“Will you come to Montfort?” The words blurt out of me, and I can’t bite them back. It’s a selfish request. Kilorn doesn’t have to follow me around everywhere I go. And it’s not my place to demand anything of him. But I don’t want to leave him behind again.
His responding grin erases any trepidation I might have. “Am I allowed? Thought it was some kind of mission.”
“It is. And I’m allowing it.”
“Because it’s safe,” he replies, eyeing me sidelong.
I purse my lips, searching for an answer he might accept. Yes, it is safe. Or the closest thing we have to safe. It isn’t wrong to want him out of danger.
Kilorn brushes my arm. “I get it,” he continues. “Listen, I’m not about to storm a city or shoot jets out of the sky. I know what my limitations are, and how many I have compared to the rest of you.”
“Just because you can’t kill someone with a snap of your fingers doesn’t make you less than anyone else,” I fire back, almost electrified with sudden indignation. I wish I could list all the wonderful things about Kilorn. All the important things he is.
His expression sours. “Don’t remind me.”
I grab his arm, nails digging into wet fabric. He doesn’t stop walking. “I’m serious, Kilorn,” I say. “So you’ll come?”
“I’ll check my schedule.”
I dig my elbow into his side and he jumps away, forcing an exaggerated frown.
“Stop it. You know I bruise like a peach.”
I elbow him again for good measure, both of us laughing as much as we dare.
We continue on quietly, lapsing into an easy silence. This time it isn’t so stifling. My usual worries melt away, or at least step back for long moments. Kilorn is my home too, as much as my family. His presence is a pocket of time, a narrow place where we can exist without consequence. Nothing before, nothing after.
At the end of the street, a figure seems to materialize from the rain, shedding drops of dark and light. I recognize the silhouette before my body has time to react.
Julian.
The gangly Silver hesitates when he sees us, only for a second, but it’s enough time for me to know. His side is chosen, and it isn’t mine.
Cold bleeds through me, from fingers to toes. Even Julian.
As he approaches, Kilorn nudges me.
“I can head back,” he whispers.
I glance at him briefly, drawing strength from him. “Please don’t.”
His brows knit with concern, but he nods curtly.
My old tutor still wears his long robes, despite the rain, and he shakes water from the folds of his faded yellow clothing. No use in it. The rain keeps pelting down, smoothing out the slight curls of his gray-streaked hair.
“I was hoping to catch you at home,” he calls over the hissing downpour. “Well, honestly, I was hoping to catch you indisposed so I could do this in the morning. Instead of out in this infernal wet.” Julian shakes his head like a dog and pushes hair away from his eyes.
“Say what you came here to say, Julian.” I cross my arms. As the night falls, so does the temperature. I might catch a chill, even here in steaming Piedmont.
Julian doesn’t reply. Instead his eyes flick to Kilorn, one eyebrow raised in silent question. “He’s fine,” I say, answering before he can ask. “Speak up before we all drown out here.”
My tone sharpens, and so does Julian. He isn’t a fool. His face falls, reading the disappointment etched on me. “I know you feel abandoned,” he begins, choosing his words with maddening care.
I can’t help but bristle. “Stick to history. I won’t let you lecture me on what I’m allowed to feel.”
He only blinks, taking my response in stride. Again he pauses, long enough to let a raindrop roll down his straight nose. He does it to gauge me, to measure, to study. For the first time, his patient manner makes me want to seize him by the shoulders and shake some impulsive words out of him.
“Very well,” he says, his voice low and wounded. “Then, in the interest of history, or what will very soon be history, I am still accompanying my nephew on your journey west. I would like to see the Free Republic for myself, and I think I can be of use to Cal there.” Julian starts to take a step forward, toward me, but thinks better of it. He keeps his distance.
“Does Tiberias have some interest in obscure history that I don’t know about?” I scoff, the words coming out harsher than usual.
He looks torn; that much is very clear. He can barely look me in the eye. The rain plasters his hair to his forehead, clings to his lashes, pulls at him with tiny fingers. It smooths him out somehow, as if washing away his days. Julian seems younger than when I met him, almost a year ago. Less sure of himself. Full of worry and doubt.
“No,” he concedes. “While I normally encourage my nephew to pursue all knowledge he can, there are some things I’d like to steer him away from. Some stones he should not waste time trying to overturn.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
Julian frowns. “I assume he mentioned his hopes for Maven. Before.”
Before he chose the crown over me. “He did,” I whisper, sounding small.
“He thinks there might be some way to fix his brother. Heal the wounds of Elara Merandus.” Slowly, Julian shakes his head. “But there is no completing a puzzle with missing pieces. Or putting a shattered pane of glass back together.”
My stomach twists, tensing with what I already know. What I’ve seen firsthand. “It’s impossible.”
Julian nods. “Impossible, and hopeless. A doomed pursuit, one that will only break my boy’s heart.”
“What makes you think I still care about his heart?” I sneer, tasting the bitter lie.
Julian takes a wary step forward. “Go easy on him,” he murmurs.
I snap back without blinking. “How dare you say that to me?”
“Mare, do you remember what you found in those books?” he asks, pulling his robes tight around himself. His voice takes on a pleading edge. “Do you remember the words?”
I shiver, and it isn’t because of the rain. “‘Not a god’s chosen, but a god’s cursed.’”
“Yes,” he replies, nodding along with fervent motion. It reminds me of the way he used to teach, and I brace for a lecture. “This is not a new concept, Mare. Men and women have felt that way, in some capacity, for thousands of years. Chosen or cursed, fated or doomed. Since the dawn of sentience, I suspect, and long before Silver and Red or any type of ability. Did you know kings and politicians and rulers of every kind used to think they were blessed by the gods? Ordained to their place in the world? Many thought themselves chosen, but a few, of course, saw the duty as a curse.”
Next to me, Kilorn puffs out a low scoff. I’m more obvious, rolling my eyes at Julian. When I shift, so does the collar of my shirt, sending a steady drip of rainwater down my spine. I clench my fists to keep from flinching.
“Are you saying your nephew is cursed to his crown?” I sneer.
Julian hardens, and I feel a tinge of regret for being so callous. He shakes his head at me, like I’m a child to be scolded. “Forced to choose between the woman he loves and what he thinks is right? What he thinks he must do, because of everything he’s been taught to be? What else would you call that?”
“I call it an easy decision,” Kilorn growls.
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, trying to gnaw back a dozen rude responses. “Did you really come here to defend what he did? Because I’m certainly not in the mood for it.”
“No, of course not, Mare,” Julian replies. “But to explain, if I can.”
My stomach churns at the thought of Julian of all people explaining his nephew’s heart to me. With his dissections and ruminations. Will he boil it down to simple science? An equation to show that the crown and I are not equal in the prince’s eyes? I simply can’t stand it.
“Save your breath, Julian,” I spit. “Go back to your king. Stand at his side.” I look him dead in the eye. So he knows I’m not lying. “And keep him safe.”
He sees the offer for what it is. The only thing I can do.
Julian Jacos bows low. He sweeps out his soaking robes in an attempt at courtly manner. For a second, we could be back in Summerton, just him and me in a classroom piled with books. Back then, I lived in terror, forced to masquerade as someone else. Julian was one of my only refuges in that place. Alongside Cal and Maven. My only sanctuaries. The Calore brothers are gone. I think Julian might be too.
“I will, Mare,” he tells me. “With my life, if I must.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“So do I.”
Our words are warnings to each other. And his voice sounds like a good-bye.
I think Bree keeps his eyes closed for the entire flight. Not to sleep. He just really despises flying, so much so he can hardly look at his own feet, let alone peek out the window. He doesn’t even respond to Tramy’s and Gisa’s gentle teasing. They sit on either side of him, content to poke and prod. Gisa stage-whispers to Tramy, leaning across Bree to say something about jet crashes or engine malfunctions. I don’t join in. I know what a jet crash feels like, or at least close to it. But I won’t spoil their fun either. We get so little of it these days. Bree keeps still in his seat, arms tightly crossed, his lids glued shut. Eventually his head lolls forward, chin resting on his chest, and he sleeps the rest of the way.
It’s no small accomplishment on his part, considering the route from the Piedmont base to the Free Republic of Montfort is one of the longest flights I’ve ever taken. Six hours of flying at least. Too long a journey for a dropjet, so we’re on a larger carrier, a transport more like the Blackrun. But this isn’t the same craft, thankfully. The Blackrun was torn apart last year, by a contingent of Samos warriors and Maven’s own fury.
I glance down the fuselage to the silhouettes of two pilots working the jet. Men of Montfort. I don’t know either of them. Kilorn hangs at their backs, watching them fly.
Like Bree, Mom isn’t keen on the flight, but Dad twists with his forehead glued to the glass, eyes on the land as it sprawls out below. The rest of the Montfort escort—Davidson and his advisers—spend the time sleeping. They must intend to hit the ground running when they get home. Farley sleeps too, her face pressed up against her seat. She took a spot without a window. Flying still makes her ill.
She is the only representative from the Scarlet Guard. Even in sleep, she curls her arms around Clara, rocking with the motion of the jet to keep her settled. The Colonel is back at the base, and probably ecstatic about it. With Farley gone, he’s the highest-ranking member of the Scarlet Guard left behind. He can play Command all he likes, while his daughter relays information back to the organization.
On the ground, the verdant green of Piedmont, braided with muddy rivers and rolling hills, steadily gives over to the floodplain of the Great River. The disputed lands line both banks, their borders strange and always changing. I know little about them, except the obvious. The Lakelands, Piedmont, Prairie, and even Tiraxes farther south fight over this stretch of mud, swamp, hill, and tree. For control of the river, mostly. I hope. Silvers fight for nothing most of the time, spilling red blood for less than dirt. They control this land too, but not as tightly as they do Norta and the Lakelands.
We fly on, heading west over the flat grasslands and gentle hills of Prairie. Some is farmland. Wheat sprouts in golden waves, patchworked with corn in endless rows. The rest looks like open landscape, pocked by the occasional forest or lake. Prairie has no kings that I know of, no queens, no princes. Their lords rule by right of power, not blood. When a father falls, his son does not always take his place. It’s another country I never thought I’d see, but here I am, looking down at it.
It never goes away, this strange feeling bubbling up from the odd divide between who I was before and who I am now. A girl of the Stilts, of familiar mud, trapped in a small place until the doom of conscription. My future was so empty then, but was it easier than this? I feel detached from that life, a million miles and a thousand years ago.
Julian isn’t on our carrier, or else I might be tempted to ask about the countries beneath us. He’s on the other airjet, the Laris jet striped yellow, with the rest of the Calore and Samos representatives, as well as their guards. Not to mention their baggage. Apparently a would-be king and a princess require a good deal of clothes. They trail behind us, visible from the left-side windows, metal wings flashing as we chase the sun.
Ella told me she came from the Prairie lands before Montfort. The Sandhills. Raider country. More terms I don’t really understand. She isn’t here to explain, left behind at the Piedmont base with Rafe. Tyton is the only electricon coming with us. Besides me, of course. He’s Montfort-born. I suspect he has a family to visit, and friends too. He sits near the rear of the jet, sprawled across two empty seats, his nose buried in a tattered book. As I look at him, he feels my gaze, and he meets my eyes for a brief second. He blinks, gray orbs calculating. I wonder if he can feel the tiny pulses of electricity in my brain. Does he know what each one means? Can he distinguish between bursts of fear or excitement?
Could I, one day?