I’m not the only one who notices the quality. Evangeline doesn’t touch a single course, and her mother doesn’t even condescend to feed her meat to the panther curled around her ankles.
Like the electricity, like the servants, like the factories grinding to a halt all over Norta, good food seems to be growing scarce. In the fields, the deliveries, the preparation. I’d wager most of the palace chefs are gone too.
Nanabel cleans her plate like nothing is amiss.
“We’re going to lose this war,” I can’t help but murmur, leaning to my left so only Julian can hear me.
A muscle flexes in his cheek and he drains his glass of wine. “Not here, Cal,” he replies, hiding his mouth with the rim of his glass. “Would the king like to retire?”
“The king would.”
“Very well,” my uncle mutters, putting his glass back down.
For a second, I don’t know what to do. I realize I’m waiting to be dismissed, but no one here can do such a thing. This is my throne and my palace. I need only stand.
I do so quickly, clearing my throat to excuse myself. Nanabel is quick to recognize the signal. I need to be done with this.
“Our thanks for your presence today, and your loyalty,” she says, her hands spread wide to better command the attention of the chamber. The nobles in front of us fall silent, their murmurs and conversations sliding to a graceful halt. “We have all journeyed through the storm, as it were, and I speak for the royal family when I say how grateful we are to have you with us. And to have Norta made whole again.”
It’s a naked lie, plain as the food forgotten on so many plates. Norta is far from whole. The half-empty banquet hall is proof of that. And while I don’t want to be a king like Maven, building my throne on deceit and dishonesty, I see no other option now. We need to be strong, even if it is only an illusion.
I put a hand to Nanabel’s shoulder, a careful gesture. She obliges, angling back to let me speak. “One storm has passed, yes. But I would be a fool to pretend another is not gathering on the horizon,” I say, speaking as clearly as I can. So many eyes look back at me. Their clothes and colors vary, but not their blood. Everyone seated here is Silver, and I shudder at the implication. Our Red allies are gone for good. When war comes again, we will be fighting alone. “The Lakelands will not be satisfied behind their borders. Not when they came so close to ruling Maven through their princess.”
Some of the nobles murmur, their heads drawn together. Volo doesn’t move, staring at me from his seat farther down the high table. I feel pierced by his glare.
“When the storm breaks, I’ll be ready. I promise you that.”
Ready to fight. To lose. And probably die.
“Strength and power!” someone shouts from the crowd, cheering the old refrain of my father and his father before him. An emblem of Silver Norta. Others echo the call. I should too.
But I can’t. I know what those words mean. Who exactly we have strength and power over. My jaw remains firmly shut.
Julian stays close on my heels as I escape the banquet hall, utilizing the serving passages instead of the main halls. My grandmother trails us, with her Lerolan soldiers bringing up the rear of our patchwork parade. I still don’t have Sentinels, as a king should, as I did when I was a prince and things still worked properly. We’re rightfully wary of the guards once oathed to protect Maven, even if many of them have pledged their loyalty with their houses. Finding guards of my own, people I can trust, is simply another item on an increasingly long list of things to be accomplished. Just the thought exhausts me.
I’m yawning by the time I reach the door to my temporary quarters, even though it’s barely past nightfall. At least I have a good excuse to be tired. It isn’t every day one becomes king. The crown is an infinite reminder.
Both Nanabel and Julian follow me into the adjoining salon, leaving the guards in the hall. I stop my grandmother with a look.
“If it’s all right, I’d like to speak to Julian.” I try to make it sound like an order. I shouldn’t be asking permission to talk with one of my closest advisers alone. Still, I feel tentative, and sound worse.
Her face falls, pulling into an affronted frown. Wounded, even. Like I’ve hurt her.
“Briefly,” I add, trying to undo the harm. Next to her, Julian clasps his hands together, his expression blank.
She stiffens. “Of course, Your Majesty,” she murmurs, ducking her head. Her iron-gray hair reflects the lamps like a flash of steel. “I’ll leave you to it.”
With a rushing whirl of flame-colored clothing, my grandmother turns on her heel without another word. My fist clenches, keeping me from reaching out. It’s difficult balancing the love of family with the needs of a kingdom.
The door shuts behind her, sharper than it needs to. I wince with the sound.
Julian wastes no time, opening his mouth before he manages to take a seat on the plump sofa. I brace myself for the inevitable lecture.
“You shouldn’t speak that way in public, Cal.”
We’re going to lose this war.
He isn’t wrong. I grimace anyway, crossing to the arched windows overlooking the Bridge of Archeon, the river, and the star-dappled horizon beyond. From this distance, the ships on the water look like stars too. As with the crowd at the coronation, there are fewer ships than there should be. Less trade, less travel. I’ve been king for a day and my kingdom is already living on borrowed time. I can only guess what might happen to the people in it, should the rest collapse.
I lay a hand against the window glass. It steams beneath my touch. “We don’t have the manpower to turn back an invasion.”
“Your decree puts our armies at forty-percent strength, if the current reports are accurate. Most Red soldiers have left the military or are leaving. New recruits, mostly. Those left behind are battle-hardened, at least,” he says.
“But spread too thin,” I mutter. “The Lakelander border is hostile again, not to mention Piedmont to the south. We’re surrounded and outnumbered. And with fall coming, what harvest can we expect with no farmers? How can we shoot the guns if no one is making the bullets?”
My uncle brushes a hand under his chin, studying me. “You regret making your decrees.”
He is one of only two people I would ever admit it to. “I do.”
“It was the right decision.”
“For how long?” I can’t help but snap. Flaring with heat, I turn away from the window, undoing the top buttons of my jacket as I move. The colder air hits my fevered skin, chilling and soothing. “When the Lakelands return, they’ll wipe away whatever I’ve tried to do.”
“This is the way of things, Cal.” Julian’s calm tone only serves to rankle me further. “In the histories, great moments of upheaval, whole shifts in societies, they take time to rebalance. Reds will return to work, albeit with better pay and treatment. They need to feed and protect their families too.”
“We don’t have that kind of time, Julian,” I mutter, exasperated. “I think someone will have to redraw your maps very soon. The Kingdom of Norta will fall.”
He tracks me as I pace, never moving from his seat. “I suppose I should have asked this days ago, but is there a reason you’re so married to the idea of this kingdom? And that crown?”
Instead of spinning out, my mind slows. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, a stone weighing down whatever I might struggle to say. Julian continues on through my silence.
“You say now that you think we’ll lose, you’ll lose, because of the decrees and changes you’ve chosen to make. Because you have no allies.” On the sofa, he stretches, gesturing with one hand. He casts his fingers toward the window, meaning all things. “You did almost everything the Scarlet Guard and Montfort asked. Gave up everything they wanted. Except that.” He points at the crown still nestled on my head “Why? If you knew you would never be able to keep it?”
My answer sounds foolish, like it comes from a child. I say it anyway. “This is my father’s crown.”
“But the crown is not your father,” he says quickly, rising to his feet. In two strides he has me by the shoulder, and his voice softens. “It isn’t your mother either. And it won’t bring either of them back.”
I can’t bear to look at him. He is too much like her, like the shadow of my mother I carry in my head. A wish and a dream, probably, not a real reflection of her. An impossibility. Maven was tortured by his mother who lived and breathed, but I am tortured too. Tortured by a woman taken away from me.
“This is who I am, Julian.” I try to keep my breathing even, try to sound like a king. The words make sense as I think them, but they come out wrong. Stumbling, unsure. “It’s everything I’ve ever known, the only path I’ve ever wanted or been made to want.”
My uncle tightens his grip on my shoulders. “Your brother could say the same, and where did that lead him?”
I bristle at that, glaring at him. “We’re not the same.”
“No, you aren’t,” he replies hastily. Then his attitude changes, a strange look coming over him. Julian narrows his eyes, lips pressing into a thin, grim line. “You haven’t read the diary, have you?”
Again I drop my gaze. Ashamed of how afraid I am of a simple, small book. “I don’t think I can,” I whisper, barely audible.
Julian offers no quarter, no comfort. He stands back, crossing his arms. He doesn’t need many words to scold me.
“Well, you need to,” he says simply, taking on the air of a teacher again. “Not just for yourself. But for the rest of us. All of us.”
“I don’t see how the diary of a dead woman can be any help right now.”
“Well, hopefully you summon the courage to find out.”
Reading it feels like pushing a stone through mud. Sluggish, difficult, foolish. The words pull at me with inky fingers, trying to hold me back. Each page is heavier than the last. Until they aren’t. Until the stone is rolling down a hill, and the voice I give my mother rings in my head, speaking as quickly as my mind allows. Sometimes my eyes blur. I don’t stop to wipe the tears from the pages, letting them mark the hours as the night passes. Sometimes I find myself smiling. My mother liked to tinker with things. Repair and build. Just like me.
Sometimes I even laugh. The way she talks about Julian, their kind rivalry, how he gave her books she would never read. I can almost trick myself into thinking she’s alive. Sitting next to me instead of trapped in a book.
But mostly I feel a deep ache. Hunger for her. Sorrow. Regret. My mother had her demons, just like the rest of us. Her own pains that began long before she became a queen. Before my father married her and put a target on her back.
Her entries grow scarcer as time wears on. As her life changes.
There are only a few pages dedicated to me.
He will not be a soldier. I owe him that much. Too long the sons and daughters of House Calore have been fighting, too long has this country had a warrior king. Too long have we been at war, on the front and—and also within. It might be a crime to write such things, but I am a queen. I am the queen. I can say and write what I think.
The Calores are children of fire, as strong and destructive as their flame, but Cal will not be like the others before. Fire can destroy, fire can kill, but it can also create. Forest burned in the summer will be green by spring, better and stronger than before. Cal’s flame will build and bring roots from the ashes of war. The guns will quiet, the smoke will clear, and the soldiers, Red and Silver both, will come home. One hundred years of war, and my son will bring peace. He will not die fighting. He will not. HE WILL NOT.
I run a finger over the letters, feeling the press of a faraway pen. This isn’t her handwriting but Julian’s. Her real diaries were destroyed by Elara Merandus, but Julian had the wherewithal to preserve something before they disappeared. He painstakingly copied each letter, even these. He nearly put a hole in the page writing those words.
They certainly put a hole through me.
Coriane Jacos wanted a different life for her son, entirely separate from how I was raised, and who my father made me into.
I have to wonder if there is some fate in between what each of my parents wanted for me, a path that is truly my own to choose.
Or is it simply too late?
THIRTY-ONE
Maven
I am not even afforded a window. At least I gave Mare one, when she was my prisoner. Of course, that was a torture as much as anything else. Letting her see the world pass, the seasons change, from behind the bars of her opulent cage. I don’t think this is quite as personal an affront. Clearly, they will take no chances with me. My flamemaker bracelets are long gone, probably destroyed. There’s Silent Stone set in the floor, dulling any ability I have left. I’m watched night and day by no less than twelve guards, each one alert and ready on the other side of cell bars.
I’m the only person being held here. No one speaks to me, not even the guards.
Only Mother whispers to me still, and those words are ever fleeting, growing dim. Leaving me with my thoughts. It’s the only benefit of Silent Stone. While it weakens the rest of me, it weakens her voice as well. I felt the same thing on my old throne. It was a shield as much as an anchor, making me ache, but also keeping me insulated from influence, both within and without. Any choice I made in that seat was mine alone.
It’s the same here.
I choose to sleep, mostly.
Even the Stone won’t allow me to dream. It can’t undo whatever she did. Mother took that ability away long ago, and it never came back.
Sometimes I stare at the walls. They’re cool to the touch, and I suspect we’re partially underground. I was blindfolded when I was led into the city and brought to speak before that strange council. I must spend hours tracing the lines of mortar and cement holding the slabs together, running my fingers over rough and smooth textures. Normally, I’d talk out my thoughts to myself, but the guards are always there, always listening. It would be more than stupid to give them any glimpse, however small, into my mind.
Cal is alone, cut off from his strongest allies. He did it to himself, the fool. Iris and her mother won’t waste much time, or give him the opportunity to try to stabilize the kingdom. He got that crown he wanted so much, but he won’t keep it long.
I smile to think of my perfect brother perfectly ruining things for himself. All he had to do was say no. Turn aside the throne. He’d have his armies; he’d have a chance; he’d have Mare. But even she wasn’t enough for him.
I guess I understand that.
She wasn’t enough for me either. Enough to make me change, to pull me back from what I’ve willingly become.
I wonder if Thomas would have been enough.
As usual, the splitting headache comes whenever I think his name, or remember his face, or feel his touch on my hands. I lie back against the cot in the corner, pressing my fists against my eyes. Trying to relieve the pressure of the memory and this place.
I know less than I should about Montfort, let alone its capital, Ascendant. Even trying to plan an escape from here would be a waste of my time and limited energy. Of course, I’ll take my chances in Archeon. Lose them in the tunnels after setting another army on my brother. The last revenge of Maven Calore, before I disappear. To where, I don’t know. It’s just another waste to try to plan beyond Archeon. I’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
Certainly Mare will suspect. She knows me well enough by now. I might have to kill her, at the end of this.
Her life or mine.
A difficult choice, but I’ll choose myself.
I do it every time.
“We need to know where to enter the tunnels.”
At first, I wonder if I’m actually dreaming. If that piece of my mother has finally been washed away.
But that’s impossible.
I open my eyes to see Mare standing on the other side of the bars, far enough to be out of reach. The guards are gone, or at least out of sight. Probably gathered at either end of the corrid
or, ready to be called upon if necessary.
It’s been two days since I was summoned to the premier’s council, and she doesn’t look like she’s slept since. The lightning girl is worn, with shadows beneath her eyes and cheekbones. Still, she looks better than she did when she was my prisoner, in spite of the gowns and jewels I kept her in. Her eyes spark here. She isn’t hollowed out, aching to the bone. I know that sensation intimately. I feel it here now, and I felt it when I was a king, shielded by a silent throne.
Slowly, I rise up on my elbows, peering at her over the toes of my shoes.
“Two days to agree to my terms,” I say, counting off on my fingers. “Must have been quite the argument.”
“Careful, Maven.” She barks out the warning, all rough edges. “Any difficulty and I’ll be happy to call Tyton down here.”
The other newblood who shares her ability is a stranger, with his white hair and inscrutable eyes. Stronger than me, she said back in the council. And I have seen such strength from Mare Barrow. Certainly his lightning will shred me, nerve from nerve. Not that it will help them. I can withstand torture. I know how to keep my mouth shut, even if it means dying.
Still, I don’t fancy being turned into a lightbulb this early in the day.
“No, I’d rather you didn’t,” I answer her. “I do so enjoy our time alone.”
Her eyes narrow, dancing over me. Even at a distance, I can hear her sharp intake of breath. I smirk a little, satisfied that I can still draw such a reaction from her. Even if her response is firmly rooted in fear. That’s something, at least. Better than apathy. Better than nothing at all.
“I suppose this is the end of that,” I continue, swinging my legs out and onto the floor. The metal is cool against my forehead as I lean, bracing myself against the bars. “No more whispers between Maven and Mare.”
She sneers, and I brace myself for the inevitable spray of spit. It never comes.
“I’m done trying to understand you,” she hisses, still out reach. But she doesn’t flinch when I look her over. Doesn’t tremble when I raise a hand, stretching out my fingers to brush within an inch of her face.
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