King's Cage

Her logic is sound, albeit unsettling. There are things Cal can’t teach me, things he doesn’t understand. I remember when I tried to train Cameron—I didn’t know her ability the same way I knew mine. It was like speaking a different language. I was still able to communicate, but not truly.

“I’ll watch, then,” Cal says with stony resolve. “Is that acceptable?”

Ella grins, her mood bouncing back to cheerful. “Of course. I would, however, advise you to stand back and stay alert. Lightning is a bit of a wild filly. No matter how much you rein her in, she’ll always try to run wild.”

He gives me one last look and the tiniest quirk of a supportive smile before heading to the edge of the hilltop, well beyond the ring of blast marks. When he gets there, he flops down and leans back on his arms, eyes trained on me.

“He’s nice. For a prince,” Ella offers.

“And a Silver,” Rafe pipes in.

I glance at him, confused. “There aren’t nice Silvers in Montfort?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been,” he replies. “I’m Piedmont-born, from down in the Floridians.” He dots his fingers in the air, illustrating the chain of swampy islands. “Montfort recruited me a few months ago.”

“And you two?” I look between Ella and Tyton.

She’s quick to reply. “Prairie. The Sandhills. That’s raider country, and my family lived on the move. Eventually we kept west into the mountains. Montfort took us in near ten years ago. That’s where I met Tyton.”

“Montfort-born,” he says, as if that’s any explanation. Not very talkative, probably because Ella has enough words for all of us. She steers me toward the center of what can only be called a blast zone, until I’m directly beneath the still-dissipating storm cloud.

“Well, let’s see what we’re working with,” Ella says, nudging me into place. The breeze rustles her hair, sending bright blue locks over one shoulder. Moving in tandem, the other two take up spots around me, until we’re clustered in the four corners of a square. “Start small.”

“Why? I can—”

Tyton looks up. “She wants to check your control.”

Ella nods.

I heave a breath. Excited as I am with fellow electricons, I feel a bit like an overnannied child. “Fine.” Cupping my hands, I call forth the lightning, letting jagged sparks of purple and white splay around the bowl of my fingers.

“Purple sparks?” Rafe says, grinning. “Nice.”

I flicker between the unnatural colors on their heads, smirking. Green, blue, white locks.

“I have no plans to dye my hair.”

Summer hits Piedmont with a boiling vengeance, and Cal is the only person who can stand it. Gasping from exertion and heat, I smack him in the ribs until he rolls away. He does so slowly, lazily, almost drifting off to sleep. Instead, he goes too far and falls right off the narrow bed onto the hard, laminated floor. That wakes him up. He vaults forward, black hair sticking up at angles, naked as a newborn.

“My colors,” he curses, rubbing his skull.

I have little pity for his pain. “If you didn’t insist on sleeping in a glorified broom closet, this wouldn’t be an issue.” Even the ceiling, blocks of speckled plaster, is depressing. And the single open window does nothing for the heat, especially in the middle of the day. I don’t want to think about the walls or how thin they might be. At least he doesn’t have to bunk with other soldiers.

Still on the floor, Cal grumbles. “I like the barracks.” He fumbles for a pair of shorts before pulling them on. Then go the bracelets, snapping back into place on his wrists. The latches are complicated, but he slips them on like it’s second nature. “And you don’t have to share a room with your sister.”

I shift and throw a shirt over my head. Our midday break will be over in a few minutes, and I’m expected up on Storm Hill soon. “You’re right. I’ll just get over that little thing I have about sleeping alone.” Of course, by thing I mean still-debilitating trauma. I have terrible nightmares if there isn’t someone in the room with me.

Cal stills, shirt half over his head. He sucks in a breath, wincing. “That’s not what I meant.”

It’s my turn to grumble. I pick at Cal’s sheets. Military-issue, washed so many times they’re almost worn through. “I know.”

The bed shifts, springs groaning, as he leans toward me. His lips brush the crown of my head. “Any more nightmares?”

“No.” I answer so quickly he raises an eyebrow in suspicion, but it’s the truth. “As long as Gisa’s there. She says I don’t make a sound. Her, on the other hand . . . I forgot so much noise could come from such a small person.” I laugh to myself, and find the courage to look him in the eye. “What about you?”

Back in the Notch, we slept side by side. Most nights he tossed and turned, muttering in his sleep. Sometimes he cried.

A muscle ripples in his jaw. “Just a few. Maybe twice a week, that I can remember.”

“Of?”

“My father, mostly. You. What it felt like to be fighting you, watching myself try to kill you, and not being able to do a thing to stop it.” He flexes his hands in memory of the dream. “And Maven. When he was little. Six or seven.”

The name still feels like acid in my bones, even though it’s been so long since I last saw him. He has given several broadcasts and declarations since, but I refuse to watch them. My memories of him are terrorizing enough. Cal knows that, and out of respect for me, he absolutely does not talk about his brother. Until now. You asked, I scold myself. I grit my teeth, mostly to stop from vomiting up all the words I haven’t told him. Too painful for him. It won’t help to know what kind of monster his brother was forced into becoming.