War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,161

rise, General Farley,” Maven says, addressing her first. I know what he’s trying to do. Put cracks in us before we’ve barely even sat down. “I wonder where you thought you would be now, if I were to ask you a year ago. What a journey.” His eyes tick between Farley and Ptolemus, the implication clear.

When I was his prisoner, he cracked my head open, looking through my memories with the help of a Merandus cousin. He saw Shade die at Ptolemus’s hands, and he knows what he meant to Farley. How much my brother left behind. It isn’t difficult for him to poke and prod at that open wound.

Farley bares her teeth, a predator even without her claws, but Cal answers before she can toss back acid. “I think all of us find ourselves in strange places,” he says, his voice stern and even. Diplomatic to the bone. I can’t imagine the effort it must require. “It isn’t often a Nortan king sits next to Lakelander queens.”

Maven only sneers. He’s far better at this than Cal will ever be. “It isn’t often firstborn sons sit anywhere but the throne. Eh, Brother?” he shoots back, and Cal shuts his mouth with an audible click. “What do you think of all this, Grandmother?” Maven adds, glaring daggers at Anabel. “Your own flesh and blood, warring with each other.”

She responds with equal venom. “You’re no blood of mine, boy. You lost the right when you helped kill my son.”

Maven just clucks, as if pitying her. “Cal raised that sword, not me,” he says, tipping his chin at the similar sword at Cal’s hip. “Such an imagination. Old women are so prone to their fancies.”

At his side, Queen Cenra arches a single, smooth eyebrow. She says nothing, letting Maven spin his web—or knot his own noose.

“Well,” he says, clapping his hands together. “I did not request this meeting. I believe that means you present whatever terms you came to offer. Surrender, perhaps?”

Cal shakes his head. “Yes. Yours.”

Laughter from Maven is an odd sound. Forced. The air pushed out, the sound calculated and formed, an imitation of what he thinks a laugh should sound like. It rankles his brother, and Cal shifts in his seat, uncomfortable.

Bracken doesn’t smile either. His lips tug into a scowl. He rests his chin on one balled fist. I don’t know his ability, but I assume it is a powerful one, restrained only by the Stone slowly choking all of us. “I did not come all this way, at such haste, to entertain nonsense, Tiberias Calore,” the prince says.

“It isn’t nonsense, Your Highness,” Cal replies, with a shallow dip of his head. Showing deference and respect.

In his seat, Maven scoffs low and deep. “You see my allies here.” He spreads his white hands wide. “Both Silver royals, with the might of their entire nations sworn to our cause. I hold the capital, the wealthiest lands of Norta—”

“You don’t hold the Rift,” Evangeline snaps, cutting him off. Despite the Stone, her metals are all in place. They’re truly made, locked into form, not held together by her ability alone. She prepared for this. As I should have. “You don’t hold Delphie. You lost Harbor Bay yesterday. You lose more, until all you have left are the people sitting next to you, with no way to repay what they give.” Her smile spreads, showing teeth capped with pointed silver. I think she would feast on his heart if she could. “You’ll be a king without a crown or a throne before long, Maven. Best give up while you still have something to bargain.”

Maven raises his nose. It makes him look like a petulant child. “I will bargain for nothing.”

“Not even your own life?” I mutter, my voice small but firm enough to carry. I keep still as he turns his eyes on me, letting the ice pour over my flesh. No flinching, no blinking. Get through it.

He just laughs again. “Your bluff is entertaining, to say the least,” he chuckles. “I see what you have, who you’ve swayed to your side. State your terms, Cal. Or go back to Harbor Bay and force us to kill you all.”

“Very well,” Cal replies. His fist clenches. If not for the Stone, he would probably burst into flame. “Step down, Maven. Step down, and I’ll let you live.”

“This is ridiculous,” Maven sighs, rolling his eyes at Iris. She doesn’t return the gesture.

Cal forges on, undeterred. “The alliance with the Lakelands and Piedmont will stand.