The Pain in Our Veins (Maven Time Travel)

Chapter Ten

Blood drips from Mare's cheek onto my shoulder, the same shoulder she leans against as her eyes flutter shut. I watch it, hypnotized, pressing a finger to the cut as if to mend it. But there is no ability in my fingers. Not when I've already burned her enough.

"The cameras, the cameras can see." Her hands dig into my uniform, tearing at the buttons. "You have to–"

"Sentinels sworn to my mother man the cameras." I press another finger to the cut, trembling as I tilt her chin. Her pulse thuds in time to my own. "You're safe with me, Mare."

"With you." Mare's fingers close around my palm, guiding it to her hair. "You can't protect me forever, Maven. Someone will find out. We all know it."

Mother's face flashes before me, and my fists clench. "Until the end."

She nods. "Until the end."

There will be no end. Not here. Not now. No matter how Evangeline screams, she will not get her way. "The end of our secrets," I whisper. "The end of the Guard."

Mare frowns. "The Guard?"

"Equality having been reached, of course." Slip of the tongue. "We could do so much, if only we had the power."

She buries her head in my chest. "To look powerful is to be powerful."

"There are other ways." I run my fingers through her hair. "There's might in seeming slight."

Her grip tightens. "Take me to Julian. He'll know what to do."

"Julian's a fool." My lips press atop her head, a whisper for her and her alone. Yet we aren't alone. Not anymore. Two nobles pass us by, but not before I've shoved us both down a service passage.

"Julian knows who I am." There's a frantic desperation to her, one I don't want to push. "Julian will know what to do."

And Julian will see right through me. Nosy little prick. I should've executed him instead of sending him to Corros, but Mother wanted to see him suffer. Wanted vengeance still for her stolen crown.

His chambers are close by, a nook in the library with a desk and a stove. Mother wanted to chase him out entirely, but Father was too attached. Much as with Cal, he was a remnant of Coriane. A woman she couldn't cut, no matter how she whispered for him to let go.

Julian sours as I enter, a delightfully ugly face that must make Mare shudder. I make him bow, but his eyes don't leave my face. "Prince Maven."

"Lord Jacos." I take her arm, daring him to object. "Bitterness doesn't suit you."

He gestures to a set of chairs, dusty and disused. "What's going on?"

Mare sits, but I stand. "Evangeline doesn't know her place."

His face hardens. "Neither do I."

Mare lifts her hair to reveal the mark she made of her, the slash against her cheek that drips onto her neck. Julian winces. For all his talk, he cannot stomach pain. Mare nods. "She got carried away."

I stay silent as he calls for Sara Skonos, the woman who Mother warned me never to go near. I made the mistake of talking to her once. She'd stared, shrinking from my eyes as though they were poison. Mother threatened to take out hers.

She works quickly, deft hands and silent fingers. By the time she is done, Mare has let go of my arm. I reach for it again, and Sara winces. Can she still feel it, the blade on her tongue? Does it flare everytime she looks at me?

It doesn't matter.

I feel nothing as she scrambles for the door. Nothing as she turns the knob, nothing as it opens and she scurries into the night.

I will never see her again.

The next day, we dine with soldiers, Silvers plucked from their posts for Cal's glory. He masks it well, his selfish need for the spotlight. How he wars not for our betterment, but for the medals on his chest. I took them when I was king. Would've tossed them if it weren't terrible optics.

Mare scowls, and I almost smirk. She knows this war is useless. She just doesn't know how.

Cal chatters about his plan to disguise the SIlvers as Reds, to lead them himself into the trenches. She inspired him, he claims. He thinks it's a compliment.

I nudge her, pressing a glass of cold water in her hand. "I know." My voice lowers. "But there's no stopping him now."

She gulps it down. "He's not coming back, is he?"

"It would be better if he didn't." I clutch her hand. "More chaos than the Guard could ever sow."

Mare goes white. "He's your brother."

I pause. "Do you know why we war with the Lakelands?"

"Territory." She rubs her forehead. "Electricity. Farmland. We–"

"For a hundred years?" I arch a brow. "They struck a deal, Mare. Their population of Reds was too high. They needed to thin it out."

Her breath hitches.

"He'll make the same deal when he's king. As all of us have, for generation after generation." I cup her cheek. "It's you or him, Mare.

"Me or him." She clenches her eyes shut. "Why is it like this?"

"I don't know." Power. Strength. It's all we have. "Love died for me when Thomas did, Mare. I can't care for Cal when he is what let him die."

Mare closes her hand around mine, and I squeeze it tight. She knows. She knows what he was to me, and what he cannot be anymore. A truth incomplete, a pain unborn, a flame I cannot quench as I press my lips to hers.