Maven’s voice echoes, magnified by microphones and speakers. He doesn’t read from any paper and somehow seems to make eye contact with every person crowding the city square below the balcony. Like everything about the king, even the location is a manipulation. We stand above hundreds, looking down, elevated beyond the reach of mere humans. The assembled people of Arborus, Governor Welle’s own capital within his domain, stare up, faces raised in a way that makes my skin itch. The Reds jostle for a better look. They’re easy to pick out, standing in bunches, covered in mismatched layers, their faces flushed red with cold, while the Silver citizenry sit in furs. Black-uniformed Security officers dot the crowd, vigilant as the Sentinels posted on the balcony and neighboring rooftops.
“It is my hope that this coronation tour allows me not only a deeper understanding of my kingdom, but a deeper understanding of you. Your struggles. Your hopes. Your fears. Because I am certainly afraid.” A murmur goes through the crowd below, as well as the assembled party on the balcony. Even Evangeline glances sidelong at Maven, eyes narrowed over the flawless white collar of her fur wrap. “We are a kingdom on the brink, threatening to shatter under the weight of war and terrorism. It is my solemn duty to prevent this from happening, and save us from the horrors of whatever anarchy the Scarlet Guard wishes to instill. So many are dead, in Archeon, in Corvium, in Summerton. My own mother and father among them. My own brother corrupted by the insurrectionist forces. But even so, I am not alone. I have you. I have Norta.” He sighs slowly, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “And we will stand together against the enemies seeking to destroy our way of life, Red and Silver. I pledge my life to eradicating the Scarlet Guard, in any way possible.”
The cheers below sound like metal on metal to me, screeching, a horrific noise. I keep my face still, expression carefully neutral. It serves me as well as any shield.
Every day his speech becomes firmer, his words carefully chosen and wielded like knives. Not once does he say the word rebel or revolution. The Scarlet Guard are always terrorists. Always murderers. Always enemies to our way of life, whatever that may be. And unlike his parents, he is masterfully careful to not insult Reds. The tour moves through Silver estates and Red cities alike. Somehow he seems at home in both, never flinching from the worst his kingdom has to offer. We even visit one of the factory slums, the kind of place I will never forget. I try not to cringe as we pass through the teetering dormitory buildings or when we step out into the polluted air. Maven alone seems unfazed, smiling for the workers and their tattooed necks. He doesn’t cover his mouth like Evangeline or retch at the smell like so many others, myself included. He’s better at this than I ever expected. He knows, as his parents could not or refused to understand, that seducing Reds to his Silver cause is perhaps his best chance of victory.
In another Red city, on the steps of a Silver mansion, he lays the next brick in a deadly road. One thousand poor farmers look on, not daring to believe, not daring to hope. Even I don’t know what he’s doing.
“My father’s Measures were enacted after a deadly attack that left many government officials dead. It was his attempt to punish the Scarlet Guard for their evil, and, to my shame, it only punished you instead.” Before the eyes of so many, he dips his face. It is a stirring sight. A Silver king bowing in front of the Red masses. I have to remind myself that this is Maven. This is a trick. “As of today, I decree the Measures lifted and abolished. They were the mistakes of a well-meaning king, but mistakes all the same.”
He glances at me, just for a moment, but the moment is enough for me to know that he cares about my reaction.
The Measures. Conscription age lowered to fifteen. Restrictive curfew. Lethal punishment for any crime. All to turn the Red population of Norta against the Scarlet Guard. All gone in an instant, in one beat of a king’s black heart. I should feel happy. I should feel proud. He’s doing this because of me. Some part of him thinks this will please me. Some part thinks it will keep me safe. But watching the Reds, my own people, cheer for their oppressor only fills me with dread. I look down to find that my hands are shaking.
What is he doing? What is he planning?
To find out, I must fly as close to the flame as I dare.
He ends his appearances by walking through the crowd, shaking hands with as many Reds as he does Silvers. He cuts through them with ease, Sentinels flanking him in diamond formation. Samson Merandus always has his back, and I wonder how many feel the brush of his mind against their own. He’s a better deterrent to a would-be assassin than anything else. Evangeline and I trail behind, both of us with guards. As always, I refuse to smile, to look, to touch anyone. It’s safer for them this way.
The transports wait for us, their engines worked to an idle purr. Above, the overcast sky darkens and I smell snow. While our guards close ranks, tightening formation to allow the king to enter his transport, I quicken my pace as best I can. My heart races and my breath puffs white on the cold air.
“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.