I echo words he said to me months ago, when I was his prisoner, chained to a room like this one, doomed to stare out windows and waste.
“We have an odd symmetry, don’t we?” he says, gesturing to the room with a lazy smile. I almost laugh at the circumstances. Instead I sink into one of the armchairs, careful to keep my hands free and my sparks close.
I watch him, still at the window. He doesn’t move.
“Or maybe Calore kings just have similar taste in jail cells.”
“Doubtful,” he replies. “But fine prisons, it seems, are how we show affection. Small mercies for prisoners we can’t help but love.”
His declarations mean nothing to me anymore. I barely feel a twinge, easy to ignore, deep in my heart.
“What Cal feels for you and what you feel for me are very different.”
Maven laughs darkly. “I would hope so,” he says, running the curtain through his hands again. He glances at my jacket, then at my collarbone, now covered by an undershirt. My brand is hidden away. “When will it be?” he adds, his voice going soft.
The execution. “I don’t know.”
Another tainted laugh. He starts to pace, hands folded behind his back. “You mean that grand council couldn’t make a decision? How predictable. But then, I suppose I’ll die of old age before your lot agrees on something. Especially with Samos close by.”
“Your grandmother too.”
“I have no grandmother,” he says sharply. “You heard her yourself: she’s no blood of mine.” The memory sours Maven. He quickens his step, crossing the floor in a few even strides before turning back again. Despite his calm exterior, he seems manic in these moments, dangling by a thinning thread. I try not to look at his eyes as they glint, alight with a fire close enough to burn. “What are you doing here? I have to say, I didn’t enjoy taunting you half as much when you were my prisoner.”
I shrug, watching him with ticking eyes. “You’re not my prisoner.”
“Cal’s, yours.” He waves a hand. “What difference does it make?”
A great deal of difference. I feel the frown tug at my face, the familiar sadness welling up inside me. He sees it behind my own mask of indifference.
“Oh,” he murmurs, stopping in the center of the room. He peers at me intensely, as if he can stare through my skull and into my brain. The way his mother did. But he doesn’t need to read my mind to know what I’m thinking, or know what his brother has done. “So a decision has been made.”
“Just one,” I whisper.
Maven takes a single step forward. I’m the danger here, not him, and he’s careful to stay out of my reach. “Let me guess, you Reds gave him a choice? The same choice you gave him months ago?”
“Something like that.”
His lips curl, showing teeth. But not in a smile. No matter what else, he doesn’t enjoy seeing me in pain, physical or otherwise. “He didn’t surprise you, did he?”
“No.”
“Good. I told you just as much. Cal follows orders. He’ll be following his father’s wishes until the day he dies.” Maven looks almost apologetic as he speaks—regretful, even. Sorry for what his brother became. I’m sure Cal shares the feeling. “He’ll never change. Not for you, not for anyone.”
Like Maven, I don’t need weapons to hurt. Just words.
“That isn’t true,” I tell him, looking him in the eye fully.
He tips his head, clucking his tongue like I’m a child to be scolded. “I thought you had learned by now, Mare. Anyone can betray anyone. And he’s betrayed you once again.” He takes one more daring step forward, a few feet away now. I can hear the breath hissing through his teeth, like he’s trying to taste the air in my lungs. “Can’t you admit what he is?” he murmurs. It sounds like begging. The last request of a dead man.
I raise my chin, holding his gaze. “Flawed, just like the rest of us.”
His snarl reverberates deep in my chest. “He’s a Silver king. A brute, a coward. A stone who will never move and can never change.”
That isn’t true, I repeat in my head. All these months have proven that, but nothing more so than a few minutes ago. When he chose, even with his grandmother hanging at his shoulder. Fair wages, no conscription. Steps that seem small but are also gigantic. Inches for miles.
“But he is changing,” I say, my voice steady, drawing this out. I’m taunting him. Maven pales as I speak, unable to move. “Slower than we need, but I see it. A glimmer of who he could be. He’s making himself into someone else.” Finally, I lower my eyes, as the cracks in Maven’s mask begin to show. “I don’t expect you to understand that.”
He grits his teeth, furious. And a bit confused. “Why?”
“Because every change in you was not your own.” The razor-edged words tumble, cutting as they go. He flinches, blinking quickly.
“Thank you for the reminder,” he replies. “I so needed it.”
I draw my last blade, ready to drive it deep into his heart. And perhaps make him feel one piece of what he lost, if only a fleeting sensation. “You know Cal hunted for someone who could fix you?” I tell him.
Maven’s mouth flaps open and closed, searching for something cunning or at least clever to say. He only manages a stammering “Wh-what?”
“In Montfort,” I explain. “He had the premier search for a newblood, an Ardent, some kind of whisper powerful enough to undo whatever your mother did.” It almost hurts to see the flickers in him, tiny flashes of emotion beyond rage or hunger. They fight to the surface, but whatever Elara did holds fast. His face goes still, slack as he listens. “But no one like that exists. And even if they did, there’s no changing what you are. I realized that a long time ago, when I was your prisoner. But your brother—he didn’t believe you were truly gone until today. When he looked into your eyes.”
Slowly, the fallen king sits down in the chair opposite mine. His legs stretch out before him and he slumps, letting go of his steel spine. Numb, he runs a hand through his hair, fingering the curling black locks. So like Cal’s hair, like his father’s hair. He stares at the ceiling, wordless, unable to speak. I imagine Maven in quicksand, fighting to climb out. Fighting the impossible nature his mother gave him. It’s no use. His face turns to stone again, his eyes narrowed and icy, doing all they can to ignore what his heart wants to feel.
“There’s no way to complete a puzzle with missing pieces, or put together shattered glass,” I mumble, only to myself, repeating what Julian told me weeks ago.
Maven sits up, drawing his back straight. One hand circles his wrist, touching the skin where his bracelet used to be. Without it, he’s powerless, useless. He doesn’t even need Arven guards.
“Cenra and Iris are going to drown you all,” he hisses. “At least I’ll be dead before they get their hands on me.”
“What a consolation.”
“I would not have liked to watch you die.” The admission is small and matter-of-fact. There is no agenda to it, only the ugly, naked truth. “Will you enjoy watching me?”
At least I can respond with some truth of my own. “Part of me will.”
“And the rest?”
“No,” I whisper. “I won’t enjoy it.”
He smiles. “That’s enough for me. A better good-bye than I deserve.”
“And what do I deserve, Maven?”
“Better than we ever gave you.”
The door bangs open before I can ask what he means. I start to rise, expecting guards to usher me out now that I’m no longer part of the coalition. Instead I find Farley and Davidson standing over us. She glares at Maven with more fire than even Cal could muster, and I expect her to skin him alive in front of us.
“General Farley,” Maven drawls. He might be trying to goad her into doing the deed before his brother can. She only snarls in reply, like a beast.
Davidson is more polite, ushering someone else into the room. I notice that the hall behind him is empty, the door guards gone. “So sorry to interrupt,” the premier says. He gestures, and his companion, the Montfort newblood Arezzo, steps into the chamber. I blink at her, confused, but only for a second.
She’s a teleporter. Like Shade. And her hands are reaching.