“We have his children,” Farley says. “That should be enough.”
“Montfort has his children,” Tiberias replies, his voice deepening.
Before, on the base, it was easy to ignore the price someone paid. The evils done for good reasons. I look to Davidson, who glances at his watch. This is war, he said once, trying to justify what must be done.
“If they were returned, could we convince Piedmont to stand aside?” I ask. “Remain neutral?”
The premier turns his empty wineglass around in his hands, letting the many facets catch the soft light of lanterns. I think I see regret in him. “I doubt that very much.”
“Are they here?” Anabel asks the question with a calm so forced I almost expect her to pop a vein in her neck. “Bracken’s children?”
Davidson doesn’t reply, moving only to refill his glass.
The old queen tips a finger, her eyes shining. “Ah. They are.” Her grin spreads. “Good leverage. We can bargain for more of Bracken’s soldiers. An entire army if we wish.”
I look at the napkin in my lap, stained with fingerprints of grease and bits of lipstick wiped away. They could be in this palace. Looking down at us right now. Children at the window, trapped behind a locked door. Are they strong enough to require silent guards, or even the torture of chains like the ones I used to wear? I know what that kind of prison is like. Under the table, I touch both my wrists, feeling the empty skin there. Flesh instead of manacles. Electricity instead of silence.
Tiberias suddenly slams a closed fist on the table, making the plates and glassware jump. I jolt too, surprised. “We will do no such thing,” he snarls. “The resources are enough.”
His grandmother scowls at him, deepening the lines of her face. “You need bodies to win wars, Tiberias.”
“The discussion of Bracken is over” is all he says in reply. With finality, he cuts the last piece of steak in two, sawing with his knife. Anabel sneers, showing teeth, but says nothing. He is her grandson, but also a king by her own declaration. She has long passed the line of what is proper debate with a sovereign.
“So we must beg tomorrow,” I mumble. “It’s the only choice left.”
Frustrated, I signal for a glass of wine of my own, and don’t waste time gulping it down. The sweet red soothes enough that I can almost ignore the feel of eyes on my face. Bronze eyes.
“I suppose you could call it that,” Davidson says, his gaze faraway. He looks down, first at his watch again, then sidelong to Carmadon. Their glance speaks volumes I cannot fathom. It makes me envious, and again I find myself wishing things were different.
“What chance do we have?” Tiberias is blunt, forceful, and direct. All the things he’s been taught a king should be.
“For a full deployment of every soldier in our armies?” Davidson shakes his head. “No chance at all. We have borders of our own to guard. But half? A bit more? I could see the scales tipping in our favor. If.”
If. I hate that word.
I brace myself in my seat, suddenly more on edge than usual. I feel like the terrace might crumble beneath me and send us all plunging into the valley.
Farley’s face mirrors my fear. She keeps her knife in hand, wary of our ally. “If what?”
The bells sound before Davidson can answer. And while the rest of us jump, startled by the noise, he doesn’t move. He’s used to it.
Or he expected it.
This isn’t a chime to mark the hours on a clock. These bells ring deep and low, their voices trembling down the mountainside, echoing across Ascendant, calling to other bells throughout the city. The din spreads like a wave, running down this slope and back up the other. Lights spread with the noise. Bright, harsh lights. Floodlights. Security lights. The alarm that follows is mechanical, whining. It shatters the calm mountain valley with its wail.
Tiberias jumps to his feet, cloak swirling around his shoulders. He frees one hand, fingers wide, the flamemaker bracelet glinting beneath his sleeve. If he calls to fire, it will come. Evangeline and Anabel do the same, both of them lethal. Neither looks afraid, only determined to protect themselves.
I feel the lightning in me rise the same way, and my thoughts fly to my family in the palace behind us. Not safe. Not even here. But we have no time for one more of my heartbreaks.
Farley stands too, leaning hard on her hands. She glares at Davidson. “If what?” she snaps again, yelling over the alarm.
He looks up at her, oddly serene among the chaos. Soldiers replace servants in the shadows, flanking our table. I tense, fists clenching at my sides.
“If Montfort will fight for you,” the premier says, turning his eyes on Tiberias, “you must also fight for us.”
Carmadon doesn’t seem startled by the bells. He only glances toward the palace before sighing in what could be annoyance. “Raiders,” he scowls. “Every single time I try to throw a dinner party.”
“That’s hardly true.” Davidson cracks a grin, though he never breaks his gaze. His eyes remain on Tiberias, a challenge as much as anything.
“Well, it feels true,” says Carmadon, pouting.
As security lights blaze all around us, Davidson’s gaze flames gold. Tiberias’s burns red.
“They call you the Flame of the North, Your Majesty. Show us fire.”
Then the premier looks at me.
“And show us storm.”
NINE
Mare
“I said no more surprises,” I hiss to Davidson, following close on his heels as he leads us through his palace. Farley marches next to him, her hand resting on the pistol at her hip, as if she expects raiders to start popping out of the closets.
The Silver members of our party are just as on edge. Anabel keeps their ranks tight. She repeatedly slows Tiberias, nudging him back behind a protective wall of loyal guards from House Lerolan. Evangeline is better at hiding her fear, her face the usual twist between sneer and smirk. She has two escorts of her own—Samos cousins, I think. Her dress changes quickly, re-forming into scaly armor as we weave through the halls of the Montfort palace.
The premier looks over his shoulder when I speak and surveys me with a withering glance. The bells and alarm echo strangely in the hall, dancing around his words. “Mare, I can hardly control the whims of raiders, and I do not schedule their attacks, frequent as they may be.”
I hold his gaze and quicken my pace, hot anger pulsing through my veins. “You don’t?” It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve seen kings do worse to their own people in exchange for power.
Davidson turns steely and presses his lips into a grim line. A sudden flush spreads across his broad cheekbones. His voice drops to a whisper. “We had warning, yes. We knew they were coming. And we had enough lead time to make sure the outskirts were protected. But I resent the implication that I would spill the blood of my own people, risk their lives, for what? Dramatic effect?” he hisses, his voice deadly as a knife edge. “Yes, this presents an opportunity for the Scarlet Guard and for Calore to uphold their ends of the bargain, and to prove something before we go to my government and beg. But it is not a trade I’m happy to make,” he snaps. “I’d much rather be sitting out on the terrace getting pleasantly drunk with my husband, watching overpowered children sneer at each other, than do this.”
I feel scolded but also relieved. Davidson glares at me, fire burning in his golden eyes. He’s usually so serene, unflappable, impossible to discern. His strength lies not just in ability or charisma, but in a well-practiced calm that few can see beyond. Not now. Merely the suggestion of any betrayal, however small, to his country has him incensed. I understand that kind of loyalty. I respect it. I can even almost trust it.
“So what are we going to do?” I ask, satisfied for the moment.
The premier slows, then halts, turning his back to the wall. So he can see all of us. It stops everyone short, crowding the wide passageway with waiting Reds and Silvers. Even Queen Anabel looks on Davidson with grave attention.
“Our patrols re
ported raiders crossing the border an hour ago,” he says. “They usually head for the towns down on the plain, or to the city itself.”
I think about my parents, my siblings, and Kilorn. Either sleeping through the noise or questioning it. I don’t want to fight, not if it means leaving them behind and in danger. Farley catches my eye, and I see the same fear in her. Clara is upstairs too, tucked into a crib.
Davidson does his best to assuage us. “The alarms are cautionary, and our citizens know it,” he says. “Ascendant is well defended from attack. The mountains alone provide enough protection to keep most assaults to the plains or low on the eastern slopes. They would have to climb into our own teeth to get within striking distance of the city.”
“Are the raiders particularly stupid, then?” Farley asks, trying to bluster away her concern. She doesn’t take her hand off her gun.
A corner of Davidson’s mouth lifts, and I think I hear Carmadon cough yes into his hand.
“No,” the premier replies. “But they are very keen on optics. Attacking the Montfort capital is somewhat of a habit for them. It wins favor among their own, as well as the Prairie lords.”
Tiberias lifts his chin. He shifts slowly, edging in front of one of his guards. I can tell by the tightness in his shoulders that he hates being hemmed in like that. Hates being anywhere but the front line. It isn’t in Tiberias Calore to ask another to do what he won’t, to face danger if he doesn’t. “And who are they exactly?” he asks.
“You’ve all asked about Silvers in Montfort,” Davidson says, his voice loud enough to carry over the warning alarms. “You wonder how they live this way. How we changed things decades ago. Some Silvers agreed to freedom, to democracy. Many, I should say. Most.” He clenches his jaw. “They saw what the world should be like. Or they saw the world beyond, and decided it was better to stay, easier to adjust.”
His eyes land on Evangeline, and for some reason she flushes under his scrutiny, almost hiding her face.
“Some did not. Old Silvers, royals, nobles who could not stand our new country. They fled or fought their way to the borders. North, south, west. To the east, in the empty hills between our mountains and Prairie, they formed bands. Attempts at their own lands and lordships. Always fighting, gnawing at each other and us. They live as leeches, feeding on what they find. They do not grow anything; they do not build. They have little holding them together but anger and dying pride. They attack transports, farms, cities, in both Prairie and Montfort. They focus on Red towns and villages mostly, on those who cannot defend against Silver onslaught. They move; they strike; they move again. And so we call them the raiders.”
Carmadon tsks loudly. He runs a hand over his gleaming purple-black skull. “So far to fall for my Silver kin. For nothing more than pride.”
“And for what they think is power,” Davidson adds. His eyes land on Tiberias. The exiled prince straightens, setting his jaw. “For what they think they deserve. They would rather lose everything than live beneath people they think are lesser.”
“Idiots,” I curse.
“History is marred with people like that,” Julian offers. “Resistant to change.”
“But they make those willing to change all the more heroic, don’t they?” I reply, letting the words land as they should.
Tiberias doesn’t take the bait. “Where will they strike?” he says, never moving his eyes from Davidson’s face.
The premier grins darkly.
“We’ve received word from one of the towns down on the plain. Raiders are close,” he says. “Your Majesty, I believe I may get to show you the Hawkway after all.”
No palace is complete without an armory.
Davidson’s guards are already there, suiting up throughout the long room stocked with weaponry and gear. They don’t pull on the green coveralls, the uniforms I’ve become accustomed to, but tight black suits and high boots. Good for defending against a night raid. They remind me of what I used to wear in Training, my purple-and-silver-striped outfit to mark me as a child of House Titanos. A Silver through and through. A lie.
At the door, Anabel puts a hand on Cal’s arm. She pleads with her eyes, but he moves past her, firmly but gently pushing her away. Her fingers trail along the edge of his red cape, letting the black brocade run through her fingers as he escapes her grasp.
“I need to do this,” I hear him murmur. “He’s right. I need to fight for them if they’ll fight for me.”
No one else speaks, and the silence falls thick as a low cloud. All I hear is the shuffle of clothing. My dress puddles around my ankles as I quickly pull the suit up over my underclothes. As I move, I shift, and my eyes lock on familiar muscles.
Tiberias faces away from me too, his shirt discarded, the suit tight around his waist. I trace the length of his spine, noting the few scars along otherwise smooth and sculpted skin. They’re old, older than mine. Won in Training in a palace and on a war front that no longer exists. Even though the touch of a healer could erase them quickly, he keeps them, collecting scars as another would medals or badges.
Will he earn more scars today? Will Davidson keep his promise?
Part of me wonders if this is a trap for the true Calore king. An easy assassination disguised as a real threat. But even if Davidson lied about not harming Tiberias, he’s not an idiot. Removing the older Calore would only weaken us, destroying a vital shield between Montfort and the Scarlet Guard, and Maven.
I keep staring, unable to stop myself. The scars might be old, but not the almost-purple, bruise-like mark where his neck meets his shoulder. That’s new. Only a few days old. That’s mine, I think, gulping around a memory both close and infinitely far away.
Someone bumps my shoulder, jolting me out of the quicksand that is Tiberias Calore.
“Here,” Farley says gruffly, a warning. She hasn’t discarded her dark red uniform of Command, and she stares down at me, blue eyes wide. “Let me.”
Her fingers zip up the back of my suit with speed, tightening the ensemble around my frame. I shuffle a little, adjusting the thick-woven fabric of my too-long sleeves. Anything to keep my attention away from the exiled prince currently shoving his arms into his own suit.
“Nothing in your size, Barrow?”
Tyton’s deep drawl offers a well-needed distraction. He leans up alongside us, back braced against the wall with one long leg stretched out. His suit is the same as mine, albeit better fitted to his trim form. No lightning insignia. No markings. No indication of how deadly a man this newblood is. With him around, I realize Davidson has no need to arrange useful accidents to remove opponents. He only needs Tyton. The chilling thought is somehow a balm. This isn’t a trap, at the very least. It doesn’t need to be.
I slide on my boots, smirking. “I’ll have words with the tailor when we get back.”
Across the room, Tiberias rolls his sleeves, exposing his flamemaker bracelet. Evangeline looks almost bored at his side, her furs tossed to the floor to reveal the full armor covering her from fingertips to toes. She catches my glance and holds my gaze.
I don’t expect her to stick her neck out for anyone but Elane Haven, and yet I feel safer with her around. She’s saved me twice before. And I’m still of value to her. Our agreement still stands.
Tiberias must not win the throne.
The room clears as we prepare, moving from the changing area to the rows and rows of arms at the back of the room. Farley weighs herself down with ammunition, putting a pistol on her other hip and a snub machine gun across her back. I assume she already has her knives tucked away. I don’t take any weapons, but Tyton grabs a belt, pistol, and holster off the rack, shoving them toward me.
“No thanks,” I grumble, begrudging. I don’t like guns or bullets. I don’t trust them. And I don’t need them. I can’t control either one the way I can control my lightning.
“Some raiders are silents,” he replies, his voice a low whipcrack. Just the thought turns my insides. I know the feel of Silent Stone all too well.
It isn’t a sensation I would like to bear again, not for any reason.
Without warning, Tyton fastens the gun belt around my waist, his eyes and fingers quick on the buckles. The gun slides into its holster, feeling heavy and unfamiliar at my side. “If you lose your ability,” he adds, “it’s best to have a backup.”
Behind us, the temperature rises, a rippling heat that can only mean one thing. I look up just in time to watch Tiberias shoulder by, keeping his distance, furiously intent on staring at the floor as he goes. Trying to ignore me.
He might as well wear a sign around his neck.
“Careful with those hands, Tyton,” he growls over his shoulder. “She bites.”
Tyton just chuckles darkly. He doesn’t need to respond, and doesn’t attempt to. It only incenses Tiberias further.
For once, I don’t care about the scarlet flush heating my cheeks. I step away from Tyton, who is still laughing.
Tiberias watches me as I catch up to him, his bronze eyes alight with something more than his usual fire. Electric energy pulses through my limbs. I keep it in check, using it to fuel my resolve.
“Don’t be such a possessive ass,” I snap, driving my elbow into his ribs as I stalk by. It’s like hitting a wall. “If you insist on calling yourself a king, you can at least act like one.”
Behind me, he lets loose something between a snarl and a frustrated sigh.
I don’t respond, don’t look back, and don’t stop until I’ve followed the steady current of soldiers outside onto the central plaza where we first arrived hours ago. Black and forest-green transports crowd the stone, the vehicles fanned out evenly. Davidson waits by the lead, Carmadon at his side. They embrace quickly, touching foreheads and kissing, before Carmadon backs away. Neither of them seems bothered by the impending skirmish. This must be a common occurrence—or they’re very good at masking their fear. It could be both.
The palace overlooks the growing number of soldiers, and shadows move on the balconies. Servants and guests alike. I squint, trying to find my family among the silhouettes. Gisa’s hair should stand out, but I spot Dad first. He hunches over a railing, leaning out to watch. When he sees me, he tips his head, but only a little. I want to wave, but it feels silly. And when the transports rev to life, their engines a growl across the pines, I know that calling to them is no use either.
War Storm Page 13