Hey everyone! I've emerged from my writer's block. Although this chapter isn't quite as long, as usual, I think you'll all enjoy it. Coming up in Ch24, we'll get some answers about Farley's betrayal. We'll also see Cal soon as well. Bleeding Crown only has a couple more chapters to go before we reach a conclusion! But for all you super fans out there, don't stress, I plan I creating a new RQ4 fan fiction that takes a completely different plot on the story. As always, please star and comment! 

Enjoy! "I've been broken too many times to break again." 

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Mare

Maven circles the bench in a predatory fashion, as if he was a shark coming in for his kill. Blood pounds in my ears, drowning out the Sentinel's yelled worries of the king's security. Maven ignores his guards, too livid to be concerned about his own safety. Seconds pass by as if they were hours, as Maven continues to pace around the bench.

After what feels like an eternity of silence, he stops his pacing in front of me. Maven forces my eyes from the ground to his, with a scalding hand to the chin. But I can't meet his eyes, feeling as though he'll burn a hole through me with nothing but a fixed stare. My eyes instead glance around the setting, jumping from one tree to another, analyzing how the snow lands gracefully on the pines as if powdered sugar was falling from the sky.

Maven interrupts my little girl like thoughts. "Look at me," he whispers, desperate for answers. "Look into my eyes and tell me if any of it was true."

"Why should I answer your questions when I have a thousand of my own?" I whisper, my voice bitter with disgust. "You know, for a moment, I believed you. I actually thought you had potential to become better. That my words the night of the masquerade meant something. True love isn't something you can trick others into giving. You can't order whispers to change my perception of you. The only way you can genuinely have love is by earning it and making sacrifices."

Maven merely flinches at my argument, his hand on my chin growing warmer by the second. "Look at me, or I swear I will hunt down a whisper to force the truth out of you. I order you to tell me, as your king." Maven's hand grows hot enough to brand me, forcing me to relive the ambush in Harbor Bay over a year ago. I still have the brand across my collarbone, shaped M for Maven. Although now I believe the M is short for Monster.

I think about using my lightning against Maven. Just kill him right here and now, and be done with him forever. But if the king dies, so will Cal. As a matter of fact, so will I. If Maven were to die, there would be nobody left to protect me from all of those vicious silvers, who would happily murder me themselves. I would've committed the worst treason a Nortan could commit.

Surrendering, I find it in a remote area of my soul to have the strength to hold his gaze. His eyes burn through my brain, just as I had predicted. "Not everything was a lie," I breathe out, shivering for a purpose other than the snow. "For much longer than I should have, I clung onto the hope that you could change. That speech you gave me about wanting to become a better human being? I told myself that you weren't lying to me and that the effects of your mother's tampering were finally wearing off."

"But once I discovered the lab, and I got inside that horror show with nothing but luck, I discovered everything you told me was a lie. As usual." I decide as long as Maven's forcing the truth, I might as well make it hurt. "But that kiss?" I hold his gaze, intently watching his reaction. "It was nothing to me." My voice holds no emotion, reverberating iciness. "It was only an act, a distraction. Nothing more."

Maven's hand turns ice-cold, numbing the burn he gave me. "I had no idea you could be so manipulative. You played me one-hundred times better than I could've you."

"It isn't hard to lie to someone when they so desperately want to believe it. You betrayed me. You sentenced me to death. You held me as a prisoner for six months. But yet you act as though I should feel bad about doing this. I did what was crucial to saving her. And along the way, I just happened upon seven other tortured newbloods and a supposedly dead queen."

His eyes go wide, and his hand drops to his side. "No. How did you find her? She was so deep in the facility and only a group of exclusive people knew about her." Maven appears frazzled and begins rapidly pacing around the bench once more.

"Have I ruined everything, your Majesty?" I ask, mockingly. I don't tell Maven, but I've also given the Scarlet Guard a weapon that could be the key to winning the war. I glare at the night sky, purple streaks of lighting still come down, accompanied by earth-shattering thunder.

"Cal wasn't there if that's what you were looking for." Maven stands with his back to me, also gazing at the constant bolts of lightning. "I wouldn't be so stupid as to put the two of you within Whitefire."

I gulp in the frosty air, in thought. Perhaps Maven has Cal locked up in a foreign country. Or maybe Maven isn't a man of his word after all, and Cal has already been killed. No, neither of those could ever be true. Maven's just a boy who lies. He's most likely keeping Cal in a secluded wing of the palace, tied up and rarely fed.

I try to convince myself the latter is true. But a dark part of my heart questions it.

"No," I whisper. "Of course you're not stupid."

*****

Maven never responds to my answer, and only stares intently at the lightning streaking across the sky. "How are you doing that?" He asks.

I play dumb. "Doing what?" I grumble, as though it's a worthless question.

"You know exactly what I'm asking you. How have you generated that amount of electricity and not gone unconscious? You haven't even broken into a sweat."

I harden my face, anticipating I won't give away this secret. That experimental drug could be the key to winning the war. But without the element of surprise, Maven's scientists might have enough time to manufacture enough for the silver side of the battle. "It's been a long time since you've last seen my powers. I've grown much stronger," I lie.

Maven begins his predatory circling again and lets out a noise that sounds alike to a mix of a snort and chuckle. "Oh, I'm sure you have. But this?" He motions to the deadly bands of lightning descending. "You're not that powerful, you couldn't harness this amount electricity with ten years of practice. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice- well, that just couldn't happen. You can't get away with two lies in one night. What did you do?"

I make circles with my feet in the snow, still sitting on the bench. Maven knows I'm lying, and he most likely already knows what I've done to myself. He's just playing with me.

Reaching into my trench coat, I shakily pull the last vial of the power enhancer. Maven's expression goes wide- eyed, and he rushes over to snatch the last remaining vial from my hands. But I can't risk them duplicating the solution, so squeezing hard, the glass cracks under the pressure of my hand. Pieces of glass, along with droplets of scarlet blood, fall to the ground. Maven halts only feet from me, an enraged expression painted over his face. I've destroyed his people's only hope of winning. Every last bottle of it has been destroyed or taken by the Scarlet Guard.

"Sentinels! Take her back to her old room. I'll decide what becomes of her tomorrow morning."

The king's guards- who had been standing in the shadows of the palace, come to fetch me. But not before I lunge towards the king. With an outstretched arm, my hand splays across his face, splattering him with rosy blood.

"Something for you to remember me by," I growl, just before a tranquilizer plunges into my shoulder.