“You speak of Red equality?” Iris says. Her voice is as I remember it. Calm, measured. She is a creature of self-control.
“I do,” Cal says steadily.
Bracken laughs deep and long, one hand pressed against the sculpted gold on his stomach. If not for the circumstance, I would think the sound comforting and warm. Cenra and Iris remain quiet, unwilling to betray their intentions or thoughts so easily.
“You’re ambitious, I’ll give you that,” Bracken says, pointing a finger at Cal. “And young. And distracted.” His dark eyes dart to mine, making his point clear. I squirm under his gaze. “You don’t know what you’re asking us to do.”
Farley isn’t so easily cowed. She claws her hands on the arms of her chair, almost rising out of her seat. A flush tinges her cheeks. “Are you so threatened by the people you spit on that you can’t allow them simple freedom?” she sneers, looking from Bracken to Cenra and Iris. “Is that how tenuous your grip on power truly is?”
The queen of the Lakelands widens her eyes, the whites a livid contrast to the bronze of her skin and the dark brown of her irises. She looks truly surprised. I doubt a Red has ever addressed her in such a way, and it shows. “How dare you speak to us—” she blurts out.
Dear Julian is the quickest, evenly speaking over her before she can bait Farley into something more drastic. “History favors the underfoot and the oppressed, Your Majesty,” he says. He sounds enchanting and methodic, wise, even beneath the weight of Silent Stone. The queen is reluctant, but shuts her mouth slowly to listen. “The years are long, but eventually, always, fortunes shift. The people rise. Such is the way of things. Either let change come willingly, help it along, or face the wrath of such force. It might not be you, or even your children. But the day will come when Reds storm the gates of your castles, break your crowns, and slit the throats of your descendants as they beg for the mercy you will not show now.”
His words echo long after he is done speaking, as if dancing on the wind. They have a sobering effect on the Lakelander queens and Bracken, who exchange uneasy glances.
Maven is not subdued in the slightest. He leers at the Jacos lord, eyes alight. He has always despised Julian. “Did you rehearse that, Julian? I always wondered why you spent so much time alone in your library.”
It’s too easy to throw the barb back in his face. “I doubt anyone spends more time alone than you do,” I say, again moving forward to display my brand.
The combination makes him go pale, his mouth slightly open. Breath whistles between his exposed teeth. He looks like he wants to kiss me or rip my throat out. I doubt he knows which.
“Careful, Maven,” I push on, pressing him closer to the edge of his tolerance. “That mask of yours might slip.”
Cold fear flashes in his eyes. Then his face melts, brows creasing and lips pulling down, curling back to show more of his teeth. With the shadows under his eyes and beneath his cheekbones, he looks like a skull, white as moonlight. “I could kill you, Red,” he snarls, brazen in the empty threat.
“Funny, you had the chance for six long months.” I pat my hands over my arms and chest, letting my fingers brush the brand. “But here I am.”
I look away before he can say more, addressing the allies at his side. “Maven Calore is unstable at best.” As I speak, I’m intensely aware of their attention, the weight of three crowns staring me down. As well as the weight of Silent Stone, a constant, squeezing pressure. I wish I could feel my lightning and draw a little strength from my ability. Instead I have only my wasted self. And that must be enough.
“You all know it. Whatever the benefits of his rule, you know they don’t outweigh the risks. He will be overthrown, either by us directly or by the crumbling of his country. Look around. How many High Houses sit with him? Where are they?” I gesture to the Sentinels, their own guards, but no one else of Norta. Not House Welle or House Osanos or any other. I don’t know where they are, but their absence speaks volumes.
“You are his shields. He’s using you and your countries. He’ll turn on you one day, when he has the strength to cast you both off. He has no loyalties, and no love in his heart. The boy who calls himself king is a shell, empty, a danger to everyone and everything.” In his seat, Maven examines his hands, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket. Anything to seem unaffected and unperturbed. It’s a terrible act, especially for someone as talented as he is.
I hold my head high. “Why entertain this madness any longer? For what?”
To my left, Farley shifts, her chair creaking. She stares with all the fire the Calores can’t muster. “Because they’d rather bleed themselves than be equal to any blood that isn’t the right color,” she hisses.
“Farley,” Cal mutters.
To my surprise, Evangeline takes on that mess, drawing attention to herself instead. She purses her lips and smooths her dress conspicuously.
“It’s infinitely clear what’s happening here. You say Maven’s using them as shields?” she says, almost cackling. “Where are your armies, Queen Cenra? And yours, Prince Bracken? Who really bleeds in this war? If anyone is a shield here, it’s Maven. They’re using the little boy against his big brother, to play them off each other until they’re confident they can destroy what’s left. Isn’t that it?”
They don’t deny it, or don’t want to give oxygen to such a claim. Iris tries another tactic, leaning forward toward the Samos princess with an easy, tight-lipped smile. “I must assume the same of you, Evangeline. Or is Tiberias Calore not a weapon of the Rift?”
Maven waves her back. He looks from Cal to Farley. She is the weak spot here, or at least he thinks she is. Good luck. “No, not Cal,” he says, purring. “The Reds. The Montfort mongrels. I know Volo and the other Silvers in open rebellion. They won’t tolerate any kind of Red acceptance beyond what they need. Will you, Anabel?” he adds, tossing a grin at his grandmother.
She merely turns away, refusing to so much as look at him. Despite all his posturing, Maven’s smile falls a little.
Farley doesn’t rise to the bait this time. She keeps still, and Davidson slowly claps his hands, inclining his head toward the false king. “I have to applaud you, Maven,” he says. The blank calm of the premier is a welcome respite from so much bile. “I admit, I didn’t expect such deft manipulations from someone so young. But I assume that’s how your mother built you, didn’t she?” he adds, looking to me.
That incenses Maven more than anything. He knows that it means I’ve told them all I could about him, about what his mother did.
“Yes, he is what she made him,” I murmur. It feels like twisting a knife in his gut. “No matter who he was meant to be. That person is completely gone.”
Cal’s voice is soft in response, landing the final blow. “And he is never coming back.”
If not for the Stone, Maven would burn. He slams a fist down, knuckles like exposed bone. “This conversation is pointless,” he snaps. “If you don’t have real terms, then leave. Fortify your city, gather your dead, prepare for a true war.”
His brother doesn’t flinch. He has nothing else to fear from Maven. A transformation, a tragic one, has come over Cal, and he slides into the role he’s best at. A general, a warrior. Facing an opponent he can defeat. Not a brother he wants to save. There is no blood left between them, only the blood Maven made him spill.