King’s Cage (Red Queen Book 3)

He scrapes his bracelets together angrily, letting his wrists spit sparks. None of them catch or burst into flame. Spark after spark, each one cold and weak compared to mine. Useless. Futile. I follow him down a spiraling stair to a balcony. If it has a lovely view, I don’t know. I don’t have the capacity to see much farther than Cal. Everything inside me quivers.

Hope and fear battle through me in equal measure. I see it in Cal too, flashing behind his eyes. A storm rages in the bronze, two kinds of fire.

“You promised,” I whisper, trying to tear him apart without moving a muscle.

Cal paces wildly before putting his back to the rails of the balcony. His mouth flops open and closed, searching for something to say. For any explanation. He’s not Maven. He’s not a liar, I have to remind myself. He doesn’t want to do this to you. But will that stop him?

“I didn’t think—what logical person could want me to be king after what I’ve done? Tell me if you truly thought anyone would let me near a throne,” he says. “I’ve killed Silvers, Mare, my own people.” He buries his face in his blazing hands, scrubbing them over his features. Like he wants to pull himself inside out.

“You killed Reds too. I thought you said there was no difference.”

“Difference not division.”

I snarl. “You make a wonderful speech about equality but let that Samos bastard sit there and claim a kingdom just like the one we want to end. Don’t lie and say you didn’t know about his terms, his new crown. . . .” My voice trails away before I can speak the rest aloud. And make it real.

“You know I had no idea.”

“Not one?” I raise an eyebrow. “Not a whisper from your grandmother. Not even a dream of this?”

He swallows hard, unable to deny his deepest desires. So he doesn’t even try. “There’s nothing we can do to stop Samos. Not yet—”

I slap him across the face. His head moves with the momentum of the blow and stays that way, looking out to the horizon I refuse to see.

My voice cracks. “I’m not talking about Samos.”

“I didn’t know,” he says, the words soft on the ash wind. Sadly, I believe him. It makes it harder to stay angry, and without anger I have only fear and sorrow. “I really didn’t know.”

Tears burn salty tracks down my cheeks, and I hate myself for crying. I just watched who knows how many people die, and killed many of them myself. How can I shed tears over this? Over one person still breathing right before my eyes?

My voice hitches. “Is this the part where I ask you to choose me?”

Because it is a choice. He need only say no. Or yes. One word holds both our fates.

Choose me. Choose the dawn. He didn’t before. He has to now.

Shaking, I take his face in my hands and turn him to look at me. When he can’t, when his bronze eyes focus on my lips or my shoulder or the brand exposed to the warm air, something inside me breaks.

“I don’t have to marry her,” he murmurs. “That can be negotiated.”

“No, it can’t. You know it can’t.” I laugh coldly at his absurd posturing.

His eyes darken. “And you know what marriage is to us—to Silvers. It doesn’t mean anything. It has no bearing on what we feel, and who we feel for.”

“Do you really think it’s the marriage I’m angry about?” Rage boils in me, hot and wild and impossible to ignore. “Do you really think I have any ambition to be your—or anyone’s—queen?”

Warm fingers tremble against mine, their grip tightening as I start to slip away. “Mare, think of what I can do. What kind of king I can be.”

“Why does anyone need to be king at all?” I ask slowly, sharpening every word.

He has no answer.

In the palace, during my imprisonment, I learned that Maven had been made by his mother, formed into the monster he became. There is nothing on earth that can change him or what she did. But Cal was made too. All of us were made by someone else, and all of us have some thread of steel that nothing and no one can cut.

I thought Cal was immune to the corruptive temptation of power. How wrong I was.

He was born to be a king. It’s what he was made for. It’s what he was made to want.

“Tiberias.” I’ve never said his real name before. It doesn’t suit him. It doesn’t suit us. But that’s who he is. “Choose me.”

His hands smooth over mine, his fingers splaying to match my own. As he does, I shut my eyes. I allow myself one long second to memorize what he feels like. Like that day in Piedmont, when the rainstorm caught us both, I want to burn. I want to burn.

“Mare,” he whispers. “Choose me.”

Choose a crown. Choose another king’s cage. Choose a betrayal to everything you’ve bled for.

I find my thread of steel too. Thin but unbreakable.

“I am in love with you, and I want you more than anything else in the world.” His words sound hollow coming from me. “Anything else in this world.”

Slowly, my eyelids flutter open. He finds the spine to match my gaze.

“Think what we could do together,” he murmurs, trying to pull me closer. My feet hold firm. “You know what you are to me. Without you, I have no one. I am alone. I have nothing left. Don’t leave me alone.”

My breathing turns ragged.

I kiss him for what could be, what might be, what will be—the last time. His lips feel strangely cold as we both turn to ice.

“You aren’t alone.” The hope in his eyes cuts deeply. “You have your crown.”

I thought I knew what heartbreak was. I thought that was what Maven did to me. When he stood and left me kneeling. When he told me everything I ever thought him to be was a lie. But then, I believed I loved him.

I know now, I didn’t know what love was. Or what even the echo of heartbreak felt like.

To stand in front of a person who is your whole world and be told you are not enough. You are not the choice. You are a shadow to the person who is your sun.

“Mare, please.” He begs like a child in his desperation. “How did you think this was going to end? What did you really think would happen next?” I feel the heat of him even as every part of me goes cold. “You don’t have to do this.”

But I do.

I turn away, deaf to his protests. But he doesn’t try to stop me. He lets me walk away.

Blood drowns out everything but my screaming thoughts. Terrible ideas, hateful words, broken and twisted like a bird without wings. They limp by, each one worse than the last. Not a god’s chosen, but a god’s cursed. That’s what we all are.

It’s a wonder I don’t fall down the spiraling steps of the tower—a miracle I make it outside without collapsing. The sun overhead is hatefully bright, a harsh contrast to the abyss inside me. I shove a hand deep into my uniform pocket and barely register the sharp sting of something. It doesn’t take long to realize—the earring. The one Cal gave me. I almost laugh at the thought of it. Another broken promise. Another Calore betrayal.

A burning need to run tugs at my heart. I want Kilorn, I want Gisa. I want Shade to appear and tell me this is another dream. I imagine them beside me, their words and open arms a comfort.

Another voice drowns them out. It burns my insides.

Cal follows orders, but he can’t make choices.

I sigh at the thought of Maven’s words. Cal did make a choice. And in the deepest parts of myself, I’m not surprised. The prince is as he has always been. A good person at his core, but unwilling to act. Unwilling to truly change himself. The crown is in his heart, and hearts do not change.

Farley finds me in an alley, staring at a wall with blank eyes, my tears long since dried. She hesitates for once, her boldness long gone. Instead, she approaches with almost tender slowness, a hand outstretched to touch my shoulder.

“I didn’t know until you did,” she murmurs. “I swear it.”

The person she loved is dead, stolen by someone else. Mine chose to walk away. Chose everything I hate over everything I am. I wonder which hurts more.

Before I let myself relax into her, allow her to comfort me, I notice someone else standing nearby.

“I knew,” Premier Davidson says. It sounds like an apology. At first I feel another surge of anger, but it isn’t his fault. Cal didn’t have to agree. Cal didn’t have to let me go.

Cal didn’t have to eagerly leap into a well-baited trap.

“Divide and conquer,” I whisper, remembering his own words. The fog of heartbreak clears enough for me to understand. Montfort and the Scarlet Guard would never support a Silver king, not truly. Not without other motives in play.

Davidson nods his head. “It’s the only way to beat them.”

Samos, Calore, Cygnet. The Rift, Norta, the Lakelands. All driven by greed, all ready to break one another for an already-broken crown. All part of Montfort’s own plan. I force another breath, and try to recover. Try to forget Cal, forget Maven, focus on the road ahead. Where it leads, I don’t know.

Somewhere in the distance, somewhere in my bones, thunder rolls.

We’re going to let them kill each other.