Red Queen

That night I dream of my brother Shade coming to visit me in the darkness. He smells like gunpowder. But when I blink, he disappears and my mind screams what I already know. Shade is dead.

When morning comes, a series of shuffles and slams makes me bolt awake, sitting up in my bed. I expect to see Sentinels, Cal, or a murderous Ptolemus ready to rip me apart for what I’ve done, but it’s just the maids bustling in my closet. They look more harried than usual and pull down my clothes with abandon.

“What’s going on?”

In the closet, the girls freeze. They bow, hands full of silk and linen. As I come closer, I realize they’re standing over a set of leather trunks. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Orders, my lady,” one says, her eyes lowered. “We only know what we’re told.”

“Of course. Well, I’m just going to get dressed then.” I reach for the nearest outfit, intending to do something for myself for once, but the maids beat me to it.

Five minutes later, they have me painted and ready, dressed in odd leather pants and a flouncy shirt. I’d much prefer my training suit over everything else, but it’s apparently not “proper” to wear the thing outside of sessions.

“Lucas?” I ask the empty hallway, half expecting him to pop out from an alcove.

But Lucas is nowhere to be found, and I head off to Protocol, expecting him to cross my path. When he doesn’t, a trill of fear ripples through me. Julian made him forget last night, but maybe something slipped through the cracks. Maybe he’s being questioned, punished, for the night he can’t remember and what we forced him to do.

But I’m not alone for long. Maven steps into my path, his lips quirked into an amused smile.

“You’re up early.” Then he leans in, speaking in a low whisper. “Especially for having such a late night.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I try for an innocent tone.

“The prisoners are gone. All three of them, disappeared into thin air.”

I put a hand to my heart, letting myself look shocked for the cameras. “By my colors! A few Reds, escaped from us? That seems impossible.”

“It does indeed.” Though the smile remains, his eyes darken slightly. “Of course, that brings everything into question. The power outages, the failing security system, not to mention a troop of Sentinels with blank spots across their memories.” He stares pointedly at me.

I return his sharp glance, letting him see my unease. “Your mother . . . interrogated them.”

“She did.”

“And will she be talking to”—I choose my words very carefully—“anyone else regarding the escape? Officers, guards—?”

Maven shakes his head. “Whoever did this did it well. I helped her with the questioning and directed her to anyone of suspicion.” Directed. Directed away from me. I breathe a small sigh of relief and squeeze his arm, thanking him for his protection. “Besides, we may never find who did it. People have been fleeing since last night. They think the Hall is no longer safe.”

“After last night, they’re probably right.” I slip my arm into his, drawing him closer. “What did your mother learn of the bomb?”

His voice drops to a whisper. “There was no bomb.” What? “It was an explosion, but it was also an accident. A bullet punctured a gas line in the floor, and when Cal’s fire hit it . . .” He trails off, letting his hands do the talking. “It was Mother’s idea to use that to our, ah, advantage.”

We don’t kill without purpose. “She’s turning the Guard into monsters.”

He nods gravely. “No one will want to stand with them. Not even Reds.”

My blood seems to boil. More lies. She’s beating us without firing a shot or drawing a blade. Words are all she needs. And now I’m being sent deeper into her world, to Archeon.

You won’t see your family again. Gisa will grow, until you don’t recognize her anymore. Bree and Tramy will marry, have children, and forget you. Dad will die slowly, suffocated by his wounds, and when he’s gone, Mom will slip away too.

Maven lets me think, his eyes thoughtful as he watches the emotions rise in my face. He always lets me think. Sometimes his silence is better than anyone else’s words.

“How long do we have left here?”

“We go this afternoon. Most of the court is leaving before that, but we have to take the boat. Keep some tradition in all this madness.”

When I was a little girl, I used to sit on my porch and watch the pretty boats pass, heading downriver to the capital. Shade would laugh at me for wanting to catch a glimpse of the king. I didn’t realize then it was just part of the pageant, another display just like the arena fights, to show exactly how low we were in the grand scheme of the world. Now I’m going to be part of it again, this time standing on the other side.

“At least you’ll get to see your home again, if only for a little while,” he adds, trying to be gentle. Yes, Maven, that’s just what I want. To stand and watch my home and my old life pass by.

But that’s the price I must pay. Freeing Kilorn and the others means losing my last few days in the valley, and it’s a trade I’m happy to make.

We’re interrupted by a loud crash from a nearby passage, the one leading to Cal’s room. Maven reacts first, moving to the edge of the hall before I can, like he’s trying to protect me from something.

“Bad dreams, brother?” he calls out, worried by what he sees.

In response, Cal steps out into the hallway, his fists clenched, like he’s trying to keep his own hands in check. Gone is the bloodstained uniform, replaced by what looks like Ptolemus’s armor, though Cal’s has a reddish tint.

I want to slap him, to claw at him and scream for what he did to Farley and Tristan and Kilorn and Walsh. The sparks dance inside me, begging to be loosed. But after all, what did I expect? I know what he is and what he believes in—Reds are not worth saving. So I speak as civilly as I can.

“Will you be leaving with your legion?” I know he isn’t, judging by the livid anger in his eyes. Once, I feared he would go, and now I wish he would. I can’t believe I cared about saving him. I can’t believe that was ever a thought in my head.

Cal heaves a breath. “The Shadow Legion isn’t going anywhere. Father will not allow it. Not now. It’s too dangerous, and I’m too valuable.”

“You know he’s right.” Maven puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder, trying to calm him. I remember watching Cal do the same thing to Maven, but now the crown is on a different head. “You are the heir. He can’t afford to lose you too.”

“I’m a soldier,” Cal spits, shrugging away from his brother’s touch. “I can’t just sit by and let others fight for me. I won’t do it.”

He sounds like a child whining for a toy—he must enjoy killing. It makes me sick. I don’t speak, letting the diplomatic Maven talk for me. He always knows what to say.

“Find another cause. Build another cycle, double your training, drill your men, prepare yourself for when the danger passes. Cal, you can do a thousand other things, and none of them end with you being killed in some kind of ambush!” he says, glaring up at his brother. Then he smirks, trying to lighten the mood. “You never change, Cal. You just can’t sit still.”

After a moment of harsh silence, Cal breaks into a weak smile. “Never.” His eyes flick to me, but I won’t get caught in his bronze stare, not again.

I turn my head, pretending to examine a painting on the wall. “Nice armor,” I sneer. “It will go well with your collection.”

He looks stung, even confused, but quickly recovers. His smile is gone now, replaced by narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. He taps at his armor; it sounds like claws on stone. “This was a gift from Ptolemus. I seem to share a common cause with my betrothed’s brother.” My betrothed. Like that’s supposed to make me jealous or something.

Maven eyes the armor warily. “What do you mean?”

“Ptolemus commands the officers in the capital. Together with me and my legion, we might be able to do something of use, even within the city.”

Cold fear steals into my heart again, brushing away whatever hope and happiness last night’s success brought me. “And what is that, exactly?” I hear myself breathe.

“I’m a good hunter. He’s a good killer.” Cal takes a step backward, walking away from us.

I can feel him slipping down not just the hall but a dark and twisted path. It makes me afraid for the boy who taught me how to dance. No, not for him. Of him. And that is worse than all my other terrors and nightmares.

“Between the two of us, we’ll root out the Scarlet Guard. We’ll end this rebellion once and for all.”

There’s no schedule for today, as everyone is too busy leaving to teach or train. Fleeing might be a better word, because that’s certainly what this looks like from my vantage point in the entrance hall. I used to think the Silvers were untouchable gods who were never threatened, never scared. Now I know the opposite is true. They’ve spent so long at the top, protected and isolated, that they’ve forgotten they can fall. Their strength has become their weakness.

Once, I was afraid of these walls, frightened by such beauty. But I see the cracks now. It’s like the day of the bombing, when I realized Silvers were not invincible. Then it was an explosion—now a few bullets have shattered diamondglass, revealing fear and paranoia beneath. Silvers fleeing from Reds—lions running from mice. The king and queen oppose each other, the court has their own alliances, and Cal—the perfect prince, the good soldier—is a torturous, terrible enemy. Anyone can betray anyone.

Cal and Maven bid everyone good-bye, doing their duty despite the organized chaos. The airships wait not far off, the whir of their engines audible even inside. I want to see the great machines up close, but moving would mean braving the crowd, and I can’t stomach the stares of the grief-stricken. All together, twelve died last night, but I refuse to learn their names. I can’t have them weighing on me, not when I need my wits more than ever.

When I can’t watch any longer, my feet take me where they will, wandering through now familiar passages. Chambers close as I pass, being shut up for the season, until the court returns. I won’t, I know. Servants pull white sheets over the furniture and paintings and statues, until the whole place looks haunted by ghosts.

It’s not long before I find myself standing in the doorway of Julian’s old classroom, and the sight shocks me. The stacks of books, the desk, even the maps are gone. The room looks larger but feels smaller. It once held whole worlds but now holds only dust and crumpled paper. My eyes linger on the wall where the huge map used to be. Once I couldn’t understand it; now I remember it like an old friend.

Norta, the Lakelands, Piedmont, Prairie, Tiraxes, Montfort, Ciron, and all the disputed lands in between. Other countries, other peoples, all torn along the lines of blood just like us. If we change, will they? Or will they try to destroy us too?

“I hope you’ll remember your lessons.” Julian’s voice draws me out of my thoughts, back to the empty room. He stands behind me, following my gaze to the map wall. “I’m sorry I couldn’t teach you more.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for Lessons in Archeon.”

His smile is bittersweet and almost painful to look at. With a jolt I realize I can feel cameras watching us for the very first time. “Julian?”

“The archivists in Delphie have offered me a position restoring some old texts.” The lie is as plain as the nose on his face. “Seems they’ve been digging through the Wash and came on some storage bunkers. Mountains to go through, apparently.”

“You’ll like that very much.” My voice catches in my throat. You knew he would have to leave. You forced him into this last night, when you put his life in danger for Kilorn’s. “Will you visit, when you can?”

“Yes, of course.” Another lie. Elara will figure out his role soon enough, and then he’ll be on the run. It only makes sense to get a head start. “I’ve gotten you something.”

I’d rather have Julian than any gift, but I try to look thankful anyways. “Is it good advice?”

He shakes his head, smiling. “You’ll see when you get to the capital.” Then he stretches out his arms, beckoning to me. “I have to go, so send me off properly.”

Hugging him is like hugging my father or the brothers I’ll never see again. I don’t want to let him go, but the danger is too great for him to stay and we both know it.

“Thank you, Mare,” he whispers in my ear. “You remind me so much of her.” I don’t need to ask to know he’s talking about Coriane, about the sister he lost so long ago. “I’ll miss you, little lightning girl.”

Right now, the nickname doesn’t sound so bad.

I don’t have the strength to marvel at the boat, driven through the water by electric engines. Black, silver, and red flags flap from every pole, marking this as the king’s ship. When I was a girl, I use to wonder why the king laid claim to our color. It was just so beneath him. Now I realize the flags are red like his flame, like the destruction—and the people—he controls.

“The Sentinels from last night have been reassigned,” Maven mutters as we walk along a deck.

Reassigned is just a fancy word for punished. Remembering Pig-Eyes and the way he looked at me, I’m not sorry at all. “Where did they go?”

“The front, of course. They’ll be attached to some rabble group, to captain injured, incapable, or bad-tempered soldiers. Those are usually the first to be sent in a trench push.” By the shadows behind his eyes, I can tell Maven knows this firsthand.

“The first to die.”

He nods solemnly.

“And Lucas? I haven’t seen him since yesterday—”

“He’s all right. Traveling with House Samos, regrouping with family. The shooting has everyone on their heels, even the High Houses.”

Relief washes over me, as well as sadness. I miss Lucas already, but it’s good to know he’s safe and far from Elara’s prying.

Maven bites his lip, looking subdued. “But not for long. Answers are coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“They found blood down in the cells. Red blood.”

My gunshot wound is gone, but the memory of the pain has not faded. “So?”

“So whichever friend of yours had the misfortune to be wounded won’t be a secret much longer, if the bloodbase does its job.”

“Bloodbase?”

“The blood database. Any Red born within a hundred miles of civilization gets sampled at birth. Started out as a project to understand exactly what the difference is between us, but it ended up just another way to put a collar on your people. In the bigger cities, Reds don’t use ID cards but blood tags. They’re sampled at every gate, coming and going. Tracked like animals.”

Briefly, I think of the old documents the king threw at me that day in the throne room. My name, my photograph, and a smear of blood were in there.

My blood. They have my blood.

“And they—they can figure out whose blood it is, just like that?”

“It takes some time, a week or so, but yes, that’s how it’s supposed to work.” His eyes fall to my shaking hands, and he covers them with his own, letting warmth bleed into my suddenly cold skin. “Mare?”

“He shot me,” I whisper. “The Sentinel shot me. It’s my blood they found.”

And then his hands are just as cold as mine.

For all his clever ideas, Maven has nothing to say to this. He just stares, his breath coming in tiny, scared puffs. I know the look on his face; I wear it every time I’m forced to say good-bye to someone.

“It’s too bad we didn’t stay longer,” I murmur, looking out at the river. “I would have liked to die close to home.”

Another breeze sends a curtain of my hair across my face, but Maven brushes it away and pulls me close with startling ferocity.

Oh.

His kiss is not at all like his brother’s. Maven is more desperate, surprising himself as much as me. He knows I’m sinking fast, a stone dropping through the river. And he wants to drown with me.

“I will fix this,” he murmurs against my lips. I have never seen his eyes so bright and sharp. “I won’t let them hurt you. You have my word.”

Part of me wants to believe him. “Maven, you can’t fix everything.”

“You’re right, I can’t,” he replies, an edge to his voice. “But I can convince someone with more power than me.”

“Who?”

When the temperature around us rises, Maven pulls back, his jaw tense and clenched. The way his eyes flash, I half expect him to attack whoever interrupted us. I don’t turn around, mostly because I can’t feel my limbs. I’ve gone numb, though my lips still tingle with memory. What this means, I don’t know. What I feel, I can’t begin to understand.

“The queen requests your presence on the viewing deck.” Cal’s voice grinds like stone. He sounds almost angry, but his bronze eyes look sad, defeated even. “Passing the Stilts, Mare.”

Yes, the shoreline is already familiar to me. I know that mangled tree, that stretch of bank, and the echo of saws and falling trees is unmistakable. This is home. With great pain, I force myself away from the rail to face Cal, who seems to be having a silent conversation with his brother.

“Thank you, Cal,” I murmur, still trying to process Maven’s kiss and, of course, my own impending doom.

Cal walks away, his usually straight back bowed. Each footfall sends a pang of guilt through me, making me remember our dance and our own kiss. I hurt everyone, especially myself.

Maven stares after his fleeing brother. “He does not like to lose. And”—he lowers his voice, now so close to me I can see the tiny flecks of silver in his eyes—“neither do I. I won’t lose you, Mare. I won’t.”

“You’ll never lose me.”

Another lie, and we both know it.

The viewing deck dominates the front of the ship, enclosed by glass stretching from side to side. Brown shapes take form on the riverbank, and the old hill with the arena appears out of the trees. We’re too far from the bank to see anyone properly, but I know my house in an instant. The old flag still flutters on the porch, still embroidered with three red stars. One has a black stripe through it, in honor of Shade. Shade was executed. You’re supposed to rip a star off after that. But they didn’t. They held on to him in their own little rebellion.

I want to point my home out to Maven, to tell him about the village. I’ve seen his life, and now I want to show him mine. But the viewing deck is silent, all of us staring at the village as we come closer and closer. The villagers don’t care about you, I want to scream. Only fools will stop to watch. Only the fools will waste a moment on you.

As the boat continues on, I begin to think the whole village might be made of fools. All two thousand of them seem crowded onto the bank. Some stand ankle-deep in the river. From this distance, they all look the same. Fading hair and worn clothes, blotchy skinned, tired, hungry—all the things I used to be.

And angry. Even from the boat, I can feel their anger. They don’t cheer or call out our names. No one waves. No one even smiles.

“What is this?” I breathe, expecting no one to answer.

But the queen does, with great relish. “Such a waste, parading down the river when no one will watch. It seems we’ve fixed that.”

Something tells me this is another mandatory event, like the fights, like the broadcasts. Officers tore sick elders from their beds and exhausted workers from the floor, forcing them to watch us.

A whip cracks somewhere on the bank, followed closely by a woman’s scream. “Stay in line!” echoes over the crowd. Their eyes never falter, staring straight ahead, so still that I can’t even see where the disruption was. What happened to make them so lenient? What has already been done?

Tears prick at my eyes as I watch. There are more cracks and a few babies wail, but no one on the bank protests. Suddenly I’m at the edge of the deck, wanting to burst through the glass with every inch of myself.

“Going somewhere, Mareena?” Elara purrs from her place next to the king. She sips placidly at a drink, surveying me over the rim of her glass.

“Why are you doing this?”

Arms crossed over her magnificent gown, Evangeline eyes me with a sneer. “Why do you care?” But her words fall on deaf ears.

“They know what happened at the Hall, they might even agree with it, so they need to see that we aren’t defeated,” Cal murmurs, his eyes on the riverbank. He can’t even look at me, the coward. “We aren’t even bleeding.”

Another whip cracks and I flinch, almost feeling the lash on my skin. “Did you order them to be beaten as well?”

He doesn’t rise to my challenge, jaw firmly clenched shut. But when another villager cries out, protesting against the officers, he lets his eyes close.

“Stand back, Lady Titanos.” The king’s voice rumbles like faraway thunder, an order if there ever was one. I can almost feel his smug smile when I step away, moving back to Maven. “This is a Red village, you know that better than us all. They harbor these terrorists, feed them, protect them, become them. They are children who have done wrong. And they must learn.”

I open my mouth to argue, but the queen bares her teeth. “Perhaps you know of a few who should be made an example of?” she says calmly, gesturing to the shoreline.

The words die in my throat, chased away by her threat. “No, Your Majesty, I don’t.”

“Then stand back and be silent.” Then she grins. “For your time to speak will come.”

This is what they need me for. A moment like this, when the scales could tip out of their favor. But I can’t protest. I can only do as she commands and watch as my home fades out of sight. Forever.

The closer we get to the capital, the larger the villages become. Soon the landscape fades from lumber and farming communities to proper towns. They center around massive mills, with brick homes and dormitories to house the Red laborers. Like the other villages, their inhabitants stand in the streets to watch us pass. Officers bark, whips crack, and I never get used to it. I flinch every time.

Then the towns are replaced by sprawling estates and mansions, palaces like the Hall. Made of stone and glass and swirling marble, each one seems more magnificent than the last. Their lawns slope to the river, decorated with greenwarden gardens and beautiful fountains. The houses themselves look like the work of gods, each one a different kind of beautiful. But the windows are dark, the doors closed. Where the villages and towns were full of people, these seem devoid of life. Only the flags flying high, one over each structure, let me know someone lives there at all. Blue for House Osanos, silver for Samos, brown for Rhambos, and so on. Now I know the colors by heart, putting faces to each silent home. I even killed the owners of a few.

“River Row,” Maven explains. “The country residences, should a lord or lady wish to escape the city.”

My gaze lingers on the Iral home, a columned wonder of black marble. Stone panthers guard the porch, snarling up at the sky. Even the statues put a chill in me, making me remember Ara Iral and her pressing questions.

“There’s no one here.”

“The houses are empty most of the year, and no one would dare leave the city now, not with this Guard business.” He offers me a small, bitter smile. “They would rather hide behind their diamond walls and let my brother do their fighting for them.”

“If only no one had to fight at all.”

He shakes his head. “It does no good to dream.”

We watch in silence as River Row falls behind us and another forest rises up on the banks. The trees are strange, very tall with black bark and dark red leaves. It is deathly quiet, as no forest should be. Not even birdsong breaks the silence, and overhead, the sky darkens, but not from the waning afternoon light. Black clouds gather, hovering over the trees like a thick blanket.

“And what’s this?” Even my voice sounds muffled, and I’m suddenly glad for the glass casing over the deck. To my surprise the others have gone, leaving us alone to watch the gloom settle.

Maven glances at the forest, face pulled in distaste. “Barrier trees. They keep the pollution from traveling farther upriver. The Welle greenwardens made them years ago.”

Choppy brown waves foam against the boat, leaving a film of black grime on the gleaming steel hull. The world takes on a strange tint, like I’m looking through dirty glass. The low-lying clouds aren’t clouds at all but smoke pouring from a thousand chimneys, obscuring the sky. Gone are the trees and the grass—this is a land of ash and decay.

“Gray Town,” Maven murmurs.

Factories stretch out as far as I can see, dirty and massive and humming with electricity. It hits me like a fist, almost knocking me off my feet. My heart tries to keep up with the unearthly pulse and I have to sit down, feeling my blood race.

I thought my world was wrong, that my life was unfair. But I could never even dream of a place like Gray Town.

Power stations glow in the gloom, pulsing electric blue and sickly green into the spider-work of wires in the air. Transports piled high with cargo move along the raised roads, shuttling goods from one factory to another. They scream at one another in a noisy mess of tangled traffic, moving like sluggish black blood in gray veins. Worst of all, little houses surround each factory in an ordered square, one on top of the other, with narrow streets in between. Slums.

Beneath such a smoky sky, I doubt the workers ever see daylight. They walk between the factories and their homes, flooding the streets during a shift change. There are no officers, no cracking whips, no blank stares. No one is making them watch us pass. The king doesn’t need to show off here, I realize. They are broken from birth.

“These are the techies,” I whisper hoarsely, remembering the name the Silvers so blithely toss around. “They make the lights, the cameras, the video screens—”

“The guns, the bullets, the bombs, the ships, the transports,” Maven adds. “They keep the power running. They keep our water clean. They do everything for us.”

And they receive nothing but smoke in return.

“Why don’t they leave?”

He just shrugs. “This is the only life they know. Most techies will never leave their own alley. They can’t even conscript.”

Can’t even conscript. Their lives are so terrible that the war is a better alternative, and they’re not even allowed to go.

Like everything else on the river, the factories fade away, but the image stays with me. I must not forget this, something tells me. I must not forget them.

Stars wait for us beyond another forest of barrier trees, and beneath them: Archeon. At first I don’t see the capital at all, mistaking its lights for blazing stars. As we sail closer and closer, my jaw drops.

A triple-layered bridge runs across the wide river, linking the two cities on either side. It’s thousands of feet long and thriving, alive with light and electricity. There are shops and market squares, all built into the Bridge itself a hundred feet above the river. I can just picture the Silvers up there, drinking and eating and looking down on the world from their place on high. Transports blaze along the lowest tier of the Bridge, their headlamps like red and white comets cutting through the night.

Both ends of the Bridge are gated, and the city sectors on either side are walled in. On the east bank, great metal towers stab out of the ground like swords to pierce the sky, all crowned with gleaming giant birds of prey. More transports and people populate the paved streets that climb up the hilly riverbanks, connecting the buildings to the Bridge and the outer gates.

The walls are diamondglass, like back at the Hall, but set with floodlit metal towers and other structures. There are patrols on the walls, but their uniforms are not the flaming red of Sentinels or the stark black of Security. They wear uniforms of clouded silver and white, almost blending into the cityscape. They are soldiers, and not the kind who dance with ladies. This is a fortress.

Archeon was built to endure war, not peace.

On the western bank, I recognize the Royal Court and the Treasury Hall from the bombing footage. Both are made from gleaming white marble and fully repaired, even though they were attacked barely more than a month ago. It feels like a lifetime. They flank Whitefire Palace, a building even I know on sight. My old teacher used to say it was carved from the hillside itself, a living piece of the white stone. Flames made of gold and pearl flash atop the surrounding walls.

I try to take it in, my eyes darting between both ends of the Bridge, but my mind just can’t fathom this place. Overhead, airships move slowly through the night sky, while airjets fly even higher, as fast as shooting stars. I thought the Hall of the Sun was a wonder; apparently I never knew the meaning of the word.

But I can’t find anything beautiful here, not when the smoky, dark factories are only a few miles back. The contrast between the Silver city and the Red slum sets my teeth on edge. This is the world I’m trying to bring down, the world trying to kill me and everything I care about. Now I truly see what I’m fighting against and how difficult, how impossible, it will be to win. I’ve never felt smaller than I do now, with the great bridge looming above us. It looks ready to swallow me whole.

But I have to try. If only for Gray Town, for the ones who have never seen the sun.