An eternity ago, when I was Mareena Titanos, I stood inside a prince’s bedchamber. He had books all over the place: manuals, treatises on war, strategy, diplomacy. Maneuvers and manipulations for gigantic armies and single soldiers. Calculations weighing the risk and reward. How many people could die and yet he’d still be able to claim victory. Back then it was a stark reminder of who he was, and whose side he was on.
It disgusted me to think of him as a person who would trade life so carelessly. Spill blood for another inch of progress. Now I’ve done the same thing. So has Farley. So has Davidson. None of us are innocent.
None of us will ever be able to forget what we do in these days.
“If it never goes away,” I murmur, feeling as if I might be drowned, “it will eventually be too much.”
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely.
I wonder how close he is to his line, and how close I am to mine. Will we cross it on the same day? Is that the only answer?
Do we walk away, broken and beyond repair, together? Or apart?
His eyes smolder over me. I think he’s asking himself the same thing.
Shuddering, I quicken my steps. A firm signal to both of us. “What’s the plan for Harbor Bay?” I ask, looking down the long hall. It bridges this wing of Ridge House to the next, arcing over a weaving garden of trees and fountains barely visible in the darkness.
Tiberias matches my pace easily. “Nothing is set until Davidson comes back. But Farley has ideas, and her contacts in the city will certainly be of help.”
I nod in agreement. Harbor Bay is the oldest city in Norta, a warren of Red criminals and their gangs. A few months ago, one of those gangs, the Mariners, tried to sell us to Maven as we searched for newbloods. But the tide is changing. The Reds of Norta are falling into line as the Scarlet Guard grows in power and notoriety. Our victories are having an effect on some, at least.
“There will be civilian casualties,” Tiberias adds, matter-of-fact. “It isn’t Corvium or Piedmont. Harbor Bay is a city, not a fort. Innocent people, Silver and Red, will be stuck in the middle of this.” He flexes a hand, stretching out long, keen fingers before cracking his knuckles one by one. “We’ll start with Fort Patriot. If we can take control there, the rest of the city will fall.”
I’ve only see Patriot from afar, and the memory is vague. It’s smaller than the Piedmont base, but better equipped and far more important to Maven’s armies.
“Governor Rhambos and his house are sworn to Maven,” I reply. “They’re still firm allies.” Due in no small part to me, since I killed his son in the arena during a failed execution. Of course, he was also trying to kill me. “They won’t surrender easily.”
Tiberias scoffs. “No one ever does.”
“And if you win the city?” I prod. If you survive?
“Then I think we can get Maven to the table.”
The name sends a jolt through me. At my collarbone, Maven’s brand smarts and warms, itching for attention.
“He won’t negotiate. He won’t surrender at all.” I feel sick at the thought of Maven’s empty eyes, his wicked smile. The cloying, unbreakable obsession plaguing us both. “There’s no point in it, Tiberias.”
He winces at my use of his full name, eyes sliding shut for a second. “That’s not why I want to see him.”
The implication is clear. “Oh.”
“I have to be sure,” he grinds out. “I asked the premier about whispers in his country. If there are any newbloods like Elara. Anyone who might be able to help him.”
“And?”
When I walked away from Tiberias in Corvium, he looked heartbroken, agonized. This is no different. Love has a way of cutting us apart like nothing else. “He didn’t think so,” he admits quietly. “But he said he would keep looking.”
I lay a hand on his arm, still damp with sweat. My fingers know his skin as well as my own by now. He feels like quicksand. If I linger too long, I won’t be able to escape.
I try to be gentle. “I doubt even Elara could fix him now. If he would let her.”
His flesh flares hot beneath my hand and I pull away, remembering myself. He doesn’t react. There’s nothing he can say, and nothing he has to say to me. I know what letting go of Maven Calore looks like.
The passage ahead of us dead-ends at a T-shaped junction, trailing off to the left and right. His rooms to one side, mine to the other. We stare at the wall in silence, neither of us daring to move.
Speaking to him feels like a dream, a painful one. Even so, I don’t want to wake up.
“How long?” I whisper.
He doesn’t look at me. “Davidson will be here in a week’s time. With another week to plan.” His throat bobs. “Not long.”
The last time I set foot in Harbor Bay, we were on the run. But my brother was alive. I wish I could go back to those days, hard as they were.
“I know what Evangeline’s trying to do,” Tiberias says suddenly, his voice thick with too many emotions to place.
I glance sidelong at him. “She’s not exactly subtle about it.”
He doesn’t return the gesture, continuing to stare at the wall in front of us. Never leaning one way or the other. “I wish there were some middle ground.”
A place where our names and our blood and our pasts don’t matter. A place without weight. A place that has never been and will never exist.
“Good night, Tiberias.”
Hissing, he clenches a fist. “I really need you to stop calling me that.”
And I really need you.
I turn and walk toward my room, my footsteps echoing and alone.
SEVENTEEN
Iris
Archeon will never be my home.
Not because of the location, the size of the city, the lack of shrines and temples, or even my bone-deep, inborn disdain for Nortans. None of those things weigh as much as the emptiness I feel without my family at my side.
It is a hole I try to fill with training, prayer, and my other queenly duties, boring as some of them might be. But all are necessary. The most important is to stay in fighting shape. It would be easy to soften in my apartments of silk and velvet, waited on by Red servants tripping over themselves to bring me anything I want. It was the same in the Lakelands, but I never wanted to find solace in food and alcohol the way I do here. My training sessions also set a good balance, so I don’t fall into the trap so many royals and nobles find themselves in. A trap Maven baits well. Many of the lords and ladies still supporting his reign seem more preoccupied with his parties and feasts than they are with the wolves at the door. Idiots.
Prayer is more difficult to come by in this godless country. There are no temples in Archeon that I know of, and the shrine I demanded be built for me here is small, a glorified closet tucked away in my apartments. Not that I need much space to commune with my nameless gods. But in the heat of high summer, the little room crowded with worn faces is hardly comfortable—even with my abilities circulating cool moisture through the air. I try to pray elsewhere, or at least feel my gods as the days pass, but it grows more difficult the longer I’m away from home. If I can’t hear them, can they hear me?
Am I infinitely alone?
I suppose that is easier. I want no connection to Norta. Nothing to tie me to this place when Maven’s brother overthrows him, unless my mother does it first.