War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,29

He dotes on those flowers.

He can grow as many as he likes in Montfort. He can plant an entire garden, and spend his life watching it bloom.

Farley gets out of the transport before it fully stops, her boots splashing through a puddle. I hesitate, for many reasons.

Of course I have to talk to my family about Montfort. And hope they agree to stay there, even when I leave again. We should be used to it by now, but walking away never gets easier. They can’t stop me from doing it, but I can’t stop them either. If they refuse to go. I shudder at the thought. Knowing they’re safe is the only sanctuary I have left.

But that inevitable argument is a dream compared to what else I have to admit.

Cal chose the crown. Not me. Not us.

Saying it makes it real.

The puddle outside the transport is deeper than I thought, splashing up the sides of my short boots, sending a cold chill over my legs. I welcome the distraction, and follow Farley up the steps to an opening door.

A blur of Barrows pulls me inside. Mom, Gisa, Tramy, and Bree whirl around me. My old friend Kilorn joins the mix as well, stepping in to give me a short but firm squeeze. I feel a burst of relief at the sight of him. He wasn’t ready to fight in Corvium, and I’m still glad he agreed to stay behind.

Dad hangs back again, waiting to hug me properly without anyone else worming in. He might have to wait a long time, since Mom doesn’t seem too concerned with letting me go. She drapes an arm across my shoulders, pulling me close. Her clothes smell fresh, clean, like a dewy morning and soap. Nothing like home in the Stilts. My status in the army, whatever it is, affords my family a level of luxury we were never accustomed to before. The row house itself, a former officer’s quarters, is opulent compared to our old stilt home. Though it is sparsely decorated, the essentials are all finely made and well cared for.

Farley only has eyes for Clara. While I’m barely through the front door, Farley already holds Clara against her chest, letting the baby girl rest her head on her shoulder. Yawning, Clara nuzzles, trying to return to her interrupted nap. When she thinks no one is looking, Farley dips her neck, pressing her nose against Clara’s tiny head of brown hair. She shuts her eyes and inhales.

Meanwhile, Mom plants another of a dozen kisses on my temple, grinning. “Home again,” she murmurs.

“So they really did it,” Dad says. “Corvium is gone.” I untangle myself from Mom long enough to give him a proper hug. We’re still unaccustomed to touching this way, without my father huddled in his wheelchair. Despite his long months of recuperation with the aid of Sara Skonos, as well as the healers and nurses of the Montfort army, nothing can erase the years we all remember. The pain is still there, sitting in his brain. And I suppose it should. Forgetting doesn’t feel right.

He leans on me, not as heavily as he used to, and I lead him into the sitting room. We share a bitter smile, a private one that passes only between us. My father was a soldier once too, longer than any of us. He understands what it is to see death and return from it. I try to imagine who he was, beneath the wrinkles and the scraggly whiskers fading into gray, behind his eyes. We had few photographs at home. I don’t know how many made it to the refuge on Tuck Island, then to the other base in the Lakelands, and then here. One of them sticks out in my memory. An old scrap of a picture, worn at the edges, fuzzy and faded in the image. My mother and father posed for it a long time ago, before even Bree was born. They were teenagers, kids of the Stilts like I was. Dad must not have been eighteen. He wasn’t conscripted yet, and Mom was just an apprentice. Dad used to look so much like Bree, my oldest brother. Same grin, his mouth almost too wide, framed by dimples. Thick, straight eyebrows across a high forehead. Ears that could be a little too big. I try not to think of my brothers aging like my father has, subjected to the same pains and worries. I can make sure they don’t share our