King's Cage

For a split second, I try to remember. Stupid. “Too many times to count,” I tell her with a shrug. “First Elara, then Samson. I can’t decide who was worse. I know now that the queen could look into my mind without me even knowing. But he . . .” My voice falters. The memory is a painful one, drawing out a drilling pressure at my temples. I try to massage away the ache. “Samson, you feel every second he’s in there.”

Her face grays. “So many eyes in this place,” she says, glancing first at my guards and then at the walls. At the security cameras looking over every inch of the open chamber, watching us. “They are welcome to watch.”

Slowly, she removes her jacket and folds it over her arm. The shirt beneath is white, fastened high at her throat, but backless. She turns, under the guise of examining the throne room. Really, she’s showing off. Her back is muscular, powerful, carved of long lines. Black tattoos cover her from the base of her scalp, down her neck, across her shoulder blades, all to the base of her spine. Roots, I think first. I’m wrong. Not roots, but whorls of water, curling and spilling over her skin in perfect lines. They ripple as she moves, a living thing. Finally she roves back to face me. The smallest smirk plays on her lips.

It disappears in an instant as her gaze shifts past me. I don’t have to turn around to know who approaches, who leads the many footsteps echoing off the marble and into my skull.

“I would be happy to give you a tour, Iris,” Maven says. “Your father is settling into his apartments, but I’m sure he won’t mind if we get to know each other better.”

The Arvens and Lakelander guards drop back, giving the king and his Sentinels space. Blue uniforms, white, red-orange. Their silhouettes and colors are so ingrained in me I know them out of the corner of my eye. None so much as the pale young king. I feel him as much as I see him, his cloying warmth threatening to engulf me. He stops a few inches from my side, close enough to take me by the hand if he wants to. I shudder at the thought.

“I would like that very much,” Iris replies. She dips her head in an oddly stilted manner. Bowing does not come easily to her. “I was just remarking to Miss Barrow about your”—she searches for the right word, glancing back at the stark throne—“decorations.”

Maven offers a tight smile. “A precaution. My father was assassinated, and attempts have been made on me as well.”

“Could a chair of Silent Stone have saved your father?” she asks innocently.

A current of heat pulses through the air. Like Iris, I feel the need to shed my jacket too, lest Maven’s temper sweat me out of it.

“No, my brother decided that cutting his head off was his best option,” he says bluntly. “Not much defense against that.”

It happened in this very palace. A few passages and rooms away, up some stairs to a place with no windows and soundproofed walls. When the guards dragged me there, I was in a daze, terrified that Maven and I were about to be executed for treason. Instead, the king ended up in two pieces. His head, his body, a rush of silver splattered in between. Instead, Maven took the crown. My fists clench at the memory.

“How horrible,” Iris murmurs. I feel her eyes on me.

“Yes, wasn’t it, Mare?”

His sudden hand on my arm burns like his brand. My control threatens to snap, and I glare at him sidelong. “Yes,” I force out through clenched teeth. “Horrible.”

Maven nods in agreement, clenching his jaw to make the bones of his face tighten. I can’t believe he has the gall to look morose. To seem sad. He is neither. He can’t be. His mother took away the pieces of him that loved his brother and father. I wish she’d taken the part that loves me. Instead, it festers, poisoning us both with its corruption. Black rot eats at his brain and at any bit of him that might be human. He knows it too. Knows there’s something wrong, something he cannot fix with ability or power. He is broken, and there is no healer on this earth who can make him whole.

“Well, before I take you through my home, there’s someone else who would like to meet my future bride. Sentinel Nornus, if you would?” Maven gestures over his soldier. At his command, the Sentinel in question blurs into a blaze of red and orange, racing to the entrance and back again in a blistering second. A swift. In his robes, he seems a fireball.

Figures follow in his wake, their house colors familiar.

“Princess Iris, this is the ruling lord of House Samos, and his family,” Maven says, waving a hand between his new betrothed and the old one.

Evangeline stands out in sharp contrast to the simply clothed Iris. I wonder how long it took her to create the molten, metal liquid hugging every curve of her body like glistening tar. No more crowns and tiaras for her, but her jewelry more than makes up for it. She wears silver chains at her neck, wrists, and ears, fine as thread and studded with diamonds. Her brother’s appearance is different too, absent his usual armor or fur. His rippling silhouette is still threatening enough, but Ptolemus looks more like his father now, in flawless black velvet with a sparkling silver chain. Volo leads his children, with someone I don’t recognize at his side. But I can certainly guess who she is.

In that instant, I understand a bit more of Evangeline. Her mother is a frightful sight. Not because she’s ugly. On the contrary, the older woman is severely beautiful. She gave Evangeline her angular black eyes and flawless porcelain skin, but not her slick, straight raven hair and dainty figure. This woman looks like I could snap her in two, manacles and all. Probably part of her facade. She wears her own house colors, black and emerald green, alongside Samos silver to denote her allegiances. Viper. Lady Blonos’s voice sneers in my head. Black and green are the colors of House Viper. Evangeline’s mother is an animos. As she gets closer, her shimmering dress comes into better focus. And I realize why Evangeline is so insistent on wearing her ability. It’s a family tradition.