WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 44

Mare

Shit.

The cuss recurs in my head over and over again until I'm safely tucked in my room, hidden from unwelcomed sneers and titters.

My hands drag across my face; my lips, willing crawling skin to be cleansed.

Somewhere in the distant corners of my mind, I recall what Davidson ordered of me.

Stomach lurching against my heart, I sit down on my bed, pen in hand, and stare at the lined parchment set on a book for a hard surface. The black streaks separate the faded and yellow paper at even increments, and if I squint at the paper long enough, my vision blurs.

Davidson reminded me weeks ago, the day Cal and I fought in our execution and won against all odds, only for Maven's men to attempt again, I was branded the leader of the Scarlet Guard. And Maven said so himself when he stood before me on the bridge connecting the two halves of the city. I was a prize to him and his dutiful Silvers, but also a weapon to be flourished. If I was the assumed commander of the Scarlet Guard, and Maven controlled me, then our regime was over.

Regrettably for him, I have never had any actual power when it comes to the inner workings of the Scarlet Guard or Montfort. I've only met one of the Command generals, though two more are slated to make appearances in the city once our unspeakable deeds are committed. Another two are in the tunnels, riling up the troops.

Though it's a widely known fact that I'm not in a position of authority, I'm still a figurehead, a face that everybody has seen and heard of.

Better for Davidson-a man everybody has heard of but few have seen-to step down for a day to let somebody else deliver the Silver's news of damnation.

To be clear, he didn't offer me the chance to speak to thousands of my enemies.

Davidson told me it had to be me.

And though I've had the assignment for weeks, my pen hasn't touched the paper once. I would've begun working on yesterday evening and through the night, had it taken that long.

The glass pen begins to quiver beneath my fingers, and I throw it across the room as if it's hot. It might as well be. Mare Barrow, destroyer of lives.

I like to pretend I didn't know this is how it was going to end. With me on one side, and the Silvers I've come to respect-to love-on the other. But that destiny felt so remote and impossible. Like it would never arrive. But now it's here, and by sunset, the Silvers that I've wanted dead since the beginning will be imprisoned, along with those that perhaps don't deserve such ends.

But... they didn't think twice when they enslaved us, made us build their bridges and palaces. And while we served as disposable game pieces and collateral damage, they sat up in the palaces we built for them with our blood.

And though Cal has decreed Silvers and Reds are equal, in mind, soul, and power, they still work in the kitchens. The sheets under me were put there by my Red sisters. I could take a stroll through Caesar's Square and there would be dozens of so-called servants bustling to and fro, answering to the King's orders and those under them. I see the world on the edge of a blade. Without balance, it will fall. If not for Anabel and Volo whispering their influence into Cal's ear, the puppetmasters they are, Cal might've liberated the Reds from their work months ago.

"In time," Volo tells Davidson when the Premier presses the issue. They're just stalling, waiting for us to give up and leave. Now that Cal has the whole of Norta at his back, our partnership with the Silvers has become secondary to them.

Besides for the Scarlet Guard's and Montfort's presence in the palace, nothing has changed. No matter what Cal says, in time, when we retreat into the mountains of Montfort... they'll be left to their own devices and Cal will lose his reasons to change things. His Silver council has done a good job of keeping our ideas at bay, and without the Reds around at all, the natural order will fold back in on itself.