Red Queen

20

I scream with them, and the lights flash, then flicker, then fail.

One minute of darkness. That’s what I need to give them. The screams, the yelling, the stampede of feet almost break my concentration, but I force myself to focus. The lights flash horribly, then die, making it almost impossible to move. Making it possible for my friends to slip away.

“In the alcoves!” a voice roars, yelling over the chaos. “They’re running!” More voices join the call, though none are familiar. But in this madness, everyone sounds different. “Find them!” “Stop them!” “Kill them!”

The Sentinels on the landing have their guns aimed while more blur along, barely shadows as they give chase. Walsh is with them, I remind myself. If Walsh and other servants could sneak Farley and Kilorn in before, they can sneak them out again. They can hide. They can escape. They’ll be fine.

My darkness will save them.

A blaze of fire erupts from the crowd, curling through the air like a flaming snake. It roars overhead, illuminating the dim ballroom. Flickering shadows paint the walls and the upturned faces, transforming the ballroom into a nightmare of red light and gunpowder. Sonya screams nearby, bent over the body of Reynald. The spry old Ara wrestles her off the corpse, pulling her away from the chaos. Reynald’s eyes stare glassily up at the ceiling, reflecting the red light.

Still I hold on, every muscle inside me hard and tense.

Somewhere near the fire, I recognize the king’s guards hurrying him from the room. He tries to fight them, shouting and yelling to stay, but for once they don’t follow his orders. Elara is close behind, pushed on by Maven as they run from danger. Many more follow, eager to be free of this place.

Security officers run against the tide, flooding the room with shouts and stamping boots. Lords and ladies press by me in an attempt to escape, but I can only stand in place, holding on as best I can. No one tries to pull me away; no one notices me at all. They are afraid. For all their strength, all their power, they still know the meaning of fear. And a few bullets are all it takes to bring terror out in them.

A weeping woman bumps into me, knocking me over. I land face-to-face with a corpse, staring at Colonel Macanthos’s scar. Silver blood trickles down her face, from her forehead to the floor. The bullet hole is strange, surrounded by gray, rocky flesh. She was a stoneskin. She was alive long enough to try and stop it, to shield herself. But the bullet couldn’t be stopped. She still died.

I push back from the murdered woman, but my hands slide through a mixture of silverblood and wine. A scream escapes me in a terrifying combination of frustration and grief. The blood clings to my hands, like it knows what I’ve done. It’s sticky and cold and everywhere, trying to drown me.

“MARE!”

Strong arms pull me along the floor, dragging me away from the woman I let die. “Mare, please —,” the voice pleads, but for what, I don’t know.

With a roar of frustration, I lose the battle. The lights return, revealing a war zone of silk and death. When I try to scramble to my feet, to make sure the job is really done, a hand pushes me back down.

I say the words I must, playing my own part in all this. “I’m sorry—the lights—I can’t—” Overhead, the lights flicker again.

Cal barely hears me and drops to his knees next to me. “Where are you hit?” he roars, checking me in the way I know he’s been trained. His fingers feel down my arms and legs, looking for a wound, for the source of so much blood.

My voice sounds strange. Soft. Broken. “I’m fine.” He doesn’t hear me again. “Cal, I’m fine.”

Relief floods his face, and for a second I think he might kiss me again. But his senses return quicker than mine. “You’re sure?”

Gingerly, I raise a silver-stained sleeve. “How can this be mine?”

My blood is not this color. You know that.

He nods. “Of course,” he whispers. “I just—I saw you on the ground and I thought . . .” His words trail away, replaced by a terrible sadness in his eyes. But it fades quickly, shifting to determination. “Lucas! Get her out of here!”

My personal guard charges through the fray, his gun at the ready. Though he looks the same in his boots and uniform, this is not the Lucas I know. His black eyes, Samos eyes, are dark as night. “I’ll take her to the others,” he growls, hoisting me up.

Though I know better than anyone the danger is gone, I can’t help but reach out to Cal. “What about you?”

He shrugs out of my grasp with shocking ease. “I’m not running.”

And then he turns, his shoulders squared to a group of Sentinels. He steps over the corpses, head inclined to the ceiling. A Sentinel tosses him a handgun, and he catches it deftly, putting a finger to the trigger. His other hand blazes to life, crackling with dark and deadly flame. Silhouetted against the Sentinels and the bodies on the floor, he looks like another person entirely.

“Let’s go hunting,” he growls, and charges up the stairs. Sentinels and Security follow, like a cloud of red-and-black smoke trailing behind his flame. They leave a a blood-spattered ballroom, hazy with dust and screams.

In the center of it all lies Belicos Lerolan, pierced not by a bullet but a silver lance. Shot from a spear gun, like the ones used to fish. A tattered scarlet sash falls from the shaft, barely stirring in the whirlwind. There’s a symbol stamped on it—the torn sun.

Then the ballroom is gone, swallowed up by the dark walls of a service passage. The ground rumbles beneath our feet and Lucas throws me to the wall, shielding me. A sound like thunder reverberates and the ceiling shakes, dropping pieces of stone down on us. The door behind us explodes inward, destroyed by flame. Beyond, the ballroom is black with smoke. An explosion.

“Cal—” I try to squirm away from Lucas, to run back the way we came, but he throws me back. “Lucas, we have to help him!”

“Trust me, a bomb won’t bother the prince,” he growls, moving me forward.

“A bomb?” That wasn’t part of the plan. “Was that a bomb?”

Lucas draws back from me, positively shaking in anger. “You saw that bloody red scarf. This is the Scarlet Guard and that”—he points back to the ballroom, still dark and burning—“that is who they are.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I murmur to myself, trying to remember every facet of the plan. Maven never told me about a bomb. Never. And Kilorn wouldn’t let me do this, not if he knew I would be in danger. They wouldn’t do this to me.

Lucas holsters his gun, his voice a growl. “Killers don’t have to make sense.”

My breath catches in my throat. How many were left back there? How many children, how many needless deaths?

Lucas takes my silence for shock, but he’s wrong. What I feel now is anger.

Anyone can betray anyone.

Lucas leads me underground, through no less than three doors, each one a foot thick and made of steel. They have no locks, but he opens them with a flick of his hand. It reminds me of the first time I met him, when he waved apart the bars of my cell.

I hear the others before I see them, their voices echoing off the metal walls as they speak to one another. The king rails, his words sending shivers through me. His presence seems to fill the bunker as he paces up and down, his cloak flapping out behind him.

“I want them found. I want them in front of me with a blade at their backs, and I want them to sing like the cowardly birds they are!” He addresses a Sentinel, but the masked woman doesn’t even flinch. “I want to know what’s going on!”

Elara sits in a chair, one hand over her heart, the other clutching tightly to Maven.

He starts at the sight of me. “Are you all right?” he breathes, pulling me into a quick embrace.

“Just shaken,” I manage to say, trying to communicate as much as I can. But with Elara so close, I can barely allow myself to think, let alone speak. “There was an explosion after the shots. A bomb.”

Maven furrows his brow, confused, but he quickly masks it with rage. “Bastards.”

“Savages,” King Tiberias hisses through gritted teeth. “And what about my son?”

My gaze trails to Maven, before I realize the king doesn’t mean Maven at all. Maven takes it in stride. He’s used to being overlooked.

“Cal went after the shooters. He took a band of Sentinels with him.” The memory of him, dark and angry as a flame, frightens me. “And then the ballroom exploded. I don’t know how many were still— still in there.”

“Was there anything else, dear?” Coming from Elara, the term of endearment feels like an electric shock. She looks paler than ever, her breath coming in shallow pants. She’s afraid. “Anything you remember?”

“There was a banner, attached to a spear. The Scarlet Guard did this.”

“Did they?” she says, raising a single eyebrow. I fight the urge to back away, to run from her and her whispers. At any moment I expect to feel her slither into my head, to pull out the truth.

But instead, Elara rips her eyes away and turns on the king. “You see what you’ve done?” Her lip curls over her teeth. In the light, they look like glittering fangs.

“Me? You called the Guard small and weak, you lied to our people,” Tiberias snarls back at her. “Your actions have weakened us against the danger, not mine.”

“And if you took care of this when you had the chance, when they were small and weak, this would have never happened!”

They rip at each other like starved dogs, each one trying to take a bigger bite.

“Elara, they were not terrorists then. I could not waste my soldiers and officers on hunting down a few Reds writing pamphlets. They did no harm.”

Slowly, Elara points to the ceiling. “Does that seem like no harm to you?” He has no answer for her, and she smirks, delighting in winning the argument. “One day you men will learn to pay attention and all the world will tremble. They are a disease, one you allowed to take hold. And it’s time to kill this disease where it grows.”

She stands from her chair, collecting herself. “They are Red devils, and they must have allies inside our own walls.” I do my best to keep still, my eyes fixed on the floor. “I think I’ll have a word with the servants. Officer Samos, if you would?”

He jumps to attention, opening the vault door for her. She sweeps out, two Sentinels in tow, like a hurricane of rage. Lucas goes with her, opening the heavy doors in succession, each one clanging farther and farther away. I don’t want to know what the queen will do to the servants, but I know it will hurt and I know what she will find—nothing. Walsh and Holland fled with Farley, according to our plan. They knew it would be too dangerous for them after the ball—and they were right.

The thick metal closes for a few moments, only to swing open again. Another magnetron directs it: Evangeline. She looks like hell in a party dress, her jewelry mangled and teeth on edge. Worst of all are her eyes, wild and wet and streaming with black makeup. Ptolemus. She weeps for her dead brother. Even though I tell myself I don’t care, I have to resist the urge to reach out and comfort her. But it passes as soon as her companion enters the bunker behind her.

There’s smoke and soot on his skin, dirtying his once clean uniform. Normally I’d be concerned at the ragged, hateful look in Cal’s eyes, but something else strikes fear into my bones. Blood stains his black uniform and drips over his hands. It is not silver. Red. The blood is red.

“Mare,” he says to me, but all his warmth is gone. “Come with me. Now.”

His words are directed at me, but everyone follows, pushing through the passages as he leads us to the cells. My heart hammers in my chest, threatening to explode out of me. Not Kilorn. Anyone but him. Maven keeps a hand on my shoulder, holding me close. At first I think he’s comforting me, but then he tugs me back: he’s trying to keep me from running ahead.

“You should’ve killed him where he stood,” Evangeline says to Cal. Her fingers pluck at the red blood on his shirt. “I wouldn’t leave the Red devil alive.”

Him. My teeth bite my lips, holding my mouth closed so I don’t say something stupid. Maven’s hand tightens like a claw on my shoulder and I can feel his pulse quicken. For all we know, this might be the end of our game. Elara will come back and shatter their brains, picking through the wreckage to discover how deep their plot goes.

The steps to the cells are the same but seem longer, stretching down into the deepest parts of the Hall. The dungeon rises to greet us, and no less than six Sentinels stand guard. An icy chill runs through my bones, but I don’t shiver. I can barely move.

Four figures stand in the cell, each one bloody and bruised. Despite the dim light, I know them all. Walsh’s eye is swollen shut, but she seems all right. Not like Tristan, leaning against the wall to take pressure off a leg wet with blood. There’s a hasty bandage around the wound, torn from Kilorn’s shirt by the looks of it. For his part, Kilorn looks unscathed, to my great relief. He supports Farley with an arm, letting her stand against him. Her shoulder is dislocated, one arm hanging at a strange angle. But that doesn’t stop her from sneering at us. She even spits through the bars, a mix of blood and saliva that lands at Evangeline’s feet.

“Take her tongue for that,” Evangeline snarls, rushing at the bars. She stops short, one hand slamming against the metal. Though she could tear it away with a thought, ripping apart the cell and the people inside, she restrains herself.

Farley holds her gaze, barely blinking at the outburst. If this is her end, she’s certainly going to go with her head high. “A little violent for a princess.”

Before Evangeline can lose her temper, Cal pulls her back from the bars. Slowly, he raises a hand, pointing. “You.”

With a horrific lurch, I realize he’s pointing at Kilorn. A muscle twitches in Kilorn’s cheek, but he keeps his eyes on the floor.

Cal remembers him. From the night he brought me home.

“Mare, explain this.”

I open my mouth, hoping some fantastic lie will fall out, but nothing comes.

Cal’s gaze darkens. “He’s your friend. Explain this.”

Evangeline gasps and turns her wrath on me. “You brought him here!” she screeches, jumping at me. “You did this?!”

“I did n-nothing,” I stammer, feeling all the eyes in the room on me. “I mean, I did get him a job here. He was at the lumberyards and it’s hard work, deadly work—” The lies tumble from me, each one quicker than the last. “He’s—he was my friend, back in the village. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. I got him the job as a servant, just like—” My eyes trail to Cal. Both of us remember the night we first met, and the day that followed. “I thought I was helping him.”

Maven takes a step toward the cell, looking at our friends like it’s the first time he’s ever seen them. He gestures to their red uniforms. “They seem to be only servants.”

“I’d say the same, except we found them trying to escape through a drainpipe,” Cal snaps. “Took us a while to drag them out.”

“Is this all of them?” King Tiberias says, peering through the cell bars.

Cal shakes his head. “There were more ahead, but they got to the river. How many, I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s find out,” Evangeline says, her eyebrows raised. “Call for the queen. And in the meantime . . .” She faces the king. Beneath his beard, he grins a little and nods.

I don’t have to ask to know what they’re thinking about. Torture.

The four prisoners stand strong, not even flinching. Maven’s jaw works furiously as he tries to think of a way out of this, but he knows there isn’t one. If anything, this might be more than we could hope for. If they manage to lie. But how can we ask them to? How can we watch them scream while we stand tall?

Kilorn seems to have an answer for me. Even in this awful place, his green eyes manage to shine. I will lie for you.

“Cal, I leave the honor to you,” the king says, resting a hand on his son’s shoulder. I can only stare, pleading with wide eyes, praying Cal will not do as his father asks.

He glances at me once, like somehow that counts as an apology. Then he turns to a Sentinel, shorter than the others. Her eyes sparkle gray-white behind her mask.

“Sentinel Gliacon, I find myself in need of some ice.”

What that means, I have no idea, but Evangeline giggles. “Good choice.”

“You don’t need to see this,” Maven mutters, trying to pull me away. But I can’t leave Kilorn. Not now. I angrily shrug him off, my eyes still on my friend.

“Let her stay,” Evangeline crows, taking pleasure in my discomfort. “This will teach her to treat Reds as friends.” She turns back to the cell, waving open the bars. With one white finger, she points. “Start with her. She needs to be broken.”

The Sentinel nods and seizes Farley by the wrist, pulling her out of the cell. The bars slide back into place behind her, trapping the rest in. Walsh and Kilorn rush to the bars, both of them the picture of fear.

The Sentinel forces Farley to her knees, waiting for her next order. “Sir?”

Cal moves to stand over her, breathing heavily. He hesitates before speaking, but his voice is strong. “How many more of you are there?”

Farley’s jaw locks in place, her teeth together. She’ll die before she talks.

“Start with the arm.”

The Sentinel is not gentle, wrenching out Farley’s wounded arm. Farley yelps in pain but still says nothing. It takes everything I have not to strike the Sentinel.

“And you call us the savages,” Kilorn spits, forehead against the bars.

Slowly, the Sentinel peels away Farley’s blood-soaked sleeve and sets pale, cruel hands to her skin. Farley screams at the touch, but why, I can’t say.

“Where are the others?” Cal questions, kneeling to look her in the eyes. For a moment she falls quiet, drawing a ragged breath. He leans in, patiently waiting for her to break.

Instead, Farley snaps forward, head butting him with all her strength. “We are everywhere.” She laughs, but screams again as the Sentinel resumes her torture.

Cal recovers neatly, one hand to his now broken nose. Another person might strike back, but he doesn’t.

Red pinpricks appear on Farley’s arm, around the Sentinel’s hand. They grow with each passing second, sharp and shiny red points sticking straight out of now bluish skin. Sentinel Gliacon. House Gliacon. My mind flies back to Protocol, to the house lessons. Shivers.

With a lurch, I understand and I have to look away.

“That’s blood,” I whisper, unable to look back. “She’s freezing her blood.” Maven only nods, his eyes grave and full of sorrow.

Behind us, the Sentinel continues to work, moving up Farley’s arm. Red icicles sharp as razors pierce through her flesh, slicing every nerve in a pain I can’t imagine. Farley’s breath whistles through gritted teeth. Still she says nothing. My heart races as the seconds tick by, wondering when the queen will return, wondering when our play will be truly over.

Finally, Cal jumps to his feet. “Enough.”

Another Sentinel, a Skonos skin healer, drops down next to Farley. She all but collapses, staring blankly at her arm, now jagged with knives of frozen blood. The new Sentinel heals her quickly, hands moving in a practiced fashion.

Farley chuckles darkly as the warmth returns to her arm. “All to do it again, eh?”

Cal folds his arms behind his back. He shares a glance with his father, who nods. “Indeed,” Cal sighs, looking back to the shiver. But she doesn’t get a chance to continue.

“WHERE IS SHE?” a terrible voice screams, echoing down the stairs to us below.

Evangeline whirls at the noise, rushing to the bottom of the stairs. “I’m here!” she shouts back.

When Ptolemus Samos steps down to embrace his sister, I have to dig my nails into my palm to keep from reacting. There he stands, alive and breathing and terribly angry. On the floor, Farley curses to herself.

He only lingers for a moment and sidesteps Evangeline, a terrifying fury in his eyes. His armored suit is mangled at the shoulder, pulverized by a bullet. But the skin beneath is unbroken. Healed. He prowls toward the cell, hands flexing. The metal bars quiver in their sockets, screeching against concrete.

“Ptolemus, not yet—,” Cal growls, grabbing for him, but Ptolemus shoves the prince off. Despite Cal’s size and strength, he stumbles backward.

Evangeline runs at her brother, pulling his hand. “No, we need them to talk!” With one shrug of his arm he breaks her grip—not even she can stop him.

The bars crack, shrieking with his power as the cell opens to him. Not even the Sentinels can stop him as he strides forward, moving quickly with practiced motions. Kilorn and Walsh scramble, jumping back against the stone walls, but Ptolemus is a predator, and predators attack the weak. With his broken leg, barely able to move, Tristan doesn’t stand a chance.

“You will not threaten my sister again,” Ptolemus roars, directing the metal bars of the cell. One spears right through Tristan’s chest. He gasps, choking on his own blood, dying. And Ptolemus actually smiles.

When he turns on Kilorn, murder in his heart, I snap.

Sparks blaze to life in my skin. When my hand closes around Ptolemus’s muscled neck, I let the sparks go. They shock into him, lightning dancing through his veins, and he seizes under my touch. The metal of his uniform vibrates and smokes, almost cooking him alive. And then he drops to the concrete floor, his body still shaking with sparks.

“Ptolemus!” Evangeline scrambles to his side, reaching for his face. A shock jumps to her fingers, forcing her to fall back with a scowl. She rounds on me in a blaze of anger. “How dare you—!”

“He’ll be fine.” I didn’t hit him with enough to do any real damage. “Like you said, we need them to talk. They can’t do that if they’re dead.”

The others stare at me with a strange mix of emotions, their eyes wide—and afraid. Cal, the boy I kissed, the soldier, the brute, can’t hold my gaze at all. I recognize the expression on his face: shame. But because he hurt Farley, or because he couldn’t make her talk, I don’t know. At least Maven has the good sense to look sad, his stare resting on Tristan’s still bleeding body.

“Mother can attend to the prisoners later,” he says, addressing the king. “But the people upstairs will want to see their king and know he is safe. So many have died. You should comfort them, Father. And you as well, Cal.”

He’s playing for time. Brilliant Maven is trying to buy us a chance.

Even though it makes my skin crawl, I reach out to touch Cal’s shoulder. He kissed me once. He might still listen when I speak. “He’s right, Cal. This can wait.”

Still on the floor, Evangeline bares her teeth. “The court will want answers, not embraces! This must be done now! Your Majesty, rip the truth from them—”

But even Tiberias sees the wisdom of Maven’s words. “They will keep,” he echoes. “And tomorrow the truth will be known.”

My grip tightens on Cal’s arm, feeling the tense muscles beneath. He relaxes into my touch, looking like a great weight has fallen off him.

The Sentinels jump to attention and pull Farley back into the broken cell. Her eyes stay on me, wondering what the hell I have in mind. I wish I knew.

Evangeline half drags Ptolemus out, letting the bars knit together behind her. “You are weak, my prince,” she hisses into Cal’s ear.

I resist the urge to look back at Kilorn, as his words echo in my head. Stop trying to protect me.

I will not.

Blood drips from my sleeve, leaving a spotted silver trail in my wake as we march to the throne room. Sentinels and Security guard the immense door, their guns raised and aimed at the passageway. They don’t move as we pass, frozen in place. Their orders are to kill, should the need arise. Beyond, the grand chamber echoes with anger and sorrow. I want to feel some shred of victory, but the memory of Kilorn behind bars dampens any happiness I might have. Even the colonel’s glassy eyes haunt me.

I move to Cal’s side. He barely notices, his eyes burning at the floor. “How many dead?”

“Ten so far,” he mutters. “Three in the shooting, eight in the explosion. Fifteen more wounded.” It sounds like he’s listing groceries, not people. “But they’ll all heal.”

He jerks his thumb, gesturing to the healers running among the injured. I count two children among them. And beyond the wounded are the bodies of the dead, laid out before the king’s throne. Belicos Lerolan’s twin sons lie next to him, with their weeping mother holding vigil over the bodies.

I have to put a hand to my mouth to keep from gasping. I never wanted this.

Maven’s warm hands take mine, pulling me past the gruesome scene to our place by the throne. Cal stands close by, trying in vain to wipe the red blood off his hands.

“The time for tears is over,” Tiberias thunders, fists clenching at his sides. In complete unison, the sobs and sniffles through the chamber die out. “Now we honor the dead, heal the wounded, and avenge our fallen. I am the king. I do not forget. I do not forgive. I have been lenient in the past, allowing our Red brothers a good life full of prosperity, of dignity. But they spit upon us, they reject our mercy, and they have brought upon themselves the worst kind of doom.”

With a snarl, he throws down the silver spear and red rag. It clatters across the floor with a sound like a funeral bell. The torn sun stares at us all.

“These fools, these terrorists, these murderers, will be brought to justice. And they will die. I swear on my crown, on my throne, on my sons, they will die.”

A rumbling murmur goes through the crowd as each Silver stirs. They stand as one, wounded or not. The metallic smell of blood is almost overpowering.

“Strength,” the court screams. “Power! Death!”

Maven glances at me, his eyes wide and afraid. I know what he’s thinking, because I think it too.

What have we done?