And just like that, my vision of another warrior is snuffed out. “Helpful,” I bite out. “I’ll be sure to ask her to tell us a story later on.”
“Told you she wouldn’t get it,” Kilorn says.
But Cal presses on. “She has perfect memory, perfect intelligence. Every moment of every day, every face she’s ever seen, every word she’s ever overheard she remembers. Every medical journal or history book or map she’s ever read, she understands. The same goes for practical lessons, too.”
As much as I’d prefer a storm wielder, I can understand the value of a person like this. If only Julian was here. He’d spend day and night studying Ada, trying to understand such a strange ability. “Practical lessons? You mean like Training?”
Something like pride crosses Cal’s face. “I’m no instructor, but I’m doing what I can to teach her. She’s already a pretty decent shot. And she finished the Blackrun flight manual this morning.”
A gasp escapes my lips. “She can fly the jet?”
Cal shrugs, lips curling into a smirk. “She flew the others to Cancorda, and should be back soon. But until then, you should rest.”
“I’ve rested for four days. You rest,” I fire back, reaching over to shake his shoulder. He doesn’t budge under my admittedly weak shove. “You both look like the walking dead.”
“Someone had to make sure you kept breathing.” Kilorn’s tone is light, and another might think him joking, but I know better. “Whatever Maven did to you can’t happen again.”
The memory of white-hot pain is still too near for me. I can’t help but flinch at the thought of going through it once more. “I agree.”
It sobers us all, the thought of what new power Maven holds. Even Kilorn, always twitching or pacing, is still. He glares out the window, at the wall of oncoming night. “Cal, you got any ideas in case she runs into that thing again?”
“If I’m going to get a lecture, I might need some water,” I say, suddenly aware of my parched throat. Kilorn all but jumps from his place at the wall, eager to help. Leaving me alone with Cal, and the heat closing in.
“I think it was a sounder device. Modified, of course,” Cal says. His eyes stray back to my neck, to the lightning bolt scars marching up and down my spine. With shocking familiarity, he traces them again, as if they hold some clue. The intelligent part of me wants to push him away, to stop the fire prince from examining my brands, but exhaustion and need overrule any other thoughts. His touch is soothing, physically and emotionally. It’s proof that someone else is with me. I am not alone in the abyss anymore.
“We dabbled with sounders on the lakes a few years ago. They spit out radio waves, and wreaked havoc with the Lakelander ships. Made it impossible for them to communicate with each other, but it did the same to us. Everyone had to sail blind.” His fingers trail lower, following one gnarled branch of scar tissue across my shoulder blade. “I suppose this one throws off electrical waves, or static, in great magnitude. Enough to incapacitate you, to make you blind, and turn your lightning against you.”
“They built it so quickly. It’s only been a few days since the Bowl of Bones,” I murmur back. Anything louder than a whisper might shatter this fragile peace.
Cal’s hand stills, his palm flat against my bare skin. “Maven turned against you long before the Bowl of Bones.”
I know that now. I know it with every bleeding breath. Something releases in me, breaking, bending my back so I can bury my face in my hands. Whatever wall I put up to keep the memories out is steadily crumbling into dust. But I can’t let it bury me. I can’t let the mistakes I’ve made bury me. When Cal’s warmth wraps around me, his arms around my shoulders, his head tucked against my neck, I lean into him. I let him protect me, though we swore we wouldn’t do this back in the cells of Tuck. We are nothing more than distractions for each other, and distractions get you killed. But my hands close over his, our fingers lacing, until our bones are woven together. The fire is dying, flames reduced to embers. But Cal is still here. He will never leave me.
“What did he say to you?” he whispers.
I draw back a little, so he can see. With a shaking hand, I pull on the collar of my shirt, showing him what Maven did. His eyes widen when they land on the brand. A ragged M burned into my skin. For a long time, he stares, and I fear his anger might set me on fire again.
“He said he was a man of his word,” I tell him. The words are enough to draw his gaze away from my newest scar. “That he would always find me—and save me.” I bark out an empty laugh. The only person Maven has to save me from is himself.
With gentle hands, Cal pulls my shirt back into place, hiding his brother’s mark. “We knew that already. At least now we truly know why.”
“Hmm?”
“Maven lies as easily as he breathes, and his mother holds his leash, but not his heart.” Cal’s eyes widen, imploring me to understand. “He’s hunting newbloods not to protect his throne but to hurt you. To find you. To make you come back to him.” His fist clenches on his thigh. “Maven wants you more than anything else on this earth.”
Would that Maven were here now, so I could rip out his horrible, haunting eyes. “Well, he can’t have me.” I realize the consequences of this, and so does Cal.
“Not even if it stops the killing? Not for the newbloods?”
Tears bite my eyes. “I won’t go back. For anyone.”
I expect his judgment, but instead he smiles and ducks his head. Ashamed of his own reaction, as I am of mine.
“I thought we would lose you.” His words are deliberately chosen, carefully made. So I lean forward, putting a hand on his fist. It’s all the assurance he needs to press on. “I thought I was going to lose you. So many times.”
“But I’m still here,” I say.
He takes my neck in his hands like he doesn’t believe me. I’m dimly reminded of Maven’s grip, but fight the urge to flinch. I don’t want Cal to pull away.
I have been running for so long. Since before all this even started. Even back in the Stilts, I was a runner. Avoiding my family, my fate, anything I didn’t want to feel. And I am still racing now. From those who would kill me—and those who would love me.
I want so badly to stop. I want to stand still without killing myself or someone else. But that is not possible. I must keep going, I must hurt myself to save myself, hurt others to save others. Hurt Kilorn, hurt Cal, hurt Shade and Farley and Nix and everyone stupid enough to follow me. I’m making them runners too.
“So we fight him.” Cal’s lips move closer, hot with each word. His grip tightens, like any second someone is going to come and take me from him. “That’s what we set out to do, so we do it. We build an army. And we kill him. Him and his mother both.”
Killing a king will change nothing. Another will take his place. But it is a start. If we cannot outrun Maven, we must stop him cold. For the newbloods. For Cal. For me.
I am a weapon made of flesh, a sword covered in skin. I was born to kill a king, to end a reign of terror before it can truly begin. Fire and lightning raised Maven up, and fire and lightning will bring him down.
“I won’t let him hurt you again.”
His breath makes me shiver. A strange sensation, when surrounded with such blazing warmth. “I believe you,” I tell him, lying.
Because I am weak, I turn in his arms. Because I am weak, I press my lips to his, searching for something to make me stop running, to make me forget. We are both weak, it seems.
As his hands run over my skin, I feel a different sort of pain. Worse than Maven’s machine, deeper than my nerves. It aches like a hollow, like an empty weight. I am a sword, born of lightning, of this fire—and of Maven’s. One already betrayed me, and the other might leave at any moment. But I do not fear a broken heart. I do not fear pain.
I cling to Cal, Kilorn, Shade, to saving all the newbloods I can, because I am afraid of waking up to emptiness, to a place where my friends and family are gone and I am nothing but a single bolt of l
ightning in the blackness of a lonely storm.
If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.
EIGHTEEN
The thing with heat is, no matter how cold you are, no matter how much you need warmth, it always, eventually, becomes too much. I remember many winters spent with the window cracked open, letting in the blistering cold to combat the fire burning in the family room below. Something about the icy air helped me sleep. And now deep gasps of an autumn breeze help me to calm down, help me forget Cal alone back in the safe house. I should not have done that, I think, pressing a hand to my fevered skin. He is not only a distraction I can’t afford but a heartbreak waiting to happen. His allegiances are shaky at best. One day he will leave, or die, or betray me like so many others have. One day, he will hurt me.
Overhead, the sun has completely set, painting the sky in darkening streaks of red and orange. Maybe. I can’t trust the colors I see. I can’t trust in much of anything anymore.
The safe house is built into the crest of a hill, in the middle of a large clearing surrounded by forest. It overlooks a winding valley full of trees, lakes, and constant, swirling mist. I grew up in the woods, but this place is as alien to me as Archeon or the Hall of the Sun. There’s nothing man-made as far as the eye can see, no echo of a logging village or farm town. Though I suppose there’s a runway hidden nearby, if the jet can still be used. We must be deep into the Nortan backcountry, north and inland from Harbor Bay. I don’t know the Regent State well, but this looks like the Greatwoods region, dominated by wilderness, rolling green mountains, and a frozen tundra border with the Lakelands. It’s sparsely populated, gently governed by the shivers of House Gliacon—and a marvelous place to hide.
“You finished with him?”
Kilorn is little more than a shadow, leaning against the trunk of an oak with sky-splayed branches. There’s a water jug forgotten by his feet. I don’t need to see his face to know he’s upset. I can hear it just fine.
“Don’t be unkind.” I’m used to ordering him around, but this sounds like a request. As I expected, he ignores me, and keeps rambling.
“I guess all rumors do have a grain of truth. Even the ones that little snit Maven spits out. ‘Mare Barrow seduced the prince into killing the king.’ It’s shocking to know he’s half-right.” He takes a few prowling steps forward, reminding me very much of an Iral silk creeping in for a final blow. “Because the prince is most certainly bewitched.”
“If you keep talking, I’m going to turn you into a battery.”
“You should get some new threats,” he says, smiling sharply. He’s gotten used to my big talk over the years, and I doubt I could scare him with anything, even my lightning. “He’s a powerful man, in every form of the word. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re holding his reins.”
I can’t help but scoff aloud, laughing in his face. “Glad? You’re jealous, plain and simple. You’re not used to sharing. And you don’t like being useless.”
Useless. The word stings. I can tell by the twitch in his neck. But it doesn’t stop him from towering over me, his height blocking out the stars winking to life above us.
“The question is, are you under a spell too? Is he using you the same way you’re using him?”
“I’m not using anyone.” A lie, and we both know it. “And you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right,” he says quietly.
Surprise almost knocks me off my feet. In more than ten years of friendship, I have never heard those words from Kilorn Warren. He’s stubborn as a tree stump, too self-assured for his own good, a smarmy bastard most of the time—but now, on this hilltop, he is nothing he ever was. He seems small and dim, a glimmer of my old life steadily flickering into nothing. I clasp my hands together to keep from reaching out and touching him, to prove that Kilorn still exists.
“I don’t know what happened to you when you were Mareena. I wasn’t there to help you through that. I won’t tell you that I understand, or that I’m sorry for you. That’s not what you need.”
But it’s exactly what I want, so I can be angry with him. So I don’t have to listen to what he’s about to say. Too bad Kilorn knows me better than that.
“The best thing I can do is tell you the truth, or at least, what I think is the truth.” Though his voice is steady, his shoulders rise and fall with deep, heaving breaths. He’s scared. “It’ll be up to you to believe me or not.”
A twitch pulls at my lips, betraying a painful smile. I’m so used to being pushed and pulled, manipulated into thinking and doing by those closest to me. Even Kilorn is guilty of that. But now he’s giving me the freedom I’ve wanted for so long. A choice, small as it may be. He trusts that I have the sense to choose—even if I don’t.
“I’m listening.”
He starts to say something else, then stops himself. The words stick, refusing to come out. And for a second, his green eyes look strangely wet.
“What, Kilorn?” I sigh.
“What,” he echoes, shaking his head. After a long second, something snaps in him. “I know you don’t feel the same way I do. About us.”
I’m seized by the urge to smash my head against a rock. Us. It feels stupid to talk about, a foolish waste of time and energy. But more than that, it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable. My cheeks flame red. This is not a conversation I ever wanted to have with him.
“And that’s fine,” he presses on before I can stop him. “You never saw me the way I see you, not even at home, before all this happened. I thought you might one day, but—” He shrugs his shoulders. “It’s just not in you to love me.”
When I was Mare Barrow of the Stilts, I thought the same way. I wondered what would happen if I survived conscription, and saw what that future held. A friendly marriage to the fish boy with green eyes, children we could love, a poor stilt home. It seemed like a dream back then, an impossibility. And it still is. It always will be. I do not love Kilorn, not the way he wants me to. I never will.
“Kilorn,” I murmur, taking a step toward him. But he takes two back. “Kilorn, you’re my best friend, you’re like family.”
His smile bleeds sadness. “And I will be, until the day I die.”
I do not deserve you, Kilorn Warren. “I’m sorry,” I choke out, not knowing what else I can say. I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for.
“It’s not something you can control, Mare,” he replies, still standing so far away. “We can’t choose who we love. I wish, more than anything, that we could.”
I feel cracked open. My skin still runs hot from Cal’s embrace, remembering the feel of him only moments ago. But in the deepest part of me, in spite of every fiber of my being, I think beyond the clearing, to ice-colored eyes, an empty promise, and a kiss aboard a boat.
“You can love him all you want, I won’t stop you. But for my sake, for your parents, for the rest of us, please don’t let him control you.”
Again, I think of Maven. But Maven is far away, a shadow on the sharp edges of the world. He might be trying to kill me, but he can’t control me, not anymore. Kilorn can only mean the other royal brother, the fallen son of House Calore. Cal. My shield against the scars and the nightmares. But he’s a warrior, not a politician or a criminal. He doesn’t have the ability to manipulate anyone, least of all me. It’s just not in his nature.
“He’s Silver, Mare. You don’t know what he’s capable of, or what he really wants.”
I doubt Cal does either. The exiled prince is even more adrift than I am, without any allegiance or allies beyond a temperamental lightning girl. “He’s not what you think he is,” I say. “No matter what color his blood may be.”
A sneer razors across his face, thin and sharp. “You don’t really believe that.”
“I don’t believe,” I say sadly. “I know. And it makes everything harder.”
Once, I thought blood was the world entire, the difference between dark and light, an irrevocable, im
passable divide. It made the Silvers powerful and cold and brutal, inhuman compared to my Red brethren. They were nothing like us, unable to feel pain or remorse or kindness. But people like Cal, Julian, and even Lucas have shown me how wrong I was. They are just as human, just as full of fear and hope. They are not without their sins, but neither are we. Neither am I.
If only they were the monsters Kilorn believes them to be. If only things were that simple. Quietly, in the deepest part of my heart, I envy Kilorn’s narrow anger. I wish I could share in his ignorance. But I’ve seen and suffered too much for that.
“We’re going to kill Maven. And his mother,” I add with chilling assurance. Kill the ghost, kill the shadow. “If they die, the newbloods will be safe.”
“And Cal will be free to reclaim his throne. To make everything as it was.”
“That won’t happen. No one would let him back on the throne, Red or Silver. And from what I can tell, he doesn’t want it.”
“Really?” I immediately hate the smirk twisting Kilorn’s lips. “Whose idea was it? To kill Maven?” When I don’t answer, the smirk grows. “That’s what I thought.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Kilorn.”
My gratitude takes him aback, surprising him as much as he surprised me. We have both changed in the past few months, no longer the girl and boy from the Stilts ready to tussle over any topic—and every topic. They were children, and they are gone forever.
“I’ll keep what you said in mind, of course.” My Lessons have never felt so close, helping me know how to dismiss Kilorn without hurting him. As a princess would a servant.
But Kilorn is not so easily cast aside. His eyes narrow into dark green slits, seeing right through my mask of courtesy. He looks so disgusted I expect him to spit. “One day soon you’re going to get lost,” he breathes. “And I won’t be there to lead you back.”
I turn my back on my oldest friend. His words sting, and I don’t want to hear them, no matter how much sense he makes. His boots crunch over the hard earth as he stalks off, leaving me to stand and stare at the woods. In the distance, an airjet hums, returning to us.
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