BROKEN KINGDOM ✔

Chapter 23

Cal

I love her. That's the beginning, and end to everything.

Chapter Music: Red Glory, Silver Defeat

I don't have to ask anyone to move as I stomp through the halls of the base, anyone in the halls move away as soon as they see me. Whether it be because of my flaming fingers or the look on my face I don't know. I could care less really as long as they moved.

I walk until I'm in the heart of the base, where I can go away into my hideaway and not be bothered by anyone or anything. Anyone who needs me can burn for all I care. I burst through the doors of the office that I call my own. It's nothing grand, probably belonging to some low Silver soldier before we took over the base. I fall into the chair in heaving breaths as I try to control my breathing to level myself. Useless.

On the desk, a chess board. A game that still is unfinished since Kilorn and I played only a few days ago. But that isn't in my thoughts now, instead I take it and chuck it at the stone walls. It does little to calm me. I pick up the board and the pieces. Kilorn will be pissed I lost the placement of the pieces, for the first time in weeks he had actually been winning.

There's only one person who has the answers to my questions, and it's not my uncle. Farley's own office is only a quick jog into the higher levels of the base. Unlike me, she prefers to see the sun when she can. And have an eye on the sky. I could care less if bombers come our way and kill us all if it means I can finally get some rest. But she has far more to live for than I do.

I knock on the door, praying on my colors she's come back since I last left. Her voice is distant behind the wooden doors, "Come in."

Farley's office is a better sight than mine. The walls, actually painted rather than mine, reach far higher than my head and its larger than most rooms on base. Large windows bring in the view from behind her at her desk, writing something. She could see anything coming from us up here, making it a watch post than just a work space. That's probably why she chose it. She hates having any kind of surprises thrown on her. I can't say the same. I would rather be burrowed away underground than see what's coming for me.

Farley looks up from her papers, clicking her pen at me. "So, what made you run?"

"I didn't run, Farley." I sit in a chair opposite to her, sighing. Unlike me, she actually chose to decorate her office. Small frames of family have lined up on her desk around the notes of war.

"Sorry, you just walked out then." She raises her brows, tilting her head in some annoying manner she has perfected over the past months on base. Having Clara has only reinforced the glare, turning it into a mother's scold. I never felt my mother's eyes on me as she scolded. But I saw, and laughed, every time Elara would do it to Maven.

"What's your plan, Farley?"

"My plan is to get you to talk to me."

"That's not what I meant—"

"Why are you avoiding your uncle?"

"I'm not." It's a lie. Farley knows it, I know it. But the things he said... Mare wouldn't do those things. Not for a thousand years. Not even for me.

She puts her pen down, leaning forward, "Do you know what I saw when Julian walked into that room? I saw a man, fading. He's lost everything that has ever mattered to him. Don't let him lose you too, Cal." I shuffle in my seat.

"Since when did you care about Silvers?" Farley laughs loudly, breaking the tension woven inbetween her words. But she catches herself as her eyes find something. It takes all her laughter away in a breath.

"No one should have to lose their family," she whispers. I forget sometimes what Farley has lost. Shade, Clara even depending on how you look at it. Even though her Father is alive she has never been on good terms with him. I've never asked what happened to her mother though. But I've lost things too. We all have. My mother, my father, my brother... Mare.

"Mare didn't do the things he said she did," I mumble, looking down at my hands.

"I don't think we know her as well as we once did. Enough loss, enough misery... it can break anyone. Even Mare." I look up at her expecting to meet her gaze, but her eyes are on something else. A picture. Farley turns it towards me. I don't remember this photo, but there I am smiling in it. Mare too, squished in between her brother and I. Farley is next to Shade, Kilorn stands in front of us.Cameron's in it, but her face is turned away from it. We're all there. By the looks of it, it could have been taken right before Maven took Mare. When we were still tracking down New Bloods before Maven could kill them all. "She's not the same person as the one in this photo. None of us are."

"When I went to rescue Julian and Mare," I swallow around the knob in my throat, "I told you I never got to her, but I did. She told me she had been talking to Jon, and that is why she refused to come back. Because Jon told her it was her destiny to save the Reds. I didn't understand what she meant then, but I —think I do now."

"Julian said something about a destiny earlier. Jon cannot be trusted, she must know that. Whatever he told Mare is just another one of his half truths," She glares at me, "You should have told us Mare was talking to him. Mare has been poisoned against everything she is. She's murdering innocents because of this—"

"So you do believe Julian?" I sit up, feeling the rising anger in my chest.

"What am I supposed to think, Cal?" Her voice rises to match my own, "She's made herself a queen, appointed my daughter as her bloody heir. Everything that has come out of her reign, has been soaked in blood. Julian just confirmed it for me. For all of us"

"That wasn't Mare. She doesn't know what she's doing, she's just afraid. You didn't see her that day. She looked tortured, she's been tortured— wait, what if there was a way to help her? A whisper maybe. I've heard of what they used to do. They used to help people's minds, not break them."

Farley closes her eyes, speaking softly, "There are no whispers left. She killed them all, Cal."

"You don't know that. There could be New Blood whispers. Maybe they'll be even more powerful than the rest of them. They could help her."

"We don't know how this works. There aren't always duplicates. There hasn't been a New Blood whisper yet. Mare's ability has none yet."

"Then let's find one." Farley wrings her hands together quickly, brows furrowing together. She exhales and reaches for the photo. After a few more breaths of silence, she nods.

"I'll talk to Command and the Premier. We'll invade now that the Lakelander Queen is gone to collect her troops. So quick they won't even know what hit them," She looks back at me, "When we win, Mare will be kept as a prisoner until a whisper can be located."

"Thank you, Farley." I ease into the seat, closing my eyes for the first time in a long while. Mare will live. Mare will live. Mare will be okay.

I get up to leave. Walking back across the room to the door. "Cal," Farley calls, "be careful. I love Mare with all my heart, and maybe we will be able to help her. But, sometimes people don't want to be fixed." I don't look back to her despite hearing her words. I just leave, closing the door behind me. You're wrong.