War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,197

After that, the conversation becomes far more pleasant.

Servants, kindly and smiling, bring up a sizable spread for dinner. The food is simple, but rich and tasty, ranging from fried chicken to sugary, dark purple berries spread over toast. The food is mostly for my benefit and Kilorn’s, but Bree and Tramy help themselves to full portions. Gisa favors a tray of fruits and cheeses, while Dad fixes himself a plate of cold meats and crackers to share with Mom. We eat slowly, talking more than chewing. I mostly listen, letting my siblings regale me with stories of their explorations throughout Ascendant. Bree swims in the lake every morning. Sometimes he wakes up Tramy with it too, dumping a bottle of icy water on his head. Gisa has an almost scientific knowledge of the shops and markets, as well as the grounds of the premier’s compound. She likes to walk the high meadows with Tramy, while Mom prefers the gardens in the city, terraced down the slopes. Dad has been honing his walking abilities, going deeper and deeper into the valley every day, strengthening his new muscles and relearning two legs with every step down and every step back up.

Kilorn fills in as well as he can, detailing our exploits since we left Montfort last. It’s a sparse recollection, and he is gracious enough to leave out the more embarrassing or upsetting details. Including any mention of Cameron Cole. For Gisa’s sake, but judging by the way she spoke about a young girl and the jeweler’s shop she worked in, I think her old crush on my best friend has passed.

Eventually my eyelids begin to droop. It’s been a long, difficult day. I try not to remember how I woke up this morning, in the dark of Cal’s royal bedchamber, his blankets over my body. Tonight I’ll sleep in a bed by myself. Not alone, though. Gisa will be just across the room. I still can’t sleep without someone else there. Or, at least, I haven’t tried since I escaped Maven’s imprisonment.

Don’t think about him.

I chant it to myself as I prepare for bed, repeating the words over and over.

Cal’s face seems burned against my eyelids, while Maven haunts even my fleeting, distant dreams. Those stupid boys. They never leave me alone.

In the morning, my nerves twitch with energy. It’s a constant pull, a tug behind my stomach, like someone has a hook around my spine. I know where it wants me to go. Down into the city, toward the central barracks of Ascendant. The structure squats over the city prison, drilled into the bedrock of the mountainside. I try not to picture him, alone behind bars, pacing like a dying animal. Why I want to see him, I can hardly understand. Maybe some part of me knows he’s still useful. Or wants to understand him a little more, before time runs out. We’re alike in some ways, too many ways. I’ve tasted darkness, and he lives in it. He represents what I could become, without my family, without an anchor, if I’m pushed into the abyss.

But Maven is the abyss. I can’t face him. Not yet. I’m not strong enough to do it. He’ll just laugh in my face, taunt and torture, turning the screws embedded too deeply. I need to heal a bit, before he can pick open my wounds again.

So instead of walking down into the city, I go up. And up. And up.

At first I follow the road we took over the mountain, when the raiders struck down on the plain. We know now that it was a planned attack, meant to distract us while the Lakelanders rescued Prince Bracken’s children. The raiders were paid to do it, and paid well. I kick at stones as I go, replaying the battle in my mind. The silence clawed at my body, like something alive and unnatural beneath my skin. Replacing my lightning with emptiness. Cursing, I push the thought away and turn off the road, into the rocks and trees.

The hours pass, and the air seems to burn in my lungs, searing down my throat. It’s matched only by the fire in my muscles. They scream with each new step, every foot forward and upward over the rocks. Snow puddles in the shadows, white and pure even in the late summer. It turns ever colder as I climb, my feet sliding over dirt and pine needles, gravel and naked rock. In spite of the pain, I push on.

Streams