War Storm
Page 138

I push through it and pry his fingers off, biting where I must, until the dagger is mine. It’s slick with his blood and mine, silver and red, darker by the second.
Suddenly his other hand is around my throat, squeezing without any restraint, crushing the air from my windpipe. He’s heavier than me and uses his weight to fling me onto my back. One of his knees digs into my shoulder, keeping my dagger arm pinned. The other presses into my collarbone, right over the brand he gave me. It shrieks and stings beneath the pressure, and I feel the bone crack with an agonizing slowness.
It’s my turn to scream.
“I tried, Mare,” he hisses, his cold breath washing over my face. Still struggling for air, I can’t do much more than gasp and choke. My vision splits and spots, leaving only his eyes above me. Too blue, too frozen, inhuman in their blankness. They are not the eyes of a fire prince. This is not Maven Calore. That boy is gone, lost. Whoever he was born as will not be buried with him.
My neck aches, bruising beneath his fingers as blood vessels burst. I can barely think, my mind narrowing to the dagger still clenched in my fist. I try to raise my arm again, but Maven’s weight makes it impossible.
Tears prick at my eyes when I realize this is how it ends. No lightning, no thunder. I’ll die a Red girl, one of thousands crushed beneath a Silver crown.
Maven’s grip on my throat never loosens. If anything, it becomes tighter, crushing the muscles in my neck until I feel like my spine might snap clean. The world dims, the spots across my vision spreading like black rot.
But Maven leans. Slightly, in the smallest way. Putting more pressure on my broken collarbone. And less on my shoulder.
Enough to free my arm.
I don’t think. I just swing wildly, blade ready, as his eyes fade.
They seem sad and . . .
Satisfied.
Before I open my eyes, I’m intensely aware of how big my tongue feels in my mouth. An odd thing to fixate on, against everything else. I try to swallow, which only exacerbates the pain in my throat. It flares up, angry, as the muscles in my neck scream in protest. I tense against the pain, limbs shifting beneath the blanket of the bed . . . wherever I am.
“Give Sara a second,” I hear Kilorn say, his voice close at my ear. He stinks of sweat and smoke. “Don’t move if you can help it.”
“Okay,” I rasp, and that hurts worse than anything before.
He laughs a bit. “Don’t speak either. Might be a bit difficult for you.”
Normally, I’d hit him, or tell him how wretched he smells. But feeling rather restrained, I elect to keep my eyes shut and jaw clenched against the ache. Sara shuffles around the bed, her touch lingering as she weaves around to my left side.
She puts her blissful hands to my neck, and I realize that the gash on my ribs must be gone. I can’t feel it anymore.
She tips my head just so, forcing me to lift my chin in spite of the pain. I wince, hissing a little, and Kilorn puts a steadying hand on my wrist. Sara’s healing ability quickly mitigates my discomfort, pooling over the bruises and swelling.
“Your vocal cords aren’t as bad as I expected,” she muses. Sara Skonos has a lovely voice, light like a bell. After so many years without a tongue, one might think she would make up for lost time, but she still speaks sparingly, her words chosen with careful intention. “They won’t be difficult.”
“Take your time, Sara. No rush,” Kilorn mutters.
I snap my eyes open, glaring at him as he grins.
The lights above are bright, but not harsh, hardly the fluorescent sharpness one might expect from an infirmary. I blink, trying to place myself. With a jolt, I realize I’m not in the infirmary of the barracks at all, but in one of the palace bedrooms. No wonder the bed is so soft and the room is so quiet.
Kilorn lets me look around, giving me the space I need. I shift, turning my wrist so I can take his hand in mine. “So you’re still kicking around.” Already my throat hurts less, only twinging. Hardly enough to keep me quiet.
“In spite of my best efforts,” he replies, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I can see where he tried to wipe his face, leaving streaks of clean skin edged by dirt and blood. The rest of him is just as filthy, which makes him stand out like a sore thumb against the elegant trappings of the palatial bedroom. “Mostly, I just stayed out of the way.”
“Finally,” I mutter. Sara’s fingers continue their dance across my neck, spreading a soothing warmth. “Someone beat some sense into you.”
He chuckles. “It certainly took long enough.”
The smile, the easy manner on him, even the way he holds his shoulders without weight or tension—it can only mean one thing. “So I’m guessing we won,” I sigh, too surprised to even comprehend what that means. I have no idea what a real victory would even look like.
“Not entirely.” Kilorn rubs a hand over his dirty cheek, smearing the grime across the clean parts of him. Idiot, I think kindly. “The mersives were enough to scare off the armada, and the Lakelanders managed to limp back out to sea. I think the big shots are still negotiating a cease-fire now.”
I try to sit up a little, only to have Sara press me back down gently. “But not surrender?” I ask, forced to watch Kilorn from the corner of my eye.
He shrugs. “It could become one. But no one tells me much of anything,” he adds with a good-natured wink.
“A cease-fire isn’t permanent.” I grit my teeth, thinking of the Lakelanders returning a year from now. “They won’t let this last—”
“Could you just enjoy being alive for one damn second?” Kilorn chuckles, shaking his head at me. “You’ll at least be pleased to know there’s a joint effort under way to start cleanup of the city. Silver and Red.” He puffs out his chest, very proud of his report. “Cameron and her father are on their way down too. They’re coordinating with Cal for worker compensation.”
Worker compensation. Fair pay. A symbolic gesture, at the very least. Even if Cal is no longer a king, and whatever control he had over the country is gone. I doubt he has much, if any, say in what happens to the Treasury. And frankly, I’m not concerned with that right now.
Kilorn knows it. But he dances around the information I want, trying to lead me away.
Slowly, I shift my gaze to Sara as she works. Up close, she smells as soothing as her touch, carrying a fresh scent like clean linens. Her steel-gray eyes focus on my neck, finishing up the last of my bruises.
“Sara, do we have a casualty count?” I ask quietly.
Kilorn shifts uncomfortably in the chair next to my bed, coughing a little. He shouldn’t be surprised by the question.
Sara certainly isn’t. She doesn’t break her rhythm. “Don’t worry yourself with that,” the skin healer answers.
“Everyone’s alive,” Kilorn offers quickly. “Farley, Davidson. Cal.”
I already knew as much. He wouldn’t be smiling, and I would have woken up to a great deal more chaos, if any of them had died. No, he knows exactly what I’m asking. Who I’m asking about.
“All done,” Sara says, ignoring my question fully. Instead she offers a tight-lipped smile as she steps back from my bedside. “You should rest now. You need it, Mare Barrow.”
Nodding, I watch her go, seeing herself out of the bedroom with a sweep of her silvery clothing. Unlike the other healers I remember, she has no uniform to speak of anymore. Probably ruined in the battle, when she attended to so many dead or dying. The door closes softly behind her, leaving Kilorn and me to weather the heavy silence.