Broken Throne (Red Queen #4.5)(43)

Because Shade Barrow is Silver.

Muscle memory lets me draw my gun and cock the hammer without blinking.

“I might not be able to scream, but I can shoot you.”

He flushes, somehow his face and neck turning red. An illusion, a trick. His blood is not that color.

“There’s a few reasons why that won’t work,” he says, daring to look away from my pistol. “For one thing, your barrel’s full of water. Two, in case you haven’t noticed—”

Suddenly he’s by my ear, crouching next to me in the stream. The shock of it raises a shriek, or at least it would if he didn’t clamp a hand over my mouth. “—I’m pretty fast.”

I’m dreaming. This isn’t real.

He hauls my dazed body up, forcing me to stand. I try to shove him off but even that makes me dizzy.

“And three, the dogs might not be able to smell us anymore, but they can certainly hear a gunshot.” His hands don’t leave my shoulders, gripping each tightly. “So, are you going to rethink your little strategy, Captain?”

“You’re Silver?” I breathe, turning in his grasp. This time I right myself before I fall. As in Corvium, the nausea is wearing off quickly. A side effect of his ability. His Silver ability. He’s done this to me before and I didn’t even know it. The thought burns through my brain. “All this time?”

“No, no. I’m Red as that dawn thing you keep going on about.”

“Don’t lie to me.” I still have the gun in hand. “This has all been a trick so you could catch us. I bet you led those hunters right to my team—!”

“I said no screaming.” His mouth hangs open, drawing ragged breath past his teeth. He’s so close I can see the blood vessels spindling through the whites of his eyes. They’re red. An illusion, a trick, rings again. But memories of him come with the warning. How many times did he meet me alone? How many weeks has he worked with us, passing information, relaying with the blood-Red Corporal Eastree? How many times did he have the opportunity to spring a trap?

I can’t. I can’t make sense of this.

“And no one followed me. Obviously no one can follow me. They found out about you on their own. Something about spies in Rocasta, didn’t quite catch it all.”

“So you’re still safe in Corvium, still working for them? As one of them?”

His patience snaps like a twig. “I told you, I’m not Silver!” he growls, an animal in that quaking second. I want to take a step backward, but force myself to stand firm, unmoving, unafraid of him. Though I have every right to be.

Then he shoves his arm out, drawing back the sleeve with shaking fingers. “Cut me.” He nods, answering my question before I can ask. “Cut. Me.”

To my surprise, my fingers shake just as badly as his when I draw the knife from my boot. He flinches when I press it to his skin. At least he feels pain.

My heart skips a beat when blood swells beneath the blade. Red as the dawn.

“How is this possible?”

I look up to find him staring at my face, looking for something. By the way his eyes flash, I think he finds it.

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what this is or what I am. I only know I’m not one of them. I’m one of yours.”

For a blistering moment, I forget my team, the woods, my mission, and even Shade standing in front of me. Again, the world tips, but not from anything he can do. This is something more. A shifting. A change. And a weapon to be used. No, a weapon I’ve already wielded many times. To get information, to infiltrate Corvium. With Shade Barrow, the Scarlet Guard can go anywhere. Everywhere.

You’d think, with all my breaches in protocol, I’d try to steer away from breaking any more rules. But at the same time, what’s one more going to do?

Slowly, I close my fingers around his wrist. He still bleeds, but I don’t mind. It’s fitting.

“Will you oath yourself to the Scarlet Guard?”

I expect him to smile. Instead his face turns to stone.

“On one condition.”

My eyebrows raise so high they might disappear into my hairline. “The Guard does not bargain.”

“This isn’t a request to the Guard, but to you,” he replies. For a man who can move faster than the blink of an eye, somehow he manages to take the world’s slowest step forward. We stand eye to eye, blue meeting gold.

Curiosity gets the better of me. “And that is?”

“What’s your name?”

My name. The others don’t mind using their own, but for me, there is no such thing. My name holds no importance. Only rank and designation truly matter. What my mother called me is of no consequence to anyone, least of all me. It is a burden more than anything, a stinging reminder of her voice and the life we lived in early days. When the Colonel was called Papa, and the Scarlet Guard was the pipe dream of hunters and farmers and empty soldiers. My name is my mother, my sister Madeline, and their graves dug in the frozen ground of a village no one lives in anymore.

Shade looks on, expectant. I realize he’s holding my hand, not minding the blood coagulating beneath my fingers.

“My name is Diana.”

For once, his smile is real. No jokes, no mask.

“Are you with us, Shade Barrow?”

“I’m with you, Diana.”