Home > War Storm (Red Queen #4)(15)

War Storm (Red Queen #4)(15)
Author: Victoria Aveyard

Even so, I feel unease deep in the pit of my stomach. Corvium still burns behind my eyelids, its walls crumbling, torn apart by explosive bursts, the buildings ripped away by manipulated gravity, the metal 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. 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 father’s fate—or Shade’s.

Bree flops into an armchair near us, crossing his bare feet on the simple rug. I wrinkle my nose. Men do not have lovely feet.

“Good riddance to that heap,” Bree says, cursing Corvium.

   
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