The Young Elites series by Marie Lu

Raffaele’s eyes dart away from Lucent’s wrist for the first time. He looks at Maeve. “You want Enzo to turn his power against Adelina?” he says. Again, that calm voice.

“It is our only way to win him back to our side.” She nods. “I heard the way her voice broke at the sight of him. Adelina is in love with the prince—”

“What haven’t you told us about your brother?” Raffaele suddenly interrupts. Beneath the calm is an undercurrent of anger, something Maeve has never heard in him. She blinks, surprised.

“What do you mean?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

Raffaele nods at Tristan, who stares out the porthole with his soulless expression. “He has deteriorated since you first brought him back, hasn’t he?” he says, his voice turning raw now. “I should have known it from the instant I first sensed his energy. He is not alive—he is just a shadow of what he once was, and the Underworld will slowly claim him until he is nothing but a shell.”

Maeve’s eyes have turned into dangerous slits. “You forget your place, consort. He is a prince of Beldain.”

“We should not have brought Enzo back!” Raffaele suddenly snaps. All of the Daggers freeze. “He is not of the living—not one of us! I did not even have to see him emerge from the arena—I could feel the unnatural state of his energy from where I was in the tunnels. I felt that abhorrent, dead energy in him, the taint of the Underworld coating him. It does not matter if it amplifies his powers tenfold—it is not him.” His face contorts in fury and anguish. “Your brother is a true abomination, a demon of the Underworld. And now you have turned Enzo into one.”

Maeve rises from her resting place. She gathers her furs around her neck, turns away in stony silence, and walks toward the door. When she reaches it, she glances once over her shoulder. “Your White Wolf happens to be in love with that abomination,” she replies. “And it shall be her undoing.”

Raffaele’s jaw tightens. “Then you don’t know Adelina, Your Majesty.”

Maeve glares at him for a moment. Then she throws open the door and strides out of the room. Behind her, Lucent hops to her feet. “Wait,” she calls out. But Maeve ignores her. Everything seems muted, the world blurred, and the young queen suddenly needs to get off this ship.

Her soldiers step hastily out of her way as she storms across the deck and down the gangplank. Her horse stands ready and waiting near the shore. She unties its reins from the post, then puts a foot in the saddle and swings up onto its back.

“Maeve,” Lucent calls out behind her. “Your Majesty!” But Maeve has already guided the horse around and tapped its hindquarters with her heels. She doesn’t turn around at Lucent’s voice. Instead, she leans down to the horse’s ear and whispers something. She kicks its hindquarters again. The horse startles to life and takes off down the path.

Behind her, Lucent hurries to her horse and swings up. Then she hunches down over its back and takes off down the path in close pursuit. Her copper curls stream out behind her, whipping in the wind in unison with its mane. Maeve pushes her horse faster. She used to ride like this with Lucent when they were young, when Maeve was just a little princess and Lucent one of her guard’s daughters. Lucent always won. She would push her horse until the two of them became one, and her laughter would ring out across the Beldish plains, teasing Maeve to ride faster in order to catch her. Maeve wonders now whether Lucent remembers those moments. The wind whistles in her ears. Faster, she urges the horse.

Lucent calls the wind. A sudden gust seems to hit Maeve, and the gap between their horses narrows. They race up the path until it leads them to the top of the cliffs, then race along the edge of a plain, hugging the edge of the land where the canals open into the sea. Maeve shifts her attention from the path ahead to where it curves along the cliff side.

Suddenly, Lucent steers her horse off the course and races to cut off Maeve. Maeve looks over her shoulder. It’s a familiar move, and somehow, it brings a slight smile to Maeve’s lips. Faster, faster, she urges her horse. She bends so low over its neck that it seems like they blend together into one.

The world disappears into streaks. Lucent’s shouts pierce the tunnel, until it seems like they have gone back in time to the day when Tristan first drowned. Help him! Lucent had screamed that fateful night. She shook Maeve with a tearstained face. I didn’t mean it—the ice was too thin! Please—help me get him!

Maeve lets out a startled shout when Lucent suddenly cuts into the path beside her. The childhood version of her voice vanishes, replaced by the voice of the woman she has become.

“Stop!” Lucent shouts.

Maeve ignores her.

“Stop!”

When Maeve still doesn’t listen, Lucent pushes her horse one more time. She tries in vain to steer her horse away. Maeve glances over. “Your wrist—!” she starts to shout, but the warning comes too late. Lucent forgets her broken wrist, and flinches away with a yell. For a moment, her concentration breaks—right as her horse leaps. She loses her balance. Maeve has no time to reach out as she sees Lucent topple from her stallion and vanish from sight.

A rush of wind cushions her fall, but she still rolls once. Her stallion gallops on. Maeve looks over her shoulder to where Lucent lies in the dirt, then pulls her own horse to a halt. She dismounts and runs over to her side.

Lucent pushes her away when she tries to help her up.

“You shouldn’t have come after me,” Maeve snaps. “I just needed to think.”