Mare
"Why are we here, Maven?" I ask, swallowing as I look up into the boy king's fiery blue eyes.
He doesn't respond at first, hand on Cal's doorknob. It isn't safe out here, not when more and more of the soldiers have left the palace for patrol at the gates and boarders, despite Davidson's promise of more soldiers searching for them. And certainly not when my only backup is Maven. New Montfort soldiers arrive by the hour, though hardly any of them join the search for Cal, Iris, and Evangeline. Not when thousands of Lakelander troops wait across the blue dome's arch. They're coming in closer, surrounding us, intelligence says.
"I haven't been here since we played half a game of chess," he says, not bothering to answer my question. His bony fingers clamp down onto the fine bronze metal, then lighten up. Why did he bring me here, persuade Davidson that there was something worthwhile to us in Cal's room? So worthwhile that he'd risk us out here, with a lengthy trek through the halls of Whitefire. He wears a pair of manacles and doesn't seem to mind it.
Tyton left shortly after he brought us to Davidson's rooms, pale as the rest of us. But now he's down in the tunnels with a troop of fifteen Newbloods, looking for the three. I saw the look in his eyes as we walked up the stairs; he wants to murder thought turns my stomach over. Tyton isn't a killer, even with that bloody death he gave to Volo on the afternoon of Cal's wedding. I still remember the way in which Volo crumpled over on himself, under the influence of the Electricon's steady brain, how he choked, wide-eyed and incredulous.
Not enough soldiers are working on tracking them down. Several groups patrol the tunnels underneath us, which still stretch far even though the other passages that lead out of the palace and government buildings have been destroyed for days. And the service in the hallways is not next to none; a band must pass by the hallway on minute-wide intervals, always vicious and cunning. They won't find them up here, but they won't risk it.
It still isn't enough.
They're killers. Evangeline's always been a relentless killer, but now with Cal and Iris...
It isn't that Davidson isn't keeping enough soldiers on watch. But I know better than to believe it's enough.
I cast my thoughts far away as Maven twists on the knob, pushing the fine door open.
He doesn't hold it open for me, waltzing in himself, and I have to catch it myself to avoid being hit in the face.
Instead, he speaks again. "It's more cluttered than I remember." The words are supposed to come out as a judgement, I think , but they're relatively quiet as he looks around the room, flicks the light switch on.
It's not much different than his room that I once was in at Summerton, spacious but cramped because of all the junk he kept in here. A large four poster bed rests in the middle, dressed up in thick rich blue blankets, the color of water. The blankets are long, dragging against the floor. A window that covers half the wall is at the other side of the room from the door, revealing the clear night sky. The rest is the same, with books and more books on strategy decorating the desk further into the room. The bookshelves are build into the walls, with so many books they might as well splinter their casing. The floor is made out of the same wood as his door, red carpets laid on top of it.
There isn't any theme to the room, but somehow it seems to make sense, with its dozens of weapons and books... and photographs.
"Where did he get these?" I ask, paging through the photos carelessly set on his desk. Black and white, pictures of Maven, pictures of grand banquets and festivals, pictures of me.
Maven comes up from behind me, snatching one of the photos from off the desk. "He didn't take them. Cal's only talents involve military strategy and charming Red girls." I roll my eyes, hardly flinching at his remark. "But if you failed to notice, too busy with staying alive when you were Mareena, there were always photographers. I don't know why my father hired them, but he always did. And Cal always collected the photos. Those must have been the newest batch before you left."
I don't reply. There are a couple dozen in this pile, mostly generic pictures of Silver courtiers dancing and drinking. But there are a few of the king and queen, of Cal and Maven together. A couple of Maven and I, dancing. I cringe at the memory, when I was so stupidly oblivious. "I was so young," I finally murmur, setting the stack back in its place at the desk.
"You were only seventeen."
"I was," I say, nodding, walking towards the window. The moon is behind the clouds tonight, and the world is perfect and dark. "And I was stupid and naive, thinking I could trust Silver princes."
Maven chuckles, the sound low in the night. He passes by one of the bookshelves, dragging a finger over the dusty surface. In fact, everything in this room is untouched, just like my room of Silent Stone and Mareena's room.
"You keep our rooms as though they're tombs, never to be touched or looked at again, if you say you haven't been in here since you last played chess with him. How long ago was that?" A lash of shivers shake through my body, thinking about how long it's been, how much has gone by. "Over a year and a half. There's dust everywhere, strewn about books that could be added back into the library. They have no use in here anymore. And the photographs are just fake memories for you, nothing worth keeping."
Facing the window glass, Maven has gone pale in the reflection, if that's possible. I watch him carefully, creeping up beside him.
Shoulder to shoulder, we look outside into the pitch-black together.
"I think that in a way, you understand me more than you used to, darling," he says, turning his head to look at me. He crosses his hands behind his back. "You wouldn't stand this close to me otherwise, wouldn't talk to me without spitting on my feet. I once told you that perhaps while we weren't the same, we were even. You laughed at me, though even then some part of you agreed. You and I have both killed. And you see the corpses Cal left behind tonight and vomit over them not because you're disgusted with what he's done, but what you've turned him into.
I've seen the corpses you've left behind in your wake; they're horrible, purple and black and dull yellow scars scraped across their bodies from your lightning. You've seen them too, though you push those images far, far into the depths of your mind."
I hiss, curling my fist to punch him. "Stop it," I snap. "Why are we here, Maven?" I ask again, storming back towards the door, to distance myself from him, but...
He continues to speak. "He burned one of their faces off, the other with ruined clothes. But the last one," Maven says, his face grave. "That was the one that made you fall to your knees, wasn't it? Because his entire body was unrecognizable from his fire, with scarring just like the bruises that lightning leaves."
I stare at him, unblinking, as he watches me, waiting for me to realize that what he said is true.
But he blinks first, and closes all but a couple of feet of the distance between us. "I left this room untouched. I left Mareena's room untouched, and I left your room untouched, little lightning girl," he says, though I've been in that room, know for a fact that it has changed with all those letters in the desk. "I leave the rooms the way they are because they're the only pieces of you and Cal I have left. So yes, I do keep them like tombs."
Maven is a liar. And I should've known that when he told me that he didn't dream, that not a bit of him loved Cal anymore.
But I don't tell him that. "I befriended a girl who showed me her religion, her life. I looked a man that I love in the eyes and I told him that I would not betray him. But you're still wrong, though. We're not even. We're the same."
He says nothing, bowing his head and moving to a nearby dresser. Maven shuffles through one of the drawers, apparently looking for something. "Like I said. Evangeline and Iris will be out on the prowl, looking for Ptolemus, Elane, and Bart. If I were to guess where Cal's first stop would be tonight, it would be here."
More shivering, and I follow him over to the dresser. "Why here?"
He plucks something silver and flashy out of the dresser, holding it up for me to see. Flamemakers. Of course.
"My brother is a bred soldier, and he could kill ten trained Reds armed to the teeth with knives if he wanted. But this isn't a fight against only Reds, now is it? He needs his fire, and he doesn't want to carry around a torch. He's already been here. There's two pairs missing from his usual collection. I just wanted to check. And I wanted to talk to you before you go. There's nothing worthwhile in here."
I gulp as my stomach twists, looking around the room. It's almost as though he's still here, a vague smokey incense lining the room. I don't know how I'll face him tonight, lay a trap for him, of all things.
"Promise me you'll be careful," he says, tossing the flamemakers back into the drawer and pushing it shut. "Because while you may be equal to him with your lightning, if he manages to trap you somewhere with Silence, he will use his size and training against you. If you think you've seen my brother fight... you haven't. He's been training much longer than you have."
I don't argue with him. It's true. Cal and I are evenly matched with fire and lightning, but it's a different story when it comes to pure, brute fighting. "Why are you so certain that he'll come for me?"
"You haven't been down there in the dungeons with him for the last ten days. All he did was pace back and forth, back and forth for hours on end, in between longer bursts of sitting on the floor, staring at the ceiling. When he thought I wasn't looking, I watched him. And I don't know what I saw in his eyes. But he won't leave this palace before he says his last words to you."
"If you're so certain this plan of yours will work, setting a trap for him with me as the bait, what do you think he'll do with me, if say, he makes it out without getting recaptured?" Though I try my best to hide it, fear taints my tone.
"First of all, he won't. There will be guards hidden in your room, in the halls, outside the window. But if he did... I don't know. I don't know what he'll do once he finds you. I don't think he does either."
The fact that I've allowed Maven to plan this, that Davidson is allowing this idea... The overhead lights flicker in Maven's irises as he watches me back, slowly blinking. He still wears his imprisonment clothes, a gray pair of slacks and a black shirt that reveals white arms.
"Intelligence says that the Lakelander forces are growing in number. More are still coming in from the hillsides, and now they're moving to surround the city. I should go check on Davidson, to see if there's anything I could do to help before I go to my room." I breathe out, turning my back from him. But I stop, just for a moment as I see another photo, thrown carelessly against the floor.
Crouching down, I pluck the paper from the ground. Cal must've dropped it months and months ago and never picked it back up.
So I pick it up now, squinting though it's right next to my face. A photo of me in one of those ridiculous dresses Lady Blonos always made sure I wear, decked in all of that paint to cover who I really was. What I really was. I smile in the photograph, eyes ever-so-slightly squeezed together, as if I was halfway through a good laugh.
"I don't remember ever smiling like this when I was in Summerton." But I did, the photo has to be real. "Do you remember which ball it was?"
Maven comes up from behind me, walking alongside the bed until he decides to perch himself on the post at the corner closest to the door. Without knowing why I do it, I come closer to him, sitting on the edge of the mattress. It feels like a violation in a way to Cal. But I hold the photo up to Maven anyway, our feet dangling at the floor.
"Was it the one where we plotted to have those High Lords assassinated by the Scarlet Guard?"
I shake my head, though I know he means it as a joke. "I wouldn't have smiled so genuinely that day."
"In that case, I suppose I don't remember. It feels like a lifetime ago."
"That's because it was," I say, pushing myself away from him again, and I swear I see a gleam in his eyes that isn't from the lights. The conversation is too deep, a path that I can't go down with Maven again. Talking about when we were engaged, plotting to destroy the world together... that will only lead to talk about what could've been.
And I can't think about what could've been for anyone. Lives lost, loves destroyed...
Despite everything, the reckless nature of talking about it, I speak again. "You know I would pay for that life again. When all I had to do was keep straight posture and avoid tripping on the feet of royals. I thought it was difficult...but now..." A tear slips through my eye. "Everything that I've done, everyone that I've betrayed and lied to and stolen from, it's still worth it, if it means the end of an era. But if it's all for nothing, if the Lakelanders force us into surrender and Cal and Iris and Evangeline get out..." A second tear slips out, and I press my lips together.
If he were anybody else, Maven would tell a white lie, tell me that we'll win because we're Newbloods and we have thousands of more fighters flying in. But Archeon isn't the only city that we have to protect, that's under siege.
He sits on the bedpost, his booted heel tapping against the frame.
"Then the monarchy will live on. Somebody will force a new crown. And Cal will have kill you, and the rest of the Reds. Me as well. If you're so certain that you and I are the same, then at least we'll go to Hell together."
"I'm going to the barracks to shower and change for when I have to fight," I announce, pulling open the door. He follows behind me.
As pointless as it was, I can't help feeling a little less alone.
I walk through the halls of Whitefire palace, in new clothes and with clean hair, the bloody clothes I wore down to the dungeons gone, replaced with dark green cargo pants, a black tank top, and a thin black jacket, dark enough to blend into the night. My fresh set of boots pad quietly down the forgotten corridor, and only a few of the lights that usually illuminate the hallway are on.
Davidson briefly opens up holes in the force field to allow men in, and thousands more have arrived since I left Cal's room with Maven.
It's begun to rain since I left the barracks, and I allow a couple of bolts of my lightning to play with the rain on the outskirts of the city, above the force field. They could be natural, for all I know. Yet I know better. Either from Iris or the Lakelander Queen, they have to be.
The rain pounds without mercy against the darkened force field stories above, and I quicken my pace, if only to find a group of guards I can latch onto. I tell myself I'm not scared in the shadowed corridors, but I can't help but feel a lick of fear strum at my heart every few seconds. They couldn't possibly know where I'm coming from or where I'm going to.
Why aren't there any guards on this corridor?
It's too quiet. It's too dark.
Sighing through my nose, "May the Gods damn you, Jon," I whisper, shaking my head.
A shadow shifts in the corner of my vision, tall and swift.
Though by the time I shift my head fully to see what it was, it's gone. They wouldn't be in this section of the palace. There's nothing useful here, no weapons, no secret hiding places. They must be in the tunnels, hiding where Tyton and his team cannot find them.
I stop in the hall, circling around myself to search for the cause of the movement. Shadows aren't supposed to move.
Just a change in the clouds, probably.
But the moon is still covered, the chandelier at the end of the hallway the only source of light. The clouds are thick and dense, blocking out all the stars and the moon completely and thoroughly. It's been that way all night. The men and women in the paintings on the opposite side of the hallway do not move, grinning with wicked smiles or else donning terrifying straight-faces. But those men and women are long since dead, the oil on the canvas all that's left.
I'm not alone.
By the time I completely circle around myself, I find a woman in front of me, but she doesn't smile, just stands there, clad in fighting gear and weaponry.
"Iris," I murmur. I should scream, but-
A hand clamps over my mouth, and another arm wraps around my body, pinning my arms to my sides. His chest is warm against my back, his arms solid, unyielding around my body, even as I relax myself when I try to slip out of his grip.
His arm tightens around me and forces me back up. He taught me that trick.
I try to shock him, but there's something wrong, something that makes my lightning falter, hiccup and then die like a snuff of a flame. Because while you may be equal to him with your lightning, if he manages to trap you somewhere with Silence, he will use his size and training against you. If you think you've seen my brother fight... you haven't. He's been training much longer than you have.
My foot kicks backward, looking for his shin, only to stun him long enough to let my lightning come back, to run-
He pushes me up against the window, easily dodging my second trick, his hand crushing itself against the pane of glass, pressed on my lips so that I can't speak, can't so much as make a sound. My forehead touches the damp glass, though with the heat pressing me against the wall, it's a small relief.
The Silence. I have to get rid of it, get away-
Iris's shoes quietly click against the tiles. "I'm sorry," she says, and I close my eyes, foolishly willing it all to go away, though I can't see her as fingers brush my neck, looking for-
There's only the feeling of a sharp pang before the world begins to fade and my body goes limp.
Cal's arm catches the back of my knees as I fall, the other shifting to support my shoulders as he lifts me up.
The world fades to black.
He taught me that trick.
