Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
Ivy
“Be calm!” Ster. Torstem calls out to the gathered worshippers in their animalistic guises, with a tingling rush of magic that prickles through my nerves.
The panicked voices fade. The fire droops lower.
Oh no, Julita murmurs.
As I stare at the law professor, Alek’s voice filters up from my memory: “His gift on record is the ability to quell anger.”
Plenty of people find ways to adapt the gifts their godlen blessed them with to broader uses than they were originally intended for. Esmae’s talent with the wind was meant for carrying “messages,” but she managed to twist it into flinging knives as well.
You could certainly see a fire’s destructive blaze as a sort of anger.
It never occurred to me that Torstem might be powerful enough to deflect my riven magic. But that’s what’s so dangerous and reviled about both my power and the kind scourge sorcerers take on, isn’t it?
He’s not using only his gift but the benefits of Ginelle’s immense sacrifice as well.
And he doesn’t even need to worry about consequences. The sacrifices have already been made.
The Order of the Wild members start to chatter with awed relief, and I realize my attempt has even worse consequences of the non-supernatural kind.
Torstem has managed to make it look as if his authority cooled the fire and prevented the destruction—as if the gods support him even more than his followers would have already believed.
Fuck.
My hand drifts to my side in a subtle gesture, braced over the knife beneath. I’ve already signaled Stavros—before the soldiers get close, I need the scourge sorcerers in disarray, too distraught to cover up their ritual and flee.
My way didn’t work. So now all that’s left is to kill the man in the bloody fashion the king asked for.
My ghostly passenger isn’t ready to give up. Julita shifts in the back of my head. Isn’t there anything else you could ask your magic to do? He can’t have the power to stop everything.
As Torstem motions his followers closer to the bonfire again with an air of total assurance, bitterness courses through me. I don’t know what else I could do that would set this bunch scrambling.
I’m not sure how much time I even have. With every minute I delay, I risk ruining the entire plan.
How ridiculous is it that this man has built his secret cabal of traitors by riling up anger against our rulers, while holding a gift meant to do the opposite?
The second that thought runs through my mind, my breath halts in my throat.
He has controlled his followers by stoking their anger—with his words and his actions, not his magic. He was doing it just now, encouraging them to take out their frustrations about unfair rule on the nearby count’s home.
But he also has the power to diffuse all that anger, more effectively than any word or action could.
No one could be better at draining the conspiracy of its might than the man who started it.
The orange light of the flames dances off the illusion covering Torstem’s face, like it did off the straw figure of the king he had us throw in the fire weeks ago. After he ordered us to stab a man who was conjured out of clay to look like King Konram too.
The spark of inspiration sends a giddy rush through my veins. That’s it.
When it comes down to his life or his schemes, he’ll have to choose the former. What will any scheme mean if he’s dead?
“If the wheels are too damaged, we’ll simply crowd into the smaller wagons,” Torstem is saying, his even voice dismissing the last of his lackeys’ fears. “No doubt what we just saw was some defensive magic from the count’s estate, meant to stop us from dealing out the justice that’s due.”
Oh, he wants to see justice done, does he?
I ease a couple of steps back, not wanting to be near him when I set my new plan in motion. For a few beats of my heart, I cast my gaze skyward, in case that’s where Kosmel is watching from right now.
Please, I need your help again. I don’t know what the exact consequences of what I mean to do would be. When I change him, whatever else changes to balance it out, let it do no harm to our cause or to anyone who deserves protection.
This time I get no response at all. But I remember the sense of a hand on my shoulder, the voice that resonated through my bones.
The godlen who’s claimed me is here, working through me.
No, working with me. Kosmel has made it clear that I’m supposed to be calling the shots.
A strange warmth blooms in my chest. It frightened me when he first blazed his mark onto my skin… but I’m glad he’s watching over me.
For the first time in my life, I’m embracing the divine attention I’ve earned. Kosmel has claimed me, and that means I have a place in this world, no matter how many cracks run through my soul.
I train my own attention on Ster. Torstem’s form. I picture King Konram’s face—the deep-set eyes, the imposing nose and jutting chin, the thin lips, the dark brown hair that tops it.
Then I nudge my magic toward the law professor to morph the illusion projected by his mask.
The same hawk-like visage Torstem wore during my initiation wavers and transforms into a replica of the king’s appearance. With a quiver of energy from my soul, a gleaming gold crown materializes on his head.
Torstem, of course, hasn’t got a clue what I’ve done to him, since he can’t see himself. But the few followers who were looking at him freeze with expressions of shock.
I don’t wait for the rest to notice on their own. With another backward step, I point at the leader of the scourge sorcerers. “Great God help us—he looks like the king!”
Gazes all around the bonfire jerk toward Torstem. In their drug-addled state, the Order of the Wild members launch into a flurry of murmurs as agitated as they are confused.
Torstem’s hands leap to his face. “What? It can’t be.”
“He does!” someone else shouts. “That’s exactly what King Konram looks like—I just saw him up close at the Sabrellia festival a few weeks ago.”
A girl near me reels on her feet behind her cat-like mask. “How could this happen?”
I drift behind a few of the other revelers so I’m partly hidden among them. “The gods must be sending us a message. Our leader has no more right to rule than he says the royal family does! He’s been leading us astray, and they’re warning us.”
An off-kilter laugh carries from farther away. “Or maybe that is the king himself! Maybe the gods have brought him to us so we can do what needs to be done immediately.”
I guess that interpretation will serve my purpose as well as the one I was suggesting. I raise my voice again, without the slightest twinge of guilt when I think about all the children Ster. Torstem has manipulated into carving themselves up for his gain. “We have to destroy him!”
Rumbles of agreement reach me from all sides. The gathered conspirators surge toward Torstem, swaying but intent on their goal.
The law professor holds up his hands, his eyes that look like King Konram’s sweeping from side to side. He must be wondering who’s responsible for this magic, calculating his odds of survival.
I doubt he’s got enough humility to consider that the gods might actually be sending him a divine message.
“This is a trick,” he calls out, projecting his voice over the warble of the fire and the increasingly aggressive muttering of his followers. “Our enemies are trying to deceive you.”
“Our enemies aren’t here,” the fox-masked man in front of me retorts. “This is a secret meeting. It has to be a sign from the gods. If it wasn’t, why haven’t they shown us they don’t agree?”
Another shout careens across the hilltop. “Throw him into the fire!”
Torstem backs away, but the conspirators are closing in on him from all around. With the fire only a few paces behind him, there’s nowhere for him to go.
“Look at him, trying to escape the fate he’s owed,” I holler for good measure. “Not much of a leader now, is he?”
Torstem’s gaze veers in my direction, peering through the hazy light. Has he recognized my voice, realized that the supposed Ivy of Nikodi must have played a part in this charade?
It doesn’t matter. There’s no easy escape for him.
He has to use his magic on the crowd. Persuade them that the sight of the king shouldn’t anger them, that our ruler can have a calming presence.
Contradict everything he’s spent the last however many years brainwashing them into believing.
The raven-like figure nearest Torstem snatches at his arm, but Torstem yanks it away. His voice has frayed. “It’s still me. You know me. You’ve trusted me—trust me now. This isn’t what it seems.”
“What else could it be?” a woman beside him demands. “You have the face of the man who’s forced all of us under his wretched rule.”
Another man smacks his hands together. “It is the king. He’s lying through his teeth like always!”
I risk one more shout of my own. “The gods have given us a sign! We have to show we’ve listened.”
A harsh cheer goes up. “Throw him in the fucking fire!”
This is the moment when Torstem needs to act. I brace myself for the calm to wash over me along with the rest of the crowd, with all the power of his sacrificial accomplice magnifying it.
I can only imagine the confusion that will follow.
He can try to inflame their rage against King Konram again afterward, but it’ll never quite be the same. Their certainty will always have been shaken—they’ll never be as confident as they were before.
He’ll have destroyed the essence of his conspiracy before I had to lay a finger on him.
But as the small crowd converges on the law professor in his kingly illusion, a strange shift comes over his body. His shoulders tense, and he lifts his head higher with a look of resolve I’d think will only infuriate his followers more.
He raises one hand as if for our attention. “The king must die. The royal family must fall. Let me continue to show you the way.”
Then he leaps straight into the fire.
A cry escapes my throat before I can catch it. A couple of the closer followers grope after their leader and jerk their hands back with yelps of pain at the burn.
In the fire, Torstem’s figure and the illusion wrapped around it crumple amid the flames. A hiss-like whine of pain penetrates the roar of heat, and his body convulses. I don’t know how he holds back a scream.
“The king is burning!” someone shouts, and the scourge sorcerers erupt into ragged cheers.
They whirl around, resuming their revels even wilder than before. An elbow bangs my shoulder, and I duck farther into the shadows at the edge of the hill, horror clamping around my gut.
How could Torstem have done that? He sacrificed himself… so his followers didn’t have to sacrifice the beliefs he cultivated?
Does he really think they’ll carry on with his mission after he’s gone?
Did he honestly believe in his cause that deeply?
I might not be drugged, but my mind is reeling. I crouch down, my fingers digging into the grass in an attempt to steady myself.
Julita’s voice carries through my mind, hesitant but clear. Well, I suppose you accomplished what you set out to do, even if it wasn’t quite what you expected. You killed Torstem. You fulfilled the king’s orders.
I drag in a gulp of the smoky air, and my stomach starts to settle.
She’s right. I got rid of Torstem like the king wanted, but I did it on my terms. I didn’t shed his blood. He decided his end.
I’m no more of a killer than I was before, and that’s what matters the most.
As I watch the conspirators stumble and cavort around the fire, a small smile crosses my lips with the first flutter of relief. They don’t know it yet, but their reign of wildness is over.
Stavros is on his way with a squadron of soldiers right now. They’ll round up this leaderless gang of traitors, and the conspiracy will die tonight just as Ster. Torstem did.
It’s already starting. A couple of the revelers pause, swaying as they peer around them.
“Where did our real leader go?” one of them mumbles. “Did he just… leave us?”
“He became the king!” another crows. “The king died!” Then she pauses. “So Ster. Torstem is dead…”
As confusion starts to spread through the gathering, I think I catch a distant yell where I’m crouched farther back from the fire. It’s too faint for my drugged companions to have made it out yet.
Is that one of Torstem’s sentries, coming to warn them of the incoming soldiers?
I have one more task to complete to ensure my mission’s success.
With the conspirators so dazed, I hardly need much stealth, but I move as swiftly and silently as I can through the wavering shadows.
A slash of my favorite blade here and another there sets the restless horses free from one wagon and then next.
Swats of the knife’s handle send them galloping away, eager to flee the vicious flames that nearly charred them.
Just as I reach the final wagon, the hollers of alarm become more distinct. “The army’s coming! Gather everything and leave! Where’s Ster. Torstem?”
I don’t wait to find out how the traitors will answer. With one last swipe of my blade, I sever the harness straps holding the last animals in place—and launch myself off the wagon onto one of their backs.
I clutch my steed’s mane and dig in my heels. We race away into the night, leaving the traitors to their fate.