“Maven,” I say aloud.
Despite the cheering crowd behind us, he hears me and pauses on the step of his transport. He turns with fluid grace, long cape whirling out to show bloodred lining. Unlike the rest of us, he doesn’t need to wear fur to keep warm.
I draw my coat tighter, if only to give my nervous hands something more to do. “Did you really mean that?”
At his own transport, Samson stares, eyes boring into mine. He can’t read my mind, not while I wear the manacles, but that doesn’t make him useless. I rely on my real confusion to create the mask I want to wear.
I have no illusions where Maven is concerned. I know his twisted heart, and that it feels something for me. Something he wants to get rid of, but can never part with. When he waves me to his transport, beckoning for me to join him, I expect to hear Evangeline scoff or protest. She does neither, sweeping away to her own transport. In the cold, she doesn’t glitter so brightly. She seems almost human.
The Arvens do not follow, though they try. Maven stops them with a look.
His transport is different from any other I’ve been in. The driver and front guard are separated from the passengers by a glass window, sealing us in together. The walls and windows are thick, bulletproof. The Sentinels don’t slide in either, instead climbing directly onto the transport skeleton, taking up defensive positions at every corner. It’s unsettling, to know there’s a Sentinel with a gun sitting directly above me. But not as unsettling as the king sitting across from me, staring, waiting.
He eyes my hands, watching me rub my frozen fingers together.
“Are you cold?” he murmurs.
Quickly I tuck my hands under my legs to warm them up. The transport accelerates forward. “Are you really going to do it? End the Measures?”
“You think I would lie?”
I can’t help but laugh darkly. In the back of my mind, I wish for a knife. I wonder if he could incinerate me before I slit his throat. “You? Never.”
He smirks and shrugs, shifting to get more comfortable on the plush seats. “I meant what I said. The Measures were a mistake. Enacting them did more harm than good.”
“To Reds? Or to you?”
“To both, of course. Although I would thank my father if I could. I expect righting his wrongs will win me support among your people.” The cold detachment in his voice is discomforting, to say the least. I know now it comes from memories of his father. Poisoned things, drained of any love or happiness. “I’m afraid your Scarlet Guard won’t have many sympathizers left by the time this is done. I’m going to end them without another useless war.”
“You think giving people crumbs is going to placate them?” I growl, gesturing to the windows with my chin. Farms, barren for the winter, stretch out to the hills. “Oh, lovely, the king has given me back two years of my child’s life. Doesn’t matter that they’re still going to be taken away eventually.”
His smirk only widens. “You think that?”
“I do. That’s how this kingdom is. That’s how it’s always been.”
“We’ll see.” Leaning farther, he puts a foot up on the seat next to me. He even removes his crown, spins it between his hands. Bronze and iron flames glint in the low light, reflecting my face and his. Slowly, I edge away, crowding myself into the corner.
“I suppose I taught you a hard lesson,” he says. “You missed so much last time, and now you trust nothing. You’re always watching, looking for information you’re never going to use. Have you figured out where we’re going yet? Or why?”
I take a breath. I feel like I’m back in Julian’s classroom, being tested on a map. The stakes feel much higher here. “We’re on the Iron Road now, heading northwest. To Corvium.”
He has the gall to wink. “Close.”
“We’re not . . .” I blink quickly, trying to think. My brain buzzes through all the pieces I’ve jealously collected over the days. Shards of news, bits of gossip. “Rocasta? Are you going after Cal?”
Maven settles back farther, amused. “So small-minded. Why would I waste time chasing rumors of my exiled brother? I have a war to end and a rebellion to prevent.”
“A war to . . . end?”
“You said yourself, the Lakelands will overthrow us if given the chance. I’m not going to let that happen. Especially with Piedmont focused elsewhere, on their own multitude of troubles. I have to handle these matters myself.” Despite the warmth of the transport, due in large part to the fire king sitting in front of me, I feel a finger of ice trail down my spine.
I used to dream of the Choke. The place where my father lost his leg, where my brothers almost lost their lives. Where so many Reds die. A waste of ash and blood.
“You’re not a warrior, Maven. You’re not a general or a soldier. How can you possibly hope to defeat them when—”
“When others couldn’t? When Father couldn’t? When Cal couldn’t?” he snaps. Each word sounds like the crack of bone. “You’re right, I’m not like them. War is not what I was made for.”
Made. He says it with such ease. Maven Calore is not his own self. He told me as much. He is a construct, a creation of his mother’s additions and subtractions. A mechanical, a machine, soulless and lost. What a horror, to know that someone like this holds our fates in the palm of his quivering hand.
“It will be no loss, not truly,” he drones on to distract us both. “Our military economy will simply turn its attention to the Scarlet Guard. And then whoever we decide to fear next. Whatever avenue is best for population control—”