The Pain in Our Veins (Maven Time Travel)

Chapter Two

Jon wastes no time, barreling down the street the instant I release him. His feet echo off the cobblestone, kicking up clouds of dust where the road has been unpaved. I told him to get me out of here. I hadn't specified how.

Cursing, I stumble after him, far too loud to find any use in hiding. I can hear her breathing. I can hear her pleas for me to stop, to know Mother's life hangs in the balance, to help her as only I can. She's going to wake up the entire village.

"She is foolish." Jon kneels behind a bush, glancing at a boat far at sea. "But so are you."

I reach for my flamemakers, only to remember their absence. "No one will miss you when you're gone, Jon."

"You need me."

"Do I?" I almost laugh. "You're the one on your knees."

He stands. "Fate has already shifted. You cannot handle her on your own."

"So we kill her."

"There is no 'we', Maven Calore." The name kicks the wind from my lungs. "I help you only as it suits me."

"As do I." Air hisses between my teeth. "You're a liability."

"I'm your savior."

"You're an old man in a dark alleyway. I'm the one with a knife."

"Go ahead. Kill me." Jon clucks his tongue. "You'll never know what might've been. The dead future you could've lived, had you only been less hasty."

My heart skips a beat. "Don't lie to a liar, Jon."

"You see that old man?" He points to the boat. "If he never dies, his apprentice will never have to fear for conscription. The Lightning Girl will never fall into the grid. No crown will grace your head, however briefly."

"You think I can't kill an old man?"

"I think you lack the means to not get caught." Jon took a step forward. "Nothing would happen to you, of course. But you would lose the trust of the people. A trust your brother would spend his entire life fighting back, and put you forever in his debt."

"You overestimate my capacity for gratitude."

"Then consider this: There is no future where you can return your old self to the palace without death. No future where your sister–"

"We're not related."

"--will leave you be." Jon glares. "No future where your mother will not find you."

My hands shake, a fear I cannot make sense of but as my deepest betrayal. How many times have I yearned to bring her back? How many times have I found her whispers a comfort?

"I cannot read your mind, but I know your soul. I know the paths that would've made you happy. I know the paths you refused to walk."

My head snaps to the sea, away from him and his siren's call. The boat bobs on the waves, delicate, pivotal, one wrong roll from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. A silver king. A red queen. How would things have changed? How many would still be alive?

"You run from your past as you run from yourself: pathetic, stumbling, terrified of losing what little you've gained. What do you think will happen to that boy in Mandy's trunk? What do you think she'll do, when she has nothing left to lose?"

"That boy is dead. I'll kill him myself."

Jon chuckles. "Returning, are we?"

"I've murdered enough innocents. You get your hands dirty." Cowards, both of us, but cowards survive. "Is it possible? That future you speak of?"

Silence grows, the decay of floorboards creaking beneath me. "Not if you do everything the same."

He disappears soon after, a boat borrowed for a boat destroyed, sunk at sea by a man with vast delusions of grandeur. Not me. I make mine come true.

"Brother!" Mandy's face lights up and she almost hugs me. "I was afraid I'd lost you."

"Many have tried. Few succeed." I tighten my grip on the knife. "What is this plan of yours?"

She hooks her arm in mine, stumbling over the details as we return to the shed. I don't need her. I could snap her neck, and no one would miss her.

I know the paths you refused to walk.

Memories drip with each step, cold slivers of pain and darkness ebbing in and out of focus. They weigh down my shoulders, dragging against my feet, a scrape of the knife I hold in my own hands. He is not me. Not anymore.

Mandy lays the body on the ground, rearranging the limbs as if he were a doll. My brain stirs with resignation, with the realization that this is a nightmare I will never wake up from. He will never wake up from. I will survive. I will reign with Mare at my side and Mother at my shoulder. It's the only way. The only choice.

Training taught me where the arteries are located, how to snap a neck in seconds and strangle to asphyxiation. They made sure we never killed our opponents, always knew the point of surrender so a healer might save us. Killing was for the battlefield.

But I know better.

Killing is for dark alleyways, the soft death of decay without glory or witness. Killing is for the neglectful, the unspoken violence of poor living in squalor by another's hand. Killing is for the desperate.

Killing is for scum like me.

I tremble. Strange. I've never trembled before. What is the difference between ordering the death of a babe and slaughtering it by hand? Nothing. Nothing but the voice in your head, the scream of the innocent, the knowledge that you could've been better but chose not to. That's why we leave it to soldiers. Why my ancestors never betrayed those close to them, not as I have. Why Cal basks in the sun while I slink in the shadows.

Do it. Mare's voice echoes in the shed, incandescent and alluring. This is the killing I've had to do. The kind of monster you've made of me.

I know blood, whether it be silver, red, or scorched to ashes. I killed the first stranger who dared to love me, tortured the second until I couldn't bear to look at her. I deserve to die.

It might as well be by my hand.