lolls, her snore almost indistinguishable over the sound of the jet engines. From underneath her collar, her tattoo peeks out. Black ink against dark brown skin. She was marked with her profession, or rather her prison, a long time ago. I only saw a tech town from a distance, and the memory still makes me gag. I can’t imagine growing up in one, bound to a life in smoke.