I look at the water again, along with the surge now breaking against the ships, raising their hulls until they’re level with the lower cliffs. A few more surges and we’ll be staring right into their teeth, with every missile and shell pointed our way. Somehow I don’t see how that’s a desirable position to be in.
Farley looks amused by my confusion. “I’m glad you decided to see things our way, Cal.”
“The right way,” I reply. “The way it should be.”
Her smile fades, but not in displeasure. Surprise, maybe. For the first time, her touch is gentle, driven by compassion. Her finger graze my shoulder.
“No more kings, Calore.”
“No more kings,” I echo.
Instead of Farley, the missiles, the ships, the water, the scream of wounded soldiers, I hear my mother’s voice. The voice I think she had.
Cal will not be like the others.
She wanted a certain path for me, just like my father. She wanted me to be different, but she still wanted me to be a king.
I hope my choice would make her proud.
“Speaking of kings,” Farley mutters; her demeanor changes in an instant. She straightens and points at a figure crossing the Square. “Is that—”
His black cape flutters in the fog, snapping back to reveal limbs coated in perfect, mirrored armor. His steps are sure and quick as he moves through the crowd, soldiers jumping out of his way to let him pass. Without breaking pace, he steps onto the crumbling Bridge.
“Volo Samos,” I breathe, gritting my teeth. Whatever he’s about to do won’t end well for us.
But he doesn’t slow, even as the Bridge beneath him becomes more and more precarious. The ships, rising on the forced tide, are almost directly beneath him. And still he doesn’t stop.
Not even at the edge.
Farley gasps when he plummets, his body falling slowly, his cape and armor unmistakable through a gap in the fog.
I turn away, unable to watch him break himself on the steel below.
Across the Square, I spy my grandmother, standing resolute, her battle uniform aglow in red and orange. She stares at me through the fray of soldiers.
At her side, Julian hangs his head.
I don’t think he’s ever killed someone before.
THIRTY-FIVE
Iris
“Another tidal pull and we can off-load directly from the ships,” Mother mutters, stepping out of the ship’s bridge to stand in the open air. Rain pelts down, beading on her exposed face. I follow her closely, as do her guards. She’s armored to the throat, swathed in black and cobalt-blue plate. We won’t take any chances. A stray bullet could catch her at any moment and bring our invasion crashing down around our ears.
“Be patient, Mother,” I murmur, almost glued to her side. “They won’t be able to hold us off for much longer.”
I can’t help but hope. Tiberias Calore crippled his country so perfectly, betraying his own people as well as the Reds. Casting aside any chance he had to keep the throne he won from his wretched brother.
Archeon will fall, and fall soon.
I glance up at the cliffs on either side of the river, both edges wreathed in smoke and mist. Lightning streaks across the sky, oddly colored, and I’m reminded of my own wedding. The freak Reds and blood traitors of the mountains attacked the city that day, albeit with less success than we are having. The waters of the river thrum around us, caressing the hulls of our armada. I feel it keenly, every curve of the waves, as far as my ability can reach.
The broken Archeon Bridge juts out above us, still crumbling. Debris splashes into the river harmlessly. I raise a hand, batting away a particularly large chunk of concrete with a rising swell of water. Another tumbles after it, falling oddly. It flashes, metallic, as it turns, end over end, hurtling right for the deck of the ship.
My fingers brush against the air, raising another wave, but my mother grabs my wrist.
“Let him fall,” she says, her eyes locked on the figure.
I don’t realize it’s a body until it lands on the deck a few yards in front of us, limbs mangled and skull split open like a melon, spewing silver and white across the deck. His mirrored armor shatters like his bones, some of it splintering into dust at the impact. The wrecked corpse is a tall man, older, judging by the remains of a beard beneath his crumpled face. A fold of his black cape splays over the rest of his body. The fabric is edged in silver.
Familiar colors.
Suddenly the battle seems far away, distant as a dream, and the world at the edge of my vision goes hazy. Everything narrows to this man, destroyed in front of us. No crown on his brow. He doesn’t even have a face anymore.
“So ends Volo Samos, and the Kingdom of the Rift,” Mother says, stepping neatly to stand over his broken bones. She toes aside his cape and turns the ruined remains of his skull without flinching.
I glance away, unable to look. My stomach flips queasily. “Queen Anabel’s trade is complete.”
Still examining the corpse, Mother tuts loudly. Her dark eyes run over the dead king, drinking him in. “She thinks this will save her city and her grandson.”
Steeling myself, I force my gaze back to Samos. I’m no stranger to blood. Another corpse shouldn’t frighten me. This man is the reason my father is dead, and our country is without its king, my mother without her husband. He deserves every inch of this ending. And what a brutal ending it was.
“Foolish woman,” I seethe, my thoughts turning to Anabel Lerolan and her weak attempt to stop an invasion. You will not succeed. The price is already paid.
Satisfied, Mother steps back over the body. She gestures with one hand, and two of our guards begin the gruesome process of removing Samos from the deck. Silver blood streaks like paint as they drag him away.
“We’re all fools for the people we love, dear,” Mother says airily, clasping her hands in front of her. Without breaking stride, she glances at one of our lieutenants. “Even concentration on both sides of the city, focused on the massing troops.”
With a nod, the officer ducks back into the command bridge, and her orders are relayed across the armada. Both Lakelander and Piedmontese ships respond in kind, their guns erupting with a volley of fire. Explosions and smoke crackle along the riverbanks, shearing off cliff rock as well as city structures. After a moment, our enemies on both sides return fire, but weakly. Most bullets ping off steel or sink in the water.
Mother watches with a grim smile. “Break their lines and we’ll have an easy way of it, once the river is high enough.” She’s thinking about the thousands of soldiers belowdecks, waiting to spring from our ships and overrun whoever waits above.
A harsh wind blows up, carrying with it the sound of jets screaming far overhead. I grit my teeth. The Nortan Air Fleet is their only measure of superiority, with Piedmont’s fleet diminished and our own sorely lacking in comparison. All we can do is hold them at bay with the storm, using our own meager jets to distract them from the armada. It seems to be working, for now, at least.
As for the Nortan soldiers Tiberias foolishly sent down among us, the deck troops aren’t having a difficult time holding them off. Even with strongarms and swifts leading the charge, the many nymphs of House Osanos use the river to their advantage. Our advantage.
Even now, I can see their numbers dwindling. “Teleporters,” I snarl, watching as the Montfort oddities blink in and out of existence. They snatch away the last of the Nortans, returning them to the relative safety of the city cliffs.
“They’re retreating from the ships.” I turn to Mother, torn between pride and disappointment. The Nortans fear us enough to run. “What’s left of them, at least.”
The queen of the Lakelands raises her chin, looking imperious and regal. “Recalling to make a last stand. Good.”
I’m quickly struck by the image of my mother striding boldly through Caesar’s Square, up the steps of the palace that was once my glorified prison, to sit the throne the Calores have finally lost. Will my moth
er be an empress when all this is done? Master of all between the lakes and the sea, from the frozen tundra to the radiated borders of the Wash? Don’t get ahead of yourself, Iris. The battle is not yet won.
I try to center myself in the moment. The sharp tang of smoke and Samos’s blood is a good anchor. I inhale sharply, letting the smell overwhelm my senses. It’s funny, I expected this anger inside me to waste away and die with the Samos king. But I still feel it, deep in my chest, gnawing at my heart. My father is dead, and no throne, no crown, can bring him back. No amount of vengeance paid can push away this pain.
I draw another breath, focusing on the waters below us. The envoy of our gods, it carries every blessing and curse. Normally, the sensation would calm me down. Being so close to such power has a way of humbling even me. Right now, I sense no gods that I recognize.
But I do sense something.
“Do you feel that?” I whirl to my mother. The armor all over my body seems to tighten, threatening to smother me as every one of my nerve endings lights up with fear. What is that—that thing in the water?
Mother blinks at me, reading my unease. Her eyes glaze for a moment as she reaches out with her own considerable ability, hunting through the waves for what has me so on edge. I watch, breathless, waiting for her to tell me it’s nothing. My imagination. Confusion. A mistake.
She sharpens, her eyes narrowing to slits, and the rain suddenly feels like icicles down my spine.
“Another current?” she hisses, snapping her fingers at one of the officers nearby. A Nortan betrayer, he is quick to oblige, his face drawn and pale. He still seems uncomfortable in the blue uniform of the Lakelands. “Osanos,” she barks at him, “are your nymphs pulling another tide—”
He shakes, bowing low. Osanos and his extended family aren’t as talented as us, but they’re formidable in their own right. Not to mention integral to our efforts. “Not by my orders, Your Majesty.”
I bite my lip, my sensation still edging around the gargantuan thing moving through the water. I try to push it off course, but the object is just too heavy. “A whale?” I mutter, hardly believing my own suggestion.
Mother shakes her head, teeth on edge. “Bigger, heavier,” she says. “And more than one.”
Behind us, the ship officers scramble in the command bridge, reacting to a sudden dozen blinking lights and alarms. The sound hits me like knives.
“Brace for impact!” one of them shouts, gesturing for us to take cover.
Mother grabs me, her arm sliding around my waist to hold me close. We watch in horror, feeling the currents below us as the many somethings move through the armada. They must be mechanical, weapons of war we have no knowledge of.
The first strike comes in the middle of the fleet, a battleship suddenly leaning with a groan of tearing metal. An explosion erupts below the waterline, blowing out in an arc of foam and shrapnel. A Piedmont ship catches fire, its powder magazine obliterating the front half of the hull. The blast of heat feels like a burn, but I can’t turn away, watching in horrified awe as the ship sinks in less than a minute, drowning gods know how many within its belly.
Our flagship shudders under us, clanking as something rams the hull beneath the surface.
“Push, Iris, push,” Mother commands, letting go of me to rush to the edge of the deck. She leans forward, arms outstretched, and the waters below obey her will, rushing backward in waves.
I join her, letting my ability take hold. I press and push, trying to dislodge whatever is ramming the ship. But it’s so heavy, so big, with an engine of its own.
We’re so focused on protecting the flagship, I hardly notice the rest of the armada floundering all around us. Without orders, a few of the ships painstakingly try to turn, navigating the foaming river among the growing steel hulks bobbing and sinking. Sweat breaks out across my brow, joining with the hurtling rain, and I taste salt on my lips. It stings, forcing me to blink and lose focus.
“Mother,” I force out.
She doesn’t answer, her hands clawed into the mist, as if she can lift the new weaponry directly out of the water. She snarls a little, the sound lost in the howling wind.
Lightning flashes again, another blue bolt striking down. I’m not fast enough to deflect it and it hits home on the ship next to us, striking the deck with the sizzle of water and flesh. Soldiers scream, leaping off the ship entirely to escape the glowing hell of electrocution. They’re quickly swallowed by the churning waters.
“Mother!” I say again, shouting this time.
She curses through gritted teeth. “Those Red bastards have boats below the water. Boats and weapons.”
“We can’t stop them, can we?”
Her eyes shine, bright even against the storm and the sudden shift in our fortunes. Without warning, she drops her hands. “Not without great loss. And not with any guarantees,” she murmurs, as if dazed.
I try to shake her out of it. “We have to get up to the cliffs, get on land. We can still overwhelm their forces—”
Behind us, our guards close in, tense and ready to spring. Waiting for my mother’s command.
She ignores them, staring at me instead. “Can we?” she says, her voice oddly soft and detached. Like she’s been sleeping, and now she is awake.
Mother pats me on the cheek, her touch cold and wet. She looks past me, fixating on the deck. I turn to follow her gaze, only to see the last of Samos’s blood darkening against the steel. The last piece of our revenge. Even the rain can’t wash it away. Even the gods can’t heal this pain.
I flinch as another ship succumbs to attack, keeling over into the river. “Is this finally ended?” I wonder aloud.
Her fingers lace with mine.
“Ended?” she breathes, squeezing my hand. “Never, not truly. But for now, I’m getting my daughter out of here alive.”
For the first time today, I look backward, downriver. Toward retreat. I swallow hard, dazed by the sudden turn in the battle. It feels like being cut open.
But there is only one choice between death and defeat.
“Let’s go home.”
THIRTY-SIX
Maven
After so many days in captivity, smothered by Silent Stone and separated from my bracelets, the burst of flame is more quenching than water to a thirsty man. I let it lick up inside me, trailing like a lover’s kiss, and explode along my skin, powerful and furious enough to throw back that wretched electricon. He falls and Mare falls too, both of them slamming backward onto the hard tile of Caesar’s Square.
I don’t spare a glance for her as I run, leaving fire in my wake, a wall to defend my escape. I keep another burst of flame close, coiling in my fist, using all my energy to keep it burning. My feet carry me over the Square and I sprint like never before. I’m not Cal, I’m not particularly fast or strong, but fear keeps me alert and daring. The chaos of Archeon works to my advantage, not to mention my intimate knowledge of the palace. Whitefire was my home, and I have not forgotten it.
The sudden arrival of hundreds of Scarlet Guard soldiers is more than enough to distract Cal’s troops, still trying to organize themselves against the Lakelander assault. Nevertheless, I keep my head down, black hair falling forward to obscure my all-too-recognizable face.
These soldiers were mine. Should still be mine.
The voice in my head shifts from my own to hers.
Fools, all of them, my mother sneers. I can almost feel her hands ghosting along my shoulders, keeping me upright as I run. Replacing you with that wretched, spineless boy. He will be the end of a dynasty. The end of an age.
She isn’t wrong. She was never truly wrong.
If only Father could see you now, Cal. See what you’ve become, and what you’ve done to his kingdom.
Of all my many wishes and regrets, that one cuts deepest. My father is dead, but he died loving Cal, trusting Cal, believing in Cal’s greatness and perfection. I wonder if I should have let things run their course. If somehow I could have simply made him see ho
w flawed the perfect son was.
But Mother had her reasons. She knew best.
And that is simply another path untaken. A dead future, as Jon would say.
Another missile explodes nearby, and as before, I use the resulting explosion to my advantage. It breaks around me, harmless, allowing me to escape through a bloom of smoke and fire. I can’t return to the Treasury tunnels, not with those Red rats still crawling around. But there are other ways down to the tracks, other ways to get out of Archeon undetected. The ways I know best are in Whitefire itself, and I beat a path to the palace as quickly as I can.
That damn train. I curse whoever stole it, whatever sniveling weasel is now riding along, safe and sound. At least I can still walk the track. I’m well accustomed to darkness by now. What’s a few more miles?
Nothing at all. I’ve always felt darkness all over me, stubborn as a stain. It follows wherever I go.
And where will I go? Where can I go?
I’m a fallen king, a murderer, a betrayer. A monster to anyone with eyes and a modicum of sense. They’ll kill me in the Lakelands, in Montfort, in my own country. I deserve it, I think as I run. I should be dead a thousand times, executed in a hundred different ways, each one more painful than the last.
I think of Mare behind me, sprawled across the tiles of the Square. Picking herself up again, ready to give chase. My brother too, leading some stupidly valiant effort to defend the city and his ill-gotten throne. I scoff at the thought as I vault up the steps of Whitefire, flying over familiar stone. The flame in my palm gutters, reducing to a flicker before I push it back to life, letting it envelop my hand.
The interior is just as empty as the Square is full. Whatever nobles and courtiers aren’t out fighting must be deep within the palace, barricaded in their rooms, or perhaps they’ve fled too. Either way, my footsteps are the only sound as I cross the entrance hall, my path familiar as my own heartbeat.
Even though it’s midday, the halls are dark and cold, with the windows clouded by fog and smoke. Electricity flickers as the power grid reacts to the battle outside, turning the lights on and off in patternless bursts. Good, I think. In my gray clothing, I can blend into the shadows of Whitefire. I used to do it as a boy, hide in alcoves or behind curtains. Spying and listening, not for my mother then, but for my own curiosity.