The Young Elites (The Young Elites 1)

Prisoners are always so damn desperate when they stare death in the face.

Maeve watches him crawl for a moment. Then she kneels down to her tiger. “Go,” she commands.

The tiger pounces from her side. Moments later, the prisoner’s wails change into high-pitched screams. Maeve looks on as the audience cheers. The sight brings her no joy. She holds up her hands for silence, and the shouts cut off sharply. “This is no occasion for applause,” she calls out in disapproval. “The queen does not tolerate cold-blooded murder in the great nation of Beldain. Let this be a lesson to you all.”

One of her brothers straightens from his casual stance and taps her on her shoulder. Augustine. He hands her a parchment. “News from Estenzia, Little Jac,” he says over the noise. “The dove arrived this morning.” The nickname lifts Maeve’s heart for an instant. It always reminded her of her childhood with her band of brothers, trailing after them in her furs and dresses, mimicking their swagger and hunting stances. Then her heart tenses. Lately, Augustine has only called her Little Jac when troubling news arrived, like when their mother first fell ill.

Maeve reads the letter in silence. It’s from Lucent, and addressed not to the palace but directly to Maeve herself. She stays quiet for a long moment. Then she sighs in frustration. “Kenettra has a new ruler, it seems,” she finally replies. She clicks her tongue in disapproval, then whistles for her tiger to return.

Her brother leans closer. “What happened?”

“The king was assassinated,” Maeve replies. “Not by the crown prince, but by Kenettra’s Lead Inquisitor. And the prince is dead.”

Augustine leans back and rests his hand on his sword’s hilt. “That changes our plans, doesn’t it?”

Maeve nods without answering, her lips tight. She had hoped that being one of the Daggers’ biggest patrons would mean that after Enzo took the throne, he would carry out his promise of reigniting trade between Kenettra and Beldain. If I’m to gradually win control of Kenettra, I’d rather do it without sacrificing thousands of soldiers. Besides, she preferred to see someone who supported malfettos on the island nation’s throne. But now the crown prince is dead. “It’s a complication,” she finally says. “Still, perhaps it will be easier this way.”

“And what’s this mention of a White Wolf?”

“Some new Elite,” Maeve mutters, distracted, as she rereads the letter. Killing off Fortuna’s chosen ones? Those Kenettrans get more barbaric every year. She turns around and hands the parchment back to her brother. “Give this to the queen.”

“Of course.”

“And gather the others,” she adds. Time to call her Elites into action. “If we still want to make a move, we’ll need to do it soon.”

Augustine folds his arms across his chest and smiles. “With pleasure, Your Highness.”

Maeve watches him go. Lucent. She misses Lucent desperately, their intimate conversations and their friendly duels and their wild forest adventures. Lucent would track the deer; Maeve would deliver the killing shots. Lucent would scowl; Maeve would tease. Lucent would kneel to pledge her loyalty to the crown; Maeve would help her to her feet. Lucent would shy away from her kisses; Maeve would pull her back.

Lucent fled to Kenettra after the queen banished her; Maeve grew quiet and cold in her absence.

As the guards clean up after the execution, Maeve heads back into the Hadenbury Palace. Her brothers continue on to their mother’s bedchamber, their voices excited as they talk about the news, but Maeve takes a different route that steers her away from the palace’s apartments, out across the courtyards, and toward a small, separate manor. Her mother married two husbands and birthed seven sons before finally getting a daughter. Maeve has waited her whole life to step into her birthright . . . but becoming the queen of Beldain means that her mother will first have to pass away. She winces at the thought.

Still, she chooses to avoid visiting the dying queen with her brothers. Maeve was not in the mood for another lecture on choosing a husband so she could start birthing an heir.

Two soldiers standing guard at the manor house bow low to her. They escort her up the familiar halls until they finally reach a quiet floor. Here, Maeve takes the lead while the nervous guards stay several feet behind her. She approaches a narrow door with iron bars stretching across its wood, then pulls out a key strung around her neck. On the other side of the door, she hears someone stir. The keepers back away. Even her pet tiger refuses to get closer.

The lock clicks open. Maeve pushes aside the iron gratings and swings the door open with a faint screech. She enters alone, closing the door securely behind her.

The room is dark; shafts of blue light beam in from between the windows’ iron gratings. In the chamber’s bed, a figure stirs at her entrance and sits upright. He looks tall and thin, his hair rumpled. Her youngest brother.

“It’s me,” Maeve calls out gently. The young man in bed squints sleepily at her. In the light, his eyes shine like two glowing disks, the color not quite of this world. He doesn’t reply.

Maeve stops a few feet before the end of the bed. They stare at each other. She knows that if she opened his chamber door and gave a command, his eyes would turn black and he could very well kill everyone in the palace yard. But she doesn’t, and so he remains quiet.

“Sleep well, Tristan?” she says.

“Well enough,” the young man finally replies.

“Do you know what I heard today? Kenettra has a new ruler, and the country’s Young Elites are at war.”