Ibarem’s face falls, matching the boy king’s. “What?”
Farley grins, crouching next to me. Addressing Ibarem, and therefore Maven. “The Scarlet Guard has a difficult time trusting Silvers. Especially ones kept in check the way Bracken was. It was only a matter of time before something happened and he decided to stop taking orders from the people holding his children.”
“Who am I speaking to now?” Maven demands through Ibarem.
“Oh, I’m hurt you don’t remember me. But it’s General Farley now, so maybe I sound different.”
“Ah yes.” Ibarem clucks his tongue. “How foolish of me to forget the woman who let a wolf like me into her pack of particularly stupid sheep.”
Farley smiles like she’s just been served a particularly delicious meal. “These stupid sheep wired your base with explosives.”
For a second, the room goes deathly silent. Tiberias looks up, his face twisted in alarm. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“Plenty,” she snaps, not looking away from Ibarem. “Don’t repeat that.”
He barely nods.
“Well, Maven?” I ask, pasting on a sweet smile. “You can recall whoever you sent into the swamps after our people, and try to search the base before we obliterate it. Or you can release the prisoners, and we’ll tell you exactly how close you’re standing to a bomb.”
“Explosives don’t frighten me.”
“They would if you cared about the soldiers sworn to your crown,” Tiberias growls, prowling close to my shoulder. His forearm brushes against me, sending a flare of heat down my spine.
A shadow seems to pass over Ibarem as he relays the prince’s words and presence. “Good of you to step forward, brother,” Maven whispers. “I thought you’d never find the spine to speak to me.”
“Name the place and we’ll see exactly who has the stronger spine,” Tiberias fires back, his growl feral and unchecked.
In reply, Ibarem just wags a finger back and forth. “Let’s leave the posturing for your inevitable surrender, Cal. When you have to kneel before Norta, the Lakelands, and Piedmont.” He rattles off each country with a spreading grin. I feel the weight stacking against us, the wall getting higher and higher.
Farley puts a hand on my shoulder, holding me back to my chair. Bidding me to wait.
Finally, Ibarem moves, crossing his arms and shifting his weight. His body language is all Maven. Dedicated to a performance. Now he isn’t wearing the false mantle of the young man called to duty. He dons the mask of the heartless, impenetrable son of Elara Merandus. Someone who cares only for power and nothing else.
It is an act as much as Mareena was to me.
“How many bombs did you say, General?”
He uses her rank to throw her off, but Farley is more difficult to rattle. “I didn’t.”
“Hmm,” Maven murmurs. “Well, Bracken won’t take kindly to any further damage done to his installation. Though we bought enough goodwill returning his children, so he might not mind.”
I don’t know exactly where the explosives might be, only that the Guard planted them some time ago. Buried them below the roads, the runways, and most of the administrative buildings. Where they could do the most damage, not just to enemy soldiers, but to the base itself. They’re tuned to a specific frequency, triggered and ready to blow. A perfect and deadly piece of foresight.
“The decision is yours, Maven,” I answer. “The prisoners for your base.”
Ibarem mimics Maven’s grin. “And this newblood, of course,” he says. “Though I’d like to keep him, if you don’t mind. This is much easier than sending you letters.”
“Not part of the deal.”
Pouting, Ibarem huffs. “You make things so difficult sometimes.”
“It’s my specialty.”
At my side, Tiberias scoffs quietly. I’m sure he agrees.
We wait in blistering silence, hanging on every breath from Ibarem’s body. He turns in his seat, looking back and forth. Pantomiming Maven as he paces.
Farley looms above me, a storm cloud as much as I am.
“Where would you like them released?” he says finally.
Silently, Farley punches the air with a pair of brutal, triumphant jabs. I’m reminded of her young age. Only twenty-two, just a few years older than me.
“East gate,” Farley replies, and I try to keep my triumph in check. “The swamps. Dusk.”
I hear Maven’s confusion. “That’s it?”
Tiberias is just as puzzled. He glances sidelong at Farley. “That’s no rescue,” he murmurs, gesturing for Ibarem not to relay his words. “General, we need to get dropjets in place. A clear path. A cease-fire while we evacuate the prisoners and those who managed to escape.”
She slices a hand through the air. “No need, Calore. You keep forgetting the Scarlet Guard isn’t the kind of army you’re used to.” Proud, she plants her hands on her hips. “There’s already infrastructure in place, and we have boots on the ground in the swamps already. Moving Reds across enemy territory is sort of what we’re best at.”
“Good to hear,” Tiberias grinds out. “But I don’t like being left out of the loop. We work better with everyone on even ground.”
“You call this even ground?” Farley says, gesturing between him and us. His blood, our blood. His rank, our rank. The canyon between a Silver born to be a king and Reds born to nothing at all.
His eyes flicker, dancing from her to down to me. He towers over me in my seat, his height exaggerated by the distance. So much space between us and yet none at all. Though it pains him, Tiberias bites his tongue, and a muscle feathers in his cheek as he wrenches his gaze from mine. I see the struggle in him and I expect him to push. Keep arguing. To my surprise, he settles back, gesturing for us to continue.
In front of me, Ibarem heaves a breath. He touches the scar on his chin, brown skin knobbled white between the curls of his black beard. Then he brushes the flesh below each of his eyes. Where the scars of his brothers lie. “The king lingers, thinking. Miss Barrow, tell him he won’t be able to use us this way again,” he says, now pleading. “Or this wretched young man will keep my brother as his prisoner. As a channel to you and His Majesty.”
“Of course,” I reply, bobbing my head. Eager to save Rash from becoming another newblood pet. “We’ll know if you keep the newblood, Maven. And if you do, the deal is broken.”
The responding voice is bitter, but unsurprised. “But I’ve missed our conversations. You keep me sane, Mare,” he tells me, trying for dark humor. It lands poorly.
“We both know that isn’t true. And you will never communicate with me through him again.”
He scowls. “Then we’ll have to find new ways to talk.”
Above me, Tiberias lifts a finger, signaling for Ibarem’s attention. “If you want to talk, no one will stop you, Maven,” he says, and the newblood relays. “Wars are fought with diplomacy as much as weaponry. Meet us on neutral ground, face-to-face.”
“So eager to negotiate surrender, Cal?” Maven taunts, waving away the offer. “Now, General, the explosives?”
Farley nods. “You’ll be given their locations after we can verify that our people are in the swamps and out of harm’s way.”
“I won’t be held responsible for anything an alligator does.”
At this, she truly laughs. “It’s a pity you have no soul, Maven Calore. You could’ve been someone worth saving.”
Tiberias shifts, unsettled. If someone can fix him, isn’t it worth it to try? He asked me that a few weeks ago, skin to skin. It feels like another life. It isn’t a subject I care for. There is no fixing Maven. No redemption for the boy king, for the false person we both loved. We can’t save him from himself.
And I don’t think I’ll ever have the heart to tell Tiberias that.
As broken as Maven’s ability to love is, Tiberias’s is that much stronger. To a fault, perhaps. It makes him cling too tight.
“First you burn Corvium; now you threaten the Piedmont base?” Maven sneers through the bond. “The Scarlet Guard is so talented at destruction. But then it’s always easier to tear down what is already built.”
“Especially when what you build is rotten to the core,” Farley sneers back.
“East gate. The swamps. Dusk,” I repeat. “Or the base burns beneath you.”
My foot twitches beneath me. How many are on the base now? Soldiers oathed to Maven and Bracken and Iris. Silvers, probably. And Reds too. Their shield wall of innocents following orders.
At first I tell myself not to think about it. War is difficult enough without weighing how many lives hang in the balance. But closing my eyes isn’t the answer either. No matter how hard it is to see, I have to look. Even if I have to make the hard decision, I must do it with my eyes open. No more pushing down the pain or the guilt. I have to feel it if I want to get through it.
“Very well,” Maven growls. Again I picture him standing outside a cell. White-faced in the dim light, his eyes rimmed with the usual shadows of exhaustion and doubt. “I am a man of my word.”
The familiar refrain smarts like his brand, drawing out a dozen harsh memories of his letters and his promise.
Slowly, I nod.
“You’re a man of your word.”
We leave Ibarem with instructions to find us if his brother isn’t freed with the rest, before hurrying along the corridors of Ridge House, trying to navigate our way to the Samos throne room. Tiberias is less helpful than he should be, his mind clearly elsewhere. With his brother in Piedmont, I suspect.
I do my best to keep up with his long strides and Farley’s, but I keep bumping into his back as he slows, lost in thought.
“We’re already late,” I grumble, putting a hand to the small of his back on instinct. Shoving him forward.
He jumps at the contact, as if burned by my touch. His larger hand covers mine when he recovers, pulling my fingers away. Then he drops them quickly as he halts, turning to face me.
Farley keeps on, outpacing us with an exasperated groan. “Fight when we have the time,” she calls, urging us to keep up.
He ignores her, glaring down at me. “You were going to speak to him without me.”
“Do I need your permission to talk to Maven?”
“He’s my brother, Mare. You know what he still means to me,” he whispers, almost begging. I try not to soften in the face of his pain. It almost works.
“You have to forget who you thought he was.”
It kindles something in him, a deeper anger. A desperation. “Don’t tell me how to feel. Don’t tell me to turn my back on him.” Then he straightens, pulling back so I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze. “Besides, confronting him alone, just the two of you?” He looks over his shoulder at Farley. “It isn’t wise.”
“Which is why I sent for you,” Farley snaps harshly. “We need to go. That took long enough, and the council started twenty minutes ago. If Samos and your grandmother are scheming, I want to be there.”
“And what about Iris?” Tiberias says, recovering. He braces his hands on his hips, broadening his frame. To cut off any escape if I try to slip around him. He knows my tricks too well. “What was all that about dogs biting?”
I hesitate, weighing my options. I could always lie. It might be better to lie.
“Something Iris said before, when I was still at Whitefire,” I admit. “She knew I was a pet to Maven. A lapdog. And she told me all dogs bite. It was her way of communicating that she knew I would turn on him if I could.” The words catch, but I force them out. Why, I can’t say. “So will she.”
Instead of thanking me, Tiberias seems to darken. “And you think Maven wouldn’t catch that?”
I can only shrug. “I think right now he doesn’t care. He needs her, needs her alliance. There’s only today and tomorrow, in his eyes.”
“I can understand that,” he mutters under his breath, so only I can hear.
“I’m sure you do.”
He heaves another sigh, running a hand through his short hair. I wish he would let it grow into dark waves again. He’d look more handsome, less rigid. Less like a king.
“Do we tell them what just happened?” he asks, pointing a thumb back toward the room.
I frown. I would rather not retell our conversation to a larger audience, especially one that includes the Samos brood. “If we do, we risk Rash and Ibarem. Volo would enjoy using that particular advantage if he could.”
“I agree. But it is an advantage. To be able to speak to him, watch him.” He lowers his voice. Gauging my reaction. Letting me make the decision.
“Leave him in peace. We can relay with the Scarlet Guard on the ground. Get our people back.”
He nods along. “Of course.”
“No word about Cameron,” I add, wincing as I say her name. She went back to Piedmont to be with her brother when we went on to Montfort. Chasing peace instead of war. And war found her again.
Tiberias turns thoughtful—sympathetic, even. Not for show, but truly. I try not to look at his handsome features as he looms above me. “She’ll be okay,” he says, just for me. “Can’t imagine anyone taking her down.”
Ibarem didn’t mention seeing her among the prisoners, but he didn’t think she was among the dead either. I can only hope she’s among the ones who escaped, hiding in the swamps, slowly making her way back to us. Besides, Cameron can kill a man as easily as I can. More easily. Any Silver hunter would find her to be dangerous prey, with her ability to smother the strongest of their powers. She must have escaped. I will entertain no other possibility. I simply can’t.
Especially because I need her for what I have planned.
“Farley might pop a blood vessel if we keep her waiting any longer.”
“I would prefer not to see that,” Tiberias grumbles after me.
FIFTEEN
Evangeline
Anabel stalls with suchtalent, as we wait for her chronologically impaired grandson. I’m torn between asking for a lesson and skewering her to the wall with the steel of my throne.
There are maybe a dozen people in the throne room, only those necessary for a war council. Red and Silver, Scarlet Guard and agents of Montfort alongside noble houses of the Rift and rebel Norta. No matter how many times I see it, I can hardly get used to the sight.
Neither can my parents. Today, Mother coils on her throne of emeralds like one of her snakes. She sinks back into black silk and rough gems, looking incomplete without some threatening predator pet at her knee. The panther must be indisposed today. She sneers while Anabel spins her wheels.
Father, on the other hand, sits in rapt attention, his acute focus locked entirely on Anabel even as she steps back. Trying to make her squirm. The head of House Lerolan does not, to her credit. I’m a magnetron. I know steel when I see it. And she has steel in her bones.
“Tiberias the Seventh needs a capital. A place to plant his flag.” She pauses, pacing for effect as she surveys the throne room. I want to scream, Get on with it, old woman!
What she should really do is go find Cal, wherever he might be, and drag him back here by the ears. The Piedmont base is lost, and this is a meeting of his own war council, not to mention my father’s court. Making us wait isn’t just rude; it’s politically stupid. And a waste of my own precious time.
He’s probably off arguing with Mare again, pretending not to look at her lips while he does it. The prince is terribly predictable, and I hope the pair of them will boil over into some not-so-secret secret relationship once more. Will I be expected to guard the door? I sneer to myself.
In a flash, I envision the life he wants for us all. The life he would subject all of us to. The crown on my head, his heart in her hand. My children threatened every second by any child she might have. My days spent bending to his will, no matter how gentle it might be. No matter how many days he might let me spend with my Elane, as long as he can spend his with Mare.
If only he wanted her more. If only I could make him want her more. But, as I told Mare back in Corvium, Cal isn’t the abdicating kind. You weren’t either, I remind myself. Until you had a taste of the other side.
At the thought, my insides flip. With excitement, with hope—and with exhaustion. I’m already annoyed by the prospect of tangling myself up with Cal and Mare more than I already am. Even if it’s for my own happiness.
Stop complaining, Samos.
When General Farley and Mare finally enter the room, with Cal on their heels, I sigh to myself. Mare Barrow is not unfortunate-looking, but she’s no lady. Cal must like that sort of thing. A rougher edge. Warmth, dirt under fingernails, a rotten temper. I don’t see the appeal. But he must.
“Ah,” Anabel says, turning gracefully on her heel. “Your Majesty.” Her face relaxes in relief as she beckons Cal to join her before the Samos thrones. The rest of the chamber looks on.
“So kind of you to join us, King Tiberias,” my father says. He runs a hand through his silver beard, pulling at the strands. “I’m sure you’ve been made aware of our dire situation.”
Cal sweeps into a low bow, surprising us. Kings and queens of the blood do not bow, not even to each other. Still he does it. “My apologies. I was detained,” he says, offering nothing else. And giving us no opportunity to ask further as he waves Farley forward. “I believe General Farley has some good news, at least.”
“Weighed against the loss of our foothold in Piedmont?” Father scoffs. “As well as any leverage we had over Prince Bracken? It must be very good news.”