King's Cage

Kilorn sits with me, cramped into a little chair against the windows. The rain weakens with every passing second.

“Good time to fish,” he says, glancing at the gray sky.

“Oh, don’t you start mumbling about the weather too.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

“You’re living on borrowed time, Warren.”

He laughs, rising to the joke. “I think we all are at this point.”

From anyone else it would sound foreboding, but I know Kilorn too well for that. I nudge his shoulder. “So, how’s training going?”

“Well. Montfort has dozens of newblood soldiers, all trained. Some abilities overlap—Darmian, Harrick, Farrah, a few more—and they’re improving by leaps and bounds with their mentors. I drill with Ada, and the kids when Cal doesn’t. They need a familiar face.”

“No time for fishing, then?”

He chuckles, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “No, not really. It’s funny—I used to hate getting up to work the river. Hated every second of sunburns and rope burns and stuck hooks and fish guts all over my clothes.” He gnaws on his nails. “Now I miss it.”

I miss that boy too.

“The smell made it really hard to be friends with you.”

“Probably why we stuck together. No one else could handle my stink or your attitude.”

I smile and tip my head back, leaning my skull against the window glass. Raindrops roll past, fat and steady. I count them in my head. It’s easier than thinking about anything else around me or ahead of me.

Forty-one, forty-two . . .

“I didn’t know you could sit still for this long.”

Kilorn watches me, thoughtful. He’s a thief too, and he has thief’s instincts. Lying to him won’t accomplish anything, only push him farther away. And that’s not something I can bear right now.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper. “Even in Whitefire, as a prisoner, I tried to escape, tried to scheme, spy, survive. But now . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure I can continue.”

“You don’t have to. No one on earth would blame you if you walked away from all of this and never came back.”

I keep staring at the raindrops. In the pit of my belly, I feel sick. “I know.” Guilt eats through me. “But even if I could disappear right now, with everyone I care about, I wouldn’t do it.”

There’s too much anger in me. Too much hate.

Kilorn nods in understanding. “But you don’t want to fight either.”

“I don’t want to become . . .” My voice trails away.

I don’t want to become a monster. A shell with nothing but ghosts. Like Maven.

“You won’t. I won’t let you. And don’t even get me started on Gisa.”

In spite of myself, I bite back a laugh. “Right.”

“You’re not alone in this. In all my work with the newbloods, I found that’s what they most fear.” He leans his own head back against the window. “You should talk to them.”

“I should,” I murmur, and I mean it. A tiny bit of relief blooms in my chest. Those words comfort me like nothing else.

“And in the end, you need to figure out what you want,” he prods gently.

Bathwater swirls, boiling lazily in fat, white bubbles. A pale boy looks up at me, his eyes wide and his neck bared. In reality I just stood. I was weak and stupid and scared. But in the daydream I put my hands around his neck and squeeze. He flails in the scalding water, dipping under. Never to resurface. Never to haunt me again.

“I want to kill him.”

Kilorn’s eyes narrow as a muscle twinges in his cheek. “Then you have to train, and you have to win.”

Slowly, I nod.

At the edge of the ward, almost entirely in shadow, the Colonel keeps vigil. He stares at his feet, not moving. He doesn’t go in to see his daughter and new grandchild. But he doesn’t leave either.

TWENTY-THREE

Evangeline

She laughs against my neck, her touch a brush of lips and cold steel. My crown perches precariously on her red curls, steel and diamond glinting between ruby locks. With her ability, she makes the diamonds wink like luminous stars.

Reluctant, I sit up and leave my bed, the silky sheets, and Elane behind. She yelps when I throw open the curtains, letting the sunlight stream in. With a flick of her hand the window shadows, blooming with shade until the light reduces to her liking.

I dress in the dimness, donning small black undergarments and a pair of laced sandals. Today is special, and I take my time molding an outfit to my form from the metal sheets in my closet. Titanium and darkened steel ripple across my limbs. Black and silver, it reflects light in an array of brilliant colors. I don’t need a maid to complete my appearance, nor do I want one floating around in my room. I do it myself, matching sparkling blue-black lipstick to coal-dark eyeliner dotted with specially made crystals. Elane dozes through it all, until I pull the crown from her head. It fits me perfectly.

“Mine,” I tell her, leaning down to kiss her once more. She smiles lazily, her lips curving against my own. “Don’t forget, you’re supposed to be present today.”

She bows playfully. “As Your Highness commands.”

The title is so delicious I want to lick the words right out of her mouth. But at the risk of ruining my makeup, I refrain. And I don’t look back, lest I lose my grip on whatever self-control I have left these days.