Red Queen (Red Queen 1)

Cal doesn’t answer and I expect to see the rage I feel reflected in his eyes. Instead I see nothing but sadness. He whispers again, and the words make me want to fall down and never get up again.

“I wish things were different.”

I expect the sparks, I expect lightning, but it never comes. When I feel cold hands on my neck and metal shackles on my wrists, I know why. Instructor Arven, the silence, the one who can make us human, stands behind me, pushing down all my strength until I’m nothing but a weeping girl again. He’s taken it all away, all the strength and all the power I thought I had. I have lost. When my knees give out this time, there’s no one to hold me up. Dimly, I hear Maven cry out before he too is pushed to the ground.

“Brother!” he roars, trying to make Cal see what he’s doing. “They’ll kill her! They’ll kill me!” But Cal is no longer listening to us. He speaks to one of his captains, and I don’t bother to listen to the words. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

The ground beneath me seems to shake with every round of gunfire deep below. How much blood will stain the tunnels tonight?

My head is too heavy, my body too weak, and I let myself slump against the tiled ground. It feels cold under my cheek, soothing and smooth. Maven pitches forward, his head landing next to me. I remember a moment like this. Gisa’s scream and the shattering of bones echo faintly, a ghost inside my head.

“Take them inside, to the king. He will judge them both.”

I don’t recognize Cal’s voice anymore. I’ve turned him into a monster. I forced his hand. I made him choose. I was eager, I was stupid. I let myself hope.

I am a fool.

The sun begins to rise behind Cal’s head, framing him against the dawn. It’s too bright, too sharp, and too soon; I have to shut my eyes.

TWENTY-SIX

I can barely keep up the pace but the soldier at my back, holding my shackled arms, keeps shoving. Another does the same to Maven, forcing him along with me. Arven follows us, making sure we can’t escape. His presence is a dark weight, dulling my senses. I can still see the passage around us, empty and far from the prying eyes of the court, but I don’t have the strength to care. Cal leads the pack, his shoulders tense and tight as he fights the urge to look back.

The sound of gunfire and screams and blood in the tunnels rumbles in my mind. They are dead. We are dead. It is over.

I expect us to descend, to march down to the darkest cell in the world. Instead, Cal leads us up, to a room with no windows and no Sentinels. Our footfalls don’t even echo as we enter—soundproof. In here, no one can hear us. And that frightens me more than the guns or the fire or the pure rage rippling off the king.

He stands in the center of the room, dressed in his own gilded armor with the crown on his head. His ceremonial sword hangs at his side again, along with a pistol he’s probably never used. All part of the pageant. At least he looks the part.

The queen is here as well, waiting for us in nothing but a thin white gown. The moment we enter, her eyes meet mine and she forces her way into my thoughts like a knife through flesh. I yelp, trying to clutch my head, but the shackles hold firm.

It all flashes before my eyes again, from the beginning to the end. Will’s wagon. The Guard. Kilorn. The riots, the meetings, the secret messages. Maven’s face swirls in the memories, making him stand out against the fray, but Elara pushes him. She doesn’t want to see what I remember about him. My brain screams at the onslaught, jumping from thought to thought until my whole life, every kiss and every secret, is laid bare before her.

When she stops, I feel dead. I want to be dead. At least I won’t have long to wait.

“Leave us,” Elara says, her voice cutting and sharp. The soldiers wait, looking to Cal. When he nods, they take their leave, departing in a din of clicking boots. But Arven stays behind, his influence still pressing down on me. When the march of boots fades away, the king allows himself to exhale.

“Son?” He looks at Cal, and I can see the slightest quiver in his fingers. But what he could possibly fear, I do not know. “I want to hear this from you.”

“They’ve been part of this for a long time,” Cal mutters, barely able to say the words. “Since she came here.”

“Both?” Tiberias turns away from Cal, to his forgotten son. He looks almost sad, his face pulling into a pained frown. His eyes waver, reluctant to hold his gaze, but Maven stares right back. He will not flinch. “You knew about this, my boy?”

Maven nods. “I helped plan it.”

Tiberias stumbles, like his words are a physical blow. “And the shooting?”

“I chose the targets.” Cal squeezes his eyes shut, like he can block this all out.

Maven’s eyes slide past his father, to Elara, who stands close by. They hold each other’s gaze, and for a moment, I think she’s looking into his thoughts. With a jolt, I realize she won’t. She can’t let herself look.

“You told me to find a cause, Father. And I did. Are you proud of me?”

But Tiberias rounds on me instead, snarling like a bear. “You did this! You poisoned him, you poisoned my boy!” When tears spring to his eyes, I know the king’s heart, no matter how small or cold, has been broken. He loves Maven, in his own way. But it’s too late for that. “You’ve taken my son from me!”

“You have done that yourself,” I say through gritted teeth. “Maven has his own heart, and he believes in a different world as much as I do. If anything, your son changed me.”

“I don’t believe you. You have tricked him somehow.”

“She does not lie.”

Hearing Elara agree with me rips my breath away.

“Our son has always thirsted for change.” Her eyes linger on her son. She sounds afraid. “He is just a boy, Tiberias.”

Save him, I scream out in my head. She must hear me. She must.

Next to me, Maven sucks in a breath, waiting for what could be our doom.

Tiberias looks at his feet, knowing the laws better than anyone else, but Cal is strong enough to meet his brother’s gaze. I can see him remembering their life together. Flame and shadow. One cannot exist without the other.

After a long moment of hot, stifling silence, the king puts a hand on Cal’s shoulder. His head shakes back and forth, and tears track down his cheeks into his beard.

“A boy or not, Maven has killed. Together with this—this snake”—he points a shaking finger at me—“he has committed grave crimes against his own. Against me, and against you. Against our throne.”