WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 16

Thank you to all of you who have decided to stick with my fanfiction, in spite of War Storm being released. At last, I've finished it, and while I enjoyed it, I have some different endgame ideas in mind. I hope you all continue to comment and like this fanfiction, and for those of you who have certain dreams of what War Storm would've been like, message me! I'm happy to consider adding those thoughts into this story if they fit with it. P.S. this chapter is over 6000 words and I am sorry if it is painful to read.

" It isn't hard to let people die when their deaths give life to something else."

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Mare

"I know where she is," I admit, sitting cross-legged in the corner. "I didn't want to think about, but there's a place where Giza must be hidden."

Yellow slips through the rift between the windows and curtains that cover them, and if I tilt my neck just right, a courtyard is able to be made out. The medium-sized parlor that Tiberias assumed would make a good camp is tinted a shadowed scarlet, the red drapes bending the sunlight into a completely divergent hue.

"Where?" Harrick breathes out, his work not yet done with him. While he doesn't cloak us presently, he did so for a collective hour, not to mention the lack of sleep that plagues everybody. Harrick lies on the sofa pushed up against the wooden mahogany wall to my left; we figured that out of all us, he deserves the one place in this prison-Farley told us that under no circumstances should we leave-that offers decent napping space.

"My chambers. Not Mareena's room, but mine," I tell, pushing back to rest my head on the panels. While there are plenty of chairs and recliners to use, they feel so artificial, made for wealthy and wealthy alone. But of course, I have to clarify, due to living two separate existences here, one as royalty and the second a prisoner. "I know Maven. He knows me. Putting her in there hurts me more than his manacles ever could."

None respond, the moment abruptly turning depressive, my teammates kind enough to not ask further. It's best that way, with them blind to what goes on inside my head. Soon afterward, Ella, Tyton, and Rafe resume playing their game of cards around a circular tea table. The slight grins that were there just a minute ago are memories now. Ada and Farley apply my knowledge, once again pulling out the maps. Farley pays half-attention, her eyes glancing at the locked door about ten times a minute, paranoia ruling her. Harrick stares at the ceiling. Cameron does the same, stroking the beige fabric of her recliner.

These last hours spent with little sound have offered reflection, distractions unobtainable. I've considered all the places in the palace she could be, rejecting locations that I cannot reach. Yet this entire strategy will succeed only if Maven has extended his boldness, planting my sister somewhere that I may actually get to her. Maven delights in playing with his food before he consumes it, so very much that he invited me to slaughter his citizens, people in which he took an oath to protect. Why wouldn't he allow me to at least try and save her?

If she's not in that hellscape of mine, I might as well surrender. Through that smoke, the security still witnessed my lightning, one of a kind and mistakable for nothing else. Maven knew that I'd never go to him willingly, but now he knows of my presence, amplifying security. We have a single chance, if even that.

"Per se, we rescue her, within seconds there'll be men flanking those halls like their lives depend on it," Cameron states, raising her voice as if to continue. She doesn't.

Ella drops her cards to the rug on the floor, stretching her shirt sleeves to fit over her fists. "Then we run as if our lives depend on it. Oh wait," she drops off, sarcastic. "They do."