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My skin burns under Maven’s gaze, with the memory of one stolen kiss. It was him who saved me from Evangeline. Cal who saved me from escaping and bringing more pain upon myself. Cal who saved me from conscription. I’ve been too busy trying to save others to notice how much Cal saves me. How much he loves me.
This is just Cal, I tell myself. The boy who loves music and cycles. Not the soldier, not the general, not the prince. The boy. He will always choose you.
“You told me to find a cause, Father. And I did. Are you proud of me?”
But something is wrong in him. Something has changed. “Maven, help me up.” He rolls his shoulders, cracking the bones to chase away an ache. His motions are sluggish and strange, and when he settles back on his feet, hands on his hips, I feel like I’m seeing him for the first time. His eyes are so cold. “No, I don’t think so.”
NO
I sound like a little girl. I am just a little girl.
“You used me.” Finally, Maven condescends to look back at me. “Catching on, are you?”
“It’s not you,” Tiberias says, his eyes on Cal’s wretched face. He doesn’t bother pleading for his life. “I know it’s not you, son. This is not your fault.”
oh. my god
“You almost did,” he murmurs back. “I almost chose you this morning.”
“How does it feel?” he growls, almost nose to nose with me. “How does it feel to be used, Mare Barrow?”
god this hurts so mhch worse secobd time thru
“Cal betrayed me, and I betrayed him. And you betrayed us both, in a thousand different ways.” The words are heavy as stone but right. So right. “I choose no one.”
“What will you tell them when I bleed?” I hiss after him. “The truth?” He laughs deep in his chest. The little boy disappears, replaced by the king killer again. “The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”
He laughs long and hard. “When are you going to realize that every word out of my mouth was a lie?”
I am the king and you could’ve been my Red queen. Now you are nothing.”
Many things led to this day, for all of us. A forgotten son, a vengeful mother, a brother with a long shadow, a strange mutation. Together, they’ve written a tragedy.
He’s only seventeen and already a monster.
SEVENTEEN???
It’s almost poetic, really. In matching armor, with matching scowls, Evangeline and Ptolemus stare us down, their fists bristling with long, cruel knives.
Red blood drips from my wounds, and lightning trembles in my skin, declaring what I am for everyone.
They trained me for this. It’s their own fault. They helped make their own doom.
Slowly, he starts to hum. I recognize the tune as the sad song, the one we kissed to in a room full of moonlight.
BRUHHHH kms
Instead, my senses buzz with the storm, feeling it churning above me. It’s mine.
But my brother shakes his head slowly, staring at me with familiar honey-colored eyes. Shade was always the handsome one, and death has not changed that. “You’re not dead, Mare,” he says, his voice as smooth as I remember. “Neither am I.”
love when they do this
Romance. We flinch at the word. There is no such thing between us anymore. Not after what we did to each other, and what was done to us. No matter how much we might want there to be.
vom
