King's Cage (Red Queen #3)

“Good.”

The warm air tugs at me with sticky fingers, tangling my hair. I can barely sit still in my seat, too excited and nervous. When I was taken, Shade had just died—because of me. I wouldn’t blame anyone, including Farley, if they hated me for it. Time doesn’t always heal wounds. Once in a while, it makes them worse.

Cal keeps a hand on my leg, a firm weight as a reminder of his presence. Next to me, his eyes whip back and forth, noting every turn of the transport. I should do the same. The Piedmont base is unfamiliar ground. But I can’t bring myself to do much more than chew my lip and hope. My nerves buzz, but not from electricity. When we make a right, turning in to a network of cheery brick row houses, I feel like I might explode.

“Officers’ quarters,” Cal mutters under his breath. “This is a royal base. Government funded. There’s only a few Piedmont bases of this size.”

His tone tells me he wonders as I do. Then how are we here?

We slow in front of the only house with every window ablaze. Without thought, I vault over the side of the transport, almost tripping over the rags of my dress. My vision narrows to the path in front of me. Gravel walk, flagstone steps. The ripples of movement behind curtained windows. I hear only my heartbeat, and the creak of an opening door.

Mom reaches me first, outstripping both my long-limbed brothers. The collision almost knocks the air from my lungs, and her resulting hug actually does. I don’t mind. She could break every bone in my body and I wouldn’t mind.

Bree and Tramy half carry both of us up the steps and into the row house. They’re shouting something while Mom whispers in my ear. I hear none of it. Happiness and joy overwhelm every sense. I’ve never felt anything like it.

My knees brush against a rug and Mom kneels with me in the middle of the large foyer. She keeps kissing my face, alternating cheeks so quickly I think they might bruise. Gisa worms in with us, her dark red hair ablaze in the corner of my eye. Like the Colonel, she has a dusting of new freckles, brown spots against golden skin. I tuck her close. She used to be smaller.

Tramy grins over us, sporting a dark, well-kept beard. He was always trying to grow one as a teenager. Never got further than patchy stubble. Bree used to tease him. Not now. He braces himself against my back, thick arms wrapping around Mom and me. His cheeks are wet. With a jolt, I realize mine are too.

“Where’s . . . ?” I ask.

Thankfully, I don’t have time to fear the worst. When he appears, I wonder if I’m hallucinating.

He leans heavy on Kilorn’s arm and a cane. The months have been good to him. Regular meals filled him out. He walks slowly from an adjoining room. Walks. His pace is stilted, unnatural, unfamiliar. My father has not had two legs in years. Or more than one working lung. As he approaches, eyes bright, I listen. No rasp. No click of a machine to help him breathe. No squeak of a rusty old wheelchair. I don’t know what to think or say. I forgot how tall he is.

Healers. Probably Sara herself. I thank her a thousand times silently inside my heart. Slowly, I stand, pulling the army jacket tight around me. It has bullet holes. Dad eyes them, still a soldier.

“You can hug me. I won’t fall over,” he says.

Liar. He almost topples when I wrap my arms around his middle, but Kilorn keeps him upright. We embrace in a way we haven’t been able to since I was a little girl.

Mom’s soft hands brush my hair away from my face, and she settles her head next to mine. They keep me between them, sheltered and safe. And for that moment, I forget. There is no Maven, no manacles, no brand, no scars. No war, no rebellion.

No Shade.

I wasn’t the only one missing from our family. Nothing can change that.

He isn’t here, and never will be again. My brother is alone on an abandoned island.

I refuse to let another Barrow share his fate.





TWENTY-ONE


Mare


The bathwater swirls brown and red. Dirt and blood. Mom drains the water twice, and still she keeps finding more in my hair. At least the healer on the jet took care of my fresh wounds, so I can enjoy the soapy heat without any more pain. Gisa perches on a stool by the edge of the tub, her spine straight in the stiff posture she perfected over the years. Either she’s gotten prettier or six months dulled my memory of her face. Straight nose, full lips, and sparkling, dark eyes. Mom’s eyes, my eyes. The eyes all the Barrows have, except Shade. He was the only one of us with eyes like honey or gold. From my dad’s mother. Those eyes are gone forever.

I turn from thoughts of my brother and stare at Gisa’s hand. The one I broke with my foolish mistakes.

The skin is smooth now, the bones reset. No evidence of her mangled body part, shattered by the butt of a Security officer’s gun.

“Sara,” Gisa explains gently, flexing her fingers.

“She did a good job,” I tell her. “With Dad too.”

“That took a whole week, you know. Regrowing everything from the thigh down. And he’s still getting used to it. But it didn’t hurt as much as this.” She flexes her fingers, grinning. “You know she had to rebreak these two?” Her index and middle finger wiggle. “Used a hammer. Hurt like hell.”

“Gisa Barrow, your language is appalling.” I splash a little water at her feet. She swears again, drawing her toes away.

“Blame the Scarlet Guard. Seems they spend all their time cursing and asking for more flags.” Sounds about right. Not one to be outdone, Gisa reaches into the tub and flicks water at me.

Mom tuts at both of us. She tries to look stern, and fails horribly. “None of that, you two.”