War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,24

of the sanctum close behind us, locking us in with no one but the gods and one another, do I breathe a low sigh of relief. Before my eyes adjust to the dim light, Mother takes my face in her warm hands, and I can’t help but flinch.

“You don’t need to go back,” Mother whispers.

I’ve never heard her beg. It is a foreign sound.

My voice sticks. “What?”

“Please, my dearest one.” She switches deftly back to Lakelander, favoring our native tongue. Her eyes sharpen, darker in the shadows of the narrow room. They are deep wells I could fall into and never climb out of. “The alliance can survive without you holding it together.”

She doesn’t let go of my face, her thumbs running over my cheekbones. For a long moment, I linger. I see the hope bloom in her eyes, and I squeeze my lids shut. Slowly, I put my hands over her own and pull them away.

“We know that isn’t true at all,” I tell my mother, forcing myself to look back at her face.

She clenches her jaw, hardening. A queen is never accustomed to denial. “Don’t tell me what I do or do not know.”

But I am a queen too.

“Have the gods told you otherwise?” I ask. “Do you speak for them?” A blasphemy. You can hear the gods in your heart, but only priests can spread their words.

Even the queen of the Lakelands is subject to such bonds. She glances away, ashamed, before turning to Tiora. My sister says nothing, and looks grimmer than ever. Quite a feat.

“Do you speak for the crown?” I press on, putting distance between us. Mother must understand. “Is this what will help our country?”

Again, silence. Mother won’t answer. Instead she steels herself, shifting into her royal persona before my eyes. She seems to harden and grow taller. I almost expect her to turn to stone. She won’t lie to you.

“Or do you speak for yourself, Mother? As a grieving woman? You just lost Father, and you don’t want to lose me—”

“I cannot deny that I want you here,” she says firmly, and I recognize the voice of a sovereign. The one she uses in court rulings. “Safe. Protected from monsters like him.”

“I can handle Maven. I have been, for months now. You know that.” Like her, I look to Tiora for some kind of support. Her face doesn’t change, maintaining neutrality. Observant, quiet, and calculating, as a queen in waiting should be.

“Oh, I read your letters, yes.” Mother waves a hand, dismissive. Have her fingers always been so thin, so wrinkled, so old? I’m struck by the sight. So much gray, I muse, watching her as she paces. Her hair gleams in the dim light. So much more gray than I remember.

“I receive both your official correspondence and the secret reports you send, Iris,” Mother says. “Neither fills me with confidence. And seeing him now . . .” She heaves a ragged sigh, thinking. The queen crosses to the opposite window, tracing the swirls of diamondglass. “That boy is all sharp edges and emptiness. There is no soul to him. He killed his own father, tried to do the same to the exiled brother. Whatever his demon mother did has cursed the king of Norta to a life of torment. I won’t curse you to the same. I won’t let you waste your life at his side. It’s only a matter of time before his court devours him, or he devours it.”

I share that fear with her, but it’s no use lamenting choices already made. Doors already opened. Paths already taken. “If only you’d told me this sooner,” I scoff. “I could have let him die when those Reds attacked our wedding. Then Father would still be alive.”

“Yes,” Mother murmurs. She studies the window like a fine painting, so she doesn’t have to look at her daughters.

“And then, if he were dead . . .” I lower my voice, trying to sound as strong as she does. Like Mother, like Tiora. A queen born. Slowly, I move to my mother’s side, put my hands on her narrow shoulders. She’s always been thinner than me. “We would be fighting a war on two fronts. Against a new king in Norta and the Red rebellion that seems to boil all over the world.” In my own country, I curse in my head. The Red rebellion began within our borders, under our noses. We let their rot spread.

Mother’s eyelashes flutter, dark against brown cheeks. Her