War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,138

what an admission it is. He’s tired. He’s wounded. Maybe not in body, but somewhere deep, where no one can see. The rigid set of his shoulders, his familiar posture, slumps beneath the ruby-red pauldrons of his armor. Releasing some weight. Or giving in to it.

Somehow, all thoughts of his corpse come rushing back. Dread pools in me, threatening to fill me up and drag me down.

I step forward, meaning to stay, but the crowd works against me. As does Evangeline. She takes me under my arm, her decorative claws still donned and digging into soft flesh. I grit my teeth, letting her lead me out of his chambers, not wanting to cause a fuss or a scene. Julian passes by us with a single raised eyebrow, surprised to see us in such close confidence. I try to communicate with my eyes. Try to ask for some help or guidance. But he turns away before he knows what I want. Or he simply doesn’t want to give it.

We pass the guards again, the Lerolans looking like Sentinels in their colors of red and orange. Perhaps that’s where the robes first came from. I look back, over the heads of Silver lords and Red officers. Farley’s blond hair glints somewhere, with Ptolemus Samos keeping a safe distance from her. I see Anabel, watching like a hawk. She plants herself in front of the door to Tiberias’s bedchamber. He slips behind it, out of sight without so much as a backward glance.

“Don’t argue,” Evangeline hisses in my ear.

On instinct, I open my mouth to do just that. But I cut myself off as she drags me sideways, out of the crowd and into the corridor.

Even though we’re as safe as possible for the circumstances, my heart beats a ragged rhythm in my chest. “You said yourself, locking us in a closet together wouldn’t work.”

“I’m not locking anyone anywhere,” she whispers back. “I’m just showing you the door.”

We turn and turn, taking the side stairs and servants’ passages far too slowly and too quickly for my liking. My inner compass spins, and I think we’re almost where we started when she halts within a dimly lit passage, almost too narrow for us to squeeze through.

With a ripple of unease, I think of my earring. The one I’m not wearing. A bloodred stone, tucked away in a box in Montfort, hidden from the world.

On my right, Evangeline lays her palm against an old door, rusted over from disuse. The hinges and lock have gone dark red, crusting like dried blood. With a flick of her fingers, the metal spins, shedding the rust like droplets of water.

“This will take you—”

“I know where it’s going to take me,” I reply, almost too fast. I suddenly feel like I’ve run a mile.

Her grin sets me on edge, and almost makes me turn around. Almost.

“Very well,” she says, taking a step back. Her hand brushes through the air, gesturing to the door like it’s a priceless gift. Instead of the naked manipulation it is. “Do what you want, lightning girl. Go where you please. No one will stop you.”

I have no clever response for her. All I can do is watch her slink away, eager to be rid of me. Elane must be on her way to the city to help celebrate this victory. I find myself envying them. They’re on the same side, at least, allied despite the impossibilities stacked against them. Both Silver, both raised noble. They know each other in a way Tiberias and I could never. They are the same, equals. He and I are not.

I should turn around.

But I’m already through the door, pushing through the semidarkness of a forgotten passage, my fingertips brushing along cool stone. A light bleeds ahead, closer than I thought it would be. Outlining another door.

Turn around.

My hands flatten against the wood, a smooth cut, uniquely carved. I trace the panels for a moment, on edge. I know where this path leads, and who waits on the other side. Footsteps sound inside the room, making me jump as they pass. Then a chair creaks as a heavy weight sits. Two thumps announce his boots as he kicks them up on a desk or table. And then a long, lingering sigh. Not the satisfied kind. Full of frustration. Full of pain.

Turn around.

The knob moves in my hand, as if of its own volition, and I step out blinking into the soft light of afternoon. Tiberias’s bedchamber here is large