فصل سی و هفتم

Thirty-Seven: Mare

The room is a coffin. A maw of stone that will swallow me whole. I feel dead, even on the threshold, hesitating to fully succumb to this place and the person who built it.

My heart pounds so loudly I know Maven can hear it.

His eyes trace over me in a way that is too familiar and too close, despite the yards between us. He focuses on my throat, on the vein pulsing with all my fear. I expect him to lick his lips. My hand flexes in vain, attempting to call up a bolt of lightning. All I get are weak sparks, darkly purple, dying quickly against the might of so much Silent Stone.

Something gleams in his hand, flashing in the dim light. A knife, I think, thin and small but sharp enough.

My hand strays to my hip, for the pistol Tyton harangued me into wearing. But the holster is gone entirely, probably lost in the Bridge collapse. I gulp again. I have no weapons at all.

And Maven knows it.

He grins, teeth white and wicked. “Aren’t you going to try to stop me?” he says, tipping his head like some curious puppy.

My mouth feels dry when I speak. “Don’t make me do this, Maven.” It comes out raspy.

Maven just shrugs. Somehow he manages to make his simple gray clothing look like silk and fur and steel. He isn’t a king anymore, but no one seems to have told him.

“I’m not making you do anything,” he says imperiously. “You don’t have to suffer this. You can stand right there, or even turn around. It makes no difference to me.” I force another breath, stronger than before. The too-familiar memory of Silent Stone claws up my spine. “Don’t make me kill you like this,” I growl, sounding dangerous and lethal.

“What are you going to do, stare at me?” he shoots back dryly. “I’m terrified.” It’s a brash show, his forced nonchalance. I know Maven well enough to see the truth in his words, the real fear weaving through his practiced arrogance. His eyes dart, quicker than before, not over my face, but my feet. So he can move when I move. Run when I lunge.

In spite of the dagger, he’s without his weapons too.

I don’t tremble when I take the first, slow step, sliding into the prison of Silent Stone.

“You should be.”

Maven stumbles back, surprised, almost tripping over himself. But he recovers quickly, the dagger tight in his hand as I continue forward. He mirrors my movements, stepping backward. The lethal dance is achingly slow, and we never break our stare. We don’t even blink. I feel as if I’m walking a tightrope over a pit of wolves, barely keeping balance. One wrong move and I’ll fall to their fangs.

Or maybe I’m the wolf.

I see myself in his eyes. And his mother. And Cal. All we did to get here, in the middle of the end of his world. I lied and was lied to. Betrayed and was betrayed. I hurt people, and so many people hurt me. I wonder what Maven sees in my eyes.

“It won’t end here,” he murmurs, his voice low and smooth. I’m reminded of Julian and his melodic ability. “You can drag my corpse across the world, and it won’t end any of this.” “Likewise,” I reply, showing my teeth. The inches close between us, in spite of his best efforts. I’m more agile than he is. “The Red dawn won’t stop with me.” He offers a twisting smirk. “Then it seems we’re both dispensable. We don’t matter anymore.” I bark out a laugh. I’ve never mattered the way he still does. “I’m used to it.” “I like the hair,” Maven murmurs, filling the empty space. His eyes run over the tangle of brown and purple spilling over one shoulder. I don’t reply.

The last card he plays is obvious, but it still stings. Not because I want what he offers, but because I remember a girl who would have accepted it. She knows better now.

“We can still run.” His voice deepens, letting the offer hang in the air. “Together.” I should laugh at him. Twist the knife. Make him suffer as much as I can in these last moments we have. Instead I feel some piece of my heart break for someone so irrevocably lost. And I feel true sorrow for the other brother in the midst of all this, who tried and failed. Who never deserved what’s happening now.

“Maven,” I sigh, shaking my head at his blindness. “The last person who loves you isn’t standing in this room. He’s out there. And you burned that bridge to ashes.” He goes deathly still, face white as bone. Not even his icy eyes move. When I take another step, coming within arm’s length, he doesn’t seem to notice. I ball a fist at my side, bracing myself.

Slowly, he blinks. And I see nothing in him.

Maven Calore is empty.

“Very well.”

The dagger cuts at my throat, swiping with vicious and blistering speed. I lean backward, dodging the blow without thought. He keeps coming, keeps slicing, saying nothing. My body reacts before my brain, all instinct as I deflect his strikes. I’m faster than he is, and my arms swing in time with his movements, catching his wrists before he can do any damage with the tiny, wicked gleam of sharp iron.

I have nothing except my own fists and feet. My focus is on keeping the dagger away from my skin, and I barely land any blows of my own. I twist, trying to trip him with a hooked ankle, but he steps neatly over the attempt. My first mistake, leaving my back exposed. I move as he does, and a stab for my lungs becomes a long but shallow gash across my side. Hot, red blood wells up, filling the air with a copper tang.

I almost expect him to apologize. Maven has never truly delighted in my pain. But he gives no quarter. And neither do I.

Ignoring the spreading pain, I jab at his throat with a closed fist, hitting hard. He wheezes and stumbles, dropping to a knee. I strike again, kicking him across the jaw. The momentum sends him sideways, his eyes wide and dazed as he spits silver blood in all directions. If not for the dagger, I would use the opportunity to get my arms around his throat and squeeze until his body is cold.

Instead I leap, using my weight to keep him pinned as I fight the fingers still clawed around the dagger hilt. He growls beneath me, in spite of the jaw, trying to force me off.

I have to use my teeth.

The taste of silver blood poisons my mouth when I clamp down on his fingers, cutting through flesh straight to the bone. His growls turn to wailing screams. The sound rips into me, made worse by the effect of Silent Stone. Everything hurts more than it should.

I push through it and pry his fingers off, biting where I must, until the dagger is mine. It’s slick with his blood and mine, silver and red, darker by the second.

Suddenly his other hand is around my throat, squeezing without any restraint, crushing the air from my windpipe. He’s heavier than me and uses his weight to fling me onto my back. One of his knees digs into my shoulder, keeping my dagger arm pinned. The other presses into my collarbone, right over the brand he gave me. It shrieks and stings beneath the pressure, and I feel the bone crack with an agonizing slowness.

It’s my turn to scream.

“I tried, Mare,” he hisses, his cold breath washing over my face. Still struggling for air, I can’t do much more than gasp and choke. My vision splits and spots, leaving only his eyes above me. Too blue, too frozen, inhuman in their blankness. They are not the eyes of a fire prince. This is not Maven Calore. That boy is gone, lost. Whoever he was born as will not be buried with him.

My neck aches, bruising beneath his fingers as blood vessels burst. I can barely think, my mind narrowing to the dagger still clenched in my fist. I try to raise my arm again, but Maven’s weight makes it impossible.

Tears prick at my eyes when I realize this is how it ends. No lightning, no thunder. I’ll die a Red girl, one of thousands crushed beneath a Silver crown.

Maven’s grip on my throat never loosens. If anything, it becomes tighter, crushing the muscles in my neck until I feel like my spine might snap clean. The world dims, the spots across my vision spreading like black rot.

But Maven leans. Slightly, in the smallest way. Putting more pressure on my broken collarbone. And less on my shoulder.

Enough to free my arm.

I don’t think. I just swing wildly, blade ready, as his eyes fade.

They seem sad and . . .

Satisfied.

Before I open my eyes, I’m intensely aware of how big my tongue feels in my mouth. An odd thing to fixate on, against everything else. I try to swallow, which only exacerbates the pain in my throat. It flares up, angry, as the muscles in my neck scream in protest. I tense against the pain, limbs shifting beneath the blanket of the bed . . . wherever I am.

“Give Sara a second,” I hear Kilorn say, his voice close at my ear. He stinks of sweat and smoke. “Don’t move if you can help it.” “Okay,” I rasp, and that hurts worse than anything before.

He laughs a bit. “Don’t speak either. Might be a bit difficult for you.” Normally, I’d hit him, or tell him how wretched he smells. But feeling rather restrained, I elect to keep my eyes shut and jaw clenched against the ache. Sara shuffles around the bed, her touch lingering as she weaves around to my left side.

She puts her blissful hands to my neck, and I realize that the gash on my ribs must be gone. I can’t feel it anymore.

She tips my head just so, forcing me to lift my chin in spite of the pain. I wince, hissing a little, and Kilorn puts a steadying hand on my wrist. Sara’s healing ability quickly mitigates my discomfort, pooling over the bruises and swelling.

“Your vocal cords aren’t as bad as I expected,” she muses. Sara Skonos has a lovely voice, light like a bell. After so many years without a tongue, one might think she would make up for lost time, but she still speaks sparingly, her words chosen with careful intention. “They won’t be difficult.” “Take your time, Sara. No rush,” Kilorn mutters.

I snap my eyes open, glaring at him as he grins.

The lights above are bright, but not harsh, hardly the fluorescent sharpness one might expect from an infirmary. I blink, trying to place myself. With a jolt, I realize I’m not in the infirmary of the barracks at all, but in one of the palace bedrooms. No wonder the bed is so soft and the room is so quiet.

Kilorn lets me look around, giving me the space I need. I shift, turning my wrist so I can take his hand in mine. “So you’re still kicking around.” Already my throat hurts less, only twinging. Hardly enough to keep me quiet.

“In spite of my best efforts,” he replies, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I can see where he tried to wipe his face, leaving streaks of clean skin edged by dirt and blood. The rest of him is just as filthy, which makes him stand out like a sore thumb against the elegant trappings of the palatial bedroom. “Mostly, I just stayed out of the way.” “Finally,” I mutter. Sara’s fingers continue their dance across my neck, spreading a soothing warmth. “Someone beat some sense into you.” He chuckles. “It certainly took long enough.”

The smile, the easy manner on him, even the way he holds his shoulders without weight or tension—it can only mean one thing. “So I’m guessing we won,” I sigh, too surprised to even comprehend what that means. I have no idea what a real victory would even look like.

“Not entirely.” Kilorn rubs a hand over his dirty cheek, smearing the grime across the clean parts of him. Idiot, I think kindly. “The mersives were enough to scare off the armada, and the Lakelanders managed to limp back out to sea. I think the big shots are still negotiating a cease-fire now.” I try to sit up a little, only to have Sara press me back down gently. “But not surrender?” I ask, forced to watch Kilorn from the corner of my eye.

He shrugs. “It could become one. But no one tells me much of anything,” he adds with a good-natured wink.

“A cease-fire isn’t permanent.” I grit my teeth, thinking of the Lakelanders returning a year from now. “They won’t let this last—” “Could you just enjoy being alive for one damn second?” Kilorn chuckles, shaking his head at me. “You’ll at least be pleased to know there’s a joint effort under way to start cleanup of the city. Silver and Red.” He puffs out his chest, very proud of his report. “Cameron and her father are on their way down too. They’re coordinating with Cal for worker compensation.” Worker compensation. Fair pay. A symbolic gesture, at the very least. Even if Cal is no longer a king, and whatever control he had over the country is gone. I doubt he has much, if any, say in what happens to the Treasury. And frankly, I’m not concerned with that right now.

Kilorn knows it. But he dances around the information I want, trying to lead me away.

Slowly, I shift my gaze to Sara as she works. Up close, she smells as soothing as her touch, carrying a fresh scent like clean linens. Her steel-gray eyes focus on my neck, finishing up the last of my bruises.

“Sara, do we have a casualty count?” I ask quietly.

Kilorn shifts uncomfortably in the chair next to my bed, coughing a little. He shouldn’t be surprised by the question.

Sara certainly isn’t. She doesn’t break her rhythm. “Don’t worry yourself with that,” the skin healer answers.

“Everyone’s alive,” Kilorn offers quickly. “Farley, Davidson. Cal.” I already knew as much. He wouldn’t be smiling, and I would have woken up to a great deal more chaos, if any of them had died. No, he knows exactly what I’m asking. Who I’m asking about.

“All done,” Sara says, ignoring my question fully. Instead she offers a tight-lipped smile as she steps back from my bedside. “You should rest now. You need it, Mare Barrow.” Nodding, I watch her go, seeing herself out of the bedroom with a sweep of her silvery clothing. Unlike the other healers I remember, she has no uniform to speak of anymore. Probably ruined in the battle, when she attended to so many dead or dying. The door closes softly behind her, leaving Kilorn and me to weather the heavy silence.

“Kilorn,” I finally mutter, prodding at him with tentative fingers.

He glances at me, watching with a pained expression as I draw myself up against the pillows. Ashamed, his eyes flicker to my healed side. Even though the wound is gone, his expression darkens.

So does his voice. “You were bleeding to death when we found you,” he whispers, as if even the memory is too horrible to recall at a normal volume. “We didn’t know if you would . . . if Sara could . . .” His voice trails away, laced with a pain I know all too well.

I’ve seen Kilorn bleeding to death too, when he nearly lost his life in New Town. I guess I repaid the favor. Swallowing hard, I touch my ribs, feeling nothing but unbroken skin beneath the folds of a fresh shirt. I guess the gash was worse than I thought. Not that it matters anymore.

“And . . . Maven?” I can barely say his name.

Kilorn holds my gaze, his expression unchanging. Giving no indication of an answer for an agonizing moment. Long enough for me to wonder what answer I’m hoping to get. Which future I want to live in.

When he drops his eyes, focusing on my hands, my blankets, anywhere but my face, I realize what he’s saying. A muscle twitches in his cheek as he clenches his jaw.

Something in me unwinds, a coil finally springing loose. I sigh and lie back, shutting my eyes as a storm of emotions rolls over me. All I can do is bear it as the world spins.

Maven is dead.

Shame and pride battle in equal measure, as well as sorrow and relief. For a second, I think I might actually throw up. But the nausea passes and I open my eyes again to find everything in its place.

Kilorn waits silently. It’s odd for him to be so patient. Or it would have been, a year ago. When he was just the fish boy, another kid from the Stilts with no future but whatever tomorrow held. I was the same.

“Where is the body?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and I see no lie in him. He has no reason to lie about this.

As with Elara, I’ll need to see the corpse. To know it’s well and truly finished. But his body frightens me more than hers, for obvious reason. Death is a mirror, and to look at him like that . . . I’m afraid I’ll see myself. Or worse, see him as I thought he was.

“Does Cal know what I did?” My voice breaks as I speak, suddenly fraught with emotion. I press a hand to my mouth, trying to calm myself. I refuse to cry over him. I refuse.

Kilorn merely watches. I wish he would hug me, or hold my hand, or maybe bring me something sweet to stuff in my mouth. Instead he pulls away to stand up. He looks on me with such pity, it makes me wince. I don’t expect him to understand and I don’t want him to.

Like Sara, he crosses to the door, and I feel suddenly abandoned.

“Kilorn—” I protest, until he turns the knob.

And someone else steps into the room.

Cal fills the chamber with warmth, as if someone just lit a crackling fire. His gleaming red armor is gone, replaced by simple clothing. He wears a mismatch of colors, without a stitch of black or scarlet. Because they aren’t his colors anymore. Kilorn slips out behind him, leaving us alone.

Before I can even wonder if Cal heard my question, he answers it.

“You only did what you had to do,” he says, slowly taking Kilorn’s chair. But he keeps his distance, letting the inches stretch between us in a gaping rift.

It isn’t difficult to guess why.

“I’m sorry.” He goes watery before me as tears rise in my eyes. I killed his brother. I took him away. I killed a murderer, a torturer. An evil person, twisted and broken. A man who would have killed me if I hadn’t stopped him. Killed everyone I love. A boy, made into a monster. A boy with no chance and no hope. “Cal, I’m so sorry.” He leans forward, one hand on my blanket. Careful to keep out of reach. The silk beneath our fingers is smooth and cold, a long road of blue-gray embroidery. He stares at the pattern on the blanket, tracing the thread without speaking. I fight the urge to sit up and touch his cheek, to make him look me in the eye and say what he wants to say.

We both knew this would happen. We both knew Maven was beyond our help. It doesn’t stop the pain, though. And his is so much deeper than mine.

“What now?” he whispers, as if to himself.

Or maybe we were wrong. Maybe he could have been saved somehow. The thought cuts me apart, and the first tear falls. Maybe I’m just a murderer too.

Only one thing is certain. We will never know.

“What now,” I reply, turning away.

I stare at the window, the sky spotted with haze and weak starlight.

Minutes stretch and pass. We don’t speak. No one comes to see me, or find Cal to pull him away. I almost wish someone would.

Until his fingers move, brushing against mine. Barely touching.

But it’s enough.