Red Queen (Red Queen 1)

“Run, Cal!” I scream, trying to snap him back to life. “You have to run!”

Arven has let me go, and the electric pulse returns, surging through my veins like fire through ice. It’s nothing at all to shock the metal, burning it with sparks until the shackles fall off my wrists. I know this feeling. I know the instinct rising in me now. Run. Run. Run.

I grab Cal’s shoulders, trying to pull him up, but the big oaf doesn’t budge. I give him a little shock, just enough to catch his attention, before screaming again. “RUN!”

It’s enough and he struggles to his feet, almost slipping in the pool of blood.

I expect Elara to fight me, to make me kill myself or Cal, but she continues screaming, acting for the cameras. Maven stands over her, arms ablaze, ready to protect his mother. He doesn’t even try to stop us.

“There’s nowhere for you to go!” he shouts, but I’m already running, dragging Cal along behind me. “You are murderers, traitors, and you will face justice!”

His voice, a voice I used to know so well, seems to chase us through the doors and down the hall. The voices in my head scream with him.

Stupid girl. Foolish girl. Look what your hope has done.

And then it’s Cal dragging me along, forcing me to keep up. Hot tears of anger and rage and sorrow drown my eyes, until I can’t see anything but my hand in his. Where he leads, I don’t know. I can only follow.

Feet pound behind us, the familiar sound of boots. Officers, Sentinels, soldiers, they’re all chasing, coming for us.

The floor beneath us steadily changes from the polished wood of back hallways to swirling marble—the banquet hall. Long tables set with fine china block the way but Cal throws them aside with a blast of fire. The smoke triggers an alarm system and water rains down on us, fighting the blaze. It turns to steam on Cal’s skin, shrouding him in a raging white cloud. He looks like a ghost, haunted by a life suddenly torn away, and I don’t know how to comfort him.

The world slows for me as the far end of the banquet hall darkens with gray uniforms and black guns. There’s nowhere for me to run anymore. I must fight.

Lightning blazes in my skin, begging to be loosed.

“No.” Cal’s voice is hollow, broken. He lowers his own hands, letting the flames disappear. “We can’t win this.”

He’s right.

They close in from the many doors and arches, and even the windows crowd with uniforms. Hundreds of Silvers, armed to the teeth, ready to kill. We are trapped.

Cal searches the faces, his eyes lingering on the soldiers. His own men. By the way they stare back, glaring at him, I know they’ve already seen the horror Elara created. Their loyalties are broken, just like their general. One of them, a captain, trembles at the sight of Cal. To my surprise, he keeps his gun at his side as he steps forward.

“Submit to arrest,” he says, his hands shaking.

Cal locks eyes with his old friend and nods. “We submit to arrest, Captain Tyros.”

Run, every inch of me screams. But for once, I cannot. Next to me, Cal looks just as affected, his eyes reflecting a pain I can’t even imagine. His wounds are soul deep.

He has learned his lesson as well.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Maven has betrayed me. No, he was never on my side at all.

My eyes adjust, seeing bars through the dim light. The ceiling is low and heavy, like the underground air. I’ve never been here before, but I know it all the same.

“The Bowl of Bones,” I whisper aloud, expecting no one to hear me.

Instead, someone laughs.

The darkness continues to lift, revealing more of the cell. A lumpy shape sits against the bars next to me, shifting with every peal of laughter.

“I was four years old the first time I came here, and Maven was barely two. He hid behind his mother’s skirts, afraid of the darkness and the empty cells.” Cal chuckles, every word sharp as a knife. “I guess he’s not afraid of the dark anymore.”

“No, he’s not.”

I’m the shadow of the flame. I believed Maven when he said those words, when he told me how much he hated this world. Now I know it was all a trick, a masterful trick. Every word, every touch, every look was a lie. And I thought I was the liar.

Instinctively I reach out with my abilities, feeling for any pulse of electricity, something to give me a spark of energy. But there’s nothing. Nothing but a blank, flat absence, a hollow sensation that makes me shiver.

“Is Arven nearby?” I wonder, remembering how he shut off my abilities, forcing me to watch as Maven and his mother destroyed their family. “I can’t feel a thing.”

“It’s the cells,” Cal says dully. His hands draw shapes in the dirty floor—flames. “Made of Silent Stone. Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t and I don’t feel like trying.”

He looks up, eyes glaring through the darkness at the unending line of cells. I should be afraid, but I have nothing left to fear. The worst has already happened.

“Before the matches, back when we still had to execute our own, the Bowl of Bones hosted everything nightmares are made of. The Great Greco, who used to tear men in half and eat their livers. The Poison Bride. She was an animos of House Viper, and sent snakes into my great-great-uncle’s bed on their wedding night. They say his blood turned to venom, he was bitten so many times.” Cal lists them off, the criminals of his world. They sound likes stories invented to make children behave. “Now, us. The Traitor Prince, they’ll call me. ‘He killed his father for the crown. He just couldn’t wait.’”

I can’t help but add to the tale. “‘The bitch made him do it,’ they’ll gossip to each other.” I can see it in my head, shouted on every street corner, from every video screen. “They’ll blame me, the little lightning girl. I filled your thoughts with poison, I corrupted you. I made you do it.”

“You almost did,” he murmurs back. “I almost chose you this morning.”

Was it just this morning? That cannot be true. I push myself up against the bars, leaning just inches away from Cal.

“They’re going to kill us.”

Cal nods, laughing again. I’ve heard him laugh before, at me every time I tried to dance, but this sound is not the same. His warmth is gone, leaving nothing behind.

“The king will see to it. We will be executed.”

Execution. I’m not surprised, not in the least.

“How will they do it?” I can barely remember the last execution. Only images remain: silverblood on sand, the roar of a crowd. And I remember the gallows at home, rope swinging in a harsh wind.