Chapter 5
Ivy
Imight have spent the night conked out, but I don’t think the sedative made for a very satisfying rest. I’m still exhausted.
Somewhere in the midst of my waiting, with Toast grazing peacefully nearby and beams of sunlight slanting through the bare branches to warm the air around me, I drift off into an uneasy sleep.
Which I only realize when I snap back to wakefulness at the crinkling of the forest’s underbrush somewhere nearby.
As my eyes pop open, my hands is already groping for my clay blade. My fingers close around the handle-like end, I push onto my feet in a crouch?—
And a voice carries to me, so familiar it cracks open my heart: “Here’s our lady thief.”
There’s no mistaking the relieved affection in his tone. I whirl toward the voice, and Stavros barrels through the woods to catch me in his arms.
The former general squeezes me tight against his massive frame, and I can’t help clinging to him in turn. Tears burn behind my eyes. I have to swallow a sob.
I’m back with one of the men I love. He still trusts me so much he ran straight to me.
Of course, that could change once he finds out exactly what I’ve been doing during the past day.
That final thought sours my joy with a knotting of my stomach. But I keep gripping Stavros’s arms as he eases back from me, his eyes with their blending of blue and brown feverishly bright beneath his dark red hair. He gives that little tick of his head that tells me he’s focusing his vision on me more intently.
“What happened?” he demands, his voice darkening with a promise of retribution. He lifts his hand to the edge of the blood-crusted bandage on my forehead. “Are you all right? How did you get away?”
Not “Who took you?” but maybe that part of the story is easy to guess. Who but the scourge sorcerers could have compelled one of the riven?
“I’m all right now,” I say. Before I can pull more answers together, another figure steps forward, with a smile on his gorgeous face that could warm me even in a blizzard.
Casimir sets his hand on my shoulder. “Before you get into the interrogation, Stav, let me offer my own welcome.”
The courtesan tugs me into a tender embrace that’s nonetheless just as emphatic as Stavros’s. I burrow my head against the crook of his neck, breathing in his honeyed sandalwood scent and wishing I could stay right here without having to say another word.
There is at least one question I need to ask, though. I don’t hear anyone else approaching.
I lift my head, my throat constricting. “Where are Alek and Rheave? Did something?—”
Casimir shakes his head before I can get any farther into my anxious speculation. “They’re both perfectly fine, other than being out of their heads with worry for you. Which will be resolved as soon as we get you back to them.”
Stavros grins crookedly. “Have no doubts that they wanted to come with us. Rheave looked about ready to send one of his lightning bolts straight through me so he could take my place. But we couldn’t leave the royal children undefended.”
My heart leaps. “The royal children? Princess Klaudia and Prince Jacos are all right?”
That means I didn’t carry out all of Lothar’s murderous plan. But if the prince and princess are relying on my men for protection, then King Konram and Queen Ishild…
The hope that sparked inside me blinks out. Stavros must see the change in my face, because he brushes his fingers over my hair and speaks before I need to ask more.
“They’re as well as they can be, considering what Lothar did to their parents.”
He knows about Lothar. Well, the prince and princess were there in the audience room—they would have told him.
My mouth opens, but for a few seconds I can’t push the words past the tension in my throat. “He wanted me to kill them all. One of the other scourge sorcerers, a woman who’s been controlling at least some of the daimon, was holding me with her magic so completely that at first I couldn’t even move a finger unless she commanded it. But she had to leave the sacrificial accomplice she was drawing power from behind when we came to the palace—her control weakened a little—I tried to make sure they couldn’t use me…”
My hand rises to my bandage.
Casimir lets out a rough sound as if he’s the one who’s been wounded. “We’ll have a medic look after that as soon as we can arrange it. You did everything you could—you shouldn’t have been put through that horrible ordeal in the first place.”
Renewed queasiness is building in my gut. The ordeal was even more horrible for people other than me.
“But I didn’t manage— Lothar still attacked the king?—?”
Stavros pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my unharmed temple. Then he bows lower and captures my lips with every bit of the heat and tenderness he’s brought in the past.
When he eases back, his voice has thickened. “The kingdom is in disarray, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, but neither of those things are your fault. I think you should hear exactly what happened from those who witnessed it—the people your efforts did save.”
I swallow hard. Yes. If I hadn’t knocked myself into a stupor, Zaneta would have forced me to slaughter every member of the royal family.
She and Lothar must have attacked the king and queen while I was unconscious, but they didn’t have the power on their own to destroy the entire royal family all at once.
Guilt remains lodged like a stone in my stomach. “The scourge sorcerers wouldn’t have been able to get into the palace at all if it wasn’t for me. I killed some of the guards…”
“Because Lothar forced you to,” Casimir says, stroking his fingers up and down my back in a soothing caress. “You’re no more responsible for that than Rheave is for the damage they’ve compelled him to inflict.”
And yet it’s so much easier to forgive the daimon-man than it is myself.
Stavros gives me a gentle shake. “You haven’t answered my first question yet. How did you get away from them?”
I gather myself and explain about the sedative and Kosmel’s voice in my dream, waking up and killing the daimon guard and Zaneta.
Casimir’s deep blue eyes brighten at that part. “Then she can’t bring you under her control again.”
I nod. “And it was hard for her to keep up her influence, so I’m not sure if any of the other scourge sorcerers could manage it. But that doesn’t mean—we’ll still need to be careful. If I start acting strangely again?—”
“We’ll recognize what’s going on and react much faster,” Stavros finishes for me.
That wasn’t what I was going to insist on, but I can’t summon much enthusiasm for arguing with him about when he should murder me.
I do arch an eyebrow at him. “You came right to me here without having any idea whether I was in my right mind or if it was a trap.”
The former general snorts and motions at the shard of clay I dropped by my feet. “It seemed incredibly unlikely that your captors would have sent you to assassinate us without even a proper weapon.”
Trust him to have paid that much attention to what blade I was holding. And I guess he has a point.
I exhale in a shaky rush. “All right. What do we do now?”
Stavros glances at Toast, who’s been watching our exchange with an air of mild disdain. “Get on your horse and follow us back to where we left ours nearby. We’ve temporarily taken shelter in one of the military’s hidden supply stores, just a couple of hours’ ride from here.”
Looking around with my non-military-trained eyes, I wouldn’t have a clue the patch of forest we’ve entered contains anything other than trees, birds, and the other obvious components of a woodland. But Stavros directs his stallion through the brush without a moment’s hesitation.
He stops and dismounts at a spot where the layer of leaves and dirt on the ground looks a little more stirred up than elsewhere. With a sweep of his arm, he uncovers the slab of stone that he removes to reveal the round steel hatch underneath.
The metal surface is etched with the crest of the Melchiorek family—and scorched around the edges.
The last time we broke into one of these underground storage rooms, Rheave had to shatter the magic sealing it with his daimon power. It looks like he used a similar tactic here.
The seal must be permanently broken. Stavros gives a quick pattern of knocks, presumably designed to let those below know it’s him and not an unwelcome intruder, and then hefts the hatch upward without any resistance.
“We’ve got—” he starts to call down.
Before he can get out one more word, a well-built form with a topping of chocolate-brown curls launches up the ladder and springs at me.
Rheave catches me in his muscular arms and spins me around with his face pressed close to my hair. A rush of exhilaration sweeps through me as I hug him back.
“My little vine,” the daimon-man mutters with a rasp in his normally clear voice. “They tore you away from me.”
Casimir lets out a soft chuckle. “Be careful with her. She’s injured, you know.”
Rheave growls in consternation and pulls back to look at me, letting my feet return to the ground. As he takes in the bandage on my forehead, his lips draw back to bare his teeth. “Those bullies. When I get my hands on them…”
A swell of affection fills my chest. It’s only recently that I’ve accepted that my own intense fondness for Rheave goes beyond friendship, but there’s never been any denying how devoted he is to me.
I set my hand against his cheek. “I’m all right, especially now that I’m back with all of you. It’s good to see you too.”
The daimon-man makes a sound that’s almost pained. For a second, I think he’s going to dive in to kiss me, but then something flickers in his eerie sea-green eyes. His expression tightens as his grip on my arms loosens.
Maybe he’s only concerned that he’ll hurt me with his enthusiasm. I don’t have much time to ask about it, because Alek has just scrambled out of the underground room after him.
I’m just as delighted to be reunited with the scholar as my other men. As I turn toward him, my mouth stretching with an eager smile, he pulls me in against his lean frame.
He doesn’t hesitate to kiss me, as soundly as he knows how. “I knew they wouldn’t be able to hold you for long.”
All at once, I choke up again. “I wish they hadn’t been able to at all.”
Rheave grunts dismissively. “The scourge sorcery can control thousands of daimon all at once. How could any one person fight it off?”
When he puts it that way, the idea that I should have somehow broken Zaneta’s control does seem a little ridiculous. But that doesn’t stop me from hating what she put me through.
Stavros beckons me over to the hatch. “Let’s have the rest of this conversation down below where we can’t be spotted by anyone on patrol. I’d imagine Lothar has sent quite a lot of his available forces to search for both you and the royals he lost.”
He descends the ladder first, and I follow with trepidation creeping through my nerves. I’m about to face the two teenagers I nearly murdered, whether I had any say over my actions at that point or not.
When my feet hit the packed earth floor and I turn to peer through the lantern glow, my pulse hitches in surprise. Princess Klaudia and Prince Jacos are waiting there, sitting huddled together on one of the chests. Their dark brown hair and deep-set eyes remind me enough of their father’s to send another jolt of guilt through me.
But they’re not alone. Standing next to them is Petra, the distant niece of Queen Ishild’s who I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again after we left the college.
The royal siblings tense at the sight of me with a visible recoil. Princess Klaudia grasps Petra’s arm. “Are you sure?—”
“It’s all right,” Petra says in a soft voice. “I promise you, Ivy wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t trust her.”
I gape at her for a moment before finding my words. They tumble out of me more abruptly than I’d have preferred. “What are you doing here?”
The king and queen must have dozens of minor relatives. I have no idea why they’d have drawn Petra in close enough for her to have followed them to Regica.
She did make some effort to chat with me while we were both at the royal college, enough that I wondered if she was spying for King Konram. I never had that suspicion confirmed, though.
Come to think of it, she was with them during the attack on the Florian royal residence as well.
Did she come along because she was close at hand, and they wanted to protect every part of their family they could reach?
Stavros steps to the side as the other men descend after us and tips his head to Petra. “I think you’d better tell Ivy everything you told us. She’s completely out of the scourge sorcerers’ influence now. She killed the one who was controlling her.”
Petra clasps her olive-brown hands together in front of her. Her sleek black hair is pulled back from her face, but only in a loose bun, not one of the elaborate courtly styles. As elegant as her features are, the distant royal never followed fashion trends much even at the college.
“I’ve deceived you,” she says, her melodic voice not quite as steady as usual, “as I’ve deceived almost everyone for the past seven years… It was supposed to bring some security in a situation like this… But I suppose none of us could really have been prepared for this kind of attack…”
As my brow knits in confusion, she gives her curvy body a little shake as if to get herself back on track. Her chin comes up, and in her stance as in her looks I can see an echo of Queen Ishild.
“You’re aware of King Konram’s original heir,” she goes on. “Prince Dunstam.”
It’s not a question, but her pause makes me feel I should answer anyway. “Yes. He supposedly died of a sudden illness just before his twelfth birthday.”
My hands clench at my sides. “Did Lothar have something to do with that after all? I suggested to King Konram that the scourge sorcerers might?—”
Petra raises her hand to stop me. “In this particular crime, the traitors to the Crown had no involvement. Because there was no crime. There wasn’t even a death.”
She pauses, and the corner of her lips quirks upward with a hint of wryness. “A little more than seven years ago, I stopped being Prince Dunstam and became Princess Petra.”
I stare at her for a moment before her full meaning sinks in.
She does look rather a lot like Queen Ishild for a distant niece, doesn’t she? And something about her way of speaking has always reminded me of King Konram.
I try to recall Prince Dunstam’s face from the scattered times I saw him as a child. He was a year younger than me, an occasional presence in parades and celebrations—and on the palace balcony during the riven executions.
I’m not surprised I didn’t see it, even if it makes sense now that she’s told me.
“That’s the gift you asked your godlen for. To change your sex.” My gaze drops to the two missing fingers on her right hand—little and ring—then rises again. “And more than that. Your hair color—your face…”
Petra’s mouth curves into an actual smile, though it still looks more sad than anything else. “Exactly. Certain parts of my body never felt quite right when I was growing up. I was meant to be a woman, and Ardone transformed my outer self to match what’s inside. I… might have been a little vain as well. I asked her to take inspiration from my mother more than my father. The features I originally inherited from him weren’t very comely.”
The revelation helps so many pieces fit together that a laugh tumbles out of me. That’s why she’s been so close with King Konram and Queen Ishild—they’re her parents. That’s why she was so invested in the rumors the conspirators were spreading to discredit the royal family.
But—
“Why did you pretend to be someone else altogether?” I have to ask. “You could have announced the change after your dedication ceremony, and everyone would have adjusted with a little time.”
Asking for a dedication gift that’s a one-time but permanent change rather than an ongoing talent isn’t common, but it’s not seen as strange either. And when it does happen, it’s often for the same reason Petra gave.
I heard of kids who’d made a similar switch during my days of listening in on gossip on the streets of Florian. Most of the time the talk involved a lot of tongue clucking and people saying it was too bad they’d had to wait so long when it’d been so obvious they’d want the change since they were much smaller.
Petra looks down at her hands. “That was my father’s idea. He’s always been so concerned about our safety.”
She glances back at her siblings and then meets my eyes again. “I discussed my intent with my parents before the dedication ceremony. Father suggested that we could concoct a story about me dying, and I could mingle with noble society under a different identity once my appearance was changed. I could learn more about the people I’d be ruling over without them censoring themselves in front of me, and I should be safe from assassination attempts or our enemies trying to use me to hurt him. Then, once I’d finished my education and he was ready to have me start officially training in as his heir, we’d reveal the truth in a big celebration.”
“I didn’t like it,” Princess Klaudia mumbles, and swipes at her eyes. They’re ruddy from a lot of recently shed tears, understandably. “It meant we could hardly see you and talk with you at all.”
Petra grimaces and steps back to slip her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “I know. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there more, Klaudia. There were times when I wondered if all the subterfuge was really worth it, but once I’d committed…”
She sighs and lifts her head toward the rest of us. “It’s over now regardless. My parents are gone, so it’s up to me to see that Silana doesn’t fall to the scourge sorcerers.”
Stavros said all but the exact words, but my body stiffens anyway. “Your parents?—”
“Are dead.” Her voice flattens with the words—with the emotion I have to think she’s suppressing.
Her gaze homes in on my bandage. “I have to thank you for fighting against our enemies as hard as you did. We all might have died back in Florian, and we certainly would have in Regica if not for you. But Lothar took us by such surprise as it was—as soon as he saw what you did, he leapt at my father?—”
She falters, and Prince Jacos shivers beneath his cloak. He peers at me with his mouth set at an anxious slant—and a little flinch when I raise my hand.
I freeze, my heart lurching painfully at the reminder of everything my presence must remind him of. Everything my vicious magic made possible.
I’m not going to force Petra to go on. I can imagine the scene well enough from hearing Lothar’s plotting, from the flashes of memory of blood and pained gasps.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop them completely,” I say hoarsely.
Klaudia turns her head away as if she can’t bear to look at me.
Petra glances at her sister and then back at me. “It isn’t your fault. That awful man…” She cuts herself off with a hiss of breath. “I tried to tell our father that you weren’t a threat, you know. Even back at the college, I could tell you were honestly on our side. But he always leaned a little too far toward caution.”
A heavy silence falls over the underground room. I drag in a breath thick with loamy odors. “Where do we go from here? As soon as we announce you as the Melchiorek heir, all of the Order of the Wild’s forces will be after you.”
“I know.” Petra lifts her chin. “I’ll have to gather all the support I can as quickly as I can. Any help you’ll offer, I’m immensely grateful for. But our first step is clear. I need to return to Florian to gather the proof of who I am to make sure those who would support me believe it at all.”
The defiance in her voice steadies my own resolve. There isn’t any question in my mind of what I owe to the family I nearly eviscerated.
I square my shoulders and hold her gaze. “I’ll be right there with you, no matter what the scourge sorcerers send our way.”