Chapter 21 #2
By the time Bartos arrives at the building where the college keeps most of its military training equipment, I’ve already worked out the most viable strategy.
I meet him with a length of sturdy rope in my hands, willing down my nausea at the hiss of its corded surface sliding against my metal prosthetic.
If Ivy really isn’t a threat to us, then I’m ensuring she never has to meet the fate I’m going to stage.
I’ve worked out my story as well. As I wave Bartos into the hall between the supply rooms, I keep my tone casual.
“I’ve been working with Ivy one on one to judge her aptitude for a promotion to an officer role or taking up teaching herself.
I’d like to get a clear view of how she’ll respond to a perceived attack.
You’ll need to be convincing, but I’ll step in as soon as I’m sure of her reaction—before you’d do any real damage, if she can’t fend you off. ”
My guilt only digs in deeper at Bartos’s unquestioning nod. “I can do that.”
“She can’t realize you’re one of my students, or she’ll know it’s just a test,” I go on, handing him the rope.
“You’ll need to come at her from behind and get this around her neck.
Fast enough to startle her. She’ll be coming in to start setting up for our afternoon class at the second bell.
You can wait here and catch her right after she arrives. ”
I have him stand in the shadows just beyond the doorway Ivy will pass on her way to the leather figures she’s sometimes complained about hauling around. I position myself on the other side of the hallway, where I’ll be able to see the struggle without Ivy noticing my presence.
When the palace bell starts to peal, I draw my sword and hold it ready at my side.
If Bartos shows any sign of being under magical attack, I don’t know if I’ll be able to charge in fast enough to save his life. But I can ensure no one else gets hurt by her chaotic power.
And if Ivy can fight her way out of this test without drawing on her power, maybe I can stop worrying about the stress the scourge sorcerers are putting her through.
If she can’t… then there’s too much chance of her control slipping during so many other dire situations she could find herself in.
My throat constricts, but I tighten my grip on my sword. I’ll do what I have to do. What maybe a stronger man would have done to begin with, glowing godlen sigils be damned.
Ivy might mutter about the work sometimes, but she shows up promptly. She casts a slim shadow across the floor from the open doorway, changed into a short tunic, breeches, and leathers for the combat exercises to come.
She’s got one knife on a belt at her hip, but Bartos can see that for himself. I’ve no doubt there are two more hidden in her boots, but if he plays his part properly, she won’t have the chance to reach for them.
She strides into the hallway with a brief glance around and what looks like a suppressed yawn. I can’t help wondering if this test wouldn’t be fairer after she’s gotten a proper night’s sleep.
But life is hardly fair. The scourge sorcerers don’t care how well-rested she is.
My body tenses in anticipation.
The second Ivy steps past Bartos’s doorway, he launches himself at her.
As he whips the rope around her neck, he lets out a brief roar. Apparently he’s going all in on the role I gave him.
He snaps the rope against Ivy’s throat and wrenches upward, towering a full foot over her short body. I flinch at the sight, even though I’m the one who brought it about.
I can’t afford that kind of weakness. I can’t… I can’t trust my own judgment when it comes to this woman.
But I feel strangled myself as I watch Ivy’s frame go rigid. Her eyes widen, blown out with panic, and my stomach lurches in anticipation of how she’ll retaliate.
Bartos yanks her back against him, hauling her high enough that she’s left stumbling on tiptoe. Her arms flail out, but in the first few seconds they’re jerky and imprecise.
Great God help me, is she picturing the noose from her nightmares right now?
I lift my sword with a twitch of my head to clear my vision. If only I could focus my blasted eyes for long enough for my gift to take hold, to witness her next moves before she makes them…
In the middle of my anguished thought, Ivy regains her wherewithal enough to grope for her knife. Bartos slaps her hand away.
I brace myself for her to defend herself the easiest and possibly the only way she can.
Her boots scrape frantically against the floor. Her arms fling out again—but all at once something in her posture shifts.
Her muscles coil, her focus sharpening.
She manages to swing her body to the left, heedless of the rope, and slams her heel upward. It jars against Bartos’s kneecap.
He sways just slightly, but he’s already a little off-balance from her squirming. He bats away a fist she aims backward at his jaw only to take an elbow in the middle of his gut.
Ivy strikes him hard enough to knock the breath out of him. My student pitches backward, Ivy snatches at her knife again—and without any divine gift necessary, I see how the blade will stab straight into his heart.
“Stop!” I burst out from my doorway, dropping my sword with a clatter.
I snag the hooked end of my prosthetic around Ivy’s wrist just inches from the knife piercing Bartos’s flesh.
Bartos drops the rope and staggers out of range. Ivy’s feet jolt all the way to the ground. She stands there, panting and staring at me as if she doesn’t recognize me. Wisps of her red-blond hair have stuck to her temple with sweat.
“Good work,” I say in the easy-going drawl I normally use with my students. I don’t want Bartos realizing I lied about my motivations. “You got your fear under control and found a way to turn the tables. A pass with flying colors.”
She didn’t use a single trace of magic. She mastered herself more than Bartos could realize.
Relief floods my fatigued mind so swiftly it’s dizzying.
I wasn’t wrong to guard her secret after all. I didn’t misjudge her control or her determination.
She’s still the woman I believed in.
I lift my gaze and nod at my student. “Thank you for your help. You can get on with the rest of the day—I trust your knee is all right?”
Bartos gives a rough chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll recover quickly enough. You did pick quite a tenacious assistant.”
He bobs his head to both of us and ambles out—with a hint of a limp, I can’t help noticing.
“You,” Ivy mutters under her breath. “You asked him to— You were testing me?”
The last word is broken by a hiss. She wraps her arm around her belly and reels backward to brace herself against the wall.
Any relief that was buoying me washes out of my body. I dash forward to grab her elbow. “Ivy—are you hurt?”
“Fuck you,” she spits out in a strained voice, all pretense of a noble lady dropped.
Her legs wobble. She stiffens them for a second before they buckle completely.
My fingers clamp around her arm to slow her collapse. I sink down with her, my pulse suddenly thundering.
“Where are you wounded?” I demand. “You have to let me—”
Her words spill out between hitches of breath. “I don’t. Have to. Do. Anything. For an asshole. Like you.”
Her head bows forward to rest against her upraised knees. Her whole body shudders, a whine seeping from her lips.
The sound is so agonized it guts me.
I did this to her. My wretched test has left her more injured than the scourge sorcerers ever have.
My hand slides up her arm to her shoulder. I tip my head close to hers. “I’m sorry. I had to know—I had to be sure that even under duress— He wasn’t supposed to really harm you.”
Ivy manages to emit a derisive snort. “Wasn’t Bartos. Stupid power. Gets mad. When I won’t. Use it.”
She raises her head shakily, pain etched across her pale features, so her bright gaze can burn into mine. “But I didn’t. I never want to. I’m not. A fucking. Monster.”
Understanding jars into place in my head with a sharper swell of regret.
Did she tell us that much before and I didn’t heed it? I know she indicated that it was hard for her to resist her magic, but I didn’t quite make the connection—
That time Aleksi called us all to the archives because Ivy had supposedly been attacked. And later, when Benedikt raced into my classroom to tell me I needed to hurry to my quarters, that she’d collapsed and was coughing up blood…
Those incidents weren’t caused by spite from the idiots at this school. That was her magic lashing out at her. Because it wanted to take action and she refused it?
I never saw her in the worst grips of either of those fits. She was already recovering when I reached her the first time, and the second she appeared perfectly fine once we tracked her down.
I had no idea she experienced anything like this just to restrain her power.
How many times has she put herself through this agony since coming here, with all the threats and animosity she’s faced? Not least of all from me.
Gods above, she could have run back to the streets of Slaughterwell any time.
But she stayed. She stayed to fight the scourge sorcerers with us and protect so many people who’d have sent her to the gallows—even though she knew how I felt about the riven, even though the constant danger of staying in this place might have been killing her from the inside out.
She’s proven the truth again and again. Since the horrors of her childhood, she’s never used her magic except when the consequences of not using it were worse.
Have I ever really wished she’d let Wendos tear apart the city instead of stopping him?
She’d allow the power to destroy her before she inflicted even a fraction of the damage she’s capable of on this world, wouldn’t she? Curse it all, seeing her like this, I can’t imagine her doing anything other than falling on one of her own knives if she thought she’d truly lost control.
And I just egged on the magic I’ve hated so much. I made it bring her to her knees.
I’ve encouraged it to torment this woman who’s shown more honor than I can imagine ever achieving myself, despite all my doubts.
In that moment, I want to stab myself, but that won’t help either of us. Instead, I hug Ivy closer, swallowing the lump in my throat.
From what she’s been saying to me, she probably doesn’t find my embrace all that comforting, but I don’t know how else to show how sorry I am.
I knew how resilient she is. I knew how far she’s gone to help the people who needed it most.
I let the fact of her magic blind me to everything else she’d already shown me.
I’d tell me to fuck off too.
My voice comes out hoarse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would do this to you. I shouldn’t have been such an ass about it anyway. Is there anything I can do to help you through the pain?”
Ivy expels a rough breath. “It’s starting to… ease up.”
I rest my right hand against her cheek, resisting the urge to bury my face in her hair. To soak up everything I’ve found wondrous about this woman that I buried under anger and fear.
“I can get by in my afternoon classes on my own. I’ll help you to the infirmary, and then you should go back to my quarters. You might need all the rest you can get before tonight.”
Ivy peers at me. “You’re not going to order me to stay out of the woods? Claim I’m too much of a liability?”
My shamed laugh sears up my throat. “Ivy, if it’s possible to stop those fiends, I wouldn’t put my money on anyone but you.”