King's Cage

  Corvium casts a shadow over us, and the temperature drops in the gloomy shade. I pull up the neck of my collar farther, trying to burrow into its warmth. The black-walled monstrosity seems to howl at us.

  “There. The Prayer Gate.” Farley points to an open mouth of iron fangs and golden teeth. Blocks of Silent Stone line the arch, but I can’t feel them. They don’t affect me. To my relief, Red soldiers man the gate, marked by rust-colored uniforms and worn boots. We move forward, off the snowy road and into the jaws of Corvium. Farley looks up at the Prayer Gate as we pass through, her eyes wide, blue, and trembling. Under her breath, I hear her whisper something to herself.

  “As you enter, you pray to leave. As you leave, you pray never to return.”

  Even though no one is listening, I pray too.

  Cal bends over a desk, knuckles pressed against the flat of the wood. His armor piles in a heap in the corner, plates of black leather discarded to show the muscled hulk of the young man beneath. Sweat plasters black hair to his forehead and paints glistening lines of exertion down his neck. Not from heat, though his ability warms the room better than any fire. No, this is fear. Shame. I wonder how many Silvers he was forced to kill. Not enough, part of me whispers. Still, the sight of him, the horrors of the siege plainly written on his face, gives even me enough reason to pause. I know this is not easy. It can’t be.

  He stares at nothing, bronze eyes boring holes. He doesn’t move when I enter the room, trailing behind Farley. She goes to the Colonel, sitting across from him, one hand on his temple, the other smoothing a map or schematic of some kind. Probably Corvium, judging by the octagonal shape and expanding rings that must be walls.

  I feel Ada at my back, hesitant to join us. I have to give her a nudge. She’s better at this than anyone, her exquisite brain a gift to the Scarlet Guard. But a maid’s training is hard to break.

  “Go on,” I murmur, putting a hand on her wrist. Her skin isn’t as dark as mine, but in the shadows we all start to blend together.

  She gives me a tiny nod and an even tinier smile. “Which ring are they in? Central?”

  “Core tower,” the Colonel replies. He raps the corresponding place on the map. “Well fortified, even at the subterranean levels. Learned that the hard way.”

  Ada sighs. “Yes, the core is built for something like this. A final stand, well armed and provisioned. Sealed twice over. And stuffed to the brim with fifty trained Silvers. With the bottleneck, there might as well be five times that number in there.”

  “Like spiders in a hole,” I mutter.

  The Colonel scoffs. “Maybe they’ll start to eat each other.”

  Cal’s wince does not go unnoticed. “Not while a common enemy hammers at the door. Nothing unites Silvers so much as someone to hate.” He doesn’t look up from the desk, keeping his eyes fixed on the wood. The meaning is clear. “Especially now that everyone knows the king is near.” His face darkens, a storm cloud. “They can wait.”

  With a low growl, Farley finishes the thought for him. “And we can’t.”

  “If ordered, the legions of the Choke can hard march back here in a day’s time. Less if . . . motivated.” Ada wavers over the last word. She doesn’t need to elaborate. I can already see my brother, technically freed by Maven’s new laws, being driven on by Silver officers, forced to run through the snow. Only to throw himself against his own.

  “Surely the Reds would join us,” I say, thinking aloud, if only to combat the images in my head. “Let Maven send his armies. It will only bolster ours. The soldiers will turn like the ones here did.”

  “She might have a point—” the Colonel begins, agreeing with me for once. A strange sensation. But Farley cuts him off.

  “Might. The garrison in Corvium has been stirred up for months, inciting its own havoc, pushed and prodded and boiled to this explosion. I can’t say the same for the legions. Or the amount of Silvers he’ll convince into service.”

  Ada agrees with her, nodding along. “King Maven has been careful with the Corvium narrative. He paints everything here as terrorism, not rebellion. Anarchy. The work of a bloodthirsty, genocidal Scarlet Guard. The Reds of the legions, the Reds of the kingdom, have no idea what’s happening here.”

  Seething, Farley puts a protective hand on her belly. “I’ve lost enough on ifs and maybes.”

  “We all have,” Cal says, his voice distant. Finally he pulls away from the desk and turns his back on us all. He crosses to the window in a few long strides, looking out over a city still burning.

  Smoke drifts on the icy wind, spitting black into the sky. It reminds me of the factories. I shudder to remember them. The tattoo on my neck itches, but I don’t scratch with my crooked fingers. Broken too many times to count. Sara asked to fix them once. I didn’t let her. Like the tattoo, like the smoke, they remind me of what I came from, and what no one else should endure.

  “I don’t suppose you have any ideas for this?” Farley asks, taking the map from her father’s hands. She glances sidelong at the exiled prince.

  Cal shrugs, his broad shoulders rolling in silhouette. “Too many. All bad. Unless—”

  “I’m not going to let them walk out of here,” the Colonel snaps. He sounds annoyed. I suppose they argued this through already. “Maven is too close. They’ll run to his side and come back with a vengeance, with more warriors.”

  The gleaming bracelet at Cal’s wrist flickers, birthing sparks that travel along his arm in a quick burst of red flame. “Maven is coming anyway! You heard the reports. He’s already in Rocasta and moving west. He’s marching here in a parade, waving and smiling to hide that he’s coming to take back Corvium. And he’ll do it if you fight him in a broken city with our backs against a cage of wolves!” He spins around to face the Colonel, shoulders still smoldering with embers. Usually he can control himself enough to save his clothes. Not so now. Smoke clings to him, revealing charred holes in his undershirt. “A battle on two fronts is suicide.”

  “And what about hostages? You mean to tell me there’s no one of value in that tower?” the Colonel barks back.

  “Not to Maven. He already has the only person he would ever trade anything for.”

  “So we can’t starve them, can’t release them, can’t bargain.” Farley ticks off words on her hand.

  “And you can’t kill them all.” I tap a finger against my lip. Cal looks at me, surprised. I simply shrug. “If there was a way, if it was acceptable, the Colonel would have done it already.”

  “Ada?” Farley prods softly. “Can you see anything we can’t?”

  Her eyes fly back and forth, scanning the schematic as well as her memories. Figures, strategies, everything at her mammoth disposal. Her silence is not at all comforting.

  “What we need is that bleeding seer,” I mumble. I never met Jon, the one who made it possible for Mare to find and capture me. But I’ve seen him enough on Maven’s broadcasts. “Make him do the work for us.”

  “If he wanted to help, he’d be here. But that damned ghost is in the wind,” Cal curses. “Didn’t even have the decency to take Mare with him when he escaped.”

  “No use dwelling on what we can’t change.” Farley scuffs her boot against the cold floor. “So is brute force the only thing left to us? Take the tower down stone by stone? Pay for every inch with a gallon of blood?”

  Before Cal can explode again, the door wrenches open. Julian and Sara all but tumble inside, both of them wide-eyed and silver-flushed. The Colonel jumps to his feet, in surprise and defense. None of us are fools where Silvers are concerned. Our fear of them is bone-deep, bred into our blood.

  “What is it?” he asks, his red eye a scarlet gleam. “Done with the interrogation so soon?”

  Julian bristles at the word interrogation, sneering. “My questions are a mercy compared to what you would do.”

  “Pah,” Farley scoffs. She eyes Cal and he shifts, embarrassed under her gaze. “Don’t tell me about Silver mercy.”

  I care little for Jul
ian and trust him less, but the look on Sara’s face is startling. She stares at me, her gray face full of pity and fear. “What is it?” I ask her, though I know only Julian can answer. Even in Corvium, she hasn’t yet found another skin healer willing to return her tongue. All of them must be in the core tower, or dead.

  “General Macanthos oversees training command,” Julian says. Like Sara, he glances at me with hesitation. My pulse pounds in my ears. Whatever he’s about to say, I won’t like. “Before the siege, part of a legion was recalled for further instruction. They were unfit to man the trenches. Even for Reds.”

  My rushing blood starts to howl in my ears, a gale that almost drowns Julian out. I feel Ada step to my side, her shoulder brushing mine. She knows where this is going. I do too.

  “We retrieved the rolls. A few hundred children of the Dagger Legion, called back to Corvium. Unreleased, even after Maven’s decree. We accounted for most, but some . . .” Julian forces himself on, though he stumbles over the words. “They’re hostages. In the core, with the remaining Silver officers.”

  I put a hand to the cool office wall, letting it steady me. My silence begs, pushing beneath my skin, wanting to expand and drag down everything in the room. I have to say the words myself, because apparently Julian won’t. “My brother is in there.”

  The Silver bastard hesitates, drawing it out. Finally, he speaks. “We think so.”

  The roar of my thrumming heart overpowers their voices. I hear nothing as I run from the room, evading their hands, sprinting down through the administrative headquarters. If anyone follows, I don’t know. I don’t care.

  The only thing on my mind is Morrey. Morrey and the fifty soon-to-be corpses standing between us.

  I am not Mare Barrow. I will not give my brother to this.

  My silence curls around me, heavy as smoke, soft as feathers, dripping from every pore like sweat. It isn’t a physical thing. It won’t tear the core down for me. My ability is for flesh and flesh alone. I’ve been practicing. It scares me, but I need it. Like a hurricane, the silence churns around me, surrounding the eye of a growing storm.

  I don’t know where I’m going, but Corvium is easy to navigate. And the core is self-explanatory. The city is orderly, well planned, a giant gear. I understand that. My feet slam against the pavement, propelling me through the outer ward. On my left, the high walls of Corvium scrape at the sky. To the right, barracks, offices, training facilities pile against the second ring of granite walls. I have to find the next gate, start working inward. My crimson scarf is camouflage enough. I look like Scarlet Guard. I could be Scarlet Guard. The Red soldiers let me run, too distracted or too excited or too busy to care about another wayward rebel tearing through their midst. They’ve overthrown their masters. I’m as good as invisible to them.

  But not to His Bleeding Royal Highness, Tiberias Calore.

  He grabs my arm, forcing me to spin. If not for my silence pulsing around us, I know he would be on fire. The prince is smart, using our momentum to toss me back—and keep himself out of my deadly hands.

  “Cameron!” he shouts, one hand outstretched. His fingers flicker, the flames on them gasping for air. When he takes another step back, planting himself firmly in my path, they blaze stronger, licking up to his elbow. His armor is back on. Interlocking plates of leather and steel thicken his silhouette. “Cameron, you’ll die if you go in the tower alone. They’ll rip you apart.”

  “What do you care?” I snarl back. My bones lock, joints tightening, and I push a bit more. The silence reaches him. His fire gutters and his throat bobs. He feels it. I’m hurting him. Hold it. Remember your constant. Not too much, not too little. I push a bit more and he takes another step back, another step in the direction I must go. The second gate taunts me from over his shoulder. “I’m here for one reason.” I don’t want to fight him. I just want him to stand aside. “I’m not letting your people kill him.”

  “I know!” he growls back, his voice guttural. I wonder if all of his fire kind have eyes like his. Eyes that burn and smolder. “I know you’re going in there. So would I if—so would I.”

  “Then let me go.”

  He sets his jaw, a picture of determination. A mountain. Even now, in burned clothes, bruised, his body a wreck and his mind a ruin, he looks like a king. Cal is exactly the kind of person who will never kneel. It’s not in him. He was not made that way.

  But I’ve been broken too many times to break again.

  “Cal, let me go. Let me get him.” It sounds like begging.

  This time he steps forward. And the flames on his fingers turn blue, so hot they singe the air. Still they waver before my ability, fighting to breathe, fighting to burn. I could snuff them out if I wanted to. I could seize all that he is and tear him apart, kill him, feel every centimeter of him die. Part of me wants to. A foolish part, ruled by anger and rage and blind vengeance. I let it fuel my ability, let it make me strong, but I don’t let it control me. Just as Sara taught. It’s a thin line to walk.

  His eyes narrow, as if he knows what I’m thinking. So I’m surprised when he says the words. I almost don’t hear them over the sound of my hammering heart.

  “Let me help.”

  Before the Scarlet Guard, I used to think allies operated on exactly the same page. Machines in tandem, working toward the same goal. How naive of me. Cal and I are seemingly on the same side, but we absolutely do not want the same thing.

  He’s open with his plan. Detailing it fully. Enough for me to realize how he intends to use my rage, use my brother, to fulfill his own ends. Distract the guards, get into the core tower, use your silence as a shield, and make the Silvers hand over their hostages in exchange for freedom. Julian will open the gates; I’ll escort them myself. No bloodshed. No more siege. Corvium will be entirely ours.

  A good plan. Except the Silver garrison will go free, released to rejoin Maven’s army.

  I grew up in a slum, but I’m not stupid. And I’m certainly not some moon-eyed girl about to swoon over Cal’s angled jaw and crooked smile either. His charm has its limits. He’s used to bewitching Barrow, not me.

  If only the prince had a bit more edge. Cal is too softhearted for his own good. He won’t leave the Silver soldiers to the Colonel’s nonexistent mercy, even if the only alternative is letting them go just to fight us again.

  “How long do you need?” I ask. Lying to his face isn’t difficult. Not when I know he’s trying to trick me too.

  He grins. He thinks he’s won me over. Perfect. “A few hours to get my ducks in a row. Julian, Sara—”

  “Fine. I’ll be at the outer barracks when you’re ready.” I turn away, forcing an oh-so-thoughtful stare into the distance. The wind picks up, stirring my braids. It feels warmer, not because of Cal, but from the sun. Spring will be here eventually. “Need to clear my head.”

  The prince nods in understanding. He claps a fiery hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. In reply, I force a smile that feels more like a grimace. As soon as I turn my back, I let it drop. He stays behind, his eyes burning holes into my back until the gentle curve of the ring wall obstructs me from view. Despite the rising temperature, a shiver trembles down my spine. I can’t let Cal do this. But I’m not going to let Morrey spend one more second in that tower.

  Up ahead, Farley marches in my direction, moving as fast as her body will allow. Her face darkens when she spots me, her brow furrowing so intensely her entire face turns beet red. It makes the pearly white scar at the side of her mouth stand out worse than usual. All in all, an intimidating sight.

  “Cole,” she snaps, her voice as stern as her father’s. “I was afraid you were about to go and do something really stupid.”

  “Not me,” I reply, dropping to a mutter. She cocks her head, and I motion for her to follow.

  Once we’re safely inside a storeroom, I tell her everything as fast as I can. She huffs through it all, as if Cal’s plan is just an annoyance and not completely dangerous to us all.

  “H
e’s putting the entire city at risk,” I finish, exasperated. “And if he goes through with it—”

  “I know. But I told you before: Montfort and Command want Cal with us, at almost any cost. He’s all but bulletproof. Anyone else would be shot for insurrection.” Farley scratches both hands along her scalp, pulling at stray bits of her blond hair. “I don’t want to do that, but a soldier who has no incentive to take orders and harbors his own agenda is not someone I want watching my back.”

  “Command.” I hate the word, and whoever the hell it stands for. “Beginning to think they may not have our best interests at heart.”

  Farley doesn’t disagree. “It’s hard, putting all our faith in them. But they see what we don’t, what we can’t. And now . . .” She heaves a breath. Her eyes lock on the floor with laser focus. “I hear Montfort is about to get a lot more involved.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  I scoff. “Don’t have the full picture? I’m shocked.”

  The glare she aims at me could cut through bone. “The system isn’t perfect, but it protects us. If you’re going to be sullen, I’m not going to help.”

  “Oh, now you have ideas?”

  She grins darkly.

  “A few.”

  Harrick hasn’t lost his tendency to twitch.

  He bobs his head up and down as Farley hisses our plan, lips moving quickly. She won’t be going into the tower with us, but she’s going to make sure we can actually get in.

  Harrick seems wary. He isn’t a warrior. He didn’t come to Corros and he didn’t participate in the Corvium raid either, even though his illusions would have helped immensely. He arrived with the rest of us, trailing behind the pregnant captain. Something happened to him back when we still had Mare, on a newblood recruitment gone wrong. Since then, he’s stayed out of the fray, on the defense instead of in the thick of battle. I envy him. He doesn’t know what it feels like to kill someone.

  “How many hostages?” he asks, voice quivering like his fingers. A red flush blooms in his cheeks, spreading beneath winter-paled skin.