“Foolish girl,” Elara says. “Your idiocy was almost our ruin. Using your own guard in the escape, causing all the outages—do you really think I was so stupid as to miss your tracks?”
Numb, I shake my head. “You let me do it. You knew about it all.”
“Of course I knew. How else do you think you came so far? I had to cover your tracks, I had to protect you from anyone with enough sense to see the signs,” she snarls, growling like a beast. “You do not know the lengths I went to keep you from harm.” She flushes with pleasure, enjoying every second of this. “But you are Red, and like all the others, you were doomed to fail.”
It breaks against me, memories falling into place. I should’ve known, deep down, not to trust Maven. He was too perfect, too brave, too kind. He turned his back on his kind to join the Guard. He pushed me at Cal. He gave me exactly what I wanted and it made me blind.
Wanting to scream, wanting to weep, I let my eyes trail to Elara. “You told him exactly what to say,” I whisper. She doesn’t have to nod, but I know I’m right. “You know who I am in here, and you knew”—my head aches, remembering how she played inside my mind—“you knew exactly how to win me over.”
Nothing hurts more deeply than the hollow look on Maven’s face.
“Was anything true?”
When he shakes his head, I know that is also a lie.
“Even Thomas?”
The boy at the war front, the boy who died fighting someone else’s war. His name was Thomas and I saw him die.
The name punches through his mask, cracking the facade of cool indifference, but isn’t enough. He shrugs off the name and the pain it causes him. “Another dead boy. He makes no difference.”
“He makes all the difference,” I whisper to myself.
“I think it’s time to say your good-byes, Maven,” Elara cuts in, putting a white hand on her son’s shoulder. I’ve struck too close to his weak spot, and she won’t let me push further.
“I have none,” he whispers, turning back to his father. His blue eyes waver, looking at the crown, the sword, the armor, anywhere but his father’s face. “You never looked at me. You never saw me. Not when you had him.” He jerks his head toward Cal.
“You know that’s not true, Maven. You are my son. Nothing will change that. Not even her,” Tiberias says, casting a glance at Elara. “Not even what she’s about to do.”
“Dearest, I’m not doing anything,” she chirps back. “But your beloved boy”—she slaps Cal across the face—“the perfect heir”—she slaps him again, harder this time—“Coriane’s son.” Another slap draws blood, splitting his lip. “I cannot speak for him.”
Thick silverblood drips down Cal’s chin. Maven’s eyes linger on the blood and the slightest frown pulls at his features.
“We had a son too, Tibe,” Elara whispers, her voice ragged with rage as she turns back to the king. “No matter how you felt about me, you were supposed to love him.”
“I did!” he shouts, straining against her mental hold. “I do.”
I know what it’s like to be cast aside, to stand in another’s shadow. But this kind of anger, this murderous, destructive, terrible scene is beyond my comprehension. Maven loves his father, his brother—how can he let her do this? How can he want this?
But he stands still, watching, and I can’t find the words to make him move.
Nothing prepares me for what comes next, for what Elara forces her puppets to do. Cal’s hand shakes, reaching forward, pushed along by her will. He tries to resist, struggling with every ounce of strength he has, but it’s no use. This is a battle he does not know how to fight. When his hand closes around the gilded sword, pulling it from the sheath at his father’s waist, the last piece of the puzzle slips into place. Tears course down his face, steaming against burning-hot skin.
“It’s not you,” Tiberias says, his eyes on Cal’s wretched face. He doesn’t bother pleading for his life. “I know it’s not you, son. This is not your fault.”
No one deserves this. No one. In my head, I reach for the lightning, and it comes. I blast away Elara and Maven, saving the prince and the king. But even that fantasy is tainted. Farley is dead. Kilorn is dead. The revolution is over. Even in my imaginings, I cannot fix that.
The sword rises in the air, shaking in Cal’s trembling fingers. The blade is ceremonial at best, but the edge gleams, sharp as a razor. The steel reddens, warming under Cal’s fiery touch, and bits of the gilded hilt melt between his fingers. Gold and silver and iron, dripping from his hands like tears.
Maven watches the blade closely, carefully, because he is too afraid to watch his father in his last moments. I thought you were brave. I was so wrong.
“Please,” is all Cal can say, forcing the words out. “Please.”
There is no regret in Elara’s eyes and no remorse. This moment has been coming for a long time. When the sword flashes, arcing through air and flesh and bone, she doesn’t blink.
The king’s corpse lands with a thud, his head rolling to a stop a few feet away. Silver blood splashes across the floor in a mirrored puddle, lapping at Cal’s toes. He drops the melting sword, letting it clang against stone, before falling to his knees, his head in his hands. The crown clatters across the floor, circling through the blood, until it stops to rest at Maven’s feet, sharp points bright with liquid silver.
When Elara screams, wailing and thrashing over the king’s body, I almost laugh aloud at the absurdity of it all. Has she changed her mind? Has she lost it entirely? Then I hear the click of cameras switching on, coming back to life. They poke out of the walls, pointing straight down at the king’s body and what looks like a queen mourning her fallen husband. Maven yells at her side, one hand on his mother’s shoulder.
“You killed him! You killed the king! You killed our father!” he screams in Cal’s face. Only a hint of a smirk remains, and somehow Cal resists the urge to rip his brother’s head off. He’s in shock, not understanding, not wanting to understand. But for once, I certainly do.
The truth doesn’t matter. It only matters what the people believe. Julian tried to teach me that lesson before and now I understand it. They will believe this little scene, this pretty play of actors and lies. And no army, no country will follow a man who murdered his father for the crown.