“I wish,” I mutter, closing my hand over hers.
She squeezes my fingers. “I wager we make it thirty minutes or so.”
As much as I enjoy the thought of stealing away with her, my stomach growls in disagreement. We could have food brought up to my room, but that just seems rude, and certainly Carmadon will see that we’re sent the worst of the kitchen scraps.
“And miss dinner?” I balk. “No thanks. If I’m going to suffer, I’m going to at least get something out of it.”
She pulls a face but nods in compliance. “Good point. But if he runs out of steak again, I’m leaving.”
I laugh quietly, wanting to pull her closer, regardless of propriety. But tongues are already wagging about us, and the last thing we need is a gossip circle about our status. Not that we can even agree on that. No promises, as Mare said. We’re simply taking things as they come, with our priorities and boundaries starkly drawn.
“Are you all ready for next week? Does Anabel mind?” Mare looks at me, her teeth gritted, prepared for the worst. She searches for any hesitation in my answer, knowing all my tells.
I smile wider. “Believe it or not, she gave me her blessing.”
“To go up to the cabin when the weather breaks?” She blanches, her eyes darting to pick out my grandmother in the crowd. “I’m impressed.”
“I haven’t told her about Paradise, but I doubt she’ll care either way. It’s not exactly easy for me to get frostbite.”
“Unless you piss me off and I lock you out in the cold.”
Before I can laugh her off, Bree and Tramy appear on either side of us, almost leering. “Don’t think she won’t,” Bree warns, his brow furrowed.
Tramy bobs his head in agreement. “I almost lost a toe.”
“And you would have deserved it,” Mare snaps, shooing both of them off with an exasperated grin. “So, are you going to make me dance?”
Elsewhere, the string band is in full swing, serenading a floor teeming with dancing couples of various skill. I glance at them, remembering the last time I did this. Mare was there, on Maven’s arm, dancing steps I taught her.
She feels the memory as I do, both of us lost to watching the floor. Her smile fades, as does mine, and we weather the storm of loss and regret together. It’s the only way through it.
“No,” we say in unison, and turn away.
We don’t stay glued. That’s not her way, or mine. She goes where she wishes through the gala, as do I. As much as I hate it, I make the rounds I must, thanking members of the delegations for their time and expertise. Julian does it with me, at least, his smile unfailing. Once or twice, I wonder if he might have to use his singing ability to disentangle us from a particularly loathsome or chatty delegate, but he always manages to spin the conversation without it. Despite all my training for battle, the runs with Mare every morning, and my rigorous workouts, I flag long before she does.
“Unless you’re particularly invested in dessert, I think you can call it a night,” my uncle mutters, his grip gentle on my shoulder. “You look ready to drop.”
“I certainly feel it,” I whisper back. As with training, the ache in me, the exhaustion, is the good kind. This pain accomplished something. “Where’s Mare?”
“I believe she’s scolding one of her brothers for ripping his dress jacket. Unlike you, she has some stamina left.”
She always does.
“Should I get her for you?” he adds, looking over me with concern. “I can let her know you went up early—”
I wave him off. “No, it’s fine, I can wait her out. Bree certainly deserves it, after all the work Gisa put in.”
Julian and I have the same smile, a crooked slash across our faces. He looks at me fully, eyes searching mine. Now I realize how much he looks like my mother, and for a moment, my heart breaks with the need to know her.
“It’s good to see you like this,” Julian says, putting both his hands on my shoulders, forcing me square to him. “I knew you’d find your way back to Mare, but I did have my fears for a while.”
I glance down at my feet, sighing. “Me too,” I say, chewing my lip. “And what about you? Why did you wait so long with Sara?”
Julian blinks. He is rarely caught off guard or unprepared for a question. “We planned to marry,” he says, searching for an answer. “Before my father—”
“I know that. It was in the diary pages. I mean after.” My voice catches and Julian pales. “After what Elara did.”
His lips thin into a grim line. When he speaks, his eyes lose focus, and he descends into memory. “I wanted to. I would have. But Sara wouldn’t let me tie my fate to hers so fully. She didn’t know what Elara would do, if she might decide to finish the job. Have her executed. She couldn’t bear the idea of me dying with her.” His eyes water, and I look away, giving him time to recover as best he can. When I look back, he forces an empty smile. “And now, well, we had a war on, didn’t we?”
I try to give him a smile of my own but fail. “There’s time for everything, isn’t there?”
“Yes. But we always have the choice. To let things get in the way, or to pursue what we really want,” he says quickly, with fervor. “I’m glad you read the diary. I know it could not have been easy.”
To that, I have nothing I can say. Reading the copy of my mother’s diary felt like ripping my flesh apart and sewing it back together. I almost couldn’t do it. But to have even a glimpse of her, no matter how painful—I owed her that much.
Julian’s grip on me lessens and he steps back, fading into the kindly uncle I know—and not the haunted man he is. “I have more to give you, of course. Not from your mother, but other writings, collections, what I can get together from the Royal Archives. Things to help you understand what you came from, both the good and the evil.”
Part of me quails at the thought of the pile Julian might force on me, but I take it in stride. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Cal, it is a rare man who is willing to look at himself and see what truly stands. A rare man indeed.” I try and fail not to blush furiously, heat smoldering in my cheeks. Julian ignores my embarrassment, or he simply doesn’t care. “You would have made a good king, but never great. Not like you are now. A great man who needs no crown.”
My insides twist. How can he know who I am? What I might be in the future? Who I could become?
It is a worry, I suppose, we all carry. Me, Mare, even my uncle. We are chosen to some kind of greatness, and cursed to it.
“Thank you, Julian,” I force out, overcome again.
He claps me on the shoulder, voice dropping. “This isn’t over, but you know that, don’t you? It won’t be for years. Decades, maybe.”
“I know,” I reply, feeling the truth of it in my gut. The Lakelands, the Silver Secession. No matter how strong this alliance is, there will always be someone to challenge it—and the world we’re fighting to build.
“History will remember you, mark my words,” Julian says, now steering me toward the terrace. Outside, Mare has Bree by the scruff of his collar, forcing him to bend down so she can shout at him.
“Make sure it remembers you well.”
FARE WELL
Maven
I would turn this horrid little room to ash if I could, but the Silent Stone is a poison and an anchor. I feel it working in me, spreading beneath my skin like black rot. My limbs ache, weighted down by the sensation. Everything feels wrong in me, my very nature denied. The flame is extinguished, or at least it is far beyond my reach.
This is what I did to her. It’s only fair they do it to me. She was kept in a different room, but I feel her here just the same. I almost smile at the thought of just punishment, of balancing my sins. But that would be impossible. There is no penance I can make to wash me clean. I am stained forever, impossible to redeem or cure. And it makes things easier. I can do what must be done to survive, without thought, without restraint. To make it all worth what I’ve done. Nothing is beyond possibility.
<
br /> The two chairs in my lavish excuse for a cell are drawn together near the windows, facing each other as if prepared for a meeting. I sneer at them and lie flat on the long couch instead, enjoying the cool feel of golden silk beneath my skin. The salon is fine enough, a forgotten sitting room instead of the dungeon I deserve. Foolish Cal, trying to show me mercy—or show the rest of them how merciful he is, how different he is from me. He is as predictable as a sunrise.
I focus on the feel of the smooth fabric instead of the dead weight of Silent Stone, pressing down with every breath I take. The ceiling above me is molded plaster, sculpted into intricate shapes of wreathed flame. This part of the Ocean Hill palace is foreign to me. It was a favorite of Cal’s mother’s, and my father didn’t bring the court here much.
I wonder if I’ll live long enough to return to Whitefire. My fists clench at the thought of my brother invading my room there. Not because it’s mine by right, but because he’ll see too much of me in it. The smallness of my bedchamber, the emptiness of the one place I was ever alone. It feels like exposing a weakness to him—and Cal is just so good at taking advantage of weakness once he finds it. Usually it takes him quite a long time to do so, but I’ve made it easy for him. Maybe he’ll finally know what abyss there is in me, what a cliff I stand upon and throw myself off.
Or maybe he won’t see at all. Cal has always had a blind spot where I am concerned, for better or worse. He could just be the same shortsighted, bullheaded, honor-bound and over-proud dullard he’s always been. There’s a chance this war has not changed him or his ability to see me for what I am. A good chance.
I comfort myself with such thoughts—my idiot brother, the golden son blinded by his own light. It isn’t his fault, really. The Calores are warrior kings, the heirs raised to battle and blood. Not exactly a breeding ground for intelligence or intuition. And he didn’t have a mother watching over him to balance what our father wanted of a son. Not like me. Mother made sure I learned to fight beyond the battlefield, on a throne as well as in a sparring circle.
And look where you are now, at the end of it. Look where he is.
Snarling to myself, I sit up and seize the closest thing to me, then hurl it against the wall. Glass, water, and flowers smash, a momentary balm to the sting inside. No wonder Mare did this so much, I think, remembering how many times she threw her meals at the walls of her own cell. I throw the other decorative vase in the room for good measure, this time against the window. The glass pane doesn’t even crack, but I feel a bit better.
The relief doesn’t last. It never does. First I think of her, of Mother. Like always, her voice comes to me in silent moments, a whisper and a ghost. I’ve long since learned not to try to block her out, because it doesn’t work. In fact, that only makes her worse.
Lash for lash, she says to me, an echo of words spoken before her death. Cut for cut. If they’re going to hurt me, I must hurt them too. I must do worse.
If only she had better advice. I’m truly stuck, imprisoned by a brother with no choice but to execute me. And I see no way out of that fate. If it were just Cal’s decision, then yes, I would survive. I wouldn’t worry at all. Even now, he doesn’t have the spine to kill me. But he has the crown again, and a kingdom to convince. He can’t show weakness, especially with me. What’s more, I don’t deserve his mercy. But I shall do as my mother says. I’ll hurt him as much as I can, as deeply as possible, before my time is ended. It will be some small consolation to know he bleeds as I bleed.
And Mare too. There are still wounds in her, wounds I made, that can always be cut open. They say animals are most dangerous at their end, fiercer and more violent. I will be the same, if I manage to see her before my sentence is carried out. I desperately hope I do.
Iris didn’t speak about her gods often, and I didn’t ask. But I did some research of my own. She believes in a place beyond death, somewhere we go in the afterward. At first, I wanted to believe it too. It would mean seeing my mother again—and seeing Thomas. But Iris’s afterlife is split in two, separated into paradise and punishment. Certainly I have earned the latter.
And Thomas, my dear Thomas, certainly did not.
If there is something after death, it will not be for both of us.
I return to what I’ve always known, the burden I’ve carried with me, the end always waiting. I will never see him again. Not even in my dreams.
My mother gave me so much, but she took in return. In an attempt to rid me of my nightmares, she took my dreams. Sometimes, I prefer it. But right now, in this room, I wish I could sleep and escape, and see his face one more time. Feel what I felt with him one more time. Instead of this corrupted anger, a tangle of pain and rage that threatens to split me open every time I think of him and his body, burned beyond recognition, burned by my own damned fingers.
I wonder if I mourn him so much because I do not know what could have been, what he could have made me. Or is it because my mother never corrupted what I felt for him? Not while he lived, at least. She certainly tried later, when his memory destroyed my days. She did the same with Mare, pulling at every new burst of feeling like a gardener ripping out weeds at the root.
But even Mare doesn’t tear me apart like he still does. Even she doesn’t make me bleed like this.
Only one person living still can. And I’ll have to face him soon.
I lie back down again, hissing out a breath. I’ll make him bleed as I bleed.
I’m still lying down, an arm over my eyes, when the door opens and shuts, accompanied by heavy footfalls. I don’t need to look to know who it is. His breathing, ragged and so boorishly loud, is enough.
“If you’re looking for absolution, I think Iris has a silly little shrine somewhere in her rooms. Bother her gods instead of me,” I grumble.
I don’t look at him, keeping my eyes resolutely shut. Looking at him makes me burn with rage and jealousy. And anguish too, for what he was, the brother I no longer have the ability to love. I would incinerate my clothes if not for the Silent Stone. What’s more, he is a betrayer as much as I am, but no one seems to mind. It isn’t fair.
“Absolution?” Cal scoffs from somewhere above me. I don’t hear him sit. “It’s you who needs it, Maven. Not me.”
Sneering, I draw the arm away from my eyes and sit up to look at him fully. My brother recoils under my gaze, taking a step backward across the floor. He looks kingly, even without a crown. More kingly than I ever could. Envy ripples through me again.
“You and I both know you don’t believe that,” I snap. “Do you, Brother? Do you truly think you are without any blame?”
Cal drops his eyes, his resolve wavering for a second. Then he grits his teeth, all fire again. “It was your mother, Maven. Not me,” he forces out. I get the sense he’s told himself this more than once. “I didn’t kill him.”
I wave a hand through the air, dismissive. “Oh, I hardly care about what happened to Father. Though I’m certain you’ll be haunted by that for the rest of your life, however short.”
Again, he looks away. You are so easy to read it’s almost infuriating, I think.
“I’m talking about me,” I growl, setting the pieces in motion. Confusion steals across his face, and I almost roll my eyes. Cal has to be led to the point like a dumb mule to water.
Cut for cut, Mother whispers.
“I wasn’t always this way, was I?” I continue, pushing myself to my feet. He’s taller than me, always has been, and it stings. Still, I take a step toward him, eagerly moving into his shadow. I’m used to it there. “You remember better than I do. When I was a boy, your little brother. Always trailing at your heels, eager to spend every moment I could with you. I used to ask to sleep in your room, didn’t I?”
Cal narrows his eyes. “You were afraid of the dark.”
“And then I wasn’t. Just like that.” I snap my fingers, expecting him to flinch. He does not. “Her doing, of course. She couldn’t be the mother to a whimpering, weakling son afraid of shadows.” I b
egin to pace, circling him. Cal doesn’t give me the satisfaction of movement, staying rooted to the spot. He doesn’t fear a physical attack from me. Even without his flame, he would have no issue subduing me. I’m little more than a moth fluttering around light. Or at least, that’s how he sees me. It’s an advantage I’ve used so many times. “You never noticed when she took things from me, small pieces. You didn’t see the change.”
As I pass behind him, his shoulders curl, riddled with tension. “That isn’t my fault, Maven,” he whispers, his voice ragged. He doesn’t believe it. So fucking easy to read. I almost laugh. It isn’t difficult to make him bleed.
“So when she cut you out entirely, took my love for you, twisted everything—you didn’t notice. You didn’t care.” I pause in my steps, leaving us side by side. He has to turn his head to look at me, to watch as I school my face into careful blankness. “I’ve always wondered why.”
Cal has no answer, or can’t find the strength to speak. I’m better at pain than he is. I always have been.
“It doesn’t matter now, of course,” I say. “My mother wasn’t the only one who took from me—you took something from me too.”
Even the hint of her makes him bristle.
“I didn’t take Mare,” he snarls, rounding on me. I shift before he can grab my arm, his fingers barely brushing the sleeve of my jacket.
I grin up at him, speaking gently, my voice soft and taunting. “It didn’t surprise me. You were used to it, having whatever you wanted. Seeing only what you wanted to see. In the end, I realized you knew what was happening to me, what Mother was doing. It was in pieces, in slow shifts, but you still saw it—and you did nothing to stop her.” Tsking like a scolding teacher, I shake my head. “Long before you knew what a monster I was, you did monstrous things too.”
Cal stares at me, eyes full of accusation. And longing. This time he takes me by surprise when he steps closer, and I fall back on my heels. “Did your mother destroy you entirely? Is there anything left of you?” he asks, searching my face. “Anything that isn’t hers?”
Broken Throne Page 36