War Storm

“You know as well as I do he isn’t a prince anymore,” I answer, choosing my words very carefully. Maybe I can get him to reveal something, just a sniff of the future ahead of us all. “Just like you know how long he’ll be a king.”

“Yes,” he replies, smirking slightly. Of course he knows what I’m doing, and he says only what he intends to say.

I heave another heavy breath, sucking air into my starved lungs. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking in the view.”

He still hasn’t looked at me, his red eyes trained on the horizon. The sight before us is amazing, more splendid than it was a thousand feet below. I really do feel small, and large, everything and nothing, sitting here on the rim of the world. My breath fogs before my eyes, a testament to the chill. I can’t stay long. Not if I want to get down before nightfall.

I wish I could take Jon’s head with me.

“I told you this would happen,” he murmurs.

Snarling, I bare my teeth at him. “You didn’t tell me anything. My brother might be alive if you did. Thousands of people—”

“Have you considered the alternative?” he snaps. “That what I did, what I said and didn’t say, did and didn’t do, saved more?”

I ball a fist and kick my foot, sending a shower of gravel skittering down the slope. “Have you considered just keeping your nose out of everything?”

Jon barks a laugh. “Many times. But whether I involve myself or not, I see the path. I see the destination. And sometimes I just can’t let it happen.”

“So nice you get to decide,” I sneer, bitter as I always am with the wretched newblood.

“Would you like the burden, Mare Barrow?” Jon replies, lowering himself down so we sit side by side. He smiles sadly. “I didn’t think so.”

I shudder beneath his crimson attention. “You told me I would rise, and rise alone,” I mutter, repeating the words he spoke so long ago, in an abandoned coal town half shrouded by the rain. That was my fate. And I’ve watched it become truer with every passing day. When I lost Shade. When I lost Cal. But also in the steady detachment, the cold hand that seems to worm itself between me and everyone else I love. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, I can’t help but feel different, broken and angry, and therefore alone. With only one person left who truly understands. And he is a monster.

I lost Maven too. The person he pretended to be, the friend I loved and needed when I was so alone and so afraid. I’ve lost so many people.

But I’ve gained many. Farley, Clara. My family is still with me, safe but for Shade. Kilorn, never wavering in his loyalty and friendship. I have the electricons, newbloods like me, who prove I am not alone. Premier Davidson and all he hopes to do. They outnumber everyone I’ve lost.

“I don’t think you were right,” I mumble, half believing the words. Next to me, Jon jolts, his neck cracking as he looks at me sharply. “Or has that path changed too?”

Even though I hate his eyes, I force myself to stare into them. To look for a lie or the truth.

“Did I change it?”

He blinks slowly. “You changed nothing.”

I feel like elbowing him in the throat, or the gut, or the skull. Instead I slump backward, tipping my head to glare at the sky. Jon watches, chuckling a little.

“What?” I snarl, eyeing him.

“Rise,” he murmurs, pointing to the valley thousands of feet below. Then he points to my chest. “And rise alone.”

This time I bat his arm weakly, wishing I could inflict more hurt on the seer. “I know you weren’t talking about climbing a mountain,” I growl. “‘No longer the lightning, but the storm. The storm that will swallow the world entire.’”

He just rolls his shoulders and looks out to the range again, his breath steaming in the cold air. “Who knows what I was talking about.”

“You do.”

“And I’ll keep that weight to myself, thank you very much. No one else needs it.”

I scoff. “You act as if you enjoy lording our fates over us.” Chewing my lip, I weigh my chances again. A hint from him could be infinitely valuable, or damning, throwing me onto a path of his choosing. I simply have to take the chance, and consider what he says with a mountain of salt. “Any more choice words, little nudges, you might condescend to give?”

The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes waver, almost sad. “Your friend is better at fishing than you.”

Cold air whistles down my throat as I inhale sharply. “What do you know about Kilorn?” I ask, my voice climbing an octave. Kilorn is no one to Jon, no one to grand movements of kingdoms and fate. He shouldn’t take up an inch of space in Jon’s head, not in comparison to the thousands of dangerous and horrible things he does keep in there. I move to grab his arm, but he shifts neatly from my touch.

His red eyes stare, like twin drops of blood. “He’s the catalyst for all this, isn’t he? For your part in it, at least,” he says. “The poor friend doomed to conscription, with only you to save him.”

Jon’s words are slow, methodic. Deliberate. Giving me time to put together the pieces of this part of the puzzle. I try not to know, try not to accept what is staring me in the face. I want to kill him. Smash his head against the rock. But I can’t move.

“Because he lost his apprenticeship,” I say, trembling. “Because Kilorn’s master died.”

“Because Kilorn’s master fell.” It isn’t a question. Jon knows exactly what happened to Old Cully, the fisherman my best friend used to serve. A simple man, gray before his years, just like the rest of us.

Tears fill my eyes. I’ve been a puppet for too long, even longer than I thought possible. “You pushed him.”

“I push many people, in many different ways.”

“Did you push an innocent man to his death?” I seethe.

Something switches in him, like a lamp turning off or on. Shifting his focus. He gathers himself and sniffs, his voice suddenly clear, more forceful. As if he is addressing a crowd of soldiers, rather than just me. “The Lakelands will strike Archeon soon,” he says. “Within a few weeks. They’re preparing as we speak, drilling their armies past the point of perfection. Tiberias Calore is weak and they know it.” I don’t have the heart or stomach to argue. He’s right, and I’m still reeling. “If they take the city, Tiberias will never win Norta. Not this year. Not the next. Not even a hundred years from now.”

I clench my teeth. “You could be lying.”

He ignores me, forging on. “If the capital falls to the queen of the Lakelands, the road becomes long and bloody, worse than anything you’ve experienced before.” In his lap, he knits his fingers together, knuckles going white against the gray of his clothes. “Even I can barely see the ending of that path. But I know it’s terrible.”

“I don’t like being your chess piece.”

“Everyone is someone else’s pawn, Mare, whether we know it or not.”

“Whose pawn are you?”

He doesn’t respond, only raising his eyes to the clear, cold sky. With a final sigh, he pushes himself to his feet, dislodging rocks with the motion. “You should get moving,” he says, gesturing down the mountain.

“So I can pass on your message?” I snap, sounding bitter. Taking Jon’s orders is the last thing I want to do right now, even if he’s right. I think I’d rather freeze than give him the satisfaction.