Farley bares her teeth, a predator even without her claws, but Cal answers before she can toss back acid. “I think all of us find ourselves in strange places,” he says, his voice stern and even. Diplomatic to the bone. I can’t imagine the effort it must require. “It isn’t often a Nortan king sits next to Lakelander queens.”
Maven only sneers. He’s far better at this than Cal will ever be. “It isn’t often firstborn sons sit anywhere but the throne. Eh, Brother?” he shoots back, and Cal shuts his mouth with an audible click. “What do you think of all this, Grandmother?” Maven adds, glaring daggers at Anabel. “Your own flesh and blood, warring with each other.”
She responds with equal venom. “You’re no blood of mine, boy. You lost the right when you helped kill my son.”
Maven just clucks, as if pitying her. “Cal raised that sword, not me,” he says, tipping his chin at the similar sword at Cal’s hip. “Such an imagination. Old women are so prone to their fancies.”
At his side, Queen Cenra arches a single, smooth eyebrow. She says nothing, letting Maven spin his web—or knot his own noose.
“Well,” he says, clapping his hands together. “I did not request this meeting. I believe that means you present whatever terms you came to offer. Surrender, perhaps?”
Cal shakes his head. “Yes. Yours.”
Laughter from Maven is an odd sound. Forced. The air pushed out, the sound calculated and formed, an imitation of what he thinks a laugh should sound like. It rankles his brother, and Cal shifts in his seat, uncomfortable.
Bracken doesn’t smile either. His lips tug into a scowl. He rests his chin on one balled fist. I don’t know his ability, but I assume it is a powerful one, restrained only by the Stone slowly choking all of us. “I did not come all this way, at such haste, to entertain nonsense, Tiberias Calore,” the prince says.
“It isn’t nonsense, Your Highness,” Cal replies, with a shallow dip of his head. Showing deference and respect.
In his seat, Maven scoffs low and deep. “You see my allies here.” He spreads his white hands wide. “Both Silver royals, with the might of their entire nations sworn to our cause. I hold the capital, the wealthiest lands of Norta—”
“You don’t hold the Rift,” Evangeline snaps, cutting him off. Despite the Stone, her metals are all in place. They’re truly made, locked into form, not held together by her ability alone. She prepared for this. As I should have. “You don’t hold Delphie. You lost Harbor Bay yesterday. You lose more, until all you have left are the people sitting next to you, with no way to repay what they give.” Her smile spreads, showing teeth capped with pointed silver. I think she would feast on his heart if she could. “You’ll be a king without a crown or a throne before long, Maven. Best give up while you still have something to bargain.”
Maven raises his nose. It makes him look like a petulant child. “I will bargain for nothing.”
“Not even your own life?” I mutter, my voice small but firm enough to carry. I keep still as he turns his eyes on me, letting the ice pour over my flesh. No flinching, no blinking. Get through it.
He just laughs again. “Your bluff is entertaining, to say the least,” he chuckles. “I see what you have, who you’ve swayed to your side. State your terms, Cal. Or go back to Harbor Bay and force us to kill you all.”
“Very well,” Cal replies. His fist clenches. If not for the Stone, he would probably burst into flame. “Step down, Maven. Step down, and I’ll let you live.”
“This is ridiculous,” Maven sighs, rolling his eyes at Iris. She doesn’t return the gesture.
Cal forges on, undeterred. “The alliance with the Lakelands and Piedmont will stand. We’ll have peace on our coast, from the frozen shores to the islands of the south. Time to rebuild, regrow what this war has destroyed. Heal wounds and right wrongs that have plagued us for centuries.”
“You speak of Red equality?” Iris says. Her voice is as I remember it. Calm, measured. She is a creature of self-control.
“I do,” Cal says steadily.
Bracken laughs deep and long, one hand pressed against the sculpted gold on his stomach. If not for the circumstance, I would think the sound comforting and warm. Cenra and Iris remain quiet, unwilling to betray their intentions or thoughts so easily.
“You’re ambitious, I’ll give you that,” Bracken says, pointing a finger at Cal. “And young. And distracted.” His dark eyes dart to mine, making his point clear. I squirm under his gaze. “You don’t know what you’re asking us to do.”
Farley isn’t so easily cowed. She claws her hands on the arms of her chair, almost rising out of her seat. A flush tinges her cheeks. “Are you so threatened by the people you spit on that you can’t allow them simple freedom?” she sneers, looking from Bracken to Cenra and Iris. “Is that how tenuous your grip on power truly is?”
The queen of the Lakelands widens her eyes, the whites a livid contrast to the bronze of her skin and the dark brown of her irises. She looks truly surprised. I doubt a Red has ever addressed her in such a way, and it shows. “How dare you speak to us—” she blurts out.
Dear Julian is the quickest, evenly speaking over her before she can bait Farley into something more drastic. “History favors the underfoot and the oppressed, Your Majesty,” he says. He sounds enchanting and methodic, wise, even beneath the weight of Silent Stone. The queen is reluctant, but shuts her mouth slowly to listen. “The years are long, but eventually, always, fortunes shift. The people rise. Such is the way of things. Either let change come willingly, help it along, or face the wrath of such force. It might not be you, or even your children. But the day will come when Reds storm the gates of your castles, break your crowns, and slit the throats of your descendants as they beg for the mercy you will not show now.”
His words echo long after he is done speaking, as if dancing on the wind. They have a sobering effect on the Lakelander queens and Bracken, who exchange uneasy glances.
Maven is not subdued in the slightest. He leers at the Jacos lord, eyes alight. He has always despised Julian. “Did you rehearse that, Julian? I always wondered why you spent so much time alone in your library.”
It’s too easy to throw the barb back in his face. “I doubt anyone spends more time alone than you do,” I say, again moving forward to display my brand.
The combination makes him go pale, his mouth slightly open. Breath whistles between his exposed teeth. He looks like he wants to kiss me or rip my throat out. I doubt he knows which.
“Careful, Maven,” I push on, pressing him closer to the edge of his tolerance. “That mask of yours might slip.”
Cold fear flashes in his eyes. Then his face melts, brows creasing and lips pulling down, curling back to show more of his teeth. With the shadows under his eyes and beneath his cheekbones, he looks like a skull, white as moonlight. “I could kill you, Red,” he snarls, brazen in the empty threat.
“Funny, you had the chance for six long months.” I pat my hands over my arms and chest, letting my fingers brush the brand. “But here I am.”
I look away before he can say more, addressing the allies at his side. “Maven Calore is unstable at best.” As I speak, I’m intensely aware of their attention, the weight of three crowns staring me down. As well as the weight of Silent Stone, a constant, squeezing pressure. I wish I could feel my lightning and draw a little strength from my ability. Instead I have only my wasted self. And that must be enough.