WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 30

Sadly, only another small chapter to quell your hunger, my lovelies. (lol what I wrote just now is so creepy) In the end, I decided that one more filler chapter was needed, but the next chapter is due to be released on Sunday, coming in at around ten and a half pages.

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Mare

"It was you, wasn't it?" I ask Farley, seated on her bed. I find her doing that a lot lately, just sitting there, staring at the wall. 

"Yes," she responds, still staring blankly. "Yes it was."

I gulp, the broken puzzle pieces finally fitting perfectly into place. I was there when Laurentia was discovered dead, when Volo pointed his sword at me. And I was there when the security footage was first shown. Laurentia Samos, a proud Silver, choked herself with her snake. 

"Why?" 

She looks down at her knuckles, ashamed. The curtains in the room are drawn shut, not allowing a wink of the dying autumn light inside. Her room is like all the other rooms we've borrowed from royals. White sheets, a bed comfortable for two, a nice sized bathroom and closet. Not as if either of us has the need for a closet; I've borrowed and stolen clothes for years. 

"Divide and conquer," she echoes Davidson's old words, smiling faintly. "Make them mistrustful of each other until they cannot stand to turn their backs. If they can't keep their own courts from falling apart, how will they ever fight against us?"

Said like a true villain. I know she hears my thoughts, but the words unravel in my head anyway, and I look down to the marble. Farley takes an agonizingly long blink. 

I swallow. "Won't it make them mistrustful of us, too?"

"We don't need their trust, Mare. We are their allies because Cal and Anabel and Volo need us, not because they want to be. But do they need one another? Perhaps they don't think so. They will not dare cut ties with us because of the sheer size of our organizations. The Lakelands could break promises, they have enough troops. Cal could let go of a Nortan House or two. Or maybe they'll remain allies, as a body of broken bones."

I shake my head, dig my fingers into my palms. "Volo ruled it as a suicide. Everybody agrees that's what it was."

"To see is to believe," Farley counters, twisting her hips to face me. "Not everybody believes in what they saw, though. It would be odd for a queen, so close to a victory, to do what she did to herself."

Sickened, I say, "I worry about you, Farley. What this power is doing to your mind."

"I recognize that. But I'm the one who can see into your brain, Mare Barrow. And I'm a thousand times more terrified than you are."

"Was it your idea?" I blurt, unable to contain my questions. I don't want to talk about falling apart right now, not with the battle on the horizon. Besides. She knows exactly what I'm thinking. 

"No." It wasn't. "It was Davidson's idea. Though to be fair, he never said it aloud. I heard it in thoughts and pieces one day at a Command meeting."

"Oh."

"Oh."

"Do you hear my thoughts?"

"Yes. But I block them out as well as I possibly can."

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"It was Farley," I admit in the quietness of Davidson's room, tucked into a back corner of the palace. 

Davidson, Tyton, and I sit around a small, wooden table, sipping on wine. The curtains are wide open, allowing the cold light of winter in. His room is somewhat bigger than mine or Farley's, but it hardly makes a difference. Our Premier doesn't have much to fill his room with either, leaving the bookshelves and dressers barren. 

Tyton and Davidson stare into their goblets of wine, and I do the same. The redness of it is delicious, and if I look at it long enough, my eyes blur and the liquid seems infinite, as though I could dive into it and never return. I would very much like that. 

I begin tapping my Silent Stone ring on the table, scowling at the band. At least there's good in the ring. Not like at Whitefire, where the purpose of the manacles was to prevent me from unleashing my well-deserved wrath on my Sentinels. Here, it is to protect Farley and ourselves. We don't need her hearing in on this. 

"It was my idea," Davidson states factually as if there's nothing to be ashamed of. "I didn't intend it, I didn't think that the idea was realistic in the first place. The Whisper must have crawled into my head."

"Don't talk about her like that, Davidson. Farley isn't some sort of crawling pest. Don't call her a Whisper either."

Davidson looks into my eyes meaningfully and sets his glass onto the wood, resulting in a satisfying click. "I'm sorry. General Farley is no monster. The ability itself, however... she murdered a queen without telling anybody."

"I know she did. Just talking to her, Farley seems different, like there's something wrong." She spoke the words she did with a certainty that frightens me, a certainty that shouldn't exist. "Farley talked about striking doubt of trust in the Silvers. But she didn't sound righteous like she usually does. She sounded insane, with an agenda of her own."

"Does Command know about Farley?" Tyton asks, gripping the table's edges. 

"If anybody besides for the people who went on that mission to Whitefire knew, this room would be cramped. To my knowledge, it hasn't been leaked."

"We need to tell Command, then."

"No," Davidson says forcefully, straightening so that he and Tyton are the same height at the table. "Do you wish to know what Command would say if they discovered we were harboring an all-powerful Whisper in the Lakelander's palace? That she'd killed dozens of soldiers without a bat of the eye in Whitefire, and that she faked Volo's wife's suicide without consulting anybody? Command would kill her, no doubt about it."

Shivers make their way across my body, raising the miniature hairs on my arms. "Farley is a weapon to be used, an asset to be gained in so many ways. Why would they ever?"

"Because she went against us. It's irrelevant if she claims that she's helping us, which she probably is. Besides, nobody should have that much power. That's why Command is divided into several equal people."

"Is there anything to be done?" Tyton asks.

"Unless chaining her up in Silent Stone is an option, then we have nothing. We can summon Julian to return to her, to guide her. But there isn't an option that can be compared to more than a tourniquet."