War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,154

service.

I could wear a potato sack and Maven would still devour me with his eyes.

Yawning, I pad across the room and into the bathroom for a quick, blistering-hot shower. Part of me wishes Cal would join in, but he stays behind, and I scrub the last of my aches away alone. After, I enter the salon to find a rainbow in the semidarkness. With a slight burst of concentration, I make the electric lights flicker to life overhead, illuminating the chamber full of various garments. I’m glad for the wide choice of clothing, but even more grateful for the emptiness of the salon. No maids to attend to my hair and face, no healers to work away the gnawing exhaustion or liven up my body. I’m given only what I need, and exactly what I want.

If only Cal could do that in all things.

I try not to think beyond this morning. He still hasn’t turned away from the crown, and I am still just as dedicated to my cause, if not more so. I can’t still be in love with a king, when everything I’m doing is to destroy his throne. Destroy all notions of kings and queens and the kingdoms at the mercy of their will. But the love just won’t go away, and neither will the need.

I wonder who laid out the variety of clothing, draping chairs and couches with a selection of gowns, suits, blouses, skirts, and pants, with no fewer than six different pairs of shoes on the floor beside them. Many of them are gold, either patterned in dusty yellow or trimmed with the colors of Cal’s mother. She was a thin woman, judging by the narrow waistlines of her dresses. Smaller than I would expect for the mother of the man in the room behind me. I avoid her clothing as best I can and search for something that doesn’t carry the weight of a dead woman.

I settle for a flowing dress belted at the waist, dyed a deep, rich navy blue. The colors of someone else’s mother. It’s velvet, and I’ll certainly sweat out of it later on, but the neckline, a gentle swoop below my collarbone, puts my brand on full display. Let Maven see what he’s done to me and never forget what kind of monster he is. I feel stronger as I pull it on, as if the dress is some kind of armor.

I can only imagine what kind of elegant monstrosity Evangeline will pull together for the meeting. Perhaps a gown of razor blades. I hope she does. Evangeline Samos excels in moments such as these, and I can’t wait to unleash her on her former betrothed, unbridled by any kind of etiquette or scheme.

When I finish, I comb out my drying hair, letting it fall loose about my shoulders. The gray ends gleam in the lamplight, sharp in contrast to the brown. I am a strange-looking person, I think as I examine myself in a mirror. A Red girl in Silver finery never ceases to surprise me. My skin glows golden with the low light, stubbornly alive and stubbornly Red. I’m less haggard than I thought, my brown eyes luminous with both fear and determination.

I draw some comfort from knowing that Cal’s mother, though she was Silver, wasn’t fitted to this life either. It’s written so clearly in the portrait of her, which lies against the far wall, nestled next to a pair of ornate chairs.

I wonder where Cal will hang her. Out of sight, or always in reach?

Coriane Jacos had soft blue eyes, if the painting is a good likeness. Like a sky before dawn, the haze of blue upon a horizon. Almost colorless, drained of a deeper shade. She looks more like Julian than like her son. Both have the same chestnut hair, hers curling artfully over one shoulder, well dressed with creamy pearls and gold chain. Their faces are similar too. Drawn, older than their years. But while Julian’s strain has always seemed pleasant, the accepted frustration of a scholar constantly working a puzzle, Coriane’s looks bone-deep. She was a sad woman, I’m told, and it shows even in her portrait.

“Elara killed her,” Cal says from the doorway to his bedchamber. He adjusts the cape draped over one shoulder, clasped in silver and glinting chips of black gemstones. In his other hand, he holds a black crown, half hidden like an afterthought. A sword hangs from the belt at his waist, tucked into a sheath