War Storm

by Victoria Aveyard

  Cal used to spy with me, when he had the time. Or cover for me at Lessons, telling tutors I was sick or otherwise detained. Odd, that I can remember all that, but that the emotion behind it, the connection we must have had, is almost entirely gone. Severed or surgically removed by my mother. And no one can ever make it grow back.

  Even though he tried. He searched. He wanted to save you. The thought almost makes me vomit, and I push it away.

  The doors of the throne room are heavier than I expected. Funny to think I’ve never opened them myself. There’s always been a guard or a Sentinel, usually a telky. I feel weak as I drive my shoulder into one, pushing it ajar enough to slip through.

  My throne is gone, the Silent Stone dragged away to only Cal knows where. Our father’s seat is returned, the inferno carved from diamondglass. I sneer at the sparkling monstrosity, a symbol of our father, his crown, and everything he lacked. Other chairs flank Cal’s throne, one for Julian Jacos and one for our grandmother. The thought of both makes my lip curl. Without them, Cal would never have made it this far. And that snake Iris would have never handed me over.

  I hope she drowns on the river, suffocated by her own ability.

  No, better yet, I hope she burns. Isn’t that the punishment of her gods, to suffer forever beneath an opposing element? Maybe Iris and Cal will manage to kill each other. They came so close last time.

  A boy can certainly hope.

  The door to the left of the throne is smaller, leading to the king’s private rooms, including a study, meeting areas, and the council chamber. As I step into the long room lined with shelving, the lights switch off again, plunging me into semidarkness. The windows in here are tall, looking out on a gray, empty courtyard. I pass them quickly, counting. One, two, three . . .

  After the fourth window, I stop and count shelves. Three up . . .

  Thankfully, Cal hasn’t had time to rearrange the books in here. Or else he would have discovered the mechanism attached to a leather-bound tome regarding economic fluctuations during the last decade.

  It glides forward with the lightest pull, activating rotating gears behind the lacquered wood. The entire shelf swings forward, revealing a narrow stairwell cut into the exterior wall.

  Using my still-burning flame as a torch, I plunge downward, letting the shelf swing into place behind me.

  The darkness is thick with damp and the air is stale. I suck it down anyway, careful on the steps as I descend. This is an old servants’ stair, long out of use, but it still connects to the other passages beneath the palace. From there I can get to the Treasury, War Command, the courts, or any other place of value around Caesar’s Square. My ancestors built these passages for use during war and siege. I’m glad for their foresight, as well as my own.

  The steps empty out into a wider hall lined with rough stone, the floor beneath sloping at a gentle decline. I plod along, daring to breathe a bit deeper and slower. There’s a battle raging above my head, but I’m long gone. The only people who know about these tunnels are otherwise preoccupied.

  I might actually survive this.

  Then something flickers ahead, a reflection of fire, but distorted somehow, rippling. I slow my pace, shuffling my feet to muffle the sound of my steps. Another deep breath, and I smell water.

  Those fucking Lakelanders.

  The path ahead of me slopes into black water, its surface reflecting my flaming hand. I feel like punching a wall. Instead I curse against gritted teeth. In spite of the wet, I take a few steps forward, until the water laps over my ankles, chilling me to the bone. It only gets deeper. Furious, I trudge back out, kicking at the dirt floor. A few bits skitter, plopping into the inscrutable flood. I bite back another curse and turn, hurrying back the way I came.

  My body burns with frustration, and heat spreads over my cheeks. Another stair, another tunnel, I tell myself, even though I know exactly where that will lead.

  Another flooded passage. Another barred escape.

  The walls suddenly feel too close, pressing down from every side. I quicken my pace, the fire in my hand waning as I begin to stumble. My fingers graze the stone within reach, brushing over the uneven surface as I reach the steps again. I’m almost sprinting when I reach the top and spill out again into the fresh air of the adjoining chamber.

  If I can’t get into the tunnels, I’ll have to go over the walls. Somehow get up and down, and head west, avoiding the slums upriver, the vast estates ringing the land around the capital. I’ll need to disguise my face somehow. Instead of focusing, my mind spirals out, paralyzed by fear. I need to stay on the task at hand—get out of the city—but everything blurs. I need food, a map, supplies. Every step aboveground is a step toward danger. They’ll hunt me down and kill me. Mare and my brother, if they manage to survive.

  I raid the study first, searching in vain for anything that might be of use. Bracelets especially. Flamemakers. Cal might keep a spare somewhere, but there’s nothing in the many drawers and compartments of the fine desk that was once mine. I contemplate a particularly sharp letter opener for a moment, holding the daggerlike piece of metal up to a ray of weak light. With a swipe of my hand, I draw a slice across a painting of my father. Even mangled, his face still taunts me, eyes burning from the ripped canvas. I tighten my grip on the letter opener as I turn away, unable to face his stare for very long.

  The royal bedchamber is next. I blink and I’m there, nearly kicking the doors off their hinges. But I stop short, perplexed. Instead of a luxurious suite fit only for the king of Norta, I find empty rooms stripped of furnishings and even paint. No curtains, no rugs. Nothing but a haphazard collection of cleaning supplies.

  Cal isn’t sleeping here. Not while bits of me still linger. Coward.

  This time I really do punch a wall, leaving my knuckles raw and smarting.

  I have no way of knowing which room might be his. The residence wings are home to dozens of bedrooms, and I hardly have time to search them all. I’ll have to settle for stealing what I can outside the city. Flint and steel make sparks as easily as any bracelet. I can acquire that. Somehow.

  My vision blurs at the edges, an odd haze that pulses in time with my rapidly increasing heartbeat. I shake my head, trying to make the sensation dissipate, but it stays put. A pain springs up in my skull, digging into the bone. I suck down another breath, forcing myself to take big gasps of air in an attempt to calm down. As in the tunnel, the walls feel too close and like they’re getting closer by the second. I wonder if the windows are about to shatter all over me, cutting my flesh to ribbons.

  I trip on the stairs as I make my way back down to the throne room. No choice, Maven, Mother croons to me as I slip in again. That’s all I get. She was never one to advise retreat or surrender. Elara Merandus gave no ground in life, and she instilled the same instinct in me. My headache spreads, arcing across my skull in a web of sharp pain.

  Above me, the lights kick on again, so brightly they whine in their bulbs. The electricity surge is too strong.

  One by one, they pop, raining smashed glass along the polished floor behind me. I manage to dodge as the bulb directly above me shrieks apart.

  The filaments continue to burn, sparking white.

  And purple.

  Stoic, calm and deadly, Mare Barrow stands firm, silhouetted in the narrow opening. Without blinking, she slides through and shuts the door behind her. Locking us both in. Together.

  “It’s over, Maven,” she whispers.

  This time, I sprint for the other side of the throne and burst into another set of rooms usually reserved for the queen. I made my own modifications to them. Modifications that would disagree with most.

  Mare is faster than I am, but she follows at a languid pace. Haunting me. Teasing me. She could run me down at any second. Electrocute me with one well-aimed bolt of lightning.

  Good, I think. Keep on coming, Barrow.

  I feel the telltale twinge up ahead. The empty ache that plagues all Silvers and newbloods. One more door to p
ush open. One last chance to survive where so many others would die.

  I will not fail, Mother.

  Grinning, I turn around, letting her watch me as I back farther into the dark chamber. The single window is small, and a weak light fills the space. Illuminating the dark walls, patterned like a checkerboard of gray and black. The gray bits gleam dully, showing ribbons of liquid silver. Arven blood, Silence blood.

  She hesitates at the threshold, feeling the press of Silent Stone. I watch it ruin her.

  The color drains from her face, and she almost looks Silver in the cold, gray light. I keep walking, back and back. To the next door. The next passage. My chance.

  She doesn’t stop me.

  Her throat bobs as she swallows around the fear clawing at her. I gave her this wound. I locked her away in chains, drained her ability, made her live like a wasting ghost. If she steps forward, she’ll have no weapons at all. No shield. No guarantee.

  The letter opener in my hand feels suddenly heavy.

  I could drop it. Leave the blade and run.

  I could let her live.

  Or I could kill her.

  The choice is easy. And so very difficult.

  I hold my ground.

  My grip tightens on the iron.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mare

  The room is a coffin. A maw of stone that will swallow me whole. I feel dead, even on the threshold, hesitating to fully succumb to this place and the person who built it.

  My heart pounds so loudly I know Maven can hear it.

  His eyes trace over me in a way that is too familiar and too close, despite the yards between us. He focuses on my throat, on the vein pulsing with all my fear. I expect him to lick his lips. My hand flexes in vain, attempting to call up a bolt of lightning. All I get are weak sparks, darkly purple, dying quickly against the might of so much Silent Stone.

  Something gleams in his hand, flashing in the dim light. A knife, I think, thin and small but sharp enough.

  My hand strays to my hip, for the pistol Tyton harangued me into wearing. But the holster is gone entirely, probably lost in the Bridge collapse. I gulp again. I have no weapons at all.

  And Maven knows it.

  He grins, teeth white and wicked. “Aren’t you going to try to stop me?” he says, tipping his head like some curious puppy.

  My mouth feels dry when I speak. “Don’t make me do this, Maven.” It comes out raspy.

  Maven just shrugs. Somehow he manages to make his simple gray clothing look like silk and fur and steel. He isn’t a king anymore, but no one seems to have told him.

  “I’m not making you do anything,” he says imperiously. “You don’t have to suffer this. You can stand right there, or even turn around. It makes no difference to me.”

  I force another breath, stronger than before. The too-familiar memory of Silent Stone claws up my spine. “Don’t make me kill you like this,” I growl, sounding dangerous and lethal.

  “What are you going to do, stare at me?” he shoots back dryly. “I’m terrified.”

  It’s a brash show, his forced nonchalance. I know Maven well enough to see the truth in his words, the real fear weaving through his practiced arrogance. His eyes dart, quicker than before, not over my face, but my feet. So he can move when I move. Run when I lunge.

  In spite of the dagger, he’s without his weapons too.

  I don’t tremble when I take the first, slow step, sliding into the prison of Silent Stone.

  “You should be.”

  Maven stumbles back, surprised, almost tripping over himself. But he recovers quickly, the dagger tight in his hand as I continue forward. He mirrors my movements, stepping backward. The lethal dance is achingly slow, and we never break our stare. We don’t even blink. I feel as if I’m walking a tightrope over a pit of wolves, barely keeping balance. One wrong move and I’ll fall to their fangs.

  Or maybe I’m the wolf.

  I see myself in his eyes. And his mother. And Cal. All we did to get here, in the middle of the end of his world. I lied and was lied to. Betrayed and was betrayed. I hurt people, and so many people hurt me. I wonder what Maven sees in my eyes.

  “It won’t end here,” he murmurs, his voice low and smooth. I’m reminded of Julian and his melodic ability. “You can drag my corpse across the world, and it won’t end any of this.”

  “Likewise,” I reply, showing my teeth. The inches close between us, in spite of his best efforts. I’m more agile than he is. “The Red dawn won’t stop with me.”

  He offers a twisting smirk. “Then it seems we’re both dispensable. We don’t matter anymore.”

  I bark out a laugh. I’ve never mattered the way he still does. “I’m used to it.”

  “I like the hair,” Maven murmurs, filling the empty space. His eyes run over the tangle of brown and purple spilling over one shoulder. I don’t reply.

  The last card he plays is obvious, but it still stings. Not because I want what he offers, but because I remember a girl who would have accepted it. She knows better now.

  “We can still run.” His voice deepens, letting the offer hang in the air. “Together.”

  I should laugh at him. Twist the knife. Make him suffer as much as I can in these last moments we have. Instead I feel some piece of my heart break for someone so irrevocably lost. And I feel true sorrow for the other brother in the midst of all this, who tried and failed. Who never deserved what’s happening now.

  “Maven,” I sigh, shaking my head at his blindness. “The last person who loves you isn’t standing in this room. He’s out there. And you burned that bridge to ashes.”

  He goes deathly still, face white as bone. Not even his icy eyes move. When I take another step, coming within arm’s length, he doesn’t seem to notice. I ball a fist at my side, bracing myself.

  Slowly, he blinks. And I see nothing in him.

  Maven Calore is empty.

  “Very well.”

  The dagger cuts at my throat, swiping with vicious and blistering speed. I lean backward, dodging the blow without thought. He keeps coming, keeps slicing, saying nothing. My body reacts before my brain, all instinct as I deflect his strikes. I’m faster than he is, and my arms swing in time with his movements, catching his wrists before he can do any damage with the tiny, wicked gleam of sharp iron.

  I have nothing except my own fists and feet. My focus is on keeping the dagger away from my skin, and I barely land any blows of my own. I twist, trying to trip him with a hooked ankle, but he steps neatly over the attempt. My first mistake, leaving my back exposed. I move as he does, and a stab for my lungs becomes a long but shallow gash across my side. Hot, red blood wells up, filling the air with a copper tang.

  I almost expect him to apologize. Maven has never truly delighted in my pain. But he gives no quarter. And neither do I.

  Ignoring the spreading pain, I jab at his throat with a closed fist, hitting hard. He wheezes and stumbles, dropping to a knee. I strike again, kicking him across the jaw. The momentum sends him sideways, his eyes wide and dazed as he spits silver blood in all directions. If not for the dagger, I would use the opportunity to get my arms around his throat and squeeze until his body is cold.

  Instead I leap, using my weight to keep him pinned as I fight the fingers still clawed around the dagger hilt. He growls beneath me, in spite of the jaw, trying to force me off.

  I have to use my teeth.

  The taste of silver blood poisons my mouth when I clamp down on his fingers, cutting through flesh straight to the bone. His growls turn to wailing screams. The sound rips into me, made worse by the effect of Silent Stone. Everything hurts more than it should.

  I push through it and pry his fingers off, biting where I must, until the dagger is mine. It’s slick with his blood and mine, silver and red, darker by the second.

  Suddenly his other hand is around my throat, squeezing without any restraint, crushing the air from my windpipe. He’s heavier than me and uses his weight to fling me onto my back.
One of his knees digs into my shoulder, keeping my dagger arm pinned. The other presses into my collarbone, right over the brand he gave me. It shrieks and stings beneath the pressure, and I feel the bone crack with an agonizing slowness.

  It’s my turn to scream.

  “I tried, Mare,” he hisses, his cold breath washing over my face. Still struggling for air, I can’t do much more than gasp and choke. My vision splits and spots, leaving only his eyes above me. Too blue, too frozen, inhuman in their blankness. They are not the eyes of a fire prince. This is not Maven Calore. That boy is gone, lost. Whoever he was born as will not be buried with him.

  My neck aches, bruising beneath his fingers as blood vessels burst. I can barely think, my mind narrowing to the dagger still clenched in my fist. I try to raise my arm again, but Maven’s weight makes it impossible.

  Tears prick at my eyes when I realize this is how it ends. No lightning, no thunder. I’ll die a Red girl, one of thousands crushed beneath a Silver crown.

  Maven’s grip on my throat never loosens. If anything, it becomes tighter, crushing the muscles in my neck until I feel like my spine might snap clean. The world dims, the spots across my vision spreading like black rot.

  But Maven leans. Slightly, in the smallest way. Putting more pressure on my broken collarbone. And less on my shoulder.

  Enough to free my arm.

  I don’t think. I just swing wildly, blade ready, as his eyes fade.

  They seem sad and . . .

  Satisfied.

  Before I open my eyes, I’m intensely aware of how big my tongue feels in my mouth. An odd thing to fixate on, against everything else. I try to swallow, which only exacerbates the pain in my throat. It flares up, angry, as the muscles in my neck scream in protest. I tense against the pain, limbs shifting beneath the blanket of the bed . . . wherever I am.