amid the flames, there was you.

|you're the only sign of life in this valley of death|

Mother glares down at me with my same pale blue eyes, and I think that maybe we're just slightly different mirror images of each other. Although my father's hair and height passed down to me, Mother gave me all of her sharpness, her darkness, her icy glares. It's quite ironic, really. How hot my flame burns compared to my father's and brother's, and yet how cold I am before them—towards them.

  It feels like a curse sometimes, something my mother has punished me with.

  But it helps, too. Helps me shut out the fear, and most of all, that dreadful love that sparks within me, even as the pain my mother has instilled with me tries to combat it.

  I fidget in my chair under her hard, unrelenting gaze. I feel more shadow than boy. I suppose that's what I have always been. A small, inconsequential thing in the face of all everyone else is. My mother has always demanded fear and adoration, my father is king and inherently has the worship of every damned Silver in this country, and Cal . . . My brother does the least of all of us and yet receives the most. He just about exists. And yet everyone loves him.

  A shadow—it's all I'll ever be.

  "You are going to the Choke tomorrow, Maven," my mother croons, and I wince at her voice. She's been standing right in front of me, scrutinizing every inch of my form, for what seems like hours. It's probably only been five minutes, but Elara Merandus has a talent for altering reality. "The battalion leaves at dawn."

  "Yes, Mother. I know."

  She takes a hold of my chin, fingernails digging into my skin. I fight against another flinch. "You are my son, Maven. My son. Do not bring disgrace upon the Merandus name. Upon all that we shall heretofore achieve. Keep your composure, steady your focus on the task at hand. You are a prince of Norta, and even if your bastard father lays all his attention and concern on Tiberias, nothing will happen to you there. Even if he couldn't care less about your life, he won't risk you. Your brother is not untouchable, and if he dies, you are all that is left. Do not be afraid."

  "I'm not."

  She throws her blonde head back, releasing a laugh that chills me to the bone. "Oh, Maven. My dear only child." She says the words as though she would truly rather have anyone else, implicitly telling me just how much of a disappointment I really was. "You forget," she whispers, leaning forward so that I have to raise my chin to look her in the eye, "that every thought in that head of yours is as audible within my mind as my own."

  I swallow, trying to keep my mind blank. My eyes fall from hers, incapable of holding her unforgiving gaze anymore. "Yes, Mother."

  She flashes a broad white grin. "Excellent. Now, your half-brother expects you to spend the afternoon with him, doesn't he?" Her smile falls into a grimace and she steps back from me. "Don't get carried away with him, though. You need your rest, now more than ever."

  I nod, getting to my feet and straightening. I'm fifteen, but already towering over her, even while Cal and my father make me look small. Somehow, though, she intimidates me, and I shakily kiss her cheek before turning around.

  I haven't even opened the door before her voice fills my room again. "Your focus must be on the plan, Maven. Always."

  Without saying another word, I step out into the hall. She can still hear my thoughts from this distance, and so my next one is meant directly for her. I was born and made for it.

—•—

Cal's bronze eyes are set on the door of his quarters before I even step through them, and he stands the moment he sees me. "Mavey," he says, his deep voice coated with brotherly affection. It brings a hollow ache to my chest. My mother tries so very hard to take the love from me, especially when she senses the weakness it brings once I consider her plan for Cal's future. In every version of what she has planned, he dies. And every time I think about it, there's always a resounding agony I can't shake that makes me want to scream. Love—it's a weakness that makes me human.