Chapter 20 Mance, Without Livid
Mance, Without Livid
I don’t bother running after Livid. The damage is already done anyway.
As I stand in the midst of the burning wreckage of my own wedding, I can’t help but feel shock that there’s some part of me that could do this.
In the corner of my mind, Alect’s memories flare, filling me with his own discoveries of what his different parts were capable of doing.
For a minute, my horror and despair blend with his in a potent cocktail that transcends time.
Then a hand grabs my shoulder and I whip around to see Reltas.
“Survived the blast, did you?” I say grimly. “Good work.”
He shoves me back, though not hard. “I have to respect the effort,” he quips back. “Burning my whole realm to the ground just to get out of marrying me? It’s impressive.”
I sigh. “Livid is . . . not exactly under my control.”
It’s an odd thing to say, but as before, Reltas accepts my explanation as though it makes perfect sense.
He nods distantly, straightening his sleeves, possibly because the wounds underneath are bothering him again.
“In that case,” he says, “should we continue? After all, I’m pretty sure all this counts as a violation of the Treaty.
Not only did you break the agreement your father made, but you’ve also attacked my people.
I’d be willing to overlook it, though. If you’d just come back to the altar.
I don’t actually mind committing to each other in the middle of a raging inferno. Seems . . . thematic somehow.”
I turn to him, taking in his messy hair and singed waistcoat.
The dirt on his cheek. “Where is my father, Reltas?” I ask, in a tone that is almost accusation.
“You keep saying he won’t see me, and maybe he’s so angry with me for locking him up that he didn’t bother coming to the wedding either.
It’s possible. But I know Silver was looking for him.
And now he’s gone.” I swallow around the word, and it feels like shards in my throat.
“Kiar said it was because he knew too much. So what exactly did he find out?”
I’m trying hard to keep the desperation out of my voice.
Trying not to think about the boy I love forced into the Broken Citadel and everything it means.
But the idea of him in that awful blackness tears a hole through my heart.
I don’t want to find out how it will twist him.
Don’t want to wonder if I’ll even know him when I see him next.
If I see him next.
Reltas’s expression shifts slightly in response to my question, but it’s enough.
“So my father’s dead,” I say. “Isn’t he? I don’t have to marry you at all.”
He exhales, a long and exhausted sound that would move me to compassion if we were different people in a different situation. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, if it’s any consolation,” he says. “But when my citizens got going, I couldn’t stop them. They had so much rage. We all have so much . . .”
Wood crackles around us from the burning of my own rage, and there’s a part of me that understands. But there’s also a lot of me that doesn’t.
I feel numb.
I feel sad.
Not because I lost my father, but because I lost the potential to ever have any kind of redemption in our relationship. Now it will always only be what it was. A struggle for power. Control instead of love. Painful memories and scarred hands.
“Well,” Reltas says. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But I suppose it’s where we are now.”
He draws the sword from his waistband and plunges it into the ground next to me.
It’s similar in shape to our Victory’s Herald, but with a pommel of twisted, polished wood instead of stone.
I don’t have to ask what it is or what it means.
I understand fully that he’s just made a formal declaration of war.
The only thing I need to ask is, “Why?!”
He shrugs stiffly. “So you didn’t break your father’s agreement. But all this”—he waves his hands around at the burning wreckage—“can still easily be considered an act of war. So I’m within my rights.”
“Yes, but . . . But why, Reltas?”
His eyes grow cold. “Because my people need justice,” he says. “And they’re not satisfied yet.” He snaps his fingers and a small but not inconsequential squadron of soldiers emerges from the smoke and flame behind him.
Alarm bells ring in my mind, but as I start to split, hoping to get myself far away quickly, Reltas flings a lengthy chain necklace around me, and my attempt to teleport through it only creates a jarring sensation that has me holding my head.
“Where did you get one of Mara’s necklaces?” I ask through gritted teeth. We aren’t exactly handing them out.
“Your father’s cell,” he says casually. “I thought it might be useful later, so I pried it off when I freed him. I had a hunch I might need it today.”
The forest lurches, but at least the throbbing in my head starts to subside after a few calming breaths. “All right,” I say finally, lowering my hand. “So you’ve got me. Now what are you going to do? Kill me? Do you hate me that much?”
“I don’t hate you,” he says softly, like a confession.
“I tried to, and I couldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I can stop all this.
We’ve come too far to . . .” He shakes his head sharply, as though physically flinging away the thought, and his voice hardens.
“I’m thinking hostage. I’ve had a recent vacancy in my prisons. ”
His flippancy makes me sick. Mere minutes ago, I thought I’d reached my lowest point. At the altar. But that was before this threat of imprisonment, this declaration of war. Before I knew about my father.
About Silver.
Suddenly it’s all too much, and I open my mouth, not even fully knowing myself what I’m about to say.
And then something forceful rolls through my body, snatching the words from my throat.
At first I think it’s another wave of nausea. But, no, this is different. This . . . doesn’t make any sense.
In the wake of it, my entire chest is gripped with a terror that I have never felt before, not even when I was dying. Not even when I killed. But the feeling has no logical root, it’s just surging senselessly within me, aimed at nothing.
Somehow, the baselessness of it frightens me even more, and I find myself on the ground, cowering against the border of Mara’s necklace.
This one must be made from blood, because I feel the smooth, congealed moisture of it against my face, and it only stokes my fear hotter and hotter until I feel like I might explode.
A whimper escapes my lips, and I’m trembling violently, my mind shutting down completely in the face of such all-consuming, irrational panic.
I don’t realize at first that everyone else is on the ground, too.
Not until the fear twists like a snake in my belly and everyone starts running.
I try to run also, but there’s no escape for me. I claw at the invisible blood that circles me, but it won’t give. It only leaves me feeling slimy and repulsed.
And so, so scared.
The more I feel the fear, the more my mind provides reasons for it.
I’ve failed everyone. Hundreds will die because of me.
I’m no better than my father. I might even be worse, because at least he made all his bloodshed useful.
But me, I’m only a victim. Unable to save myself or anyone else.
All I amount to in the end is fodder for someone else’s plans. Again.
Livid is still on the loose.
The boy I love is in the Citadel.
Everything is falling apart.
The sense of doom and helplessness consumes me, and I start to cry. Cold, harsh sobs of pure terror. It’s awful.
Then a man appears in front of me, arms stretched out to the sides. It doesn’t take me long to realize that this person is the cause of my torment.
The thing that’s harder to wrap my mind around is that the person in front of me, the person putting me through all this . . . is Silver.