I glare, eyes narrowed against the need to weep.
I look at anyone but Maven. Iris’s mother, Queen Cenra, is more subdued, a smaller woman than her daughter, with the same coloring but a plain face. Like Iris’s, her armored dress is deep blue, banded with gold to match the crown on her own brow. They lean together, tucked close, in each other’s confidence as only mother and daughter can be. I want to rip them apart.
The fourth royal isn’t someone I’ve seen before, but I can guess his identity easily enough. Prince Bracken towers in his chair, his skin the polished, flawless blue-black of a precious gemstone. His robes are amethyst-edged purple, artfully draped across a breastplate of solid gold. His dark eyes rest not on Cal or me, but on Davidson. The prince looks as if he might turn the premier inside out, clearly craving revenge for his children.
Along with Iris, he flanks Maven.
I try not to look at him at first, but he is impossible to ignore. Even though the sight of him sends hot knives along my skin, so sharp I expect to start bleeding.
Get through it. Hold on to the anger.
My heart stops when I glance to him and find him already staring, a familiar, cursed smirk twisting on his pale lips.
Maven bobs his head as we take our seats, his eyes sweeping between me and Cal, as if no one else exists. Premier Davidson sits between us, a firm divide. Maven seems to enjoy that immensely, grinning at the buffer between his brother and me. The sea breeze ruffles his hair, still longer than Cal’s and curling softly beneath the weight of his wretched black-iron crown.
I want to kill him.
His uniform is familiar, raven black, hung with the usual ill-gotten medals of state. He smirks at Cal’s jacket, noting the reversed colors with glee. Probably happy to have chased his brother out of their symbols. He regards us with cool and open delight, eager to make this as painful as possible. The mask of the cruel king is firmly set in place.
I must loosen it.
Leaning toward Davidson, I put my elbow on the arm of my chair and jut my collarbone forward. The brand is clear for all to see, burned into my skin. M for Maven. M for monster. His gaze snags on the ruined flesh, faltering for a moment. Those ice eyes go blank and faraway. It’s like pushing him off a path, or sending him down a long, dark, hallway.
He recovers, blinking at the rest of our coalition, but it’s a good start.
Our seating was arranged, so everyone falls in without incident. To my surprise and discomfort, Farley has Cal on one side and none other than Ptolemus on the other. I grimace. If she doesn’t fly across the platform to strangle Maven, she might just kill one of her own allies instead.
Farley’s glare burns as much as any Calore as she stares down the boy king. They’ve met before, long ago in the summer palace, when Maven fooled us all with an easy lie, the one we all wanted to believe. He tricked her as much as he tricked me.
“It’s truly fascinating to see how high you can rise, General Farley,” Maven says, addressing her first. I know what he’s trying to do. Put cracks in us before we’ve barely even sat down. “I wonder where you thought you would be now, if I were to ask you a year ago. What a journey.” His eyes tick between Farley and Ptolemus, the implication clear.
When I was his prisoner, he cracked my head open, looking through my memories with the help of a Merandus cousin. He saw Shade die at Ptolemus’s hands, and he knows what he meant to Farley. How much my brother left behind. It isn’t difficult for him to poke and prod at that open wound.
Farley bares her teeth, a predator even without her claws, but Cal answers before she can toss back acid. “I think all of us find ourselves in strange places,” he says, his voice stern and even. Diplomatic to the bone. I can’t imagine the effort it must require. “It isn’t often a Nortan king sits next to Lakelander queens.”
Maven only sneers. He’s far better at this than Cal will ever be. “It isn’t often firstborn sons sit anywhere but the throne. Eh, Brother?” he shoots back, and Cal shuts his mouth with an audible click. “What do you think of all this, Grandmother?” Maven adds, glaring daggers at Anabel. “Your own flesh and blood, warring with each other.”
She responds with equal venom. “You’re no blood of mine, boy. You lost the right when you helped kill my son.”
Maven just clucks, as if pitying her. “Cal raised that sword, not me,” he says, tipping his chin at the similar sword at Cal’s hip. “Such an imagination. Old women are so prone to their fancies.”
At his side, Queen Cenra arches a single, smooth eyebrow. She says nothing, letting Maven spin his web—or knot his own noose.
“Well,” he says, clapping his hands together. “I did not request this meeting. I believe that means you present whatever terms you came to offer. Surrender, perhaps?”
Cal shakes his head. “Yes. Yours.”
Laughter from Maven is an odd sound. Forced. The air pushed out, the sound calculated and formed, an imitation of what he thinks a laugh should sound like. It rankles his brother, and Cal shifts in his seat, uncomfortable.
Bracken doesn’t smile either. His lips tug into a scowl. He rests his chin on one balled fist. I don’t know his ability, but I assume it is a powerful one, restrained only by the Stone slowly choking all of us. “I did not come all this way, at such haste, to entertain nonsense, Tiberias Calore,” the prince says.
“It isn’t nonsense, Your Highness,” Cal replies, with a shallow dip of his head. Showing deference and respect.
In his seat, Maven scoffs low and deep. “You see my allies here.” He spreads his white hands wide. “Both Silver royals, with the might of their entire nations sworn to our cause. I hold the capital, the wealthiest lands of Norta—”
“You don’t hold the Rift,” Evangeline snaps, cutting him off. Despite the Stone, her metals are all in place. They’re truly made, locked into form, not held together by her ability alone. She prepared for this. As I should have. “You don’t hold Delphie. You lost Harbor Bay yesterday. You lose more, until all you have left are the people sitting next to you, with no way to repay what they give.” Her smile spreads, showing teeth capped with pointed silver. I think she would feast on his heart if she could. “You’ll be a king without a crown or a throne before long, Maven. Best give up while you still have something to bargain.”
Maven raises his nose. It makes him look like a petulant child. “I will bargain for nothing.”
“Not even your own life?” I mutter, my voice small but firm enough to carry. I keep still as he turns his eyes on me, letting the ice pour over my flesh. No flinching, no blinking. Get through it.
He just laughs again. “Your bluff is entertaining, to say the least,” he chuckles. “I see what you have, who you’ve swayed to your side. State your terms, Cal. Or go back to Harbor Bay and force us to kill you all.”
“Very well,” Cal replies. His fist clenches. If not for the Stone, he would probably burst into flame. “Step down, Maven. Step down, and I’ll let you live.”
“This is ridiculous,” Maven sighs, rolling his eyes at Iris. She doesn’t return the gesture.
Cal forges on, undeterred. “The alliance with the Lakelands and Piedmont will stand. We’ll have peace on our coast, from the frozen shores to the islands of the south. Time to rebuild, regrow what this war has destroyed. Heal wounds and right wrongs that have plagued us for centuries.”