She pushes up to her feet and closes the distance between us in firm strides. Her hands grip my shoulders, forcing me to look up into her scarred face. “I’m saying you’re stronger than I am, Mare,” she breathes, eyes shining. It takes a long moment for the words to sink in. “When it comes to him. Not anything else,” she adds quickly, breaking the tension.
“Nothing else,” I say, agreeing with a small, forced chuckle. “Except electrocuting people.”
Farley just shrugs her broad shoulders. “Well, who knows? I haven’t tried that yet.”
The throne room of Ocean Hill looks out over the city, across blue rooftops and white walls, all the way down to the harbor. Grand windows arch over the king’s seat, flooding the chamber with the golden light of late afternoon. It gives everything an almost dreamlike quality, as if this moment isn’t real. Part of me thinks I might wake up to the darkness of this morning, before we set out for Province. Before the war was so easily won, and a life so easily traded.
Cal didn’t say anything about Salin Iral afterward, but he didn’t have to. I know him well enough to understand how much the memory weighs on him. A disgraced lord, but a lord all the same, drowned and murdered in payment for Cal’s brother. It hasn’t gone easy for Cal. But looking at King Tiberias the Seventh, no one would be able to tell.
He sits on his father’s throne, tall against the diamondglass chair, looking like flame itself in his crimson and black. The windows make his silhouette glow, and I wonder if one of his guards is a Haven shadow, manipulating the light to create an image of power and strength. It’s certainly working. He seems a king, like his father. Like Maven never was.
I despise the sight. The shimmering throne, the simple crown on his head. Rose gold, like his grandmother’s. Finer than iron. More elegant. Less violent. A crown for peace, not war.
Farley and I sit side by side, to the left of the throne with Davidson and his Montfort attendants. On the right, at Cal’s hand, is Anabel, her seat closer to the throne than any other. House Samos sits near her, clustered around another king.
I wonder how long Volo Samos spent constructing his own throne of steel and pearly metal. The materials weave in intricate braids of silver and white, studded with the occasional flash of black jet. My lips twitch at the thought of the Samos king wasting hours of his day to make a chair. As always, the pageantry of Silvers never ceases to amaze.
Evangeline seems oddly nervous next to her father. Usually she delights in these things, content to watch and be watched. Instead she can’t sit still, her fingers twitching and one foot tapping slightly beneath the folds of her gown. I wonder what she knows, or suspects. It can’t be Davidson’s offer. He hasn’t extended it yet, not until he’s sure we’ll need her. Still, her dark gray eyes flash back and forth, searching the hall. And always returning to the tall doors thrown wide at the far end of the chamber, open to the receiving halls of the palace. A crowd idles outside them, Silver and Red, hoping to catch a glimpse inside. I feel myself coil with fear. Evangeline is not one to scare easily.
But I quickly forget all that when Julian enters the hall, his hand on a familiar arm as he guides the royal prisoner toward the throne. Bold murmurs follow, silenced only when the chamber doors swing shut with an echoing thud, separating us from the rest of the palace. Cal isn’t the kind to require an audience, and he’s smart enough to know we shouldn’t have one while he decides his brother’s fate.
Maven doesn’t stumble this time. He holds his head high, even with his wrists bound. I’m remind of a bird of prey, a falcon or an eagle, surveying us all with sharp eyes and sharper talons. But he isn’t a threat. Not without his bracelets. Not without anyone here to follow his command. The guards flanking him are Lerolan, loyal to Cal and Anabel. Not Maven.
I see no way out of this, even for him.
They stop a few yards from Cal’s feet, and Anabel stands, her body casting a long shadow. She draws her eyes over Maven slowly, as if they are knives skinning him alive. “Kneel to your king, Maven,” she says, her voice echoing around the deathly silent chamber.
He tips his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Suddenly I’m back in another palace, staring at a different Calore king. On my knees next to Maven, my hands shackled behind my back as he stands. When he betrayed us all and revealed who his heart truly belonged to.
Maven, help me up.
No, I don’t think so.
Maven Calore chooses his words carefully, and he does so now. Even when they have no meaning, when he has no power left, he can still cause us pain.
On the throne, Cal darkens, one hand curling into a fist. I feel the monster rise up inside me, begging to tear Maven into pieces. Obliterate him. I can’t deny the desire, but I have to. For my sanity. For my humanity.
“Stand if you wish,” Cal finally says, some tension in him releasing again. He waves a hand like he doesn’t care at all. “It doesn’t change where you’re standing. And where I currently sit.”
“Currently, yes,” Maven replies, careful to emphasize his meaning. His eyes glint, cold as ice, hot as blue flame. “I doubt you’ll sit there long.”
“That’s not your concern,” Cal says. “You have committed treason and murder, Maven Calore. Crimes too numerous to name, so I won’t even try.”
Maven just scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Low effort.”
His older brother knows better than to take the easy bait, and he lets the insult slide off. Instead he angles his body, turning toward Davidson as if consulting an adviser, or even a friend.
“Premier, what would his punishment be in your country?” he asks, his face open and inviting. It’s a brilliant show of solidarity, all part of the image Cal is trying to build for himself. A king who unites, rather than destroys. A Silver who looks to Reds for counsel, disdaining the divisions of blood.
It already has consequences.
On his throne, Volo curls his lip, rustling in his robe like an annoyed bird puffing up his feathers. Maven is quick to notice.
“You’re going to allow that, Volo?” he croons. “Standing second to a Red?” His laughter echoes, a sharp sound to cut glass. “How far the House of Samos has fallen.”
Like Cal, Volo has little desire to sink to Maven’s taunting. He stills, crossing his chrome-covered arms over his chest. “I still have a crown, Maven. Do you?”
Maven only sneers in response, one corner of his mouth twitching.
“Execution,” Premier Davidson says firmly, leaning forward. He plants his elbows on the arms of his chair as he shifts for a better view of the fallen, false king. “We punish treason with execution.”
Cal’s eyelids barely flicker. He turns again, leaning to Volo. “Your Majesty, how would you deal with him in the Rift?”
Volo is quick to respond, teeth clicking. Like Evangeline’s, his eyeteeth are capped in pointed silver. “Execution.”
Cal nods. “General Farley?”
“Execution,” she replies, raising her chin.
On the floor below, Maven doesn’t seem bothered by the sentence. Or even surprised. He spares little attention for the premier, or Farley, or Volo. Or even me. Whatever snake coils in his brain has eyes for one person. He stares up at his brother, unblinking, his chest rising and falling in tiny puffs of breath. I forgot how similar they are, even as half brothers. Not just in coloring, but in their fire. Determined, driven. Constructions of their parents. Cal is built from his father’s dreams, and Maven from his mother’s nightmares.
“And what will you do, Cal?” he asks, his voice so low and quiet I almost can’t hear him.
Cal doesn’t hesitate. “Exactly what you tried to do to me.”
Maven almost laughs again. Instead he chuffs out a short breath. “So I’ll die in the arena?”
“No,” the king replies, shaking his head. “I don’t intend to watch you spend your last moments embarrassing yourself.” It isn’t a joke. Maven isn’t a fighter. He would barely last a minute in the arena. But he doesn’t deserve what Cal is offering, a little piece of mercy in otherwise iron judgment. “It will be quick. I can give you that.”
“How noble of you, Tiberias.” Maven scowls. Then he thinks better of it, his face clearing. He widens his eyes, and I’m reminded of a dog begging for scraps. A puppy who knows exactly what he’s doing. “Can I make a request?”
At that Cal nearly rolls his eyes. He fixes Maven with a look of pure derision. “You can try.”
“Bury me with my mother.”
The request drives a hole through me.
I think I hear someone on the other side of the council gasp, perhaps Anabel. When I glance at her, she has a hand over her mouth, but her eyes are stoically dry. Cal has gone bone white, both hands clawed to the arms of his throne. His gaze wavers, falling for a moment, before he forces himself to look back at his brother.
I don’t know where Elara’s body ended up. Last I knew, it was with the Guard on Tuck Island, the island we abandoned.
An island of corpses. My brother’s, and hers.
“That can be arranged,” Cal finally murmurs.
But Maven isn’t finished. He takes a step, not forward but to the side. In my direction. The full force of his gaze almost knocks me out of my seat. “And I want to die the way my mother did,” he says plainly, as if asking for an extra blanket.
Again I feel too stunned to think. All I can do is keep my jaw locked in place so my mouth won’t gape open in shock.
“Ripped apart by your fury,” he pushes on, his eyes horrible, unforgettable, searing into me. The brand on my collarbone seems to burn. “And your hatred.”
Inside me, the monster roars. I’ll do it right now. I helped start this. It’s only fair I get to end it. Like Cal’s, my fingers curl on my chair, nails digging into wood. I try to anchor myself, pull inward, keep the lightning at bay, but I feel as if I could spark a storm in a single heartbeat. I won’t give him the satisfaction of his last seduction. That’s what this is. One more drop of poison, a last curl of rot, his final corruption of who I was before he got his claws into me. He knows some piece of me, a large piece, wants this. And he knows it will ruin whatever I managed to salvage from his prison and the torture of his love.
Kill him, Mare Barrow. Be done with him for good.
He stares up at me, waiting for my decision. So do the others. Even Cal, a king, won’t say a word. As before, he’s letting me choose which path I want to take.
For some reason, I think of Jon. The seer who told my fate. To rise, and rise alone. I wonder if that fate has already changed, or if this is how I change it.
Slowly, I shake my head.
“I won’t be your ending, Maven. And you won’t be mine.”
On the floor, Maven seems to tighten. His eyes flicker back and forth, searching my face from eyes to lips. He stays quiet for a long minute, as if waiting for me to change my mind. I stand firm, teeth clenched to stop myself from wavering. Lightning has no mercy, I said once. But lightning is only one part of me. It doesn’t rule me.
I rule it.
“Fine,” Maven forces out, angry to be denied. I feel a tiny bloom of triumph, a counterbalance to the monster in me. He turns away, spinning on his heels to face Cal again. “Then a bullet. A sword. Cut my head off if you want. I have little interest in what you choose.”
Cal is steadily losing his grip, the mask of a king sliding as the ordeal wears on him. I half expect him to get up and walk out of the room. But that isn’t like him. No surrender, no show of weakness. That has been drilled into his bones since childhood. “It will be quick” is all he says again, hesitant.
“You already said that,” Maven snaps like a petulant child. Silver flushes high on his cheeks, twin spots of darkening color.
Anabel clasps her hands. She looks at the brothers, weighing them against each other. The tension between them jumps and crackles like a live wire, and I wonder if Maven is simply trying to goad Cal into killing him outright. Since he couldn’t do it to me.
“Guards, we’re finished with the traitor,” she says, looking imperious.
Taking the decision out of Cal’s hands entirely.
In spite of myself, I glance at Maven, and he’s already looking at me.
Cal can’t make choices.
He told me that so many times, and I learned the truth of it in many painful ways. Even with Maven removed, Cal is still reluctant, unable to make up his mind. Maven told me Cal would make a poor king because of it. Or at the very least another king on a leash, reliant on someone else to help him along. I have to agree. The younger Calore might be a beast, but he isn’t a fool.
The Lerolan guards turn him forcibly, seizing his shoulders to push him out of the chamber. I expect Julian to go with him, but he stays, instead taking a place behind the throne. He folds his hands, thoughtful and silent. Footsteps are the only sound in the room, echoing with such finality as Maven is led away. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. If I’ll have the stomach to watch him die.
When the massive doors swing shut behind his form, I slump a little in my seat, exhaling a long breath. I want nothing more than to go upstairs and take a nap.
I think Cal feels the same. He shifts on his throne, making to stand. “I believe that concludes any business we might have,” he says, his voice strained with fatigue. The king makes a show of looking back and forth among us, as if consulting a loyal council instead of a room of precarious allies. Maybe he thinks he can make it so, if he just acts the part.
Good luck.