Chapter 16 #2
“I wasn’t expecting him to care that much about me either,” I say.
I trust he was able to forgive you for letting me take charge. I told you before, Ivy—you should have your happiness where you can take it. Why shouldn’t it be with Alek? She pauses. Did he say whether he forgives me?
I actually can’t remember if Alek said anything at all about Julita after she returned my body to me, other than to confirm it really was me he was talking to. “He didn’t mention it, but he didn’t appear to be angry with you. I made sure he knew it’d been my idea.”
Ah. Well, I suppose all’s well that ends well.
She doesn’t ask what happened between Alek and me afterward. I don’t know whether she can guess or she doesn’t want to know or she’s allowing me my privacy.
Possibly it’s all of those reasons at once.
There’s still time before I need to enter the woods. I continue down the stairs and make a brief detour to the stables to apologize to Toast that I haven’t taken him out in a while. Then I meander toward the back of the outer courtyard where the tree line looms.
When the palace bell lets out its single peal, I venture down the main path into the woods.
I count off the paces silently. Fifty would lead to a fair bit of variation depending on the length of the legs doing the walking, but I guess it’ll get me to the right general area.
The glow of the school buildings’ external lanterns falls away behind me. The branches overhead block out most of the moonlight. By the time I reach fifty, I’m finding my way by squinting at the dim columns of tree trunks to avoid walking into them.
I stop and glance around, but I can’t make out anything at all except the nearest, incredibly vague shapes of the trees in the darkness. Leaves rustle overhead, and an insect buzzes by somewhere to my left. The cool breeze licks under my cloak, rippling the fabric.
My magic tugs at me, offering to sharpen my sight and form shapes out of the darkness. I clench my jaw in refusal.
What I said to my men was true. Even if my power could make this task easier, I don’t trust it. It’d probably turn someone blind to give me greater vision.
Kosmel helped direct the consequences before, but I have no idea if he’s listening now. If he’d think it worth extending his divine power just to spare me from the darkness.
I have no idea how quickly the madness might start to creep through my mind if I embraced my broken soul.
It’s safer for everyone, including me, if I continue turning to my magic only as a last resort.
The seconds tick by with the thud of my heart. Nothing happens.
This is rather anti-climactic, Julita murmurs.
Did I already make a misstep, and the conspirators have decided not to bother with me? Did I misread the message that appeared on my palm?
I adjust my weight, restraining the urge to pull my knife from my boot so it’s closer at hand.
How long should I wait?
This could be part of the test. Evaluate how committed I am, whether I’m intrigued enough to hang around rather than giving up and leaving.
They’re probably also keeping watch to ensure I’ve actually come alone.
I have no idea how long it’s been already. Wetting my lips, I keep my breaths steady and my ears pricked.
Something slides across the ground to my right. Tensing, I glance down.
My eyes have adjusted enough to the traces of moonlight that I catch the curve of a sinewy form winding into the grass at the edge of the path. A snake.
My nerves jitter with a sense of magic. Was that creature conjured from clay like the rat?
Or am I getting so bored I’m imagining things?
Two peals of the palace bell resonate through the night. I lift my head—and all at once a more potent wave of magic sweeps around me, setting the hairs on my arms on end.
“Welcome, Ivy Euridya of Nikodi,” a voice warbles, thin and yet seeming to reach me from several directions at once.
The magic I sensed must be carrying it—disguising the speaker and the direction they’re standing in. I don’t recognize the voice at all.
I’m supposed to be playing the part of a disgruntled but idealistic noblewoman. I draw myself up straighter. “I came as you asked. What did you mean about wanting more from the world?”
The words continue to drift around me as if carried on the breeze. “You can sense that something isn’t quite right, can’t you? The way the kingdom is run, the way we honor our gods.”
I shrug as if I’m being careful about sharing my opinions. “The daimon definitely seemed to feel there’s a problem. I don’t think anyone could argue about that.”
“And would you want to heal the damage that’s been done if you could? If you had the chance to change all of Silana—all of the continent—for the better, would you take it, even if the way was hard?”
Julita lets out a scoffing sound in my head. We know what ways these people have been turning to—and that they’ve been cajoling kids into taking on the real hard parts.
I remain cagey. “I suppose that would depend on what kind of hard you mean. Of course I’d want to serve the godlen as well as I can.”
Wendos thought that what he and his associates were doing was somehow honoring the gods. I’m going to assume that’s a common line of thinking among the conspirators.
They have to justify the horrors they’re committing somehow.
“There are many who’d stand in the way of rebuilding what was lost,” the voice says. “You would need to work against them and risk punishment if you’re found out.”
My brother never trusted anyone—except maybe Wendos, Julita says. I don’t know if you can even dabble in scourge sorcery without getting paranoid. They’ll be suspicious if you give in too easily.
I can believe that.
I cock my head to the side. “Why should I accept that you know what’s right when you won’t even show yourself? I have no idea who you are.”
“We must be cautious if we’re going to succeed. The fate of the world rests on our shoulders. Any indiscretion jeopardizes that goal.”
These murderous psychopaths do think awfully highly of themselves, don’t they?
“How am I supposed to fit in, then?” I demand. “If you’re not going to tell me anything specific, I don’t see how I could help even if I wanted to.”
“Once you’ve earned our trust, we can reveal more. We will give you simple tasks, and if we’re satisfied with the result, you’ll earn more responsibility. Trust can flow both ways.”
How very poetic.
I restrain myself from wrinkling my nose. “I’ll admit I’m intrigued. What do I have to do first to get you to tell me more?”
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the request that follows, knowing what I do.
“Show that you’re willing to give of yourself. There’s a dagger on the ground a few steps ahead of you. Find it, cut your palm, and offer your blood to the All-Giver with whatever prayer feels most fitting to you.”
To the All-Giver, not to the unknown speaker and their fellow conspirators.
I don’t see how that act can hurt anything—other than my hand. “I can do that.”
I feel along the ground until my fingers brush the hilt of the dagger. It’s a small one, the grip barely long enough for me to wrap my whole hand around it.
As I straighten up, I cautiously arch my eyebrow in a silent question. What does Julita think these people would consider an appropriate prayer?
When my invisible companion speaks, her tone is more subdued than usual. Borys and Wendos mostly talked about their own personal power. But sometimes they’d add in something about how they’d use that power to honor the gods.
That gives me a little more material to work with beyond what I heard from Wendos in the tower.
I bring the blade to my right palm, half expecting Julita’s presence to withdraw before she has to experience the pain of blood-letting again. But she remains, the tingle of her presence twitchier than usual but still with me.
Go ahead, she says. I’ll be all right. This is all so we can defeat them in the end.
I drag in a breath and dig the edge of the blade into my skin.
Pain stings along the line I’ve cut down the middle of my palm. I kept it shallow but pierced far enough that several drops of blood streak across my hand and patter to the dirt below.
I tilt my head back toward the sky. “All-Giver, Great God, the One who made all that exists around me, I give of myself to you. See me, show me the way that is right, and I will carry out whatever purpose you put me to. Whatever strength you give to me, I’ll use it to better this world.”
My nerves jitter with the words, but it’s actually less frightening calling out to the All-Giver than any of the godlen. After all, the Great God abandoned the realms of the continent centuries ago… after razing the first scourge sorcerers from existence.
Really, we have the same goals.
I doubt my voice can reach wherever the All-Giver has gone. And I mean what I’m saying anyway, even if not in the way I intend the conspirators to think.
But making a plea to the highest power I know of is still a little intimidating.
No godly voice answers in my head. Only the unknown watcher from wherever they’re poised amid the trees. “You could do great things with an attitude like that, Ivy of Nikodi. You could be one of the few to truly serve the All-Giver as the Great God deserves.”
Ah, so now they’re buttering me up, making me feel special in the hopes that I’ll want to chase that feeling. I’ve watched so many con artists using similar tactics on the streets of the outer wards.
“If I can, I will,” I say more earnestly than is truthful.
“Put the dagger down and bind your cut with the cloth that was lying next to it. We have one more matter to discuss tonight.”
As I wrap the strip of fabric around my palm, the pain of the cut dulls with a quiver of magic. The bandage is Elox-blessed.
“What’s the other ‘matter’?” I ask.
“There’s a small package we’d like you to deliver for us. You’ll be able to carry it in a pocket unnoticed. We ask that you bring it to the Temple of the Crown tomorrow night and leave it behind Prospira’s statue.”
I knit my brow. “What is this thing I’m going to be carrying around?”
“All you need to know is that it’s heavily enchanted, and the magic must not be disturbed. Opening the pouch it’s enclosed in could ruin its potency.”
My skin crawls. The question I think anyone else would most likely ask first is, “It won’t hurt me, will it?”
The voice chuckles. “Oh, no. Especially not if you leave it be and carry out your task as requested.”
“What’s the point of bringing it to the temple anyway? What’s it going to be used for?”
“The powers that be stand in our way, but our work needs to be done. We do what we can to thin their numbers.”
I stiffen against a very honest hitch of my pulse and let more concern seep into my voice than I would have if I didn’t want to sound normal. “You mean it’s going to hurt someone else? Someone important?”
“I didn’t say that. And nothing at all will happen while you’re nearby.”
The implications are there, though. This is the real test—seeing if I’ve bought into the speaker’s grand talk enough to risk being party to treason.
What else can I do? If I refuse, the road ends here. I might not even survive the walk out of the woods.
“This is your first opportunity to serve the All-Giver as you said,” the voice goes on at my hesitation. “If you would prefer to return to your previous life of following orders and bowing to those who haven’t earned it—”
“No,” I say quickly, with feigned urgency. “I’ll do it. Where’s the package?”
“At the base of the tree directly to your left. Take it, and leave the woods. And remember to keep the pouch closed.”
“I know.”
I approach the tree I can only vaguely see and kneel down. My heart is thudding in anticipation, my body braced for the magic I expect to feel radiating from my new cargo.
My hands find a leather pouch no wider than my smallest finger. I can’t imagine it’s holding anything much bigger than a ring.
I take it into my grasp…
And there’s nothing.
Not even a tiny quiver of magic wafts off the pouch and its contents. As far as my riven soul can tell, there’s no power attached to it at all.
Suppressing my confusion, I stand up and tuck the pouch into the pocket at my hip. Were the conspirators somehow mistaken about an artifact they got their hands on? Or—
The answer comes to me like a flaming arrow out of the night.
It’s all a trick. A gambit to test me in all sorts of ways.
They wouldn’t trust me with a blessed object when I’ve barely started proving myself. They simply want to know whether I’ll do as they say. Whether I’ll alert the authorities to their supposedly violent scheme.
This time.
When I carry out their task, gods only know what they’ll ask of me next.