“But you haven’t.”
“No. And neither did my sister, no matter what anyone else might say.”
Cal’s mother. “No one seems to say anything about her. Not to me, anyways.”
“People don’t like to talk about dead queens,” he snaps, turning away from me in a smooth motion. “But they talked when she was alive. Coriane Jacos, the Singer Queen.” I’ve never seen Julian this way, not once. Usually he’s quiet, calm, a little obsessed maybe, but never angry. Never so hurt. “She wasn’t chosen by Queenstrial, you know. Not like Elara, or Evangeline, or even you. No, Tibe married my sister because he loved her—and she loved him.”
Tibe. Calling Tiberias Calore the Sixth, King of Norta, Flame of the North, anything with less than eight syllables seems preposterous. But he was young once too. He was like Cal, a boy born to become a king.
“They hated her because we were from a low house, because we didn’t have strength or power or any other silly thing those people uphold,” Julian rails on, still looking away. His shoulders heave with each breath. “And when my sister became queen, she threatened to change all that. She was kind, compassionate, a mother who could raise Cal to be the king this country needed to unite us all. A king who wouldn’t be afraid of change. But that never came to be.”
“I know what it’s like to lose a sibling,” I murmur, remembering Shade. It doesn’t seem real, like maybe everyone is just lying and he’s at home now, happy and safe. But I know that isn’t true. And somewhere, my brother’s decapitated body lies as proof of that. “I only found out last night. My brother died at the front.”
Julian finally turns back around, his eyes glassy. “I’m sorry, Mare. I didn’t realize.”
“You wouldn’t. The army doesn’t report executions in their little books.”
“Executed?”
“Desertion.” The word tastes like blood, like a lie. “Even though he never would.”
After a long moment of silence, Julian puts a hand on my shoulder. “It seems we have more in common than you think, Mare.”
“What do you mean?”
“They killed my sister, too. She stood in the way, and she was removed. And”—his voice drops—“they’ll do it again, to anyone they have to. Even Cal, even Maven, and especially you.”
Especially me. The little lightning girl.
“I thought you wanted to change things, Julian.”
“I do indeed. But these things take time, planning, and too much luck to count on.” He stares me up and down, like somehow he knows I’ve already taken the first step down a dark path. “I don’t want you getting in over your head.”
Too late.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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SIXTEEN
After a week of staring at my clock, waiting for midnight, I begin to despair. Of course Farley can’t reach us here. Even she is not so talented. But tonight, when the clock ticks, I feel nothing for the first time since Queenstrial. No cameras, no electricity, nothing. The power is completely out. I’ve been in blackouts before, too many to count, but this is different. This isn’t an accident. This is for me.
Moving quickly, I slip into my boots, now broken in by weeks of wear, and head for the door. I’m barely out in the hallway before I hear Walsh in my ear, speaking softly and quickly as she pulls me through the forced darkness.
“We don’t have much time,” she murmurs, hustling me into a service stairwell. It’s pitch-black, but she knows where we’re going and I trust her to get me there. “They’ll have the power back on in fifteen minutes if we’re lucky.”
“And if we aren’t?” I breathe in the darkness.
She hustles me down the stairs and shoulders open a door. “Then I hope you’re not too attached to your head.”
The smell of earth and dirt and water hits me first, churning up all my memories of life in the woods. But even though it looks like a forest, with gnarled old trees and hundreds of plants painted blue and black by the moon, a glass roof rises overhead. The conservatory. Twisting shadows sprawl across the ground, each one worse than the next. I see Security and Sentinels in every dark corner, waiting to capture and kill us like they did my brother. But instead of their horrific black or flame uniforms, there’s nothing but flowers blooming beneath the glass ceiling of stars.
“Excuse me if I don’t curtsy,” a voice says, emerging from a grove of white-spangled magnolia trees. Her blue eyes reflect the moon, glowing in the dark with cold fire. Farley has a real talent for theatrics.