give Maven the same treatment. He deserves something at least.
His stone is milky white, with rounded edges. The letters are cut deep, some already filled with dirt or dead grass. I clean them out with a few swipes of my fingers, shivering as I touch the cold, damp stone.
MAVEN CALORE
Beloved son, beloved brother.
Let no one follow.
He is without his title, with little more than his name. But every word on the stone is the truth. We loved him—and he strayed down a path no one else should pursue.
Even though I’m the only person on the island, the only one for miles and miles, I can’t find the strength to speak. My voice dies; my throat tightens. I couldn’t say good-bye to him if my own life depended on it. The words simply won’t come.
My chest tightens as I bend a knee, bowing over his grave. I keep one hand to the stone, letting it flood me with sickly cold. I expected fear—I’m standing over two corpses. Instead there is only grief.
I’m sorry races through my head, a hundred times, a thousand times. Memories of him flash just as quickly, from when he was a young boy to the last time I saw him, and sentenced him to die. I should have found another way. I curse myself, and not for the first time this morning. I could have kept him alive somehow. There was a chance. Even in Archeon, during the siege. Something could have been done. There must have been a way—and I just couldn’t find it.
Some days, Mare tells me to move past it. Not to forget, but to accept what has been done. Some days, she bleeds with me, retreating to blame herself as I do the same. And some days, I can only blame him, blame Elara, blame my father. I was just a boy too. What was I supposed to do?
The wind turns icy, a sudden gust howling through my jacket. I tighten against the cold, letting heat flood my chest.
Maybe I should have burned him. Given his body to flame, and let the rest of him go where it willed, carried on the wind.
But like always, I could not let him go. Even now, I cannot let Maven go.
I never will.
My face is already wet when the rain comes.
While the Nortan Civil War officially ended with the abdication of King Tiberias VII, dissolving the Kingdom of Norta as it was known, the cessation of hostilities did not occur until several years after. The conflict that followed was known as the Dancing War, as each side stepped when the other did, matching move for move in a stilted, halting fashion.
Only through the efforts of Montfort and the Scarlet Guard did the fledgling Nortan States manage to hold off invasion attempts from both the Lakelands and Piedmont. It was outwardly a defensive war, with the Nortan States maintaining their borders. However, the Scarlet Guard and General Diana Farley in particular were often accused of infiltration and interference within sovereign nations, attempting to encourage Red and newblood uprisings against Silver governments. The War of Red Thunder two decades later would bring those efforts to fruition.
Diplomatic maneuvers were also integral to maintaining a shaky peace in the eastern nations. The once Queen of the Rift, Evangeline Samos, was ultimately able to intervene on behalf of Montfort and the Nortan States. She treated with Queen Cenra and her successor, Queen Tiora, several times over the course of the Dancing War. Together with the former King of Norta, Tiberias Calore, she was also able to negotiate peace among the former Silver houses still chafing under reconstruction. Premier Leonide Radis, a Montfortan Silver who was elected to the office after Premier Dane Davidson, was a stalwart ally to the Silvers of Norta who gave up their titles.
By the time of Red Thunder, the Nortan States were largely settled, and therefore escaped much of the turmoil that gripped the Lakelands, Piedmont, and the territories of several Prairie warlords. Most notable in Red Thunder was obviously the Storm of the Citadel, an electricon mission to destroy the Lakelands’ largest military installation. In an assault led by Mare Barrow and Tyton Jesper, the fortress was torn apart by lightning.
The Nortan States were not without their own troubles before and during Red Thunder. There were several Silver-led efforts to return a Calore to the throne of Norta, largely in support of Tiberias Calore’s two children as they grew up. Both Shade Calore and Coriane Calore