Red Queen

Back in my room, the maids wait silently, another gilded dress laid across their arms. While one slips me into the spectacle of silk and purple gemstones, the others fix my hair and makeup. As usual, they don’t say a word, even though I look frantic and harried after such a morning.

Lunch is a mixed affair. Usually the women eat together to discuss the upcoming weddings and all the silly things rich ladies talk about, but today is different. We’re back on the terrace overlooking the river, the red uniforms of servants floating through the crowd, but there are far more military uniforms than ever before. It seems like we’re dining with a full legion.

Cal and Maven are there as well, both glittering in their medals, and they smile through pleasant conversation while the king himself shakes hands with the soldiers. All the soldiers are young, in gray uniforms cut with silver insignia. Nothing like the ratty red fatigues my brothers and any other Reds get when they’re conscripted. These Silvers are going to war, yes, but not to the real fighting. They’re the sons and daughters of important people and to them, the war is just another place to visit. Another step in their training. To us, to me once, it is a dead end. It is doom.

But I still have to do my duty, to smile and shake their hands and thank them for their brave service. Each word tastes bitter, until I have to duck away from the crowd to an alcove half hidden by plants. The noise of the crowd still rises with the midday sun, but I can breathe again. For a second, at least.

“Everything okay?”

Cal stands over me, looking worried but strangely relaxed. He likes being around soldiers; I suppose it’s his natural habitat.

Even though I want to disappear, my spine straightens. “I’m not a fan of beauty pageants.”

He frowns. “Mare, they’re going to the front. I’d think you of all people would want to give them a proper send-off.”

The laugh escapes me like gunfire. “What part of my life makes you think I’d care about these brats going off to war like it’s some kind of vacation?”

“Just because they’ve chosen to go doesn’t make them any less brave.”

“Well, I hope they enjoy their barracks and supplies and reprieves and all the things my brothers were never given.” I doubt these willing soldiers will ever want for so much as a button.

Even though he looks like he wants to yell at me, Cal swallows the urge. Now that I know what his temper is capable of, I’m surprised he can keep himself in check at all.

“This is the first completely Silver legion going into the trenches,” he says evenly. “They’re going to fight with the Reds, dressed as Reds, serving with Reds. The Lakelanders won’t know who they are when they get to the Choke. And when the bombs fall, when the enemy tries to break the line, they’re going to get more than they bargained for. The Shadow Legion will take them all.”

Suddenly I feel hot and cold at the same time. “Original.”

But Cal doesn’t gloat. Instead, he looks sad. “You gave me the idea.”

“What?”

“When you fell into Queenstrial, no one knew what to do. I’m sure the Lakelanders will feel the same.”

Though I try to speak, no sound comes out. I’ve never been a point of inspiration for anything, let alone combat maneuvers. Cal stares at me like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t speak. Neither of us knows what to say.

A boy from our Training, the windweaver Oliver, claps a hand on Cal’s shoulder while the other clutches a sloshing drink. He wears a uniform too. He’s going to fight.

“What’s with the hiding, Cal?” He chuckles, gesturing to the crowd around us. “Next to the Lakelanders, this bunch will be easy!”

Cal meets my eyes, a silver blush tingeing his cheeks. “I’ll take the Lakelanders any day,” he replies, his eyes never leaving mine.

“You’re going with them?”

Oliver answers for Cal, smiling much too wide for a boy going off to war. “Going?” he says. “Cal’s leading us! His own legion, all the way to the front.”

Slowly, Cal shifts out of Oliver’s grip. The drunk windweaver doesn’t seem to notice and keeps babbling. “He’ll be the youngest general in history, and the first prince to fight on the lines.”

And the first to die, a morose voice in my head whispers. Against my better instincts, I reach out to Cal. He doesn’t pull away from me, allowing me to hold his arm. Now he doesn’t look like a prince or a general or even a Silver, but that boy at the bar, the one who wanted to save me.

My voice is small but strong. “When?”

“When you leave for the capital, after the ball. You’ll go south,” he murmurs, “and I’ll go north.”

A cold shock of fear ripples through me, like when Kilorn first told me he was going to fight. But Kilorn is a fisher boy, a thief, someone who knows how to survive, how to slip through the cracks; not like Cal. He’s a soldier. He’ll die if he has to. He’ll bleed for his war. And why this frightens me, I don’t know. Why I care, I can’t say.

“With Cal on the lines, this war will finally be over. With Cal, we can win,” Oliver says, grinning like a fool. Again, he takes Cal by the shoulder, but this time he steers him away, back toward the party—leaving me behind.

Someone presses a cold drink into my hand and I down it in a single gulp.

“Easy there,” Maven mutters. “Still thinking about this morning? No one saw your face, I checked with the Sentinels.”

But that’s the farthest thing from my mind as I watch Cal shake hands with his father. He pastes a magnificent smile on his face, donning a mask only I can see through.

Maven follows my gaze, and my thoughts. “He wanted to do this. It was his choice.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to like it.”

“My son the general!” King Tiberias booms, his proud voice cutting through the din of the party. For a second, when he pulls Cal close, putting an arm around his son, I forget he’s a king. I almost understand Cal’s need to please him.

What would I give to see my mother look at me like that, back when I was nothing but a thief? What would I give now?

This world is Silver, but it is also gray. There is no black-and-white.

When someone knocks at my door that night, long after dinner, I’m expecting Walsh and another cup of secret-message tea, but Cal stands there instead. Without his uniform or armor, he looks like the boy he is. Barely nineteen, on the edge of doom or greatness or both.

I shrink in my pajamas, wishing very much for a robe. “Cal? What do you need?”

He shrugs, smirking a little bit. “Evangeline almost killed you in the ring today.”

“So?”

“So I don’t want her to kill you on the dance floor.”

“Did I miss something? Are we going to be fighting at the ball?”

He laughs, leaning against the doorframe. But his feet never enter my room, like he can’t. Or he shouldn’t. You’re going to be his brother’s wife. And he’s going to war.

“If you know how to dance properly, you won’t have to.”

I remember mentioning how I can’t dance for my life, let alone under Blonos’s terrible direction, but how can Cal help me here? And why would he want to?