Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Ivy
All too soon, the peal of the eighth bell rings through the café. We double-check our equipment and prepare to split up into our positions.
I pause for long enough to kiss Stavros and then Casimir. “I’ll find you in the crowd after the important bit is over.”
Stavros clasps me tightly to him. “Stay safe before anything else. You’re taking your own risks, and we’ll take ours.”
Rheave watches us in his quietly intent way. I go over and give his hand a squeeze because it feels wrong to leave him completely out. “I’ll see you soon.”
He bobs his head. “I’ll fulfill my part of the plan as well as possible. For you.”
We part ways just outside the café, making our journey to the square where our demonstration is going to take place by separate routes. The streets are already starting to bustle with people on foot and horses pulling carts.
At the square, I slip around a shop Voleska pointed out to me and hurry up the back staircase. From the second-floor window, I have an excellent view across the square—the most central and largest in Pima.
Dozens of people mill around across the cobblestones, going in and out of eateries and shops, stopping at the stalls set up here and there, lounging by the fountain.
Water streams around the marble statue of Creaden in the center of the pool.
The godlen peers down over the square from his high pedestal with an air of benevolent authority.
Finally, a nearby temple bell rings in nine brisk peals. I brace my hands against the window ledge, already picturing how I want to shape my magic.
Two figures leap across the fountain and scramble up the pedestal to the statue of Creaden. Bracing themselves on either side of the marble figure, Voleska drops the canvas from the shield as Emor pitches his voice to carry across the square.
His words resonate loudly enough that I hear them faintly through the window. “People of Nikodi, listen to us!”
That’s my cue. I focus all my attention on the shield in Voleska’s hands and loosen my hold on my power.
My magic ripples out of me and rushes toward the shield. As the force I’m propelling forward wraps around the wooden object, I picture a branch cracking on the old willow tree by the abandoned farm where we borrowed a wagon.
When I lift the shield into the air, the branch falls to the ground.
With the heft of my power, the shield floats above the statue’s head where everyone in the square can see it. A flare of light conjured by one of the rebels’ gifts washes over the civilians—and condenses on the shield to make it glow.
Every gaze in the square jerks toward the spectacle. Gasps and shouts rise up across the crowd.
Emor speaks quickly before the spectators can become overwhelmed with confusion.
“My friends! We took Creaden’s shield from the Temple of Divine Grace this morning—just before the Order of the Wild could ruin it.
We heard them plotting to destroy this great symbol of our city because they don’t like us having loyalty to anyone other than them. ”
A horrified hush sweeps through his audience.
He jabs his hand in the air. “The Order says the king has a false claim on the throne, but they’re trying to lay claim over us just like Bryfeen did all those ages ago.
Why should we let them? They have no right.
They’re just as bad as the rulers they say they hate. ”
The murmurs that follow are fraught with tension. The crowd shifts, but no one seems to know quite what to do yet.
And then the moment Emor predicted arrives. One of the scourge sorcerers or a lackey pushes toward the fountain.
“You can’t talk like that,” he hollers. “We’ve freed you from a royal family that only wants to exploit you. Show some gratitude.”
I wind my magic back into my body gradually, letting the shield sink toward Voleska.
As she raises her arms to catch it, Emor pivots toward the newcomer. “You expect gratitude when you want to exploit us just as much so you can be in charge? That sounds like an awful deal to me.”
The instant Voleska grasps the shield, I yank back the rest of my magic and flick my gaze around the square. I can already spot a few more figures shoving their way toward the fountain from the edges of the crowd.
Julita lets out a soft chuckle. Here they come.
No doubt at least one conspirator has raced off to tattle to the head honchos at their meeting. Let them send as many of their forces as they like.
I don’t think they’re going to enjoy the outcome.
I whip my attention back to the fountain just as the first Order member reaches the base. He jumps up on the barrier around the water. “Come down from there and stop telling lies.”
“Or you’ll what?” Emor asks.
Voleska lowers the shield as if to defend the two of them—and I propel my magic in their direction once more.
This time I’m not aiming it at the shield. I fling the force into the conspirator, sending him lunging forward and wrenching up his hand as if he intends to strike out at them.
What he actually does is pound his fist against the shield hard enough for the sound of the impact to reverberate through the square.
Julita flinches inside me. I’m too caught up in the necessary concentration to apologize.
Off at that old farm, the backlash yanked the door off the dilapidated house at the same moment as I shoved the man on the fountain.
And the crowd erupts.
The angry shouts of the locals drown out anything else the Order member might have said. As he stumbles into the fountain water, the nearest civilians grab his arms and yank him away from the shield and the woman wielding it. He’s swallowed into the churning crowd.
“Down with the Order of the Wild!” Emor yells from his perch on the statue. “Kick them out! Take back our city!”
More people stream into the square from the nearby streets and buildings. Many are locals coming to see what’s happened, but others are clearly Order members.
I spot a man taking a swing at a couple of the conspirators, only for them to wrench his arms behind his back. A woman springs at them with a frying pan she bashes over the nearest conspirator’s head.
As more fights break out in knots throughout the square, arrows start streaking down from the rooftop where Rheave hid himself. Shimmers of electric energy send them racing toward their targets.
Stavros and Casimir will be in the middle of the chaos along with Emor and Voleska’s people, striking down every captured daimon Rheave identifies for them. And maybe a few of the fully human Order members as well, if they force the issue.
My main work is done. I can’t leave them to the riskier battle alone.
I shove open the windowpane and clamber out. My gaze drops to the building fronts directly beneath me, and I freeze.
Hanie is standing just a few shops over from the one I’m staked out above, cringing against the wall with her arms folded tight around her middle. Her brass-brown hair has fallen across her face.
I bite back a curse.
You told her not to come to the square this morning, Julita mutters. She’s not a fighter—she shouldn’t be here.
I did warn Julita’s old maidservant when I saw her briefly yesterday. I suggested she should stay clear of the central square all morning.
Apparently she was more curious than concerned.
She spins and darts away down one of the side streets. At least I don’t have to worry about her getting trampled now.
I scramble to the edge of the roof. My gaze catches on Stavros’s blood-red hair about halfway across the square, his head above the figures around him thanks to his massive frame. Casimir will have stuck near him.
Girding myself, I pick a section of clear ground and jump. As my feet hit the ground, I’m already braced to leap forward.
I weave through the rioting crowd, dodging jabbing elbows and grasping fingers. My gaze snags on a woman who’s staggering with one of Rheave’s arrows in her back, and I hurtle forward to slash my knife across her neck.
She collapses in a crash of shattering clay.
One fewer daimon the scourge sorcerers can send to attack us. Every one we set free is a victory.
A projectile sings through the air beside me, this one all daimon energy. It sizzles into the side of a man’s head several paces off through the crowd.
The man flinches where he’s trying to wrestle a thrashing woman to the ground. I push through the churning bodies toward him and stab my knife between his ribs straight into his heart.
Another mass of clay topples onto the cobblestones.
I whirl around, trying to regain my sense of where my allies are. At another glimpse of dark red hair, I hustle through the crowd.
When I get a clearer view of the two men, it takes me a moment to figure out what’s going on. Casimir has drawn his sword, but he’s mostly reaching out to people with his empty hand, guiding them past him.
Directing them to a nearby pub where they can escape the chaos if they want, I realize. Of course the courtesan would be more focused on making sure the innocents are safe than murdering the villains.
Stavros is just charging farther into the crowd to slam his sword through the torso of another man with a charred blotch where some of his hair should be. The conjured body collapses in a burst of clay shards.
I expect the former general to look my way so I can flash him a quick smile, but his stance abruptly stiffens. Without warning, he dashes off.
I try to follow, but a current of bodies pushes between us, jostling my scrawny form. Squeezing my way between the furious citizens, I hop up on my feet here and there to peer over their heads.
Over by one of the stores, a teenage boy cowers on the ground while a man kicks him and bashes at his head with the pommel of his dagger. If I had any question about which side they’re each on, it’d be answered by the tattoo inked on the side of the man’s neck: an inverted All-Giver sigil.
That’s the symbol the scourge sorcerers use to try to call the Great God back to our realms.
Stavros lets out a roar of rage loud enough for me to hear it over the tumult of the crowd. He rams into the attacker and knocks the man off his feet.
In my next glimpse, their blades are clanging together. I grit my teeth and shove through the milling bodies with more force.
I stumble into the less-packed fringes of the crowd just in time to see Stavros dig his blade into the man’s throat.
This body doesn’t transform. It simply slumps, gushing blood.
And Stavros is so intent on finishing the man off, he hasn’t noticed another attacker who crashes into him before I can even shout a warning.
My cry breaks from my lips, too late. Julita yelps like an echo of it.
I sprint over, my fingers tight around my knife. My heart hammers against my ribs.
My magic wrenches at me to unleash it, to let it fend off the attacker, but the impulse comes with a cold jab of fear. I didn’t plan for that—I can’t stop to concentrate on a counter-action—
The two men wrestle each other, blood splattering the cobblestones around them. I shove down my power and lunge forward with my blade raised.
Just before I can plunge my knife into the attacker’s skull, Stavros heaves the man off him with a meaty rasp of his sword.
The man collapses, the short sword he was clutching clanging on the stones. Relief surges up inside me for just an instant before Stavros sags backward too.
Blood gushes from a cut on his side, drenching his tunic red.
My own blood freezes in my veins. A flood of terror and anguish sweeps every other thought from my mind.
“Stavros!” I cry, dropping down beside him.
No, gods, no. Not like this.
Not again.
What am I supposed to do to save him?