War Storm

I can’t even entertain the idea.

Not because we’ll need her to help destroy her wretched home, New Town, but because she’ll be one more body on my conscience. Another friend I pushed toward death.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to think about the others who were still in Piedmont when Bracken took the base. Cameron’s brother, Morrey. The teenagers of the Dagger Legion, rescued from one siege only to be caught in another.

Nothing compares to the agony of losing Shade, but losing the others could destroy me just as easily. How long will this last? How many people will we risk losing?

This is war, Mare Barrow. You risk everyone, every single day.

Especially the person next to me.

I bite my lip, almost drawing blood, to stave off the thought of Tiberias, Cal, dead and gone.

“It doesn’t get easier,” he says, the words ragged.

I open my eyes to find him staring ahead with the dogged focus he usually saves for a battlefield or a war council.

“What?”

“Losing people,” he growls. “There’s never a moment where it goes away, no matter how many times it happens. You never get used it.”

An eternity ago, when I was Mareena Titanos, I stood inside a prince’s bedchamber. He had books all over the place: manuals, treatises on war, strategy, diplomacy. Maneuvers and manipulations for gigantic armies and single soldiers. Calculations weighing the risk and reward. How many people could die and yet he’d still be able to claim victory. Back then it was a stark reminder of who he was, and whose side he was on.

It disgusted me to think of him as a person who would trade life so carelessly. Spill blood for another inch of progress. Now I’ve done the same thing. So has Farley. So has Davidson. None of us are innocent.

None of us will ever be able to forget what we do in these days.

“If it never goes away,” I murmur, feeling as if I might be drowned, “it will eventually be too much.”

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely.

I wonder how close he is to his line, and how close I am to mine. Will we cross it on the same day? Is that the only answer?

Do we walk away, broken and beyond repair, together? Or apart?

His eyes smolder over me. I think he’s asking himself the same thing.

Shuddering, I quicken my steps. A firm signal to both of us. “What’s the plan for Harbor Bay?” I ask, looking down the long hall. It bridges this wing of Ridge House to the next, arcing over a weaving garden of trees and fountains barely visible in the darkness.

Tiberias matches my pace easily. “Nothing is set until Davidson comes back. But Farley has ideas, and her contacts in the city will certainly be of help.”

I nod in agreement. Harbor Bay is the oldest city in Norta, a warren of Red criminals and their gangs. A few months ago, one of those gangs, the Mariners, tried to sell us to Maven as we searched for newbloods. But the tide is changing. The Reds of Norta are falling into line as the Scarlet Guard grows in power and notoriety. Our victories are having an effect on some, at least.

“There will be civilian casualties,” Tiberias adds, matter-of-fact. “It isn’t Corvium or Piedmont. Harbor Bay is a city, not a fort. Innocent people, Silver and Red, will be stuck in the middle of this.” He flexes a hand, stretching out long, keen fingers before cracking his knuckles one by one. “We’ll start with Fort Patriot. If we can take control there, the rest of the city will fall.”

I’ve only see Patriot from afar, and the memory is vague. It’s smaller than the Piedmont base, but better equipped and far more important to Maven’s armies.

“Governor Rhambos and his house are sworn to Maven,” I reply. “They’re still firm allies.” Due in no small part to me, since I killed his son in the arena during a failed execution. Of course, he was also trying to kill me. “They won’t surrender easily.”

Tiberias scoffs. “No one ever does.”

“And if you win the city?” I prod. If you survive?

“Then I think we can get Maven to the table.”

The name sends a jolt through me. At my collarbone, Maven’s brand smarts and warms, itching for attention.

“He won’t negotiate. He won’t surrender at all.” I feel sick at the thought of Maven’s empty eyes, his wicked smile. The cloying, unbreakable obsession plaguing us both. “There’s no point in it, Tiberias.”

He winces at my use of his full name, eyes sliding shut for a second. “That’s not why I want to see him.”

The implication is clear. “Oh.”

“I have to be sure,” he grinds out. “I asked the premier about whispers in his country. If there are any newbloods like Elara. Anyone who might be able to help him.”

“And?”

When I walked away from Tiberias in Corvium, he looked heartbroken, agonized. This is no different. Love has a way of cutting us apart like nothing else. “He didn’t think so,” he admits quietly. “But he said he would keep looking.”

I lay a hand on his arm, still damp with sweat. My fingers know his skin as well as my own by now. He feels like quicksand. If I linger too long, I won’t be able to escape.

I try to be gentle. “I doubt even Elara could fix him now. If he would let her.”

His flesh flares hot beneath my hand and I pull away, remembering myself. He doesn’t react. There’s nothing he can say, and nothing he has to say to me. I know what letting go of Maven Calore looks like.

The passage ahead of us dead-ends at a T-shaped junction, trailing off to the left and right. His rooms to one side, mine to the other. We stare at the wall in silence, neither of us daring to move.

Speaking to him feels like a dream, a painful one. Even so, I don’t want to wake up.

“How long?” I whisper.

He doesn’t look at me. “Davidson will be here in a week’s time. With another week to plan.” His throat bobs. “Not long.”

The last time I set foot in Harbor Bay, we were on the run. But my brother was alive. I wish I could go back to those days, hard as they were.

“I know what Evangeline’s trying to do,” Tiberias says suddenly, his voice thick with too many emotions to place.

I glance sidelong at him. “She’s not exactly subtle about it.”

He doesn’t return the gesture, continuing to stare at the wall in front of us. Never leaning one way or the other. “I wish there were some middle ground.”

A place where our names and our blood and our pasts don’t matter. A place without weight. A place that has never been and will never exist.

“Good night, Tiberias.”

Hissing, he clenches a fist. “I really need you to stop calling me that.”

And I really need you.

I turn and walk toward my room, my footsteps echoing and alone.

SEVENTEEN

Iris

Archeon will never be my home.

Not because of the location, the size of the city, the lack of shrines and temples, or even my bone-deep, inborn disdain for Nortans. None of those things weigh as much as the emptiness I feel without my family at my side.

It is a hole I try to fill with training, prayer, and my other queenly duties, boring as some of them might be. But all are necessary. The most important is to stay in fighting shape. It would be easy to soften in my apartments of silk and velvet, waited on by Red servants tripping over themselves to bring me anything I want. It was the same in the Lakelands, but I never wanted to find solace in food and alcohol the way I do here. My training sessions also set a good balance, so I don’t fall into the trap so many royals and nobles find themselves in. A trap Maven baits well. Many of the lords and ladies still supporting his reign seem more preoccupied with his parties and feasts than they are with the wolves at the door. Idiots.