Chapter 5
Five
Ivy
By the time Stavros slows his stallion ahead of us, I think I’m drenched right through to my bones. The rain has started to ease off, but a steady drizzle continues flecking my cheeks through the gloom.
The former general wheels his stallion in a small clearing and looks to me first. His face is taut with worry. “Are you all right?”
I restrain a shiver and paste on my best unflappable smile. “I’ll survive. What do we do now?”
Stavros lets out a rough breath. “We’ve covered a lot of distance quickly.
As unpleasant as the rain has been, it’ll have covered most of the signs of our passing.
I brought us around the city and onward in nearly the opposite direction from where the guards last saw us, which should help keep us beyond their initial searches. ”
Alek wraps one arm around his chest over his sodden uniform, which is plastered to his lean frame. “They aren’t going to give up any time soon, though. Not as long as the king is afraid of a riven sorcerer on the loose.”
Casimir taps his gelding to bring it up beside me and rests a comforting hand on my arm. “The royal family does have plenty of other things to focus on at the moment, though. I’d imagine the attack on the palace will be their most immediate concern.”
“Unless they’re going to blame that on me too,” I mutter, with a shudder I can’t suppress at the memory of King Konram’s accusing question.
Julita sniffs in disdain. That’s ridiculous. Surely the king has at least enough of a brain to realize you weren’t responsible for that. Why in the realms would you have protected him from attackers you’d sent to murder him?
A very good question, and one I’d like to hope will occur to Konram when he’s had time to think things through.
Rheave glances around us, his eerie eyes gleaming in the thickening darkness. “This body is hungry. None of you have eaten much today—you must need the energy too. Can we stop for long enough to have a meal and relieve ourselves?”
Part of me wants to cling to Toast for dear life and ride to the very edge of Silana, but even as the urge passes through me, my stomach gurgles.
Alek’s gaze twitches to me. “Yes, we should eat. If we get back under the trees, they should keep most of the rain off.”
The muscles in my legs protest as I dismount. Toast shakes his mane with a snort and ambles to the edge of the clearing to snack on some grass.
Casimir retrieves a bundle of food from his saddle bag, and we gather under the denser branches. As he hands a cheese-stuffed roll to me, another shiver ripples through my body, too intense for me to suppress it.
The courtesan pauses. “You’re freezing. Your cloak is in one of the bags, isn’t it? You could change back into your dress and—”
I cut him off with a terse laugh. “And get that drenched too? No. I’ll put on my cloak when we set off again, but I’ve been through worse.”
The tightening of Casimir’s jaw suggests he isn’t happy to hear that, but he glances around at the others. “We should all put on our cloaks for the rest of the ride. There’s no need for the journey to be completely miserable.”
Stavros tips his head obligingly, looking faintly amused by the courtesan’s concern.
I bite into the roll, even though I can’t summon much sense of appetite despite my gut’s grumbling. As I swallow the sticky lump, thoughts of everything we’ve been through in the past day whip through my mind.
My spirits sink like the fading of the daylight. I force down the rest of the roll, but it sits like a boulder in my belly.
“This is my fault,” I say.
All four heads swivel toward me. Alek knits his brow. “What do you mean?”
I wave my hand vaguely. “I showed my magic in front of the king. Now he wants all of you imprisoned—or executed. You’ve had to run for your lives; you’ve had to leave everything in your lives behind…”
A pang of guilt brings a burn to the back of my eyes. “I think I hurt one of the guards while we were escaping. King Konram is going to be even angrier with me, which means the same for you too.”
“Ivy…” Casimir slips his arm around me and presses a kiss to my temple. “I have no regrets at all about being here with you. The only alternatives were letting the scourge sorcerers slaughter the royal family or turning on you.”
“And neither of those are remotely acceptable,” Stavros says. He takes a step closer to me and hesitates, his dark gaze searching mine through the dimness.
It’s only been four days since the former general and I finally made a real peace with each other. Since he told me he loved me… and I found I could trust him enough to believe it.
We haven’t had much time on solid ground before our equilibrium was upended all over again.
Stavros’s jaw works before he goes on. “You fought for the royal family with all the loyalty they could deserve. You put your life on the line over and over to infiltrate the scourge sorcerers and end their conspiracy. It is my honor to be standing with you, ensuring you’ll get all the recognition you deserve. ”
I wish I found it easier to accept those words. How do I shake thirteen years of seeing myself as a monster because of my magic and the harm it’s done?
Then Alek eases past Stavros to stop in front of me. A little hope quivers into being at the determination etched on his scarred face.
He touches my cheek, his gaze intent on mine, his voice equally intense. “You know I’ve made more than my share of awful mistakes. I can say beyond a sliver of doubt that the only one I’ve made today was failing to convince King Konram of who you really are while I had the chance.”
A lump rises in my throat. “I don’t think anyone could have.”
“And I don’t see any way you could have handled what happened today better than you did. What did I leave behind? Books and papers? I’d rather have you still in my life than the entire royal library.”
A laugh hitches out of me even knowing how huge a statement that is from the scholar.
Alek captures the sound with the press of his lips against mine. More warmth flows through my chilled body, washing away the worst of my anguish.
When he draws back, I lift my hand to echo his caress. My fingers trace the ridges of now uncovered scars that ripple across his cheek. “In case you need the reminder, I like you best without any kind of mask.”
Alek smiles at me so brilliantly that I could almost believe everything is already fine. But as he drops his hand, Rheave shifts on his feet.
The daimon-man focuses on Stavros. “How intently will the Crown’s Watch continue pursuing Ivy even while they have their other enemies to deal with?”
Stavros swipes his sleeve past his mouth.
“We probably have at least a few days before a particularly invasive search begins. The Crown’s Watch won’t venture very far beyond the city.
It’ll be the wider army we’ll be contending with.
But with the attack on the palace, standard protocol would be for all soldiers in the area to ensure the royal family’s safe passage to one of their secondary residences before anything else. ”
“King Konram will be leaving the city too?” I ask.
“It’s possible he and his family already have. There are secure routes out of Florian that are accessible only to the royals and their guards.” Stavros exhales in a rush. “After that, I suppose it depends on how large of a menace the scourge sorcerers continue to present themselves as.”
Casimir turns to the daimon-man. “Rheave, you’ll know more about that than we currently do. You indicated that the leader of the conspiracy is still alive.”
Rheave nods, his chocolate-brown curls swaying with the movement. “Not the one Ivy knew who worked in the college.”
A fresh chill washes over me. “Ster. Torstem.” The man we thought was running the entire so-called Order of the Wild.
He really did sacrifice himself to the fire so that his followers would keep faith in the conspiracy, then. Because he truly believed in the cause himself? Because he knew whoever commanded him would continue their efforts?
“Torstem gave out most of the orders for what happened in and around the college, but he was getting his orders from someone else,” Rheave says. “There was someone overseeing the workshop where this body was made.”
He touches his chest as if he still sees his human body as an object that’s not entirely him. “I didn’t see that man, though. When he came to the workshop, I was already trapped in the body, but the sorcerers hadn’t fully animated it yet. I had no sight.”
Alek perks up with an air of keen interest. “Would you recognize his voice if you heard it again?”
The daimon-man’s forehead furrows as he considers. “Possibly. The sounds traveled strangely when I was encased in the clay, before it became flesh.”
“Do you know where that workshop was?” Stavros asks.
“No. It was a fairly long journey to the city. We were kept in boxes, nothing but darkness.” A slight tremor runs through the daimon-man’s muscular form that makes me want to clasp his hand, as if I can offer some comfort.
“But this leader,” Alek says, “he could still talk to you directly? You indicated that you sensed him calling all the daimon he’d harnessed to attack the palace.”
Rheave hums thoughtfully. “It wasn’t quite talking. It was more like a tug or a push. But I could understand what it was tugging or pushing me toward. My first few weeks guarding the college, I simply had to go along with those tugs and all the other orders they’d imbedded in me.”
Casimir’s mouth curves up into a fond smile. “Until Ivy inspired you.”
The daimon-man’s gaze veers to me. “Something like that. I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing, just following the orders and wishing I could break out.
But Ivy talked about things I couldn’t help wondering about later, and I started noticing what I liked about having this body.
And when I questioned the people controlling us at the college about their orders, they didn’t like it. ”
I wince. “They threatened to destroy you.”
“Yes.” Rheave’s unearthly eyes remain fixed on my face. “But I knew if there was anyone who would stop them from doing it, it was you. And I was right. If it won’t trouble you to have me around, I’d like to stay with you, wherever you’re going. I know that’s the best place for me to be.”
A strange pang reverberates through my heart. I’m not sure how to be a figure like that in anyone’s life, especially a daimon who’s not used to having a mortal life at all.
But I can’t think of any other answer I could possibly give. “Of course you can stay with us. We’ll need all the help we can get.”
Stavros grimaces, but he refrains from arguing for now.
“The more information we have about what we’re up against, the better.
Do you know who arranged for you and the other daimon to be hired on as guards?
Is there anything else you learned about the scourge sorcerers’ plans, what they intended to do beyond the attack on the city? ”
Rheave’s gaze goes momentarily distant. “I’m not sure about hiring us.
But for their larger plans—they were making their own army.
I heard a few of them say that in the workshop.
Building numbers, preparing to overthrow the Melchioreks…
But I didn’t hear anything more about it after I got to the city. The others might know more.”
“The others?” I say. “You mean the other captured daimon? You said there were many more. Where?”
Rheave shakes his head. “I’m not sure of that either. Only a small number of us were sent to the city, but where the others went, I wasn’t told. I think the attack on the palace was a sudden decision provoked by the arrests and Torstem’s death. It wasn’t the main thing they were working toward.”
The rest of us exchange an uneasy glance.
“A small number,” Alek repeats. “Just how many daimons did they stuff into clay bodies like you?”
Rheave’s eyes widen. “More were always going out. But the workshop was big. In the week while they were making me, there were at least a hundred others they were animating.”
Casimir pales. “And most of them have been gathering somewhere else? There could be an army of thousands by now.”
The bottom of my stomach drops out. “And who knows how many scourge sorcerers egging them on.”
The conspiracy seemed horrifying enough when I thought it was merely a few dozen villains scheming around the city. If the Order of the Wild stretches right across Silana… how in the realms are any of us going to stop them?