Red Queen (Red Queen 1)

“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.

Kilorn scoffs in his face, itching for a fight. But he’s like me; we’re thieves, we’re rats. We know when to fight and when to run. Reluctantly, he pulls back, letting his fingers trail along my arm. This might be the last time we see each other.

The air cools, but Cal doesn’t step back. I’m his brother’s betrothed—he has to be protective of me.

“You bargained for me too, to save me from conscription,” Kilorn says softly, finally understanding the price I’ve paid. “You have a bad habit of trying to save me.”

I can barely nod and I have to pull the helmet onto my head to hide the tears welling in my eyes. Numbly, I follow Cal to the cycle and slide onto the seat behind him.

Kilorn backs away, flinching when the cycle revs up. Then he smirks at me, his features curling into an expression that used to make me want to punch him.

“I’ll tell Farley you said hello.”

The cycle growls like a beast, tearing me away from Kilorn and the Stilts and my old life. Fear curls through me like a poison, until I’m scared from head to toe. But not for myself. Not anymore. I’m scared for Kilorn, for the idiotic thing he’s going to do.

He’s going to find Farley. And he’s going to join her.

FIFTEEN

The next morning, I open my eyes to see a shaded figure standing by my bedside. This is it. I left, I broke the rules, and they’re going to kill me for it.

But not without a fight.

Before the figure gets a chance, I fly out of bed, ready to defend myself. My muscles tense while the delightful buzzing comes to life inside me. But instead of an assassin, I’m staring at a red uniform. And I recognize the woman wearing it.

Walsh looks the same as she did before, though I certainly don’t. She stands next to a metal cart filled with tea and bread and anything else I might want for breakfast. Ever the dutiful servant, she keeps her mouth clamped shut, but her eyes scream at me. She stares at my hand, at the now too-familiar sparks creeping around my fingers. I shake them away, brushing off the veins of light until they disappear back into my skin.