Her eyes narrow, dancing over me. Even at a distance, I can hear her sharp intake of breath. I smirk a little, satisfied that I can still draw such a reaction from her. Even if her response is firmly rooted in fear. That’s something, at least. Better than apathy. Better than nothing at all.
“I suppose this is the end of that,” I continue, swinging my legs out and onto the floor. The metal is cool against my forehead as I lean, bracing myself against the bars. “No more whispers between Maven and Mare.”
She sneers, and I brace myself for the inevitable spray of spit. It never comes.
“I’m done trying to understand you,” she hisses, still out reach. But she doesn’t flinch when I look her over. Doesn’t tremble when I raise a hand, stretching out my fingers to brush within an inch of her face.
Because it isn’t me she fears, not really.
Her eyes flicker, looking down at the floor of my cell. At the Stone set neatly in cement.
I laugh, deep in my throat. It echoes off the walls.
“I really did break something in you, didn’t I?”
Mare recoils like I’ve struck her. I can almost see the bruise forming on her heart. She grits her teeth, straightening her spine. “Nothing that I can’t fix,” she grinds out.
I can feel the smile on my face turn bitter, tainted, corrupted. Like the rest of me. “If only I could say the same.”
My words echo, soften, and die.
She crosses her arms and looks at her feet. I watch her keenly, trying to commit every piece of her to memory. “The tunnels, Maven.”
“You heard my terms,” I reply. “I go with you, I lead your armies . . .”
Her head snaps up. If not for the Stone beneath my feet, I might feel the hum of static. “That isn’t good enough,” she says.
Time to call her bluff. “Then electrocute me. Call your torturer and risk your war on the words bought with my blood. Trust that they’re the truth. Are you willing to do that?”
She throws up her hands, exasperated. Like I’m a child instead of a king. It rankles, sandpaper on my skin. “We need a compromise, at least. Where the tunnels start.”
I raise an eyebrow coolly. “And where they end?”
“That’s your piece of the puzzle to keep. Until we need it.”
“Hmm,” I hum out, tapping a finger to my chin. I even start to pace, putting on a grand show for my rapturous audience. Her eyes track my movements, and I’m reminded of the panther Evangeline’s mother keeps so close. “I assume you’ll be coming along?”
She barely scoffs. Her mouth curves into a delicious scowl. “It isn’t like you to ask empty, stupid questions.”
I just shrug. “Whatever keeps you standing here.”
To that she has no retort. Whatever words she wants to say die on her lips. If only I could touch them. Feel the skin beneath my fingers, smooth and full and pulsing with hot, red blood. Part of me wonders why she is still so transfixing, even though I know she’s my sworn enemy. That I would kill her, and she would kill me. Another mystery of my mind that will never be unraveled.
She stands firm, letting me look. Never wavering beneath my gaze. Letting me see past the mask I helped her make. There is exhaustion, and hope, and sadness, of course. A sorrow for so many things.
My brother among them.
“He broke your heart, didn’t he?”
Mare only exhales, her chest falling.
“What a fool,” I whisper, speaking the familiar thought aloud.
It doesn’t bother her. She tosses her head, letting brown and gray hair flip over her shoulder. Revealing the bare skin beneath, and the brand still clear as day. M for Maven. M for mine. M for monster. M for Mare.
“So did you.”
A sour taste floods my mouth. I expected her to quail, but I’m the one who has to look away. “At least I had a good reason,” I mutter.
Her laugh is sharp and harsh, a single bark that snaps like a whipcrack.
“He did it for the crown,” I hiss.
Mare leers at me, but never moves her feet. Never gets close enough to touch. “And you didn’t, Maven?”
“I did it for her, of course.” I try to sound detached, matter-of-fact. The cold, broken, doomed Maven. “And what she made me into.”
“You keep blaming your mother. I suppose that’s easy.” My heart leaps in my chest when her feet slide. Moving sideways. Not closer, not farther. Now it’s her turn to prowl. “You think Cal’s father didn’t make him into something too? You think we all aren’t made or unmade by someone else?” Even though she’s only walking, it feels like a dance. I mirror her movements, stepping with her. She’s more graceful than I am, a lithe thief born of many years and many twists of fate. “But we all still have the ability to choose, in the end. And you chose to keep the blood on your hands.”
My fist clenches, and I wish for a spark. For flame. For something to burn. She knows what I want, and grins to herself. On the other side of the bars, her fingers tap against the air, alight with purple and white. The electric energy is a tease at best. Beyond my reach, beyond the sphere of Silent Stone. I ache for my ability the way I ache for Mare, for Thomas, for who I was supposed to be.
“At least I can admit when I’m wrong,” she continues. “When I make a mistake. When the horrible things I’ve done and will do are my own fault.” The sparks reflect in her eyes. They shudder from brown to purple, giving her an unearthly look, like her gaze might run me through. Part of me wishes she would. “I suppose you taught me that.”
Instead I grin again. “Then you should thank me properly.”
She responds in kind, spitting at my feet. At least some things in this world are still predictable.
“You never disappoint,” I hiss, scraping my shoe against the cement floor.
She doesn’t waver. “The tunnels.”
Heaving a breath, I pretend to be so desperately put-upon. I make her wait, letting the silence stretch for several long, blistering moments. I take the time to look at her. To see Mare Barrow for who she is right now. Not who I remember. And not who I wish she could be.
Mine.
But she doesn’t belong to anyone, not even my brother. I take comfort in such a small consolation. We’re alone together, she and I. Our paths may be horrible, but they’re the paths we made for ourselves.
The golden glow of her skin is warm, even down here, illuminated by the harsh light of fluorescence. She is so stubbornly alive, still burning like a candle fighting against rain.
“Fine.”
I give her what she wants.
I think it’s what I want too.
Their plan was always to kill me. After I ceased to be useful. I’m not surprised. It’s what I’d do. Still, when the cloth is pulled off my head, revealing the mountains bowled around us, I can’t help but feel afraid. If I’m allowed to see this place, see Montfort and its capital, then I am well and truly dead. It’s only a matter of time.
The air is cold, biting at my exposed face. My shivers of fear are more than warranted. I blink up at the purple sky, hazed before dawn, streaked with the light of a distant sunrise creeping over the mountain peaks. Snow clings to the heights, even in summer. Quickly, I try to get my bearings.
The city of Ascendant reaches into the valley below, sweeping over the slopes to an alpine lake. It doesn’t remind me of any city I’ve seen, not in Norta or even the Lakelands. This place is too new, but somehow old at the same time. Grown among the trees and the rocks, a part of this strange land as much as a human-built place. But the city doesn’t matter. I’ll never come back here. Not if I escape, nor if they execute me. There is simply no reality where I return to Montfort.
We’re standing near a runway, cut evenly between two mountains. The smell of jet fuel is sharp on the otherwise fresh air. Several airjets line up on the paved straightaway, ready to take flight. I squint over the heads of the guards around me, glimpsing a white palace in the distance, looking down at the capital. That must be where I was taken before, when I was dragged before that strange council of Reds, Silvers, and newbloods.