WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Epilogue 2

Iris

I would have left with my sister, retreated to my homelands immediately, had it not been for the little lightning girl and the things she did. 

Despite who I am and who she is, the alliance between the Silvers and Reds so volatile, I feel drawn to look after the broken girl. She locked me in a cage of Silence, and I did not help her nearly enough when she was bound in chains, at Maven's feet. For the lies and wrongs she committed against me... I forgave her days ago, in that dank cell of mine in the dungeons. I call it equal. 

How could I possibly begrudge her now?

I go to check on her every other day, not wanting to push at the edges of whatever our relationship is. They're brief conversations, usually not lasting long enough for me to so much as sit down. The little apartment she's found herself is suiting, from the looks of the quaintly-sized room I always find her in, perched upon a chair and staring at the fire. It's only growing warmer, but whenever I go, the fire's always burning. 

"Iris?"

I look up to see Davidson staring at me from across the desk, a raised eyebrow. Bart sits next to me, also staring at me.

"Sorry," I murmur, shuffling the reports between my hands that Davidson offered me when we came into his private study for this. "I was just contemplating things." Caught up into a wind of thoughts as Bart gave his suggestions on blood equality to Davidson, from the point of view of a Nortan Silver. Important, but Bart and I have discussed them already, prior to coming into this room. I know everything on his mind, and he knows everything on mine. 

"She'll be okay, Iris," Bart says through barely parted lips. "Eventually."

The word breaks my heart, partially because I know it's the truth. 

I lost my mother years ago; she was my life, the woman I looked up to in every way, shape, and form. I loved my mother, and I didn't come out of my rooms for days. Maybe it was weeks, I don't remember. It is humanity's undeniable greatest strength to overcome these things, and we shouldn't have to. There shouldn't be any sorrow to have to overcome at all. 

Family and lovers make you weak and strong, somehow at the same time. 

"I know she will be. But I still have the right to worry about her, and what she did. She could've killed us all, Davidson." My eyes snap to his. "I saw her, and a few more minutes would've made her explode."

I don't tell him about what is perhaps my largest concern for the girl. She lied to Davidson. Lied to everybody, in fact. 

I was there. I saw where Cal's body was, at least ten paces from the gun, perhaps more. He did not fire that shot, move all that distance and then crumple to his final resting place with a blade lodged in his chest. Mare killed her fake lover, not Cal. 

Fake. 

"Why didn't you punish her, Davidson?" I ask, trying to stay focused this time. "She tried to kill everyone, and you let her walk off that bridge with not so much as a slap to the wrist. Why?"

"You know why," the Premier says, steeping his fingers on the desk. "Even if it wasn't right, how could've I ever punished her? She tried to kill the Lakelanders and my Reds and Newbloods out of her anger for the world. You saw her; tell me that she was herself. I've seen her walk through flames and create thunderstorms beyond belief. And in those moments, her eyes are never the eyes of Mare Barrow. How could I punish her if it was somebody else entirely controlling her?"

Those eyes... he's right. They weren't her own, and in the moments that I saw them, I couldn't help but think it was her lightning in control, not the girl that's supposed to wield it. She lost it, and she didn't care anymore.