King's Cage (Red Queen, #3)

“And it will help Mare too.”


Farley nods. “The weak, divided court of a paranoid king will be easier for her to escape.” She sighs, staring at her untouched tea. “She’s the only one who can save herself now.”

The conversation is easy to twist. As much as I want Mare back, I want someone else more. “How many miles are we from the Choke?”

“This again?”

“This always.” I push back from the table to get up. I feel like I should be standing. I’m just as tall as Farley, but she always seems like she’s looking down at me. I’m young, untrained. I don’t know much about the world outside my slum. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and follow orders. “I’m not asking for your help or the Guard’s. I just need a map and maybe a gun. I’ll do the bleeding rest myself.”

She doesn’t blink. “Cameron, your brother is embedded in a legion. It’s not like pulling out a tooth.”

My fist clenches at my side. “You think I came all the way here to sit around and watch Cal spin his wheels?” It’s an old argument by now. She easily shuts me down.

“Well, I certainly don’t think you came all the way here to get killed,” she replies calmly. Her broad shoulders rise just a little, in challenge. “Which is precisely what will happen, no matter how strong or deadly your ability is. And even if you take a dozen Silvers with you, I’m not going to let you die for nothing. Is that clear?”

“My brother is not nothing,” I grumble. She’s right, but I don’t want to admit it. Instead, I avoid her eyes and turn to the wall. My fingers pick at the peeling paint, ripping away pieces in annoyance. A childish thing, but it makes me feel a bit better. “You’re not my captain. You don’t get to tell me what to do with my life.”

“That’s true. I’m just a friend who feels inclined to point something out.” I hear her shift, her footsteps heavy on the creaking floor. But her touch is light, a brush of her hand on my shoulder. She’s robotic in the movement, not really knowing how to comfort another person. Bleakly, I wonder how she and warm, smiling Shade Barrow ever shared a conversation, let alone a bed. “I remember what you told Mare. When we first found you. On the jet, you said that her search for newbloods, to save them, was wrong. A continuation of the blood divide. Favoring one kind of Red over another. And you were right.”

“This is not the same. I just want to save my brother.”

“How do you think the rest of us got here?” she scoffs. “To save a friend, a sibling, a parent. To save ourselves. We all came here for selfish reasons, Cameron. But we can’t be distracted by them. We have to think of the cause. The greater good. And you can do so much more here, with us. We can’t lose you . . .”

Too. We can’t lose you too. The last word hangs in the air, unspoken. I hear it anyway.

“You’re wrong. I didn’t come here by choice. I was taken. Mare Barrow forced me to follow, and you all went along with it.”

“Cameron, that’s a card you have played too many times. You chose to stay a long time ago. You chose to help.”

“And what would you choose now, Farley?” I glare at her. She may be my friend, but that doesn’t mean I have to back down.

“Excuse me?”

“Would you choose the greater good? Or would you choose Shade?”

When she doesn’t respond, her eyes sliding out of focus, I have my answer. I realize I don’t want to see her cry and turn my back, making for the door.

“I have to train,” I say to no one. I doubt she’s still listening.

Training is harder in the Rocasta safe house. We don’t have anywhere near enough space, not to mention most of the operatives I know were left in Irabelle. Kilorn, for example. Eager as he is, he’s nowhere near ready for all-out battle, and he doesn’t have an ability to lean on. He was left behind. But my trainer was not. After all, she’s Silver, and the Colonel wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.

Sara Skonos waits in the basement of our reinforced warehouse, in a room dedicated to newblood exercises. It’s dinnertime, so the other newbloods in this particular sanctuary are upstairs eating with the rest. We have the space to ourselves, not that we need much space at all.

She sits cross-legged, palms flat on a concrete floor that matches the concrete walls. Her notepad is there too, ready to be used if need be. Her eyes track my entrance, the only greeting I’ll get. As of yet, we have not found another skin healer to join us, and she remains mute. Even though I’m used to it, the sight of her sunken cheeks and missing tongue makes me cringe. As usual, she pretends not to notice and gestures to the space in front of her.

I sit as she instructs, and fight the familiar urge to run or attack.

She’s Silver. She’s everything I’ve been raised to fear, hate, and obey. But I can’t find it in myself to despise Sara Skonos the way I do Julian or Cal. It’s not that I pity her. I think . . . I understand her. I understand the frustration of knowing what is right and being ignored or punished because of it. I can’t count how many times I received half rations for looking at a Silver overseer incorrectly. For talking out of turn. She did the same, except her words were against a reigning queen. And so her words were taken away forever.

Even though she can’t speak, Sara has a way of communicating what she wants. She taps me on the knee, forcing me to meet her cloudy gray eyes. Then she dips her face and puts a hand over her heart.

I follow the motions, knowing what she wants. I match her breathing: steady, deep breaths in even succession. A calming mechanism that helps drown out all the thoughts swirling around my head. It clears my mind, allowing me to feel what I usually ignore. My ability hums beneath my skin, constant as always, but now I let myself notice it. Not to use it, but to acknowledge its existence. My silence is still new to me, and I have to get to know it like any other skill.

After long minutes of breathing, she taps me again, making me look up. This time she points at herself.

“Sara, I’m really not in the right mood,” I start to tell her, but she draws one hand through the air in a chopping motion. Shut up, plain as day.

“I mean it. I could hurt you.”

She scoffs deep in her throat, one of the only true vocalizations she can make. It almost sounds like laughter. Then she taps her lips, smirking darkly. She’s been hurt far worse.

“Fine, I warned you,” I sigh. I wiggle a little, settling deeper into my position. Then I furrow my brow, letting the ability swim around me, deepening, expanding. Until it touches her. And silence descends.

Her eyes widen when it hits. A twinge at first. At least I hope it’s just a twinge. I’m only practicing, and I don’t intend to pummel her into submission. I think of Mare, able to call up storms, while Cal can make infernos, but both find it difficult to have a simple conversation without exploding. Control takes more practice than brute force.

My ability deepens, and she holds up one finger to denote the level of discomfort. I try to keep the silence in place, constant but steady. It’s like holding back a tide. I don’t know what it feels like to be silenced. The Silent Stone didn’t work on me in Corros Prison, but it stifled, drained—and slowly killed—all the people around me. I can do the same. After about a minute, she puts up a second finger.

“Sara . . . ?”

With her other hand she gestures for me to continue.

I remember our session yesterday. She was on the floor at five, though I knew I could push harder. But incapacitating our only skin healer is neither smart nor something I want to do.

A flush paints her cheeks, but the door to the basement swings open before she can hold up another finger.

My concentration and my silence break, drawing a relieved gasp from her. Both of us whirl to face our disrupter. While she breaks into a rare smile, I scowl.

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