Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Linzi skips ahead of me through the park. Her pale red hair flashes in the sunlight.
Ma said she had to stick with me. She’s only little—two years littler than I am. She shouldn’t run off on her own.
“Linzi!” I call after her, dashing after her. My feet slip on the dew-slick grass.
I’m falling. I thrust my hands out to catch my balance, and Linzi whirls around—and somehow my palms are slamming straight into her chest.
Clouds whirl above our heads, blotting out the sun. Her fragile body erupts, her back bowing. Her head snaps to the side as her arms flail.
A crack forms right down the middle of her. Darkness seems to be pouring from my fingers into her, tearing her more and more open by the second.
Her blood spills over my hands.
“No! No, no, please, no!” I cry, but I can’t yank my hands away. I can’t move at all.
Her skin sloughs off and her flesh gleams a red so much starker than her hair. Her lips part in a silent scream.
And I keep battering her with the poisonous power I can’t haul back.
I can’t stop it.
I have to.
I can’t.
I—
A tug on my shoulder wrenches me out of the nightmare.
I gasp into the darkness, aware of nothing but a vague form leaning over me, and my hand flies to my thigh automatically. I whip my knife up to brace against the intruder’s throat.
And realize it’s not an intruder at all.
With another blink, my vision adjusts to the thin light seeping through the room from the window at the far end. Stavros glowers down at me, poised over my body, his mouth slanted into a grimace that might hold a hint of amusement too.
He’s shed the fancy jacket he was wearing at the ball, his white dress shirt partly unbuttoned down his sculpted chest. I’d admire the view if my wits hadn’t scattered.
His much larger hand closes around my own where it’s gripping the knife. The knife that’s dug into his neck deep enough to produce a droplet of blood against the light brown skin.
“Hello to you too,” he says dryly. “I see you made it through the onslaught of daimon with your impressive fighting instincts intact.”
I gape at him for a few seconds longer than is strictly polite, my mind shaking off the dregs of sleep. I’m sprawled out on the sofa but still wearing my silk dress, no blanket over me.
I must have drifted off while I was waiting for him to get back.
And wandered into that awful dream.
I pull my hand back, and Stavros lets it go. Inhaling sharply, I scoot toward the sofa’s arm to pull my stance upright and tuck the knife back into its hidden sheath. “Sorry. I— Old habits.”
Stavros shrugs and sits down on the far end of the sofa, now vacated by my feet. “If it’d been anyone other than me prodding you here in the middle of the night, it’d have been a perfectly valid response.”
He pauses, his dark eyes going momentarily somber as they search mine. “I’d have left you to your sleep, but you sounded as though you weren’t enjoying it very much.”
Damn, was I acting out my anguish in real life? And of course the former general had to be the one to see it.
“Bad dream,” I say shortly, and swipe quickly at my eyes to make sure no tears leaked out. I seem to be okay there. “I wanted to talk to you as soon as you got back anyway. Is everyone else okay?”
“I managed to get confirmation that Casimir, Aleksi, and Benedikt are all in decent shape. I’d have been able to tell you that sooner, but I went to speak to the king.”
I blink at him one more time, even though my eyes have totally adjusted now. “You just walked over to the palace and demanded an audience with King Konram in the middle of the night?”
The corners of Stavros’s mouth twitch upward.
“Having until very recently been his very favorite general comes with a few benefits. I thought— Clearly the daimon are escalating their distress faster than we can unravel the problem. I had a duty to warn him even if I didn’t have much to warn him with. ”
My pulse hitches. He didn’t just have a chat with the king—he told him about the scourge sorcerers. “And what did he say?”
Stavros’s grimace comes back. “That I didn’t have much. He can’t stamp out sorcerers we haven’t identified. He didn’t even sound totally convinced that there is scourge sorcery being practiced at the college based on the little I could tell him.”
I scowl. “What does he think the daimon are riled up about, then? It’s not like they typically trash the college balls, is it?”
“No.” Stavros rubs his brow, ruffling the fringe of his ruddy hair. “Apparently there are rumors going around that the disturbances are a sign that the godlen themselves are unhappy with Silana on a broader scale. That they’re giving us a chance to reform.”
“Reform how? What are they pissed off about if it’s not scourge sorcery?”
“Obviously, no one knows. I pointed out to him that it being a reaction to a small group of miscreants makes much more sense than there being some horrible wrong we’re all doing that we don’t even know about, but he wasn’t fully swayed.
I think he was annoyed that I hadn’t mentioned the sorcery concern earlier. ”
Which Stavros obviously realized was likely. But he put himself out there anyway.
He doesn’t look as if he regrets the decision, but I roll my eyes toward the ceiling on his behalf. “So he was peeved that you didn’t have enough information, but also peeved that you didn’t come to him when you had even less.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“What a knob.”
A startled guffaw sputters out of Stavros. “Yes, I suppose he can be.”
He peers at me again, with the head-twitch to refocus his vision, and his gaze darkens. He lifts his hand to hover his fingers by my forehead. “You’re injured.”
At the protective growl that’s come into his voice, my heart skips a beat for a very different reason.
I put on a breezy tone. “It’s just a couple of scratches.”
“A couple?”
I raise my wrist with its thin line of dried blood before he insists on conducting his own search. “I’ve had worse papercuts.”
Stavros mutters something insulting about the daimon and then thumps his false hand against the back of the sofa. “I’m making sure you see a medic first thing in the morning. And we’re only waiting until the morning because I don’t imagine there are any who can be spared yet.”
A shiver travels down my back. “I came across at least a couple of people they won’t have been able to do anything for.”
“Yes.”
A crackle of emotion runs through that word. The former general glowers across the room at something I suspect he can only see in his head.
His attention slides back to me. “I saw you running around in the fray. Looking like you were aiming to get more than a couple of papercuts.”
I grimace at him. “I was trying to help.”
One corner of his mouth curls upward. “I could tell. It was more than I saw any of my blasted students doing, for all their training. You might have saved a few of the dolts’ lives.”
I don’t know what to do with the warmth that’s crept into his voice. So, inanely, I find myself defending those dolts. “No one would have trained them to fight off rampaging daimon.”
“You figured it out somehow.”
“I just… I had to do something.” I look down at my hands and then back at him. “If the king isn’t listening, then what do we do now?”
Stavros leans against the back of the sofa, stretching his well-muscled legs out in front of him.
“There isn’t much we can do other than what we’ve already been doing.
The royal family can be more alert to the threat now.
They’re dispatching extra guards to patrol the college—soldiers with gifts that should help calm the daimon if we need protection. ”
More protection for everyone else. More chances of someone discovering why I should be put to death for me.
I swallow thickly. “Wonderful. Well, I didn’t have much opportunity to ferret out any secrets tonight considering how quickly the daimon crashed the party, but I’ll get right back to it in the morning. Whenever my official assistance isn’t needed.”
It occurs to me a half second too late that my last flippant remark could be taken as a jab. I hesitate, not sure if I should apologize.
I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. But it’s dangerous to be on this man’s bad side.
To my shock, Stavros beats me to it.
He looks at his sprawled legs and then at me, with that tiny twitch to get a better focus on my face.
“I appreciate your dedication to the cause. And your ‘official assistance’ has been better than I expected. I shouldn’t have snapped at you yesterday.
It was a reaction unworthy of my training, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. ”
For what seems like the third time in as many minutes, I find myself staring at him.
A more typical grin crosses his lips. “You’ll make me feel even more like a lout if you keep looking at me like that. I might be an ass, but I’m fully capable of apologizing for it after the fact.”
I let out a bemused huff, still lost for words. Where’s Julita when I need her to guide me through this awkward conversation with a man she knew far better than I did?
Really, where’s Julita at all?
The reminder of her absence—and the thought of how this man and the others will react if she’s gone for good—chills me. I push those worries aside and focus on the peace offering Stavros has extended.
I can be a good enough sport to partly return the favor.
“I can understand it must be a difficult subject for you,” I venture.
“Yes. Well.” Stavros gazes vaguely across the room. His hand comes to rest on my ankle where my feet are tucked near him, buried in the folds of my gown, but he shows no sign he’s noticed he even made the gesture.
From his expression, I’m not sure he’s here at all.