War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,28

gates twisting into snaking knots. Smoke races the streets. Ella, an electricon like me, used her own storm to strike the central tower, furious blue lightning cracking stone. Montfort nymphs, newbloods of great power, used the nearby streams and even a river to sweep rubble away to the distant lake. No part of Corvium escaped. Some of it even sank, collapsing into the tunnels beneath the city. The rest was left in warning, like ancient stone monoliths weathered by a thousand years instead of a few hours.

How many other cities will share the same fate?

First I think of the Stilts.

I haven’t seen the place where I grew up in almost a year. Not since my name was Mareena, and I stood on the deck of a royal ship, eyeing the banks of the Capital River with a ghost at my side. Elara was alive then, and the king too. They forced me to watch as we passed my village, its people gathered at the water’s edge under the open threat of a whipcrack or a cell. My family stood among them. I focused on their faces, not on the place. The Stilts was never my home. They are.

Would I care now if the village disappeared? If no one was harmed, but the stilt houses, the market, the school, the arena—if it was destroyed? Burned, flooded, or simply gone?

I really can’t say.

But there are certainly places that should join Corvium in ruins. I name the ones I want to destroy, cursing them.

Gray Town, Merry Town, New Town. And all the rest of their like.

The techie slums remind me of Cameron. She sleeps across from me, jostled in her restraining belts. Her head lolls, her snore almost indistinguishable over the sound of the jet engines. From underneath her collar, her tattoo peeks out. Black ink against dark brown skin. She was marked with her profession, or rather her prison, a long time ago. I only saw a tech town from a distance, and the memory still makes me gag. I can’t imagine growing up in one, bound to a life in smoke.

The Red slums must be ended.

Their walls must burn too.

We land at the Piedmont base in a late-morning downpour. I’m drenched after three steps across the runway, heading for the line of waiting transports. Farley outpaces me easily, eager to get back to Clara. She has a mind for little else, bypassing the Colonel and the rest of their soldiers as they move to greet us. I work to keep at her heels, forced to move at an uneasy trot. I try not to look back at the other jet, the Silver one. I hear them over the rain, trooping out onto the paved field in all their style. The rain darkens their colors, muddying Lerolan orange, Jacos yellow, Calore red, and Samos silver. Evangeline smartly abandoned her armor. Metal clothes aren’t exactly safe in a thunderstorm.

At least King Volo and the rest of his Silver lords haven’t followed us here. They’re on the way back to the Kingdom of the Rift, if they haven’t arrived already. Only the Silvers going on to Montfort tomorrow made the journey to Piedmont. Anabel, Julian, their various guards and advisers—as well as Evangeline and, of course, Tiberias.

When I get into my transport, sliding into the dry interior, I catch a glimpse of him, brooding like a storm cloud. Tiberias stands apart, the only one of them familiar with the Piedmont base. Anabel must have brought more courtly clothes for him. It’s the only explanation for his long cloak and polished boots, and the finery underneath. At this distance, I can’t tell if he has a crown. Despite the royal clothing, no one would mistake him for Maven. Tiberias’s colors are reversed. The cloak is bloodred, as are his clothes, all trimmed with black and royal silver. He glows through the rain, bright as any flame. And he stares, dark brows furrowed, unmoving as the storm opens above us.

I feel the first crack of lightning before it splits across the sky. Ella was holding it back to let the jets land. She must have let it go.

I turn from the transport window and lean against the glass. As we speed off, I try to let go of something too.

The row house ceded to my family looks the same as it did when I left a few days ago, albeit very wet. Rain lashes the windows, drowning flowers in their window boxes. Tramy won’t like that.