Red Queen (Red Queen 1)

I can’t tear my eyes away from the flame and smoke, but Maven does it for me. “There he is,” he hisses, pointing to some dark shapes running from the palace.

He has his own guards, but Cal outstrips them all, sprinting for the barracks. He’s still in his nightclothes, but he’s never looked so fearsome. As soldiers and officers spill out into the Square, he barks orders, somehow making himself heard over the growing crowd. “Guns on the gates! Put nymphs on the other side, we don’t want the fire spreading!”

His men carry out the orders with speed, jumping at his every word. Legions obey their generals.

Behind us, Farley presses herself back against the wall, inching closer to her drain. She’ll turn and run at the first sign of trouble, disappearing to fight another day. That won’t happen. This will work.

Maven moves to go first, to wave down his brother, but I push him back.

“I have to do it,” I whisper, feeling a strange sort of calm come over me. He will always choose you.

I’m past the point of no return when I step into the Square, into full view of the legion and the patrols and Cal. Spotlights blaze to life on the tops of the walls, some pointed at the Bridge, others down on us. One seems to go right through me and I have to raise a hand to shield my eyes.

“Cal!” I scream over the deafening sound of five thousand soldiers. Somehow, he hears me, his head snapping in my direction. We lock eyes through the mass of soldiers falling into their practiced lines and regiments.

When he moves toward me, pushing through the sea, I think I might faint. Suddenly all I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my ears, drowning out the alarms and the screams. I am afraid. So very afraid. This is just Cal, I tell myself. The boy who loves music and cycles. Not the soldier, not the general, not the prince. The boy. He will always choose you.

“Go back inside, now!” He towers over me, using the stern, regal voice that could make a mountain bow. “Mare, it’s not safe—!”

With strength I never knew I had, I grab onto the collar of his shirt and somehow it keeps him still. “What if that was the cost?” I toss a glance back to the broken Bridge, now shrouded in smoke and ash. “Nothing but a few tons of concrete. What if I told you that right here, right now, you could fix everything. You could save us.”

By the flicker in his eyes, I can see I have his attention. “Don’t,” he protests weakly, one hand grabbing mine. There’s fear in his eyes, more fear than I’ve ever seen.

“You said you believed in us once, in freedom. In equality. You can make that real, with one word. There won’t be a war. No one will die.” He seems frozen by my words, not daring to breathe. Even I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I press on. I must make him understand. “You hold the power right now. This army is yours, this whole place is yours to take and—and to free! March into the palace, make your father kneel, and do what you know is right. Please, Cal!”

I can feel him beneath my hands, his breath coming in quick pants, and nothing has ever felt so real or so important. I know what he’s thinking about—his kingdom, his duty, his father. And me, the lightning girl, asking him to throw it all away. Something deep down tells me he will.

Shaking, I press a kiss to his lips. He will choose me. His skin feels cold under mine, like a corpse.

“Choose me,” I breathe against him. “Choose a new world. Make a better world. The soldiers will obey you. Your father will obey you.” My heart clenches and every muscle tightens, waiting for his answer. The spotlight on us flickers under my strength, switching on and off with every heartbeat. “It was my blood in the cells. I helped the Guard escape. And soon everyone will know—and they will kill me. Don’t let them. Save me.”

The words stir him and his grip on my wrist tightens.

“It was always you.”

He will always choose you.

“Greet the new dawn, Cal. With me. With us.”

His eyes shift to Maven now walking toward us. The brothers lock eyes, speaking in a way I don’t understand. He will choose us.

“It was always you,” he says again, ragged and ruined this time. His voice carries the pain of a thousand deaths, a thousand betrayals. Anyone can betray anyone, I remember. “The escape, the shooting, the power outages. It all started with you.”

I try to explain, still pulling back. But he has no intention of letting me go.

“How many people have you killed with your dawn? How many children, how many innocents?” His hand grows hot, hot enough to burn. “How many people have you betrayed?”

My knees buckle, dropping out from under me, but Cal doesn’t let go. Dimly, I hear Maven yelling somewhere, the prince charging in to save his princess. But I’m not a princess. I’m not the girl who gets saved. As the fire rises in Cal, flaming behind his eyes, the lightning streaks through me, fed by anger. It shocks between us, throwing me back from Cal. My mind buzzes, clouded by sorrow and anger and electricity.

Behind me, Maven yells. I turn just in time to see him shouting back at Farley, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Run! Run!”

Cal jumps to his feet faster than me, shouting something to his soldiers. His eyes follow Maven’s call, connecting the dots as only a general can. “The drains!” he roars, still staring at me. “They’re in the drains.”

Farley’s shadow disappears, trying to escape while gunfire follows her. Soldiers dart over the Square, ripping away grates and drains and pipes, exposing the system beneath. They pour into the tunnels like a terrible flood. I want to cover my ears, to block out the screams and bullets and blood.

Kilorn. His name flutters weakly in my thoughts, no more than a whisper. I can’t think about him long; Cal still stands over me, his whole body shaking. But he doesn’t frighten me. I don’t think anything can scare me now. The worst has happened already. We have lost.

“How many?” I scream back at him, finding the strength to face him. “How many starved? How many murdered? How many children taken away to die? How many, my prince?”

I thought I knew hate before today. I was wrong. About myself, Cal, about everything. The pain makes my head spin but somehow I keep my feet, somehow I keep myself from falling. He will never choose me.

“My brother, Kilorn’s father, Tristan, Walsh!” What feels like a hundred names explode from me, rattling off all the lost ones. They mean nothing to Cal, but everything to me. And I know there are thousands, millions more. A million forgotten wrongs.