“You all know it. Whatever the benefits of his rule, you know they don’t outweigh the risks. He will be overthrown, either by us directly or by the crumbling of his country. Look around. How many High Houses sit with him? Where are they?” I gesture to the Sentinels, their own guards, but no one else of Norta. Not House Welle or House Osanos or any other. I don’t know where they are, but their absence speaks volumes.
“You are his shields. He’s using you and your countries. He’ll turn on you one day, when he has the strength to cast you both off. He has no loyalties, and no love in his heart. The boy who calls himself king is a shell, empty, a danger to everyone and everything.” In his seat, Maven examines his hands, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket. Anything to seem unaffected and unperturbed. It’s a terrible act, especially for someone as talented as he is.
I hold my head high. “Why entertain this madness any longer? For what?”
To my left, Farley shifts, her chair creaking. She stares with all the fire the Calores can’t muster. “Because they’d rather bleed themselves than be equal to any blood that isn’t the right color,” she hisses.
“Farley,” Cal mutters.
To my surprise, Evangeline takes on that mess, drawing attention to herself instead. She purses her lips and smooths her dress conspicuously.
“It’s infinitely clear what’s happening here. You say Maven’s using them as shields?” she says, almost cackling. “Where are your armies, Queen Cenra? And yours, Prince Bracken? Who really bleeds in this war? If anyone is a shield here, it’s Maven. They’re using the little boy against his big brother, to play them off each other until they’re confident they can destroy what’s left. Isn’t that it?”
They don’t deny it, or don’t want to give oxygen to such a claim. Iris tries another tactic, leaning forward toward the Samos princess with an easy, tight-lipped smile. “I must assume the same of you, Evangeline. Or is Tiberias Calore not a weapon of the Rift?”
Maven waves her back. He looks from Cal to Farley. She is the weak spot here, or at least he thinks she is. Good luck. “No, not Cal,” he says, purring. “The Reds. The Montfort mongrels. I know Volo and the other Silvers in open rebellion. They won’t tolerate any kind of Red acceptance beyond what they need. Will you, Anabel?” he adds, tossing a grin at his grandmother.
She merely turns away, refusing to so much as look at him. Despite all his posturing, Maven’s smile falls a little.
Farley doesn’t rise to the bait this time. She keeps still, and Davidson slowly claps his hands, inclining his head toward the false king. “I have to applaud you, Maven,” he says. The blank calm of the premier is a welcome respite from so much bile. “I admit, I didn’t expect such deft manipulations from someone so young. But I assume that’s how your mother built you, didn’t she?” he adds, looking to me.
That incenses Maven more than anything. He knows that it means I’ve told them all I could about him, about what his mother did.
“Yes, he is what she made him,” I murmur. It feels like twisting a knife in his gut. “No matter who he was meant to be. That person is completely gone.”
Cal’s voice is soft in response, landing the final blow. “And he is never coming back.”
If not for the Stone, Maven would burn. He slams a fist down, knuckles like exposed bone. “This conversation is pointless,” he snaps. “If you don’t have real terms, then leave. Fortify your city, gather your dead, prepare for a true war.”
His brother doesn’t flinch. He has nothing else to fear from Maven. A transformation, a tragic one, has come over Cal, and he slides into the role he’s best at. A general, a warrior. Facing an opponent he can defeat. Not a brother he wants to save. There is no blood left between them, only the blood Maven made him spill.
“True war is here,” he replies, his calm manner sharply contrasts with Maven’s sudden temper. “The storm has broken, Maven, whether you want to admit it or not.”
I try to do as Cal has done. Try to let go. The false masquerade of the kind, forgotten boy is already gone. Not even his ghost remains. There is only the person in front of me, with his hatred and his obsession and his twisted love. Get through it, I hiss in my head. Maven is a monster. He branded me, imprisoned me, tortured me in the worst way. To keep me at his side, to feed whatever beast prowls around inside his skull. But as much as I try, I can’t help but see some of myself reflected in him. Trapped by a storm, unable to break free, unable to walk away from what I’ve already done and will continue to do.
This world is a storm I helped create. We all did, in ways big and small. With steps we could not fathom, paths we never thought to walk.
Jon saw it all. I wonder which second put this in motion. Which choice. Was it Elara, looking into my head for an opportunity to strike the Scarlet Guard? Was it Evangeline, making me fall into the arena of Queenstrial? Was it Cal, his hand closing on mine when I was just a Red thief? Or Kilorn, his master dead, his fate decided, the doom of conscription looming before him? Maybe this didn’t even start with any of us. It could be Farley’s mother and sister, drowned by the Lakeland king, their deaths sparking her father, the Colonel, to action. Or Davidson fleeing death in the legions, escaping to Montfort to build a new kind of future? Perhaps someone even further away, a hundred years ago, a thousand. Someone cursed or chosen by a distant god, doomed and blessed to make this all real.
I suppose I’ll never know.
TWENTY-FIVE
Evangeline
The Silent Stone grates against me, and my skin itches with the constant pressure. It isn’t easy to ignore, even with my extensive years of Training. I fight back the searing urge to rip my nails down my arms, if only to feel a different kind of pain instead of this foul, decaying weight. I wonder where the Stones are buried. Beneath the meeting platform? Under our seats? They feel so close I could choke on them.
Everyone else looks undisturbed by the unnatural sensation of our deepest parts repressed. Even Mare, despite her history. She keeps her head high, her body still. No sign of discomfort or pain. Meaning I have to hide it as well as she does. Ugh.
Bracken’s lip curls in distaste, hating the feel of the Silent Stone as much as the rest of us. Perhaps it will make him more amenable to our cause. Yes, he despises Montfort, and he has reason to. But I think he hates losing more. And if Cal’s blustering works, he certainly won’t have faith in Maven much longer.
Maven glares at Cal, as if he can somehow measure up to his warrior brother. Whatever compassion he counted on exploiting seems to disappear as Cal holds firm, unmoved in his seat.
“Those are my terms, Maven,” he says, sounding more kingly than his father ever did. “Surrender, and live.”
Maven deserves little more than a bullet to the brain or a knife to the gut. He’s a danger none of us can afford to leave breathing.
His reply is guttural, coming from the deepest parts of him. “Get off my island.”
No one is surprised. Ptolemus lets loose a low breath. His fingers twitch, itching for the knives strapped across his chest. At least the Sentinels didn’t think, or didn’t care, to disarm us. They must think magnetrons defenseless without ability. They are wrong. My brother could put that knife into Maven’s gut if the circumstances allowed.