As afraid as I was a moment ago, that’s how intrigued I am now. “I do.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says, smiling at me over a stack of books. “I’m sorry to say I must also do what was asked, to prepare you for the day you step forward.”
My face falls, remembering what Cal explained in the throne room. You are their champion. A Silver raised Red. “They want to use me to stop a rebellion. Somehow.”
“Yes, my dear brother-in-law and his queen believe you can do so, if used appropriately.” Bitterness drips from his every word.
“It’s a stupid idea and impossible. I won’t be able to do anything and then . . .” My voice trails away. Then they’ll kill me.
Julian follows my train of thought. “You’re wrong, Mare. You don’t understand the power you have now, how much you could control.” He clasps his hands behind his back, oddly tight. “The Scarlet Guard are too drastic for most, too much too fast. But you are the controlled change, the kind people can trust. You are the slow burn that will quench a revolution with a few speeches and smiles. You can speak to the Reds, tell them how noble, how benevolent, how right the king and his Silvers are. You can talk your people back into their chains. Even the Silvers who question the king, the ones who have doubts, can be convinced by you. And the world will stay the same.”
To my surprise, Julian seems disheartened by this. Without the buzzing cameras, I forget myself and my face curls into a sneer. “And you don’t want that? You’re a Silver, you should hate the Scarlet Guard—and me.”
“Thinking all Silvers are evil is just as wrong as thinking all Reds are inferior,” he says, his voice grave. “What my people are doing to you and yours is wrong to the deepest levels of humanity. Oppressing you, trapping you in an endless cycle of poverty and death, just because we think you are different from us? That is not right. And as any student of history can tell you, it will end poorly.”
“But we are different.” One day in this world taught me that. “We’re not equal.”
Julian stoops, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m looking at proof you are wrong.”
You’re looking at a freak, Julian.
“Will you let me prove you wrong, Mare?”
“What good will it do? Nothing will change.”
Julian sighs, exasperated. He runs a hand through his thinning chestnut hair. “For hundreds of years the Silvers have walked the earth as living gods and the Reds have been insects at their feet, until you. If that isn’t change, I don’t know what is.”
He can help me survive. Better yet, he might even help me live.
“So what do we do?”
My days take on a rhythm, always the same schedule. Protocol in the morning, Lessons in the afternoon, while Elara parades me at lunches and dinners in between. The Panther and Sonya still seem wary of me, but haven’t said anything since the luncheon. Maven’s help seems to have worked, as much as I hate to admit it.
At the next large gathering, this time in the Queen’s personal dining hall, the Irals ignore me completely. Despite my Protocol lessons, luncheon is still overwhelming as I try to remember what I’ve been taught. Osanos, nymphs, blue and green. Welle, greenwardens, green and gold. Lerolan, oblivions, orange and red. Rhambos and Tyros and Nornus and Iral and many more. How anyone keeps track of this, I’ll never know.
As usual, I’m seated next to Evangeline. I’m painfully aware of the many metal utensils on the table, all lethal weapons in Evangeline’s cruel hand. Every time she lifts her knife to cut her food, my body tenses, waiting for the blow. Elara knows what I’m thinking, as usual, but carries on through her meal with a smile. That might be worse than Evangeline’s torture, to know she takes pleasure in watching our silent war.
“And how do you like the Hall of the Sun, Lady Titanos?” the girl across from me asks—Atara, House Viper, green and black. The animos who killed the doves. “I assume it’s no comparison to the—the village you lived in before.” She says the word village like a curse and I don’t miss her smirk.
The other women laugh with her, a few whispering in scandalized voices.
It takes me a minute to respond as I try to keep my blood from boiling. “The Hall and Summerton are very different from what I’m used to,” I force out.
“Obviously,” another woman says, leaning forward to join the conversation. A Welle, judging by her green-and-gold tunic. “I took a tour of the Capital Valley once and I must say, the Red villages are simply deplorable. They don’t even have proper roads.”
We can barely feed ourselves, let alone pave streets. My jaw tightens until I think my teeth might shatter. I try to smile, but instead end up grimacing as the other women voice their agreement.
“And the Reds, well, I suppose it’s the best they can do with what they have,” the Welle continues, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “They’re suited to such lives.”
“It’s not our fault they were born serve,” a brown-robed Rhambos says airily, as if she’s talking about the weather or the food. “It’s simply nature.”
Anger curls through me, but one glance from the queen tells me I cannot act on it. Instead, I must do my duty. I must lie. “It is indeed,” I hear myself say. Under the table, my hands clench, and I think my heart might be breaking.
All over the table, the women listen attentively. Many smile, more nod as I reassert their terrible beliefs about my people. Their faces make me want to scream.
“Of course,” I continue, unable to stop myself. “Being forced to live such lives, with no respite, no reprieve, and no escape, would make servants of anyone.”
The few smiles fade, twitching into bewilderment.
“Lady Titanos is to have the best tutors and best help to make sure she adjusts properly,” Elara says quickly, cutting me off. “She’s already begun with Lady Blonos.”
The women mutter appreciatively while the girls exchange eye rolls. It’s enough time to recover, to reclaim the self-control I need to survive the meal.
“What does His Royal Highness intend to do about the rebels?” a woman asks, her gruff voice sending a shock of silence over lunch, drawing focus away from me.
Every eye at the table turns to the speaker, a woman in military uniform. A few other ladies wear uniforms as well, but hers shines with the most medals and ribbons. The ugly scar down her freckled face says she may actually have earned them. Here in a palace, it’s easy to forget there’s a war going on, but the haunted look in her eye says she will not, she cannot, forget.
Queen Elara puts down her spoon with practiced grace and an equally practiced smile. “Colonel Macanthos, I would hardly call them rebels—”
“And that’s only the attack they’ve claimed,” the colonel fires back, cutting off the queen. “What about the explosion in Harbor Bay, or the airfield in Delphie for that matter? Three airjets destroyed, and two more stolen from one of our own bases!”
My eyes widen, and I can’t help but gasp with a few ladies. More attacks? But while the others look frightened, hands pressed to their mouths, I have to fight the urge to smile. Farley has been busy.
“Are you an engineer, Colonel?” Elara’s voice is sharp, cold, and final. She doesn’t give Macanthos a chance to shake her head. “Then you wouldn’t understand how a gas leak in the Bay was at fault for the explosion. And remind me, do you command aerial troops? Oh no, I’m so sorry, your specialty lies with ground forces. The airfield incident was a training exercise overseen by Lord General Laris himself. He has personally assured His Highness of the utmost safety of the Delphie base.”
In a fair fight, Macanthos could probably tear Elara apart with her bare hands. But instead, Elara tore the colonel apart with nothing but words. And she’s not even finished. Julian’s words echo in my head—words can lie.
“Their goal is to harm innocent civilians, Silver and Red, to incite fear and hysteria. They are small, contained, and cowardly, hiding from my husband’s justice. To call every mishap and misunderstanding in this kingdom the work of such evil only furthers their efforts to terrorize the rest of us. Do not give these monsters the satisfaction of that.”
A few women at the table clap and nod, agreeing with the queen’s sweeping lie. Evangeline joins in and the action quickly spreads, until only the colonel and I remain silent. I can tell she doesn’t believe anything the queen says, but there’s no way to call the queen a liar. Not here, not in her arena.
As much as I want to stay still, I know I can’t. I’m Mareena, not Mare, and I have to support my queen and her wretched words. My hands come together, clapping for Elara’s lie, as the scolded colonel bows her head.
Even though I’m constantly surrounded by servants and Silvers, loneliness sets in. I don’t see Cal much, what with his busy schedule of training, training, and more training. He even gets to leave the Hall, going to address troops at a nearby base or accompanying his father on state business. I suppose I could talk to Maven, with his blue eyes and half smirk, but I’m still wary of him. Luckily we’re never truly left alone. It’s a silly court tradition, to keep noble boys and girls from being tempted, as Lady Blonos put it, but I doubt it’ll ever apply to me.
Truthfully, half the time I forget I’m supposed to marry him one day. The idea of Maven being my husband doesn’t seem real. We’re not even friends, let alone partners. As nice as he is, my instincts tell me not to turn my back on Elara’s son, that he’s hiding something. What that might be, I don’t know.
Julian’s teachings make it all bearable; the education I once dreaded is now a bright spot in my sea of darkness. Without the cameras and Elara’s eyes, we can spend our time discovering what I really am. But the going is slow, frustrating us both.
“I think I know what your problem is,” Julian says at the end of my first week. I’m standing a few yards away, arms outstretched, looking like the usual fool. There’s a strange electrical contraption at my feet, occasionally spitting sparks. Julian wants me to harness it, to use it, but once again, I’ve failed to produce the lightning that got me into this mess in the first place.
“Maybe I have to be in mortal danger,” I huff. “Should we ask for Lucas’s gun?”
Usually Julian laughs at my jokes, but right now he’s too busy thinking.
“You’re like a child,” he finally says. I wrinkle my nose at the insult, but he continues anyway. “This is how children are at first, when they can’t control themselves. Their abilities present in times of stress or fear, until they learn to harness those emotions and use them to their advantage. There’s a trigger, and you need to find yours.”
I remember how I felt in the Spiral Garden, falling to what I thought was my doom. But it wasn’t fear running through my veins as I collided with the lightning shield—it was peace. It was knowing that my end had come and accepting there was nothing I could do to stop it—it was letting go.
“It’s worth a try, at least,” Julian prods.
With a groan, I face the wall again. Julian lined it with some stone bookshelves, all empty of course, so I have something to aim at. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him back away, watching me all the time.
Let go. Let yourself go, the voice in my head whispers. My eyes slide closed as I focus, letting my thoughts fall away so that my mind can reach out, feeling for the electricity it craves to touch. The ripple of energy, alive beneath my skin, moves over me again until it sings in every muscle and nerve. That’s usually where it stops, just on the edge of feeling, but not this time. Instead of trying to hold on, to push myself into this force, I let go. And I fall into what I can’t explain, into a sensation that is everything and nothing, light and dark, hot and cold, alive and dead. Soon the power is the only thing in my head, blotting out all my ghosts and memories. Even Julian and the books cease to exist. My mind is clear, a black void humming with force. Now when I push at the sensation, it doesn’t disappear and moves within me, from my eyes to the tips of my fingers. To my left, Julian gasps aloud.