War Storm

by Victoria Aveyard

  “I’m right here, Mom,” I murmur, swallowing around the sudden, painful memory of Shade.

  “You know what I mean,” she says. “I’ll slit his throat myself.”

  Most shocking of all is Dad’s silence. He’s a naturally quiet man, but not when it comes to despising Silvers. When I glance at him, I realize why he won’t say anything. Because he can’t. His face is a furious red, boiling with a steady, rising hatred. If he opens his mouth, who knows what might tumble out.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I have to ask, looking around at the rest of my family.

  “Please do,” Dad barely manages through gritted teeth.

  “You all look well,” I say quickly. “Is Montfort—”

  Mom seems annoyed, but dips her head in acceptance. She answers for all of them, cutting me off. “It’s a dream, Mare.”

  My natural suspicion flares, in spite of all I know about Davidson. But I don’t know his country or his city. I don’t know the politicians he serves or the people they represent.

  “Is it too good, though?” I ask. “Do you think we’ll wake up to find ourselves in trouble? To find something gone horribly wrong?”

  She heaves a heavy sigh, looking out at the sparkling lights of Ascendant. “I suppose we should always be wary but—”

  “I don’t think so,” Dad offers, neatly finishing her thought. His words are few but expressive. “This place is different.”

  Gisa nods along with them. “I’ve never seen Reds and Silvers together like this. Back in Norta, when I went to sell with my mistress, Silvers wouldn’t even look at us. Wouldn’t touch us.” Her brown eyes, the same as mine, glaze a little as she remembers her life as it was so long ago, before a Silver officer smashed apart her sewing hand. “Not here.”

  In his seat, Tramy settles back, some of his ire melting away. Like a cat smoothing his fur after a scare. “We feel like equals.”

  I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of me. They’re family to the lightning girl, a valuable asset to the Montfort premier. Of course they’d be treated well. But I don’t say any of that out loud, if only to maintain some kind of peace on an otherwise tumultuous night. After that, the conversation becomes far more pleasant.

  Servants, kindly and smiling, bring up a sizable spread for dinner. The food is simple, but rich and tasty, ranging from fried chicken to sugary, dark purple berries spread over toast. The food is mostly for my benefit and Kilorn’s, but Bree and Tramy help themselves to full portions. Gisa favors a tray of fruits and cheeses, while Dad fixes himself a plate of cold meats and crackers to share with Mom. We eat slowly, talking more than chewing. I mostly listen, letting my siblings regale me with stories of their explorations throughout Ascendant. Bree swims in the lake every morning. Sometimes he wakes up Tramy with it too, dumping a bottle of icy water on his head. Gisa has an almost scientific knowledge of the shops and markets, as well as the grounds of the premier’s compound. She likes to walk the high meadows with Tramy, while Mom prefers the gardens in the city, terraced down the slopes. Dad has been honing his walking abilities, going deeper and deeper into the valley every day, strengthening his new muscles and relearning two legs with every step down and every step back up.

  Kilorn fills in as well as he can, detailing our exploits since we left Montfort last. It’s a sparse recollection, and he is gracious enough to leave out the more embarrassing or upsetting details. Including any mention of Cameron Cole. For Gisa’s sake, but judging by the way she spoke about a young girl and the jeweler’s shop she worked in, I think her old crush on my best friend has passed.

  Eventually my eyelids begin to droop. It’s been a long, difficult day. I try not to remember how I woke up this morning, in the dark of Cal’s royal bedchamber, his blankets over my body. Tonight I’ll sleep in a bed by myself. Not alone, though. Gisa will be just across the room. I still can’t sleep without someone else there. Or, at least, I haven’t tried since I escaped Maven’s imprisonment.

  Don’t think about him.

  I chant it to myself as I prepare for bed, repeating the words over and over.

  Cal’s face seems burned against my eyelids, while Maven haunts even my fleeting, distant dreams. Those stupid boys. They never leave me alone.

  In the morning, my nerves twitch with energy. It’s a constant pull, a tug behind my stomach, like someone has a hook around my spine. I know where it wants me to go. Down into the city, toward the central barracks of Ascendant. The structure squats over the city prison, drilled into the bedrock of the mountainside. I try not to picture him, alone behind bars, pacing like a dying animal. Why I want to see him, I can hardly understand. Maybe some part of me knows he’s still useful. Or wants to understand him a little more, before time runs out. We’re alike in some ways, too many ways. I’ve tasted darkness, and he lives in it. He represents what I could become, without my family, without an anchor, if I’m pushed into the abyss.

  But Maven is the abyss. I can’t face him. Not yet. I’m not strong enough to do it. He’ll just laugh in my face, taunt and torture, turning the screws embedded too deeply. I need to heal a bit, before he can pick open my wounds again.

  So instead of walking down into the city, I go up. And up. And up.

  At first I follow the road we took over the mountain, when the raiders struck down on the plain. We know now that it was a planned attack, meant to distract us while the Lakelanders rescued Prince Bracken’s children. The raiders were paid to do it, and paid well. I kick at stones as I go, replaying the battle in my mind. The silence clawed at my body, like something alive and unnatural beneath my skin. Replacing my lightning with emptiness. Cursing, I push the thought away and turn off the road, into the rocks and trees.

  The hours pass, and the air seems to burn in my lungs, searing down my throat. It’s matched only by the fire in my muscles. They scream with each new step, every foot forward and upward over the rocks. Snow puddles in the shadows, white and pure even in the late summer. It turns ever colder as I climb, my feet sliding over dirt and pine needles, gravel and naked rock. In spite of the pain, I push on.

  Streams trickle past, running down the mountainside to pool in the lake far below. I look back through the gaps in the pines, into the valley. The mountains dwarf Ascendant, and the foreign capital looks like a child’s toy from this distance. White blocks strewn around ribbon-thin roads and winding stairs. The mountain range seems endless, a jagged wall of stone and snow dividing the world in half. Above, the clear blue sky beckons me to continue the climb. I do my best, stopping at the streams to drink and splash my red, sweaty face.

  Occasionally I fish out crackers from my pack or strips of salted meat. I wonder if the smell might lure a bear or a wolf across my path.

  I have my lightning, of course, close as the breath in my lungs. But no predator ever comes near. I think they know I’m as dangerous as they are.

  All except for one.

  At first I mistake him for an outcropping of rock, silhouetted against the perfect blue, still in gray clothing. The pines are sparser at this high altitude, offering little shade from the noon sun. I have to blink, rubbing my eyes, before I realize what I’m looking at.

  Who I’m looking at.

  My lightning splits the granite boulder beneath him in two. He moves before it strikes, sliding off into the rocks.

  “You bastard,” I snarl, advancing with speed, the adrenaline sudden and surging in my blood. It drives me, as does frustration. Because I know, no matter how fast I am, no matter how strong my lightning, I’ll never catch him.

  Jon will always see me coming.

  His laughter echoes over the slope, coming from higher up. I snarl to myself and follow the sound, letting him lead me. He laughs and laughs, and I climb and climb. By the time we’re out of the trees, over earth too high for anything to grow, the air has turned harsh and cold. I choke down a gasp of anger, letting the temperature shock my lungs. And I slump, unable to go any farther. Unwilling to let Jon, or any
one, control where I go and what I do.

  But mostly I’m just exhausted.

  I lean back, bumping against a large boulder smoothed by centuries of unforgiving wind and snow.

  My breathing comes hard and heavy. I think I might never catch my breath, just as I’ll never catch the damned seer.

  “The altitude,” his voice says. “It makes everything difficult if you aren’t used to it. Even your fire prince would have a hard time climbing his first mountain.”

  I’m too tired to do much more than glance at him, eyes half lidded. He perches above me, legs dangling. Jon is dressed for the mountain weather, in a thick coat, with well-worn boots on his feet. I wonder how long he’s been walking, or how long he had to wait up here for me.

  “You know as well as I do he isn’t a prince anymore,” I answer, choosing my words very carefully. Maybe I can get him to reveal something, just a sniff of the future ahead of us all. “Just like you know how long he’ll be a king.”

  “Yes,” he replies, smirking slightly. Of course he knows what I’m doing, and he says only what he intends to say.

  I heave another heavy breath, sucking air into my starved lungs. “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking in the view.”

  He still hasn’t looked at me, his red eyes trained on the horizon. The sight before us is amazing, more splendid than it was a thousand feet below. I really do feel small, and large, everything and nothing, sitting here on the rim of the world. My breath fogs before my eyes, a testament to the chill. I can’t stay long. Not if I want to get down before nightfall.

  I wish I could take Jon’s head with me.

  “I told you this would happen,” he murmurs.

  Snarling, I bare my teeth at him. “You didn’t tell me anything. My brother might be alive if you did. Thousands of people—”

  “Have you considered the alternative?” he snaps. “That what I did, what I said and didn’t say, did and didn’t do, saved more?”

  I ball a fist and kick my foot, sending a shower of gravel skittering down the slope. “Have you considered just keeping your nose out of everything?”

  Jon barks a laugh. “Many times. But whether I involve myself or not, I see the path. I see the destination. And sometimes I just can’t let it happen.”

  “So nice you get to decide,” I sneer, bitter as I always am with the wretched newblood.

  “Would you like the burden, Mare Barrow?” Jon replies, lowering himself down so we sit side by side. He smiles sadly. “I didn’t think so.”

  I shudder beneath his crimson attention. “You told me I would rise, and rise alone,” I mutter, repeating the words he spoke so long ago, in an abandoned coal town half shrouded by the rain. That was my fate. And I’ve watched it become truer with every passing day. When I lost Shade. When I lost Cal. But also in the steady detachment, the cold hand that seems to worm itself between me and everyone else I love. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, I can’t help but feel different, broken and angry, and therefore alone. With only one person left who truly understands. And he is a monster.

  I lost Maven too. The person he pretended to be, the friend I loved and needed when I was so alone and so afraid. I’ve lost so many people.

  But I’ve gained many. Farley, Clara. My family is still with me, safe but for Shade. Kilorn, never wavering in his loyalty and friendship. I have the electricons, newbloods like me, who prove I am not alone. Premier Davidson and all he hopes to do. They outnumber everyone I’ve lost.

  “I don’t think you were right,” I mumble, half believing the words. Next to me, Jon jolts, his neck cracking as he looks at me sharply. “Or has that path changed too?”

  Even though I hate his eyes, I force myself to stare into them. To look for a lie or the truth.

  “Did I change it?”

  He blinks slowly. “You changed nothing.”

  I feel like elbowing him in the throat, or the gut, or the skull. Instead I slump backward, tipping my head to glare at the sky. Jon watches, chuckling a little.

  “What?” I snarl, eyeing him.

  “Rise,” he murmurs, pointing to the valley thousands of feet below. Then he points to my chest. “And rise alone.”

  This time I bat his arm weakly, wishing I could inflict more hurt on the seer. “I know you weren’t talking about climbing a mountain,” I growl. “‘No longer the lightning, but the storm. The storm that will swallow the world entire.’”

  He just rolls his shoulders and looks out to the range again, his breath steaming in the cold air. “Who knows what I was talking about.”

  “You do.”

  “And I’ll keep that weight to myself, thank you very much. No one else needs it.”

  I scoff. “You act as if you enjoy lording our fates over us.” Chewing my lip, I weigh my chances again. A hint from him could be infinitely valuable, or damning, throwing me onto a path of his choosing. I simply have to take the chance, and consider what he says with a mountain of salt. “Any more choice words, little nudges, you might condescend to give?”

  The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes waver, almost sad. “Your friend is better at fishing than you.”

  Cold air whistles down my throat as I inhale sharply. “What do you know about Kilorn?” I ask, my voice climbing an octave. Kilorn is no one to Jon, no one to grand movements of kingdoms and fate. He shouldn’t take up an inch of space in Jon’s head, not in comparison to the thousands of dangerous and horrible things he does keep in there. I move to grab his arm, but he shifts neatly from my touch.

  His red eyes stare, like twin drops of blood. “He’s the catalyst for all this, isn’t he? For your part in it, at least,” he says. “The poor friend doomed to conscription, with only you to save him.”

  Jon’s words are slow, methodic. Deliberate. Giving me time to put together the pieces of this part of the puzzle. I try not to know, try not to accept what is staring me in the face. I want to kill him. Smash his head against the rock. But I can’t move.

  “Because he lost his apprenticeship,” I say, trembling. “Because Kilorn’s master died.”

  “Because Kilorn’s master fell.” It isn’t a question. Jon knows exactly what happened to Old Cully, the fisherman my best friend used to serve. A simple man, gray before his years, just like the rest of us.

  Tears fill my eyes. I’ve been a puppet for too long, even longer than I thought possible. “You pushed him.”

  “I push many people, in many different ways.”

  “Did you push an innocent man to his death?” I seethe.

  Something switches in him, like a lamp turning off or on. Shifting his focus. He gathers himself and sniffs, his voice suddenly clear, more forceful. As if he is addressing a crowd of soldiers, rather than just me. “The Lakelands will strike Archeon soon,” he says. “Within a few weeks. They’re preparing as we speak, drilling their armies past the point of perfection. Tiberias Calore is weak and they know it.” I don’t have the heart or stomach to argue. He’s right, and I’m still reeling. “If they take the city, Tiberias will never win Norta. Not this year. Not the next. Not even a hundred years from now.”

  I clench my teeth. “You could be lying.”

  He ignores me, forging on. “If the capital falls to the queen of the Lakelands, the road becomes long and bloody, worse than anything you’ve experienced before.” In his lap, he knits his fingers together, knuckles going white against the gray of his clothes. “Even I can barely see the ending of that path. But I know it’s terrible.”

  “I don’t like being your chess piece.”

  “Everyone is someone else’s pawn, Mare, whether we know it or not.”

  “Whose pawn are you?”

  He doesn’t respond, only raising his eyes to the clear, cold sky. With a final sigh, he pushes himself to his feet, dislodging rocks with the motion. “You should get moving,” he says, gesturing down the mountain.

  “So I can pass on your message?” I snap, sounding bitter. Taking Jon’s orders
is the last thing I want to do right now, even if he’s right. I think I’d rather freeze than give him the satisfaction.

  “So you can avoid that,” he replies. With his chin, he points off to the north, where a band of clouds gathers across the peaks. “Storms move quickly up here.”

  “I can handle storms.”

  “Do as you wish,” Jon replies, shrugging. He pulls his coat tighter around himself. “We will not see each other again, Mare Barrow.”

  Still on the ground, I sneer up at him. “Good.”

  He doesn’t respond and turns around to continue his climb.

  I watch his figure grow smaller, a gray man against gray stone, until he disappears.

  To rise, and rise alone.

  The storm breaks on the summit as soon as I step into the protection of the tree line, escaping a howl of wind and freezing rain. It hurts almost as much as going up, my knees jarring with the hard impact of every step. I have to be careful and focus on where I put my feet, lest I break an ankle on the loose stones and pine needles piled over the trail. Above me, back up the mountain, a low thrum of thunder peals, alive as my own beating heart.

  I reach Ascendant as the sun first sinks beneath the peaks across the valley. Even though I’m sore from the climb and aching from the conversation, my pace quickens as I enter the premier’s palace. I pass Montfort soldiers and officers, as well as politicians from his government, marked by their fine suits, all milling around the lower level of the building, leaving meetings or going to them. They watch me pass with scrutiny, but not fear. I’m not a freak here.

  Two heads of shocking hair, one blue, one bone white, stand out in the crowd of dark green suits and uniforms. Ella and Tyton. My fellow electricons idle in one of the windowed alcoves, taking up enough space that they can be left alone.

  “Waiting for me? You shouldn’t have,” I say with a smile, my breath still uneven and ragged from the climb.