They have an army
Farley scoffs, all but rolling her eyes. “Ma’am, I care very little for Tiberias Calore,” she replies. I can’t help but wince, hissing out a breath. Farley.
But she isn’t finished. “So you can believe me when I say he will be.”
The representative bobs her head, satisfied with such an answer. She isn’t the only one. Many of the politicians around the room, both Red and Silver, exchange whispers. “Well, Your Majesty?” the woman adds, turning her attention on Tiberias.
He shifts in his chair. On his right, Anabel touches his arm with fleeting fingers. I have enough experience with Silver mothers to know that Queen Anabel would be considered overly maternal, too gentle, too loving with her kin.
I sit as he gets up, stepping onto the floor. Davidson acquiesces, finally taking his own chair to let Tiberias stand alone. He cuts a magnificent sight against the white marble and granite, and the swirling green dome over our heads. The red of his cape seems a livid flame, a swath of fresh blood.
Tiberias raises his chin. “I’ve spent almost a year in exile, betrayed by my brother. But I was betrayed by my . . .” He pauses, chewing the words. “My father as well. He raised me to be a king like every king before. Unyielding, unchanging. Bound to the past. Locked into endless war, married to tradition.” For the first time, Evangeline flinches, her clawed nails curling on the arms of her seat.
The true king pushes on. “The truth is Norta was split in two long before my father was murdered. Silver overlords, with Reds below. I knew it to be wrong, as we all know, in the deepest places of ourselves. But there are limits to the power of kings. I thought changing the bedrock of a country, rearranging the ills of our society, was one of them. I thought the current balance, however unfair,
Let's go Free them
She’s holding the pistol wrong. Even I know that. It’s too big for her, made of shimmering black metal, with a barrel nearly a foot long. Better suited to a trained soldier rather than a shivering, slight teenage girl. A soldier, I realize with cold clarity. A Silver. It’s the same kind of gun a Sentinel shot me with, so long ago in the cells deep beneath the Hall of the Sun. The bullet felt like a blow from a hammer and went straight through my spine. I would’ve died if not for Julian and a blood healer under his control. In spite of my ability, I raise my hands, palms open in surrender. I’m the lightning girl, but I’m not bulletproof. But she takes this as a threat instead of submission, and tenses, her finger itching too close to the trigger.
“Don’t move,” she hisses, daring to take another step toward me. Her skin, the dark, rich color of blackwood bark, offers her perfect camouflage in the forest. And yet, I see the red bloom beneath, and the tiny scarlet veins webbing the whites of each eye. I gasp to myself. She’s Red. “Don’t bleeding think about it.”
“I won’t,” I tell her, tipping my head. “But I can’t speak for him.”
Her brows furrow in confusion. She doesn’t have time to be afraid. Shade appears behind her, solidifying out of thin air, and wraps her up in an expert military hold. The gun falls from her grasp, and I snatch it before it can hit the rocky ground. She fights, snarling, but with Shade’s arms firmly locked behind her head, she can’t do much more than sink to her knees. He follows, keeping her firmly in hand, his mouth set in a grim line. A scrawny girl is no match for him.
The gun feels foreign in my hand. It’s not my chosen form of weapon—I’ve never even shot one before. I almost laugh at that. To come so far without even firing a gun.
“Get
Sayfa 291
0-30p: Kontrollü okuyucu 📖
40-70p: Hafif bağımlı 👀
80p+: Geçmiş olsun, kitaplar seni ele geçirmiş 😅
The lihgtning girl
Our first few steps into the crowded, dim market lead us right past a signboard. Usually filled with notices of sale, news scraps, memorials, the Red noise has been covered up by a checkered swath of printings. A few children mill about the signboard, ripping up the bits of paper in reach. They toss the scraps at each other like snowballs. Only one of the kids, a girl with ragged black hair and bare, brown feet, bothers to look at what they’re doing. She stares at two familiar faces, each glaring down from a dozen huge posters. They are stark and grim, headlined with big black letters that read “WANTED BY THE CROWN, for TERRORISM, TREASON, and MURDER.” I doubt many of the people swarming the Paltry can read, but the message is clear enough.
Cal’s picture isn’t his royal portrait, which made him appear strong, kingly, and dashing. No, the image of him is grainy but distinct, a frozen still from one of the many cameras that captured him in the moments before his failed execution in the Bowl of Bones. His face is haggard, pulled by loss and betrayal, while his eyes spark with unchecked rage. The muscles stand out as his neck, straining. There might even be dried blood on his collar. It makes him look every inch the murderer Maven wants him to seem. The lower posters of him are torn up or covered in graffiti, in spiky, scratched handwriting almost too violently etched to make out. The Kingkiller, The Exile. The titles rip at the paper, as if the words could make the photographed skin bleed. And weaving among the titles—find him, find him, find him.
Like Cal, the picture of me is taken from the Bowl of Bones. I know exactly which moment. It was before I walked through the gates of the arena, when I stood and listened to Lucas take a bullet to the brain. In that second, I
Sayfa 183
16. yüzyılla birlikte Türk korsanlığı güçlenmektedir; bu korsanlık Arnavutluk, Split, Avlonya, Durazzo kapılarından Adriyatik'e sızmaktadır. Bu korsanlık Barbarosların ortaya çıkmalarıyla daha da ağır hale gelmiş, Türk donanmalarının korsan teknelerinin öncülüğü ve takipçiliğinde geniş ölçekte buralara nüfuz etmesiyle daha da artmıştır. Fakat tablo abartılı bir şekilde karartılmamalıdır. Kabaca 16. yüzyılın son çeyreğine kadar, Türkler veya Cezayir korsanları "Körfez"in içine sınırlı olarak girmektedirler; ancak 1580'lerden sonra, başka yerlerde olduğu gibi Adriyatik'te de her şey değişecektir. 1583 tarihli bir Venedik muhtırası buna işaret etmektedir: Bir süreden beri, özellikle Apulia kıyıları hem sahili hem de onun toplarının gölgesinde sığınak bulabilen tekneleri koruyan, toplarla iyi donatılmış koruyucu kulelerle doldurulduğundan beri, korsanlar saldırılarını daha kuzeye yöneltmişler ve körfezi istila etmişlerdir.
To perceive this eros can split the mind in two. Why? The components of the contradiction may seem, at first glance, obvious. We take for granted, as did Sappho, the sweetness of erotic desire; its pleasurability smiles out at us. But the bitterness is less obvious.
Şunu fark ettim ki ultralığın neye karşı olduğunu tanımlamak çok daha kolaydı: her türlü otoriteye karşı duyulan güvensizlik. Modern dünyanın ticarileşmesi karşısında duyulan çaresizlik. Spesifik müttefikler dışında kendinden olmayan herkesi ötekileştirme. Ultralarla vakit geçirmek, kendinizi "biz bütün dünyaya karşı" hissine kaptırmanıza neden olabiliyordu. Bir tanıma en çok yaklaşanlar Split'te görüştüğüm ultralardı. Dišpet. Her şeye karşı duruş, mahvınıza yol açacak olsa dahi ödün verilmeyen bir ahlak anlayışı.
