“You’re right. You just kill them.”
Breath hisses between my teeth. Is that what this is about? I almost laugh at him. “At least one of us can.”
I expect a screaming match at the very least. What I get is worse. Cal takes a step back, bumping against the instrument panel, trying to put as much distance as he can between us. Usually I’m the one to pull away, but not anymore. Something breaks behind his eyes, betraying the wounds he hides beneath his flaming skin. “What happened to you, Mare?” he whispers.
What hasn’t happened to me? A single day without worry, that’s what. All to prepare me for this, for the fate I bought myself with the mutations of my blood—and the many mistakes I’ve chosen to make, Cal included. “My brother just died, Cal.”
But he shakes his head, never looking away from me. His gaze burns. “You killed those men in the command center, you and Cameron, while they begged. Shade wasn’t dead then. Don’t blame this on him.”
“They were Silver—”
“I am Silver.”
“I am Red. Don’t act like you haven’t killed hundreds of us.”
“Not for me, not the way you kill. I was a soldier following orders, obeying my king. And they were just as innocent as I was when my father was alive.”
Tears prick my eyes, begging to be spilled. Faces swim before me, murdered soldiers and officers, too many to count. “Why are you saying this to me?” I whisper. “I did what I had to, to stay alive, to save people—to save you, you stupid, stubborn prince of nothing. You of all people should know the burden I carry. How dare you try to make me feel guiltier than I already do?”
“She wanted to turn you into a monster.” He nods toward the door, and the twisted body behind it. “I’m just trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Elara is dead.” The words taste sweet as wine. She’s gone, she can’t hurt me. “She can’t control anyone anymore.”
“But still, you feel no remorse for the dead. You do whatever you can to forget them. You abandoned your family without a word. You can’t control yourself. Half the time you run away from leadership, and the other half you act like some untouchable martyr, crowned in guilt, the only person who’s really giving herself to the cause. Look around you, Mare Barrow. Shade’s not the only one who died in Corros. You are not the only one to make sacrifices. Farley betrayed her father. You forced Cameron to join us against her will, you chose to ignore everything but Julian’s list, and now you want to abandon the kids back at the Notch. For what? To step on the Colonel’s neck? To take a throne? To kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way?”
I feel like a child being scolded, unable to speak, to argue, to do anything but keep from crying. It takes everything to keep my sparks contained.
“And you still hold on to Maven, a person who doesn’t exist.”
He might as well put a hand around my throat and squeeze. “You looked through my things?”
“I’m not blind. I watched you take the notes off the bodies. I thought you’d rip them up. But when you didn’t—I suppose I wanted to see what you were going to do. Burn them, throw them away, send them back dipped in Silver blood—but not keep them. Not read them while I slept next to you.”
“You said you missed him too. You said so,” I whisper. I have to refrain from stamping my foot like a frustrated child.
“He’s my brother. I miss him in a very different way.”
Something sharp scrapes my wrist, and I realize I’m scratching myself in my misery, creating a physical pain to mask the agony inside. He watches, conflicted.
“Every single thing I did, you stood behind me,” I say. “If I’m turning into a monster, then so are you.”
He drops his gaze. “Love blinds.”
“If this is your idea of love—”
“I don’t know if you love anyone at all,” he snaps, “if you see anything out there but tools and weapons. People to manipulate and control, to sacrifice.”
There is no possible defense to such an accusation. How can I prove him wrong? How can I make him see what I’ve done, what I’m trying to do, what I’ve become to keep everyone I care about safe! How badly I’ve failed. How terrible I feel. How the scars and memories ache. How deeply he’s wounded me with such words. I cannot prove my love for him, or Kilorn, or my family. I cannot put such feelings into words, nor should I have to.
So I don’t.
“After the Archeon bombing, Farley and the Scarlet Guard used a Silver news broadcast to claim responsibility.” I speak slowly, methodic and calm in my explanation. It’s the only thing keeping me sane. “I’m going to do the same now, with the queen’s body. I’m going to show every single person in this kingdom the woman I killed, and the people she kept locked up, newblood and Silver. I am finished letting Maven control this game by spouting his lies to the kingdom. What we’ve done isn’t enough to bring him down. We need to let the country do it for us.”
Cal’s mouth gapes open. “Civil war?”
“House against house, Silver against Silver. Only Reds will stand united. And we will win because of it. Norta will fall, and we will rise, Red as the dawn.” A simple, costly, lethal plan on both sides. But a step we must take. They forced us down this road long ago. I am only doing what must be done. “You can collect the Notch children after we land in Tuck. But I need the Colonel, and I need his resources to get this in motion. Do you understand that?”