Red Queen

Page 75

And the first to die, a morose voice in my head whispers. Against my better instincts, I reach out to Cal. He doesn’t pull away from me, allowing me to hold his arm. Now he doesn’t look like a prince or a general or even a Silver, but that boy at the bar, the one who wanted to save me.
My voice is small but strong. “When?”
“When you leave for the capital, after the ball. You’ll go south,” he murmurs, “and I’ll go north.”
A cold shock of fear ripples through me, like when Kilorn first told me he was going to fight. But Kilorn is a fisher boy, a thief, someone who knows how to survive, how to slip through the cracks; not like Cal. He’s a soldier. He’ll die if he has to. He’ll bleed for his war. And why this frightens me, I don’t know. Why I care, I can’t say.
“With Cal on the lines, this war will finally be over. With Cal, we can win,” Oliver says, grinning like a fool. Again, he takes Cal by the shoulder, but this time he steers him away, back toward the party—leaving me behind.
Someone presses a cold drink into my hand and I down it in a single gulp.
“Easy there,” Maven mutters. “Still thinking about this morning? No one saw your face, I checked with the Sentinels.”
But that’s the farthest thing from my mind as I watch Cal shake hands with his father. He pastes a magnificent smile on his face, donning a mask only I can see through.
Maven follows my gaze, and my thoughts. “He wanted to do this. It was his choice.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to like it.”
“My son the general!” King Tiberias booms, his proud voice cutting through the din of the party. For a second, when he pulls Cal close, putting an arm around his son, I forget he’s a king. I almost understand Cal’s need to please him.
What would I give to see my mother look at me like that, back when I was nothing but a thief? What would I give now?
This world is Silver, but it is also gray. There is no black-and-white.
When someone knocks at my door that night, long after dinner, I’m expecting Walsh and another cup of secret-message tea, but Cal stands there instead. Without his uniform or armor, he looks like the boy he is. Barely nineteen, on the edge of doom or greatness or both.
I shrink in my pajamas, wishing very much for a robe. “Cal? What do you need?”
He shrugs, smirking a little bit. “Evangeline almost killed you in the ring today.”
“So?”
“So I don’t want her to kill you on the dance floor.”
“Did I miss something? Are we going to be fighting at the ball?”
He laughs, leaning against the doorframe. But his feet never enter my room, like he can’t. Or he shouldn’t. You’re going to be his brother’s wife. And he’s going to war.
“If you know how to dance properly, you won’t have to.”
I remember mentioning how I can’t dance for my life, let alone under Blonos’s terrible direction, but how can Cal help me here? And why would he want to?
“I’m a surprisingly good teacher,” he adds, smiling crookedly. When he stretches out a hand to me, my body shivers.
I know I shouldn’t. I know I should shut the door and not go down this road.
But he’s leaving to fight, maybe to die.
Shaking, I put my hand in his and let him pull me out of my room.
EIGHTEEN
Moonlight falls on the floor, bright enough for us to see by. In the silvery light, the red blush in my skin is barely visible—I look the same as a Silver. Chairs scrape along the wood floor as Cal rearranges the sitting room, clearing space for us to practice. The chamber is secluded, but the hum of cameras is never far away. Elara’s men are watching, but no one comes to stop us. Or rather, to stop Cal.
He pulls a strange device, a little box, out of his jacket and sets it in the middle of the floor. He stares at it expectantly, waiting for something.
“Can that thing teach me how to dance?”
He shakes his head, still smiling. “No, but it’ll help.”
Suddenly, a pulsing beat explodes from the box, and I realize it’s a speaker, like the ones in the arena back home. Only this is for music, not battle. Life, not death.
The melody is light and quick, like a heartbeat. Across from me, Cal smiles wider, and his foot taps in time. I can’t resist, my own toes wiggling with the music. It’s so bouncy and upbeat, not at all like the cold, metallic music of Blonos’s classroom or the sorrowful songs of home. My feet slide along, trying to remember the steps Lady Blonos taught me.
“Don’t worry about that, just keep moving.” Cal laughs. A drumbeat trills over the music and he spins, humming along. For the first time, he looks like he doesn’t have the weight of a throne on his shoulders.