important a/n before the chapter starts;
maven is not very nice to mare here. this is (spoilers for gs)post-shade's death and maven hurts her and does things to her without permission (it's not too extreme, but he's still horrible to her) through this whole story and their relationship here is just very toxic so if that makes you uncomfortable please don't read. my headcanons of her feelings for him are fleshed out further there and maybe through other chapters though as well as how she feels about cal so idk do what you want. please r&r or whatever idk you don't have to *rolls away
dead reckoning
n. to find yourself bothered by someone's death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.
- the dictionary of obscure sorrows.
When she thinks of her brother, Shade, she wonders how death feels. The lightning girl, left alone because she (and everyone else) finds herself to blame, sits by herself and ponders about things that don't really matter, because that's what she's always done. People see it as a childish question, but it's truly something someone—Mare, rather—would want to know. How does it feel to die? Does it depend on how? Is it the snap of a finger, the flip of a switch, like you die and then poof—you're gone. Or is it excruciating in those few moments between consciousness and death, pain, agony?
Mare doesn't want to know, though at the same time she really does. What did she end up putting Shade through? Another weight of guilt to carry upon her shoulders? All the same, she sees Farley and Bree and Tramy and Cal, glaring at her through slitted eyes and accusing expressions. She decides that if she ever finds how death feels, she won't tell them. She exhales slowly, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Suddenly, the abandoned hallway she is sitting in feels unnecessarily hot, though she is wearing thin scraps of clothing and the hallway is made almost entirely of metal.
Metal. Metal is Ptolemus, metal is Evangeline. Metal is cold, shimmers softly, and is certainly deadly if you sharpen it enough.
Shade would know.
If he wasn't dead.
I don't know if you love anyone at all.
It's sharp and reprimanding and she wants to scream.
"Shut up, Cal," she whispers to the corridor, as if anything will happen.
He's not here to listen to her, not anymore. She'd be okay with that—no, she is okay with that, because Cal certainly had no right to say the things he'd said, and certainly not so soon after Shade's death; his real death.
For once, Mare misses the Silvers and their constant need for perfection. There is no room for emotion in the court. Shade's death, or at least what she'd thought was, had to be pushed away for the public eye. In the Guard, that behavior is shamed. You must grieve and you must feel. Otherwise you're heartless and soulless and a monster and a lot of other adjectives Mare thinks describe herself rather well.
Mare finds herself alone too often.
It's blame and unwillingness to confront anything (she doesn't admit that to herself, though, not at all) that keeps her by herself. She's too afraid to bother, too offended to bring up the subject to Cal and try to suddenly mend, too cold in the deepest parts of her heart and her bones to try and explain everything to Bree and Tramy and Gisa and Mom and Dad and Farley and everyone who looks at her and thinks to themselves, That's the reason Shade Barrow is dead.
What a pain. What a real pain.
She and Shade hadn't even interacted much after she had seen for real that he was alive, she realizes suddenly, when she's become very sure that nothing could possibly make her feel worse. No, Mare had been determined to be as alone as possible, and Shade to get as close to Farley as he could. And so there were no gentle sibling interactions like she'd hoped for, only Shade throwing himself in front of her and then dead.
He was like the toy the child didn't play with. They left it alone, but cried when you took it away.
Mare is not dead, in fact, but to Cal she might as well be.
He just wishes that they'd spoken, and though he's certain that when they'd fallen there had been a moment where he'd apologized and she'd forgiven him, they'd never said it out loud. It was just a moment. It was just a split second.
And it's a dull ache in his chest, the only thing he can focus on, because without Mare there suddenly there's no worth in planning or looking at maps or training. He can't think and he can't focus, but good god, does he hate it. He had been looking so pointedly in the other direction; but she was always hovering in the corner of his view somewhere. It's strange looking around and seeing she's gone or not hearing her ideas, stupid or pointless or manipulative as they are.
He lays in bed, naturally laying on the left side, because Mare always tucks herself into the right. He remembers, suddenly, that Mare is gone, and that the side of the bed she usually lays on is unusually cold, but he can't bring himself to roll over.
Kilorn is as distraught as him. Considering how both of them had been pulling away from Mare before this, he knows both of them are surprised by that.
(A lot more than they should've been, realistically.)
"How are you handling?" Kilorn asks him one day. He's not sure what day it is, because they all seem to blur together nowadays. That's a shame. Kilorn's words are not nice, they're just sharp, but then again, neither of them have many other options now that their anchor (also known as Mare, unstable as she was, ironically) has left them. It's hard to be nice with such a loss. He'd known even before Mare had gone.
"How are you?" Cal challenges, throwing his words back at him in spite and setting his jaw when Kilorn looks taken aback. Both of the boys feel like they have lost so much more than the other. And there's the fact that Cal really doesn't want to answer, not really.
It's stupid to be fighting. Stupid to be fighting with Mare gone.
For a moment, Cal and Kilorn stare at each other. Finally, the blond boy huffs, tearing his eyes away from Cal. "Have you been doing anything?" he bites out.
Cal cringes. He hates to admit that he hasn't. He wishes that he'd actually been doing something, but Mare giving herself up has shaken him to the core. "I think the answer is obvious," he says swiftly, refusing to meet the other boy's eyes.
Of course, Fisher Boy laughs, deft and yet so quickly fading, so cold at the same time. The loss of Mare has hit the both of them harder than it should have for her being a shaky, murderous (and so heartrendingly enchanting, how horrid) lightning girl.
"So the answer is no?" Kilorn mocks.
Cal wants to punch him, but knows that they're both desperate at this point.
So he doesn't.
"Something on your mind, my pet?"
Mare cringes at the nickname, because it's what she is. His pet.
She hates herself yet again. The second time since Shade.
"No," she murmurs, and hates how feeble her voice sounds when she speaks. She gasps faintly when he nips her neck (she'd told him to stop that, dammit, but of course, she was the pet here) and grinds her teeth when he laughs against her, his arms tightening around her waist. His laugh is still cold and still mocking, and she shivers against him, and he presses another kiss against her neck, because he assumes she shivered for another reason.
(His lips are cold and foreign. She doesn't recognize him anymore. Not like she did in the first place.)
"Don't lie to me, Mare," Maven says, his voice deceivingly soft, pulling her closer.
"I'm not lying to you." She leans away from him, out of his touch, trying to separate the two. Maven shifts his hand to her wrist, tightening as the temperature rises. Mare cringes, squirming and yanking her arm away. He raises his eyebrow at her as she rubs where the burns are already forming, and shakes his head, a hand stroking up and down her side, burning and too slow. He grins with a sharp, cold air.
"You are, though, Mare." He drops his arm back around her, letting the temperature die down. She wishes he'd just decide on how cruel he wants to be.
She squirms, gritting her teeth and trying to pretend that he hasn't had any effect on her in the—weeks? months?—weeks, she assumes, that Maven has had her as a pet. Though he has, and how horrible it is.
She is frail and fragile and she feels she would rather be dead than here—but rather here than with the Guard. After all, she keeps more people safe this way. Cal, Kilorn, her family, Farley, the legions of young Red children ready to be sacrificed like pigs.
But she could not protect Shade—Shade, oh Shade; the source of her whole dilemma in the first place.
"You wouldn't understand," she finally says. She doubts Maven feels any love for his brother— no, at this point, she's absolutely certain the boy could care less whether his brother, Cal, lives or dies. In fact, he probably would prefer it if Cal was dead.
Maven looks at her, and shrugs, the motion strangely casual and almost comforting (almost, for it would be much more comforting if it was the Maven she'd thought she'd known), then smiles, but it's less strangled and cruel than usual.
"I understand a lot more than you may think."
She doesn't realize that he'd slapped her until the burn stings on her cheek, bringing her back to reality with a crash.
"So you should probably tell me."
It's as vicious as she remembers.
She's just about given up, but she knows that giving up only pleases Maven Calore, King of Norta, Flame of the North.
