“It’s definitely her, but how, I can’t say,” Ibarem continues, relaying Iris’s voice the best he can. “This must be some newblood ability we don’t know yet.”
“What you don’t know could fill an ocean,” I reply. “About Montfort, about the Scarlet Guard.” It feels shameful, dirty even, to jab like this, but I do it easily. “About your brother. He’s standing right next to me, you know.”
Ibarem sneers, mimicking Maven. “Is that supposed to mean something?” I think there may be a tremor of fear in the echoed words. “I have little regard for who you decide to stand next to. Though,” he adds, and his sneer curves into a wicked smile, “I understand you aren’t standing next to him much anymore.”
I force a smile, using it to mask my wince. “Good to know you have spies in our coalition,” I say boldly. “Although nowhere near as many as we have in yours.”
A laugh like nails on glass bursts from Ibarem. “You think I waste my spies on tracking your emotions, Mare? No, my darling, I just know you better than anyone else.” He laughs again, showing white eyeteeth. I focus on the scar on Ibarem’s chin to keep a picture of Maven’s beautiful, haunted, hissing face out of my head. “I knew you wouldn’t stomach it when Cal showed who he truly was.”
At the edge of my vision, Tiberias doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe. He keeps his eyes lowered, intent on glaring a hole in the floor.
“He is created as much as I am. Made by our father, molded and broken into that walking, talking brick wall you thought you loved so well.” Maven pushes on, speaking through Ibarem. “He hides behind that shield he calls duty, but the truth is less noble. Cal is made of want, same as the rest of us. But he wants the crown. He wants the throne. And no price is too high to pay. No blood too valuable to spill.”
A snap rips through the air as Cal cracks a single knuckle with his thumb.
“We always come back to the same conversation, Maven,” I grumble, leaning back with exaggerated nonchalance. Ibarem mirrors my motions. “I wonder, Iris, does he whine about Tiberias as much to you, or am I the only one who has to deal with this nonsense?”
Ibarem turns his head, as if looking to Iris. “Her lips twitched. Perhaps a smile,” he reports. “Maven is shifting, putting an arm to the bars. The temperature is rising.”
“Did I strike a nerve?” I ask. “Oh, I forgot, you don’t know which nerves are even yours. And which are hers.”
With a grimace, Ibarem smacks his open palms on his thighs. “Maven hit the bars. The temperature is still rising. The other prisoners are doing their best to watch.” The newblood blinks, flaring his nostrils, forcing heavy breaths. “He’s trying to calm himself.”
“It isn’t wise to antagonize someone with so many hostages at his disposal. I could let them all burn if I wanted,” Maven hisses through gritted teeth. I can smell his shaking anger from hundreds of miles away. “It would be easy to report that there were no survivors of Bracken’s glorious reclamation of his lands.”
It’s true. There is nothing to stop Maven from murdering every prisoner in sight. They live on his whims alone.
Leaving an intricate needle for me to thread.
“Or you could free them.”
Maven barks a surprised laugh. “I think you need to get more sleep, Mare.”
“In a trade, of course.” I glance up at Farley, weighing her expression. Her brows twitch, knitting together in thought.
I see Tiberias pale too. The last time we brokered a trade with Maven, I ended up imprisoned for months on end.
“Because that ended so well for us last time,” Maven chuckles through Ibarem’s bond. “But if you’d like to return, and pretend you’re doing it to save some nameless soldiers, then I’m happy to welcome you back.”
“I thought Elara killed your ability to dream,” I snap back. “No, Maven, I’m talking about what the Scarlet Guard left behind on Bracken’s base.”
Ibarem’s face falls, matching the boy king’s. “What?”
Farley grins, crouching next to me. Addressing Ibarem, and therefore Maven. “The Scarlet Guard has a difficult time trusting Silvers. Especially ones kept in check the way Bracken was. It was only a matter of time before something happened and he decided to stop taking orders from the people holding his children.”
“Who am I speaking to now?” Maven demands through Ibarem.
“Oh, I’m hurt you don’t remember me. But it’s General Farley now, so maybe I sound different.”
“Ah yes.” Ibarem clucks his tongue. “How foolish of me to forget the woman who let a wolf like me into her pack of particularly stupid sheep.”
Farley smiles like she’s just been served a particularly delicious meal. “These stupid sheep wired your base with explosives.”
For a second, the room goes deathly silent. Tiberias looks up, his face twisted in alarm. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“Plenty,” she snaps, not looking away from Ibarem. “Don’t repeat that.”
He barely nods.
“Well, Maven?” I ask, pasting on a sweet smile. “You can recall whoever you sent into the swamps after our people, and try to search the base before we obliterate it. Or you can release the prisoners, and we’ll tell you exactly how close you’re standing to a bomb.”
“Explosives don’t frighten me.”
“They would if you cared about the soldiers sworn to your crown,” Tiberias growls, prowling close to my shoulder. His forearm brushes against me, sending a flare of heat down my spine.
A shadow seems to pass over Ibarem as he relays the prince’s words and presence. “Good of you to step forward, brother,” Maven whispers. “I thought you’d never find the spine to speak to me.”
“Name the place and we’ll see exactly who has the stronger spine,” Tiberias fires back, his growl feral and unchecked.
In reply, Ibarem just wags a finger back and forth. “Let’s leave the posturing for your inevitable surrender, Cal. When you have to kneel before Norta, the Lakelands, and Piedmont.” He rattles off each country with a spreading grin. I feel the weight stacking against us, the wall getting higher and higher.
Farley puts a hand on my shoulder, holding me back to my chair. Bidding me to wait.
Finally, Ibarem moves, crossing his arms and shifting his weight. His body language is all Maven. Dedicated to a performance. Now he isn’t wearing the false mantle of the young man called to duty. He dons the mask of the heartless, impenetrable son of Elara Merandus. Someone who cares only for power and nothing else.
It is an act as much as Mareena was to me.
“How many bombs did you say, General?”
He uses her rank to throw her off, but Farley is more difficult to rattle. “I didn’t.”
“Hmm,” Maven murmurs. “Well, Bracken won’t take kindly to any further damage done to his installation. Though we bought enough goodwill returning his children, so he might not mind.”
I don’t know exactly where the explosives might be, only that the Guard planted them some time ago. Buried them below the roads, the runways, and most of the administrative buildings. Where they could do the most damage, not just to enemy soldiers, but to the base itself. They’re tuned to a specific frequency, triggered and ready to blow. A perfect and deadly piece of foresight.