CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE ISI #2
I found understanding in Lexie’s eyes. She knew what finding Addie would mean to me. “When would you like to leave?”
“At dawn,” Trew said. “We have to sleep even for just a few hours or we’ll fall off our dragons. But we could send a scouting party instead. Small and fast.”
“I’m going.” My tone left no room for argument. “This is my mother’s secret and my sister who might be there. If there’s a chance we could do something about the veil, we have to take it.”
“Alright, no scouting party. Us.” His lips curved.
“We’re going with you, of course,” Derren said, the other two nodding.
Warmth spread through my bones. These people, who’d already risked so much for me, were willing to fly into the wasteland on the slim hope that we might find answers.
On the even slimmer chance that we might find Addie.
“The library maps we found only showed the spread of the wasteland,” I said.
“I have maps in my office,” Trew said. “Detailed surveys of the borderlands from before the wasteland formed. And Grayson is looking into it now in the archives. I’ll cross-reference the description with known geography and pinpoint likely locations before we leave.”
“So we’re going to search for mysterious property and rescue your people in the dungeon,” Lexie said. “All in eight days. Well, seven if we leave first thing tomorrow. And get back here in time to meet an attacking army.”
“We know how to stay busy,” I said.
Derren snorted. Kerralyn shook her head, her smile rueful.
Before anyone could say more, Kerralyn shifted at the foot of the bed and cleared her throat. The movement woke up Keek, who’d gone to sleep in her pocket. He poked his head out and peered around, blinking.
“Before we finalize travel plans,” Kerralyn said, “there’s more we need to discuss. I found information in the library about the history of the Day of Mercy.”
The warmth in my chest cooled.
Trew’s hand found mine, his fingers lacing through my own in a silent offer of support.
Kerralyn opened her journal on her lap, leaning close to study the notes she’d taken. Keek leaned forward, nearly falling out of her pocket, his whiskers twitching as if he could sense the shift in mood.
“I researched the Day of Mercy,” Kerralyn said, tracing her finger along a page.
“It wasn’t easy. The books I tracked down were a mess.
Someone had torn out pages, and others showed clear alterations.
Text scratched out, sections rewritten in different ink.
” Her mouth thinned. “Who writes in someone else’s book?
The records I found didn’t agree with each other. ”
My belly tightened. Someone had spent considerable effort making sure the truth stayed buried.
“Some sources say the practice has existed for two hundred and fifty years,” Kerralyn said.
“Others claim three hundred. A few call it an ancient tradition without giving any specific date.” She turned a page in her journal.
“But the early records I could find used different terminology. It wasn’t always called the Day of Mercy. ”
Kerralyn met my gaze, sympathy clear in her eyes. “The text had been damaged in places, but I could make out references to ‘cleansing’ and ‘collection,’ though I don’t know the full context.”
So similar to what we’d found in the west tower.
Harvested as if people with magic were crops to be reaped. Diseases to be purged.
Trew’s arms tightened around me.
“The language shifted to ‘mercy’ about two hundred years ago,” Kerralyn said. “The execution records are incomplete too. Whole years are missing. It’s impossible to know how many people have actually died during these ceremonies over the centuries.”
Hundreds, I’d bet, murdered for the crime of being born different, for possessing the same abilities I carried in my blood.
How long had they been stealing their magic?
“It’s changed in my lifetime too.” My voice sounded distant, as if someone else was speaking. “When I was young, the Day of Mercy happened once a year, during mid-summer.”
I picked up a pastry, needing something to do with my hands. “It was terrible, but predictable. You knew when it was coming. You could…” I stopped, the words catching in my throat.
“Prepare yourself,” Trew finished quietly.
“Not really.” I could barely speak past the tightness in my chest.
“Since my mother’s death,” I said, “my father has held the Day of Mercy more often, sometimes three times a year. But in the past year, they’ve been held even closer together, within weeks of the last. And the number of people put to death in each group is not going down.”
The room went very still.
I realized even the companions had quieted. Pherin had stopped her soft sounds from the headboard. Gavelle sat motionless on the windowsill. Even Levar had lifted his head, his small eyes fixed on me.
Animals knew grief when they heard it.
Trew shifted beneath me, and I felt the change in him, the careful control of a man who wanted to break something and was choosing not to. His arms stayed around me. His breathing stayed even. But his jaw had gone tight.
“Either he’s become more zealous,” Lexie said quietly, “or more people are manifesting abilities.”
Derren shook his head. “Which doesn’t make sense unless something fundamental has changed.”
The pieces clicked together in my mind. I turned to look at Trew, finding the same realization reflected in his eyes.
“The wasteland appeared sixteen years ago,” he said. “Right around the time your mother was murdered.”
“And my father’s paranoia about magic escalated.” I looked around at my friends, seeing understanding dawn on their faces. “It all happened at once.”
Kerralyn’s pencil had gone still over her journal. “My research showed the wasteland’s appearance coincided with a spike in magical manifestations across all courts. I thought it was just better record-keeping, but what if the opening in the veil has allowed magic to leach through?”
A chill ran down my spine. If the veil was causing magic to manifest in people who might otherwise never have shown abilities—
“My father would see it as confirmation of his worst fears,” I said. “Proof that magic is spreading like a disease.”
“My father died sixteen years ago too,” Trew said. “Under circumstances that were never fully explained. My mother followed him a few weeks later. The healers said grief weakened her, that she caught a fever she couldn’t fight off.”
Too many deaths. Too many coincidences. Too many mysteries converging on that single point in time.
I turned to look at Trew.
He was staring at the middle distance, his jaw set, somewhere else entirely. For just a moment, beneath the king and the soldier and the man who never stopped planning, I saw the boy who’d lost both parents in the space of weeks and been told it was grief and fever.
I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles. He looked down at me.
Nothing needed to be said. I just needed him to know I’d heard it.
His fingers tightened around mine.
Even with Trew’s wards around my room, I felt exposed. Watched. As if speaking these truths aloud had drawn attention we couldn’t see.
And somewhere in the shadows of the castle, I worried someone might be listening.