Red Queen

by Victoria Aveyard

  My muscles ache and twitch, begging for it to be over. I just want to lie down, to admit defeat, to die. They called me a liar, a trickster, and they were right.

  I have one more trick left up my sleeve.

  Rhambos takes aim, setting his feet in the sand, and I know what I must do. He hurls his spear with such strength it seems to burn the air. I drop, throwing myself to the sand.

  A sickening squelch tells me my plan has worked and the scream of electricity surging back to life tells me I might win.

  Behind me, Arven collapses, a pipe speared through his middle.

  “I have the advantage,” I tell his corpse.

  When I get back to my feet, thunder and lightning and sparks and shocks and everything I can possibly control spits from my body. The crowd screams aloud, Maven above them all.

  “Kill her! KILL HER!” he roars, pointing down at me through the dome. “SHOOT HER!”

  Bullets dig into the dome, sparking and splintering against the electric shield, but it holds firm. It was supposed to protect them, but it is electric, it is lightning, it is mine, and the shield protects me now.

  The crowd gasps, not believing their eyes. Red blood drips from my wounds and lightning trembles in my skin, declaring what I am for everyone. Overhead, the video screens go dark. But I’ve already been seen. They can’t stop what’s already happened.

  Rhambos takes a quivering step back, his breath catching in his throat. I don’t give him a chance to take another.

  Silver and Red, and stronger than both.

  My lightning streaks through him, boiling his blood, frying his nerves, until he collapses in a twitching pile of meat.

  Osanos drops next as my sparks run over him. The liquid orb splashes to the ground and Cal collapses to the sand, spitting up water with hacking coughs.

  Despite the jagged metal spikes punching up through the sand, trying to run me through, I break into a sprint, dodging and vaulting over every obstacle. They trained me for this. It’s their own fault. They helped make their own doom.

  Evangeline waves a hand, sending a steel beam flying at my head. I slide beneath it, knees skimming across the ground, before coming up beside her, daggered bolts of lightning in my hands.

  She calls up a sword from the swirling metal, forging a blade. My lightning breaks against it, shocking through the iron, but still she duels. The metal shifts and splits all around us, trying to fight me. Even her spiders return to tear me down, but they aren’t enough. She isn’t enough.

  Another blast of lightning knocks her blades away and sends her sprawling, trying to escape my wrath. She won’t.

  “Not a trick,” she breathes, taken off guard. Her eyes fly between my hands as she backs away, bits of metal floating between us in a hasty shield. “Not a lie.”

  I can taste red blood in my mouth, sharp and metallic and strangely wonderful. I spit it out for all to see. Overhead, the blue sky darkens through the shielded dome. Black clouds gather, heavy and full with rain. The storm is coming.

  “You said you’d kill me if I ever got in your way.” It feels so good to throw her words back in her face. “Here’s your chance.”

  Her chest rises and falls, heaving with each breath. She’s tired. She’s wounded. And the steel behind her eyes is almost gone, giving way to fear.

  She lunges and I move to block her attack, but it never comes. Instead, she runs. She runs from me, sprinting at the closest gate she can find. I pound after her, running to hunt her down, but Cal’s roar of frustration stops me in my tracks.

  Osanos is on his feet again, dueling with renewed strength, while Ptolemus dances around them, looking for his opening. Cal is no good against nymphs, not with his fire. I remember how easily bested Maven was in his own training so long ago.

  My hand closes around the nymph’s wrist, shocking him through his skin, forcing him to turn his anger on me. The water feels like a hammer, knocking me backward into the sand. It crashes and crashes, making it impossible to breathe. For the first time since I entered the arena, the cold hand of fear clenches around my heart. Now that we have a chance of winning, of living, I’m so afraid to lose. My lungs scream for air and I can’t help but open my mouth, letting the water choke me. It stings like fire, like death.

  The tiniest spark runs through me, and it’s enough, shocking through the water and up into Osanos. He yelps, jumping back long enough to let me scramble free, slipping through the wet sand. Air sears my lungs as I gasp for breath, but there’s no time to enjoy it. Osanos is on me again; this time his hands are around my neck, holding me under the swirling foot of water.

  But I’m ready for him. The fool is stupid enough to touch me, to put his skin against mine. When I let the lightning go, shocking through flesh and water, he screams like a boiling teakettle and flops backward. As the water falls away, draining into the sand, I know he’s truly dead.

  When I rise, soaking wet, shaking with adrenaline, fear, strength, my eyes fly to Cal. He’s slashed and bruised, bleeding all over, but his arms rage with bright red fire and Ptolemus cowers at his feet. He raises his hands in defeat, begging for mercy.

  “Kill him, Cal,” I snarl, wanting to see him bleed. Above us, the lightning shield pulses again, surging with my anger. If only it was Evangeline. If only I could do it myself. “He tried to kill us. Kill him.”

  Cal doesn’t move, breathing hard through his teeth. He looks so torn, eager for vengeance, consumed by the thrill of battle, but also steadily fading back to the calm, thoughtful man he used to be. The man he can’t be anymore.

  But a man’s nature is not so easily changed. He steps back, flames fading away.

  “I won’t.”

  The silence presses down, a wonderful change from the screaming, jeering crowd who wanted us dead moments ago. But when I look up, I realize they aren’t staring. They aren’t seeing Cal’s mercy or my ability. They aren’t even there at all. The great arena has emptied, leaving no witnesses to our victory. The king sent them away, to hide the truth of what we have done so he can supplant it with his own lies.

  From his box, Maven begins to clap.

  “Well done,” he shouts, moving to the edge of the arena. He peers at us through the shield, his mother close at his shoulder.

  The sound hurts more than any knife, making me cringe. It echoes over the empty structure, until marching feet, boots on stone and sand, drown him out.

  Security, Sentinels, soldiers, all of them pour onto the sand from every gate. There are hundreds, thousands, too many to fight. Too many to run from. We won the battle, but we lost the war.

  Ptolemus scrambles away, disappearing into the crowd of soldiers. Now we’re alone in a steadily closing circle, with nothing and no one left.

  It’s not fair. We won. We showed them. It’s not fair. I want to scream, to shock and rage and fight, but the bullets will get me first. Hot tears of anger well in my eyes, but I will not cry. Not in these last moments.

  “I’m sorry I did this to you,” I whisper to Cal. No matter how I feel about his beliefs, he’s the one truly losing here. I knew the risks but he was just a pawn, torn between so many playing an invisible game.

  He clenches his jaw, twisting and turning as he looks for some way out of this. But there isn’t one. I don’t expect him to forgive me, and I don’t deserve it either. But his hand closes over mine, holding on to the last person on his side.

  Slowly, he starts to hum. I recognize the tune as the sad song, the one we kissed to in a room full of moonlight.

  Thunder rumbles in the clouds, threatening to burst. Raindrops pitter on the dome above us. It shocks and sizzles the rain, but the water keeps coming in a steady downpour. Even the sky weeps for our loss.

  At the edge of his box, Maven stares down at us. The sparking shield distorts his face, making him look like the monster he truly is. Water drips down his nose, but he doesn’t notice. His mother whispers something in his ear and he jolts, brought back to reality.

  “Good-bye, l
ittle lightning girl.”

  When he raises his hand, I think he might be shaking.

  Like the little girl I am, I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting to feel the blinding pain of a hundred bullets ripping me apart. My thoughts turn inward, to days long past. To Kilorn, my parents, my brothers, my sister. Will I see them all soon? My heart tells me yes. They’re waiting for me, somewhere, somehow. And like I did that day in the Spiral Garden, when I thought I was falling to my death, I feel cold acceptance. I will die. I feel life leaving, and I let go.

  The storm overhead explodes with a deafening clap of thunder, so strong it shakes the air. The ground rumbles beneath my feet and, even behind closed eyelids, I see the blinding flash of light. Purple and white and strong, the strongest thing I’ve ever felt. Weakly, I wonder what will happen if it hits me. Will I die or will I survive? Will it forge me like a sword, into something terrible and sharp and new?

  I never find out.

  Cal seizes me by the shoulders, throwing us both out of the way as a giant bolt of lightning streaks down out of the sky. It shatters through the shield, sending purple shards down on us like falling snow. It sizzles against my skin in a delightful sensation, an invigorating pulse of power to bring me back to life.

  All around us, the gunmen cower, ducking or running away, trying to escape the sparking storm. Cal tries to drag me, but I’m barely aware of him. Instead, my senses buzz with the storm, feeling it churning above me. It’s mine.

  Another bolt strikes down, pounding into the sand, and the Security officers scatter, running for the gates. But the Sentinels and the soldiers are not so easily frightened, and they come to their senses quickly. Even though Cal pulls me back, trying to save us both, they pursue—and there is no escape.

  As good as the storm feels, it drains me, leeching my energy away. Controlling a lightning storm is just too much. My knees buckle and my heart beats like a drum, so fast I think it might burst. One more bolt, one more. We might have a chance.

  When my feet stumble backward, heels jutting out over the empty chasm that once held Osanos’s water weapon, I know it’s over. There’s nowhere else to run.

  Cal holds me tight, pulling me back from the edge in case I might fall. There’s nothing but blackness down there, and the echo of churning water deep down. Nothing but pipes and plumbing and black nothing. And ahead of us, the practiced, brutal ranks of soldiers. They take aim mechanically, raising their guns in unison.

  The shield is broken, the storm is dying, and we have lost. Maven can smell my defeat and grins from his box, his lips pulled into a terrifying smile. Even from such a distance, I can see the glinting points of his crown. Rainwater runs into his eyes, but he doesn’t blink. He doesn’t want to miss my death.

  The guns rise, and this time they won’t wait for Maven’s order.

  The shooting thunders like my storm, ringing out across the empty arena. But I feel nothing. When the first line of gunmen falls, their chests peppered with bullet holes, I don’t understand.

  I blink down at my feet, only to see a line of strange guns poking out over the edge of the chasm. Each barrel smokes and jumps, still shooting, mowing down all the soldiers in front of us.

  Before I can understand, someone grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me down to fall through the black air. We land in water far below, but the arms never let go.

  The water takes me, down into darkness.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  EPILOGUE

  The black void of sleep ebbs away, giving way to life again. My body rocks with motion and I can sense an engine somewhere. Metal shrieks against metal, scraping at high speed in a noise I vaguely recognize. The Undertrain.

  The seat beneath my cheek feels oddly soft, but also tense. Not leather or cloth or concrete, I realize, but warm flesh. It shifts beneath me, adjusting as I move, and my eyes open. What I see is enough to make me think I’m still dreaming.

  Cal sits across the train, his posture stiff and tense, fists clenched in his lap. He stares straight ahead, to the person cradling me, and in his eyes is the fire I know so well. The train fascinates him and his gaze flickers now and then, glancing at the lights and the windows and the wires. He’s itching to examine it, but the person at his side keeps him from moving at all.

  Farley.

  The revolutionary, all scars and tension, stands over him. Somehow she survived the slaughter under the Square. I want to smile, to call out to her, but weakness bleeds through me, keeping me still. I remember the storm, the battle of the arena, and all the horrors that came before. Maven. His name makes my heart clench, twisting in anguish and shame. Anyone can betray anyone.

  Her gun hangs across her chest, ready to fire on Cal. There are more like her, tensely guarding him. They are broken, wounded, and so few, but they still look menacing. Their eyes never stray from the fallen prince, watching him as a mouse would a cat. And then I see his wrists are bound, shackled in iron that he could easily melt away. But he doesn’t. He just sits there quietly, waiting for something.

  When he feels my gaze, his eyes snap to mine. Life sparks in him again.

  “Mare,” he murmurs, and some of the hot anger breaks. Some.

  My head spins when I try to sit up, but a comforting hand pushes me back down again. “Lie still,” a voice says, a voice I vaguely recognize.

  “Kilorn,” I mumble.

  “I’m here.”

  To my confusion, the old fisher boy pushes his way through the Guardsmen behind Farley. He has scars of his own now, with dirty bandages on his arm, but he stands tall. And he is alive. Just the sight of him sends a flood of relief through me.

  But if Kilorn is standing there, with the rest of the Guard, then . . .

  My neck turns sharply, moving to look up at the person above me. “Who—?”

  The face is familiar, a face I know so well. If I were not already lying down, I would certainly fall. The shock is too much for me to bear.

  “Am I dead? Are we dead?”

  He’s come to take me away. I died in the arena. This was a hallucination, a dream, a wish, a last thought before dying. We are all dead.

  But my brother shakes his head slowly, staring at me with familiar honey-colored eyes. Shade was always the handsome one and death has not changed that.

  “You’re not dead, Mare,” he says, his voice as smooth as I remember. “Neither am I.”

  “How?” is all I can manage, sitting back to examine my brother fully. He looks the same as I remember, without the usual scars of a soldier. Even his brown hair is growing out again, shaking off the military cut. I run my fingers through it, to convince myself he’s real.

  But he is not the same. Just like you are not the same.

  “The mutation,” I say, letting my hand graze his arm. “They killed you for it.”

  His eyes seem to dance. “They tried.”

  I don’t blink, time doesn’t pass, but he’s moved at a speed beyond my sight, beyond even that of a swift. Now he sits across from me, next to the still-shackled Cal. It’s like he’s shifting through space, jumping from one spot to another in no time at all.

  “And failed,” he finishes from his new seat. His grin is wide now, pleasantly amused by my openmouthed stare. “They said they killed me, they told the captains I was dead and my body burned.” Another split second and he’s sitting next to me again, appearing out of thin air. Teleporting. “But they weren’t fast enough. No one is.”

  I try to nod, I try to understand his ability, his simple existence, but I can’t comprehend much more than the circle of his arms around me. Shade. Alive and like me.

  “What about the others? Mom, Dad—” But Shade stills me with a smile.

  “They’re safe and waiting,” he says. His voice breaks a little, overcome with emotion. “We’ll see them soon.”

  My heart swells at the thought. But l
ike all my happiness, all my joy and all my hope, it doesn’t last long. My eyes fall on the Guard bristling with weapons, on Kilorn’s scars, on Farley’s tense face and Cal’s bound hands. Cal, who has suffered so much, escaping one prison for another.

  “Let him go.” I owe him my life, more than my life. Surely I can give him some comfort here. But no one budges at my words, not even Cal.

  To my surprise, he answers before Farley. “They won’t. And they shouldn’t. In fact, you should probably blindfold me, if you really want to be thorough.”

  Even though he’s been cast down, thrown out of his own life, Cal can’t change who he is. The soldier is in him still. “Cal, shut up. You’re not a danger to anyone.”

  With a scoff, Cal tips his head, gesturing at the train of armed rebels. “They seem to think otherwise.”

  “Not to us, I mean,” I add, shrinking back against my seat. “He saved me up there, even after what I did. And after what Maven did to you—”

  “Don’t say his name.” His growl is frightful, putting a chill in me, and I don’t miss Farley’s hand tightening around her gun.

  Her words slide out between clenched teeth. “No matter what he did for you, the prince is not on our side. And I won’t risk what’s left of us for your little romance.”

  Romance. We flinch at the word. There is no such thing between us anymore. Not after what we did to each other, and what was done to us. No matter how much we might want there to be.

  “We’re going to keep fighting, Mare, but Silvers have betrayed us before. We won’t trust them again.” Kilorn’s words are softer, a balm to try to help me understand. But his eyes spark at Cal. Obviously he remembers the torture down in the cells and the terrible sight of frozen blood. “He might be a valuable prisoner.”

  They don’t know Cal like I do. They don’t know he could destroy them all, that he could escape in a heartbeat if he really wanted. So why does he stay? When he meets my eyes, somehow he answers my question without speaking. The hurt I see radiating from him is enough to break my heart. He is tired. He is broken. And he doesn’t want to fight anymore.