Red Queen

Mare remembers each of her brothers’ departures when they were conscripted. She remembers her mother and Gisa’s tears, and her father and her own silence. She also remembers red blood dripping onto Shade’s shirt from the poor ear-piercing job she did with the earrings Shade gave to her and Gisa. Mare’s memories fade to images of the Choke, where she has never been but where her father was injured in the war. She imagines her brothers there. Then her mind goes back to her worst memories: “Gisa’s hand, Kilorn’s conscription, Dad coming home half-dead.” Even events that happened before Mare was old enough to remember them flash before her eyes. Finally, she comes to and realizes she is in a cage, kneeling before Queen Elara.

Mare tells Queen Elara, “I’d bow, but I might fall over,” then immediately regrets her words because, “She’s the queen. She could just kill me. She could kill us all.” The queen reaches through the bars to touch Mare’s temple, demonstrating that she can increase Mare’s pain at will. The queen reminds Mare that despite her ability of electrocution, she has red blood, not silver. The queen reveals that she has been sorting through Mare’s memories and nightmares in order to understand her.

As Queen Elara toys with Mare by paralyzing her legs, Mare realizes that the queen is a “whisper.” Queen Elara tells Mare that she is only alive because hundreds of powerful and curious Silvers witnessed her display. Mare tries but fails to call up more lightning. She realizes that the red band is gone from her wrist and wonders what it means. “What am I?” she wonders.

The next time Mare wakes, a guard stands outside her cell, telling her to get dressed. Mare wonders why there is no red on the clothing she has been given. The guard turns out to be another magnetron, Evangeline’s cousin Lucas. He is calm and stoic, seemingly less severe than Evangeline. He leads Mare to the throne room, where the king, queen, and princes await. Mare refuses to kneel before them. The king glares at her but chuckles when Mare says she is not sorry that he can’t kill her.

The king pulls out Mare’s identification card, on which her red blood was rubbed at birth. It contains all the information there is about her, including her mediocre school performance. The king cannot make sense of how such an unremarkable person could be an anomaly, both Red and Silver. He does not know what to do with her.

Mare suggests that the king let her go. Queen Elara laughs, saying that the nobles will never forget “the little lightning girl” and alluding to but not naming a sinister idea for what to do with Mare. Cal becomes defensive and must be calmed by his brother. The king tells Mare that instead of killing her, they will pretend that she is no longer Mare Barrow of the Stilts but, rather, the daughter of Ethan Titanos, a Silver general killed when she was an infant. They will say that she was raised by a Red soldier and has only just discovered her identity as a Silver lady. She will marry Prince Maven. The king attempts to be dismissive, but Mare can tell that he is afraid of the Scarlet Guard when he says that she will finally have a purpose: placating the Reds with the promise of a rags-to-riches fairytale.

Mare thinks that the fairytale is more like a nightmare. She tries to plead silently with Cal to help her, but he shakes his head. The king makes it clear that Mare cannot refuse her fate, referring to her as “Lady Titanos.” Queen Elara tells Mare that she will live at the palace from now on, “as is the custom for royal brides,” and that she will be scheduled as Elara sees fit. “One false step,” she says, “one wrong word, and you will suffer for it.”

When Mare asks about her family, the king says he will give them an allowance to keep them quiet. Mare bargains for her brothers and Kilorn to be brought home from the war. The king agrees, but Mare thinks that, “It sounds less like a pardon and more like a death sentence.”