“This is Tristan, one of Farley’s lieutenants,” Will pipes in. He turns a chiding eye on him. “Tristan, be gentle.”
“Why?” I scoff. “Evangeline Samos is a bloodthirsty jerk.”
Smiling, Tristan throws a smug look at Will.
“They aren’t all monkeys,” I add quietly, remembering Maven’s kind words earlier today.
“Are you talking about the prince you’re engaged to or the one waiting in the woods?” Will asks calmly, like he’s asking about the price of flour.
In stark contrast, Tristan erupts, vaulting out of his seat. I beat him to the door, two hands outstretched. Thankfully I keep myself in check. The last thing I need is to electrify a member of the Scarlet Guard.
“You brought a Silver here?” he hisses down at me. “The prince? Do you know what we could do if we took him in? What we could bargain for?”
Though he towers over me, I don’t back down. “You leave him alone.”
“A few weeks in the lap of luxury and your blood is as silver as theirs,” he spits, looking like he wants to kill me. “You going to electrocute me too?”
That stings and he knows it. I drop my hands, afraid they might betray me. “I’m not protecting him, I’m protecting you, you stupid fool. Cal is a soldier born and bred, and he could burn this whole village down if he really wanted to.” Not that he would. I hope.
Tristan’s hand strays to his gun. “I’d like to see him try.”
But Will lays a wrinkled hand on his arm. The touch is enough to make the rebel deflate. “That’s enough,” he whispers. “What did you come here for, Mare? Kilorn is safe, and so are your siblings.”
I heave a breath, still staring down Tristan. He just threatened to kidnap Cal and hold him for ransom. And for whatever reason, the thought of such a thing unsettles me to my core.
“My—” One word out and I’m already struggling. “Shade was part of the Guard.” It’s not a question anymore, but a truth. Will lowers his gaze, apologetic, and Tristan even hangs his head. “They killed him for it. They killed my brother and now the Silvers want me to act like I agree with it.”
“You’re dead if you refuse,” Will replies, telling me what I already know.
“I don’t plan to. I’ll say whatever they want. But—” My voice catches a little, on the edge of this new path. “I’m in the palace, the center of their world. I’m quick, I’m quiet, and I can help the cause.”
Tristan sucks in a ragged breath, pulling back to his full height. Despite his anger earlier, there’s now something like pride shining in his eyes. “You want to join up.”
“I do.”
Will clenches his jaw, his stare piercing through me. “I hope you know what you’re committing to. This isn’t just my war or Farley’s or the Scarlet Guard’s—it’s yours. Until the very end. And not to avenge your brother but to avenge us all. To fight for the ones before, and to save the ones yet to come.”
His gnarled hand reaches for mine and for the first time, I notice a tattoo around his wrist: a red band. Like the ones they make us wear. Except now he’s wearing his forever. It’s part of him, like the blood in our veins.
“Are you with us, Mare Barrow?” he says, his hand closing over mine. More war, more death, Cal said. But there’s a chance he’s wrong. There’s a chance we change it.
My fingers tighten, holding on to Will. I can feel the weight of my action, the importance behind it.
“I’m with you.”
“We will rise,” he breathes, in unison with Tristan. I remember the words and speak with them. “Red as the dawn.”
In the flickering candlelight, our shadows look like monsters on the walls.
When I join back up with Cal at the edge of town, I feel lighter somehow, emboldened by my decision and the prospect of what’s to come. Cal walks alongside me, glancing over occasionally, but says nothing. Where I would poke and prod and forcibly pull an answer out of someone, Cal is the complete opposite. Maybe it’s a military tactic he picked up in one of his books: let the enemy come to you.
Because that’s what I am now. His enemy.
He perplexes me, just like his brother. Both of them are kind, even though they know I’m Red, even though they shouldn’t even see me at all. But Cal took me home and Maven was good to me, wanting to help. They are strange boys.
When we enter the woods again, Cal’s demeanor changes, hardening to something serious. “I’ll have to talk with the queen about changing your schedule.”
“Why?”
“You almost exploded in there,” he says gently. “You’ll have to go into Training with us, to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.”
Julian is training me. But even the little voice in my head knows Julian is no substitute for what Cal, Maven, and Evangeline go through. If I learned even half of what they know, who knows what help I could be to the Guard? To Shade’s memory?
“Well, if it gets me out of Protocol, I won’t say no.”
Suddenly, Cal jumps back from his cycle. His hands are on fire and an equal, blazing light burns in his eyes.
“Someone’s watching us.”
I don’t bother questioning him. Cal’s soldier’s sense is sharp, but what could threaten him here? What could he possibly be afraid of in the woods of a sleepy, poor village? A village crawling with rebels, I remind myself.
But instead of Farley or armed revolutionaries, Kilorn steps out of the leaves. I forgot how sly he is, how easily he can move through darkness.
Cal’s hands extinguish in a puff of smoke. “Oh, you.”
Kilorn tears his eyes away from me, glaring at Cal. He inclines his head in a condescending bow. “Excuse me, Your Highness.”
Instead of trying to deny it, Cal stands a little straighter, looking like the king he was born to be. He doesn’t reply and goes back to freeing his cycle from the leaves. But I feel his eyes on me, watching every second that passes between Kilorn and me.
“You’re really doing this?” Kilorn says, looking like a wounded animal. “You’re really leaving? To be one of them?”
The words sting more than a slap. This is not a choice, I want to tell him.
“You saw what happened in there, what I can do. They can help me.” Even I’m surprised at how easily the lie comes. One day I might even be able to lie to myself, to trick my mind into thinking I’m happy. “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
He shakes his head, one hand grabbing my arm like he can pull me back into the past, where our worries were simple. “You’re supposed to be here.”
“Mare.” Cal waits patiently, leaning against the seat of the cycle, but his voice is firm, a warning.
“I have to go.” I try to push past Kilorn, to leave him behind, but he won’t let me. He’s always been stronger than me. And as much as I want to let him hold on to me, it just can’t be.
“Mare, please—”
And then a wave of heat pulses against us, like a strong beam of sunlight.
“Let her go,” Cal rumbles, standing over me. The heat rolls off him, almost rippling the air. I can see the calm he fights to maintain thinning, threatening to come undone.