WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 35

Mare

A pavilion glitters down the path of cobblestone, all glass, wrought iron, and fire.

Torches that line the walkway and surround the pavilion burn low, suppressed by time and the snow. The lake faintly shimmers, reflecting the fires, and the wind blows quietly and softly, as though it is afraid to offend me.

The brothers noticed me before the transport door slams shut.

Keeping my head down from their gawking eyes, I step forward onto the shadowed cobblestones, black with the early night. My legs walk of something's accord, but it's by no means mine. The heat of the dying fires tickles at my cheeks, and I swear as I come closer, it gets warmer. As though I'm voluntarily walking to Hell.

Lips straightening into unemotional lines, the glass door is pushed ajar by a set of foolish fingertips, and in turn, steam melts into the nighttime air.

At first, I set my back to both of them, pretending to fasten the door into place just perfectly. In the panes of glass, I see Maven sitting with pristine posture, face blank, but his eyes an exception. Hurt and fascination. Cal, for once, is the brother who conceals his emotions without flaw.

"Do you remember, at Summerton, when I was homesick, how you schemed to help me visit home?" I turn around and am met with ice and fire. "And do you remember, when I was cut during training, how you so desperately made sure nobody saw my blood?"

They seem reluctant to say anything, but Cal nods. Maven sees through, staring blankly into me.

"If I'm interrupting something, I can leave."

"You're not," Cal says.

"Oh, good." Mutely, I take a seat between them, the chair painfully scraping against the brick floor. I never got to fully appreciate this place in the morning, and I look around, now that Maven's eyes are off mine. Large enough for a ten-person table to fit inside comfortably, with glass panels separated by wrought iron spirals, all mingling together to serve a purpose at the apex of the structure. Roses and lilies made of iron are melted into the spirals, adding a lovely little flourish.

And what a panoramic view this place offers. A vast lake to the left, and a burning battlefield off to the right, where it is so dark I only see the fire and hundreds of shadows. The moon glistens above, a haunting silver light shining despite of everything that attempts to repress it.

"Shouldn't you be fighting?" Maven murmurs beside me, whatever daze he was in a minute ago dissolved. "Or are you so certain that you'll win that you've decided to take a break?"

Light from the fire echoes in my once-betrothed's eyes, but the warmth does not melt the ice.

I swallow, regret consuming me. I should be out there, fighting for the Reds, if only to be away from him. What have I done?

But it wasn't the cold or the darkness.

It was the blood.

"I can't do it anymore," a weak sentence pushes itself from my lips, falling short of the bark I intended to give him. My mouth turns downward into a smile of grief.

Cal melts out of the world, and it's only me, Maven, and his eyes. "Oh, I highly doubt that," he simpers, interlacing chalk white fingers that gleam with sweat. "If you wish to be nostalgic, I can be nostalgic. Remember when we plotted with the Scarlet Guard to kill those innocent Silvers? They had families; children; lives to be lived. But you allowed their deaths anyway. So don't think for one moment, that you, Mare Barrow, are unwilling to kill a couple more fathers, a couple more daughters. If you were willing to slaughter to your supposed greater good then, I don't see why you would relent today."