Chapter 35 Dimas
THIRTY-FIVE
DIMAS
They arrived back at the palace just before dusk.
It had taken most of the early evening to have the casualties moved to the temple’s lower level, where Brother Dunstan, Iska, and another acolyte sworn to secrecy would prepare the bodies for burial.
In the meantime, Dimas had ordered General Alraen to track down the families of any of the deceased who were identifiable, on the condition they were told nothing until Dimas had come up with a solid story for what had happened.
He’d spent the entire carriage ride back to the palace trying to think of one, and by the time they rolled through the familiar golden gates, the sky above them dark with the promise of snow, he’d come up with approximately zero ideas.
“You’re giving me a headache,” Lena said from her side of the carriage, the first words she’d spoken since they’d left the temple—and the man she’d killed—behind.
“What?”
“The bond. Your anxiety is screaming through it.”
Right, the bond. The one she seemed to be mastering when he still couldn’t sense more than a faint echo of what she was feeling at any one time. And right now, that echo was harder to find than usual.
“Sorry, I was just … thinking about what to do next.”
Lena’s entire body tensed, those storm-gray eyes flashing silver in the dim light. “About the Haesta,” she asked quietly, “or about me?”
Dimas shifted in his seat, his eyes drifting to the now-dried flecks of blood staining her pale hands.
They hadn’t spoken about what had happened between her and the cultist. About how close she’d come to using her powers to end that cultist’s life.
But now the carriage was pulling up to the palace entrance, where his uncle and the rest of the court would be waiting for a report.
Telling them the truth about the attack was inevitable, but only he had sensed the sudden shift in Lenora’s magic, in her.
Even with all her training, she was still too vulnerable to corruption.
And the Haesta knew it.
What a mess. He’d asked Naebya for guidance, and this is what had come of it. Maybe he really was cursed, after all.
“About everything,” he finally answered, resisting the urge to run his hands through his hair.
“We can no longer deny the fact that the Haesta are back and that you are their target,” he continued.
“Nor can we deny that your control over your powers is still … unpredictable. It was a manageable problem when the Haesta were still in the shadows, but now they’re actively killing innocents to get what they want.
If we don’t find where their stronghold is soon … ”
“Then more people will die,” Lena finished for him.
“Yes.”
The carriage came to a stop, promptly ending their conversation. It was Ioseph who opened the door, the skin beneath his brown eyes darker than it had been that morning.
Ioseph had privately revealed to Dimas that he’d known one of the pilgrims, a young woman named Adara who had been friends with his sister growing up.
The last time Ioseph had seen her, she’d been setting off to visit each of the temples dedicated to every Fateweaver who had ever served, eager to prove her devotion to Naebya and her vessels.
She’d had so much hope, he’d said. So much faith.
And now she was dead.
Dimas couldn’t bring himself to meet Ioseph’s eyes as he stepped out of the carriage.
Lenora followed a heartbeat later, falling into place beside him almost instinctively.
The echo of whatever she’d been feeling in the carriage was gone again, replaced by the same glacial wall he frequently found himself brushing against whenever he tried to reach her.
It was only when his uncle rounded the carriage, the regent’s gaze immediately finding the blood staining her hand and sleeve, that Dimas felt her resolve falter. It was a sudden surge of anger and distrust, and beneath it all, so faint he almost missed it, was fear.
It wrapped around his chest like vines, stealing the breath from his lungs, so intense that for a moment he was sure he wasn’t going to survive. And then, just as suddenly as it came, the feeling receded, hidden away from him once more.
Dimas sucked in a breath, his heart thundering. Was this how she felt all the time? This … storm of emotion? If so, it was no wonder she kept her true feelings so closely guarded.
“Are you alright, Your Majesty?” his uncle asked, eyes narrowing. Not at him, but at the girl standing beside him.
“I’m fine,” Dimas said quickly. “It’s just … been a long day.”
Roston’s lips thinned, but all he said was, “Of course. Come with me.”
He turned on his heel, cloak billowing behind him as he ascended the palace steps.
Dimas hesitated before following him, his gaze drifting to his Fateweaver.
If she knew he’d sensed what she’d been feeling, she showed no sign of it.
But as she turned to follow the regent, her expression as unreadable as stone, Dimas could have sworn he saw the slightest glimmer of silver in her eyes.
Silently, they made their way through the thankfully empty palace, the echo of their footsteps strangely eerie in the otherwise soundless halls.
Usually, this was Dimas’s favorite time to roam the palace, when most of the staff would be taking their evening prayers.
Even the guards were fewer at dusk, the majority of their ranks stationed at the royal church, and without their constant stares and whispers, Dimas was left to wander the halls of his home undisturbed.
To forget, even for just a moment, that the fate of an entire empire rested on his shoulders.
Except tonight he could not forget. Not when he’d seen the look in his Fateweaver’s eyes as she’d considered using her power to take a life.
Shadows crept into the edges of his vision as the image of her standing before the cultist flashed in his memory.
Once, when he’d been a boy no older than ten winters, he’d found a painting his mother had done of a lone figure surrounded by ink-black threads, the forest behind her filled with the silhouettes of creatures from legend.
But it had been the lone figure’s silver eyes, the only bit of color on the painting, that had plagued his dreams for years to come.
It was the first time he’d ever heard of the Furybringer. Of what a Fateweaver could become if she lost control. And it had been the first time he’d ever considered that maybe, just maybe, the Fateweaver’s power wasn’t quite as divine as the Zvaerna Order claimed it to be.
It was blasphemy to even consider such a thing, and so he’d hidden the thought away just as his mother had hidden her paintings, hoping that if he ignored it long enough, he’d forget about it entirely. And for a while, he had.
The thought came back to him now, stronger and more insistent than ever, feeding the shadows threatening to swallow him whole. But he wasn’t a child any longer, and this time, he couldn’t afford to lock away his fear and hope it went away.
No, he needed to act. To find out as much as he could about the relic his uncle had mentioned and track it down before it was too late.
But he couldn’t ask about it with Lenora here. And there was still the matter of finding out what the Fist had discovered at the heretic’s hideout. So Dimas held his tongue until they reached the council chamber, waiting until the doors were firmly shut before asking, “Did Milos find the cultist?”
His uncle’s gaze flicked to Lenora once more, as if he’d rather be having this conversation without her. She simply glanced toward the window, shoulders set, a silent sign she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Lips thinning, Roston said, “No. Whoever it was cleared out in a hurry, but my son did manage to seize a number of heretical texts from their home. I was planning to hand them over to Brother Dunstan.”
Dimas wasn’t surprised, but his lungs still constricted anyway. A small part of him had been hoping Naebya would have mercy on him. That they’d find the heretic’s accomplice, force them to reveal the Haesta’s plan and location of their stronghold, and defeat the cult before they could strike again.
A foolish hope, all things considered.
“Brother Dunstan stayed behind at the temple. There was … an incident. The Haesta must have known we’d be there; they sent one of their own to slaughter every pilgrim there, and …” Dimas paused, a shudder running down his spine as the twisted figure of the wrecen flashed behind his eyes.
“And?” the regent pressed.
“And he’d gotten one of the kor—Corrupted to do his dirty work for him,” Lenora said, finally tearing her gaze away from the window. Her expression was as unreadable as stone, but Dimas could just feel the slight brush of rage and dread through the bond.
“So then the animal Milos and his hunters encountered in the Wilds truly was one of the old creatures.” Roston shook his head.
Dimas wasn’t exactly surprised his cousin had disobeyed his orders to keep the information to himself, but it still hurt.
“But how could the Haesta have controlled one of them?”
“They must have performed some sort of ritual, one strong enough to interfere with the connection between the Corrupted and the Fateweaver,” Lenora said, her brow furrowed in thought.
Dimas’s heart gave a hopeful thud. Could the ritual have been the same one they were using to interrupt his bond with Lenora?
“What do you mean?” asked Dimas.
“The old stories say the Corrupted are drawn to the Fateweaver’s magic.
That it was the Furybringer’s abuse of Naebya’s magic that created them in the first place, and …
because of that link in their magics, the Furybringer was also able to control them.
The original members of the Zvaerna Order were able to tap into the same source energy that fuels the Fateweaver’s power, right?
To use a fraction of it to cast rituals and incantations? ”
“Yes …,” Dimas replied. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “The ability was granted to the founding members of the Order for their devotion. And when they passed, that ability passed down to their descendants.”
“Then, isn’t it possible,” Lena continued, “that the Haesta have found a way to do the same with the Furybringer? That maybe, before she died, she found a way to share a fraction of her magic with them somehow?”
“That is heretical nonsense,” Roston spat.
“Up until a few weeks ago, so was the existence of the korupted,” Lena snapped, not bothering to use the modern Wyrecian pronunciation this time. “Besides, can you think of a better explanation?”
Dimas couldn’t. And at this point, he was too exhausted to try. “True or not, we need to stop them before they make their next move.”
“What if …” Lena paused, glancing at Roston with barely veiled distrust, then, as if realizing he wasn’t going anywhere, she sighed. “What if I could trigger another vision? One that might help us locate the Haesta.”
Roston shook his head. “There’s no guarantee you’d see anything that could help. And even if you could, your control is still too unstable.”
“Then let’s make it more stable,” she said. “Iska mentioned there was a way to improve my control, some sort of … ancient ritual or something.”
Why hadn’t Iska told him? He took a step toward his Fateweaver, hoping she couldn’t sense his desperation through their bond. “What kind of ritual?”
“One used by the first Zvaerna priests to allow a Fateweaver to channel a source of magic,” his uncle said, glancing coldly at Lenora. “It was forbidden centuries ago by the Order themselves due to its unpredictability.”
“You seem to know a lot about something that’s apparently forbidden,” Lenora said, not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice.
“As advisor to the emperor, it’s my job to know as much as possible about the history of our empire. No, you will wait until the Rite of Ascension, like all Fateweavers before you.”
Lena’s lips tightened. “The longer we wait, the more time this damned cult has to kill more people.”
“Then we don’t wait,” Dimas said. “We hold the Rite of Ascension tomorrow eve.”
“Tomorrow?” Lena asked, her head whipping around to face him. Dimas felt the faintest brush of her fear before their connection weakened once more. “Are you sure … I mean, am I ready?”
He looked at Lenora, at the heretical storyteller who held his empire’s fate in her hands. “I’m willing to take the risk if it means saving Wyrecia. Are you?”
Dimas braced himself for her to refuse. But she said, “Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?”
Dimas exhaled. Despite how close she’d come to losing control in the temple, Lenora had fought against the Haesta.
And now she was willing to take a huge risk to ensure the cult didn’t catch them off guard again.
She had more than proven her worth as his Fateweaver.
All that was left was for her to complete the Rite of Ascension.
And when she did, there would be nothing stopping them from taking the Haesta once and for all.