Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Casimir
Ivy lets out a little hiss and raises her hand from the stick she’s holding. A drop of blood wells up on the tip of one finger. “I scratched myself.”
Rheave leans over from where he’s sitting next to her, his eyes widening with concern. “Are you all right?”
“It’s just a tiny prick. But these are fiddly.”
“Stavros said it might be easier if we slide the bits of fletching only part way down until they’re all in, and then push them the rest of the way.”
Ivy studies the arrow she’s been making under Rheave’s guidance after Stavros instructed him last night. The daimon lost all his previous projectiles in yesterday’s chaotic assault on the march.
“I could see that helping,” she says. “I’ll try it with the next one.”
As she tugs the last piece of the leaves they’re using for fletching into place and sets the new arrow on the small pile they’ve been building, Rheave tips his head to brush his lips against her hair.
I’ve seen our newest companion show physical affection to Ivy in the past. There’s nothing about the gesture that’s inherently more intimate than before.
But the ardent gleam in his eyes when he eases away and the hint of a blush that colors Ivy’s cheeks tell me something more passed between them during their foray this morning. They shift their bodies next to each other with a newfound sense of coordination I’ve normally only seen between lovers.
Good. She needed something ecstatic amid all the anguish she’s been dealing with.
I haven’t been sure how to offer that kind of release myself, not in a way she’ll accept.
For now, I walk across the messy floor of the abandoned outpost and sit at her other side. “Show me, so I can pitch in too? I don’t think we can have too many arrows if we’re going to be on the front lines of tomorrow’s battle.”
A small shiver passes through Ivy’s slim frame, but she smiles at me and hands over one of the sticks she and Rheave have carved into a straight rod from a small branch. “We’ve already put the notches in them. You just need to fit in the fletching and one of these pieces for the head.”
She motions to the pile of triangular chips of wood she’s honed to a sharp point with a few swift strokes of her knife.
“Like this.” Rheave demonstrates how they’ve been wiggling the bits into the notches at either end of the arrow, tight enough that they don’t need further tying.
I’ve never engaged in weapon construction before, but I’ve put my fingers to enough other nimble uses to be sure I can handle this. With a nod, I get to work.
As we add to the pile, a tense silence falls over the three of us. The sun has just dipped below the hole in the ceiling, evening creeping ever closer.
Alek is out foraging so we’ll have some kind of dinner to ward off the weakness of hunger. Stavros hasn’t returned yet from his survey of the nearby royal forces.
The question of what we’re going to do about the scourge sorcerers’ next planned attack has been hanging in the air since Ivy and Rheave returned with their news. I haven’t come up with any answers.
The best we can do is make sure we’re prepared for war.
When there are only a few of the base rods left, Rheave hums and gets to his feet. “I’ll go collect more sticks we can use. I want to make sure no one from the march has come over this way too.”
He gazes down at Ivy with a stalwart protective air, obviously hesitant to leave her even for that purpose, and then flashes a smile at me before striding out.
Ivy exhales in a huff of air and sets down her most recent creation. “I guess I should be glad I’m better at making arrows than launching them.”
I nudge at the head of my arrow until I’m sure it’s firmly lodged. “No person can be a master at every skill. I’m glad there’s some way I can be of a little use myself.”
She elbows me gently. “You’ve contributed much more than ‘a little.’”
A short chuckle escapes me. “Perhaps, but this isn’t how I was supposed to be making my mark on the world.”
As the words leave my lips, Ivy’s face falls.
She tries to recover with a brisk laugh of her own, but I wince inwardly. I’ve inadvertently stung her with my clumsy remark.
“You must be missing the college a lot right now,” she says with forced lightness.
I swallow thickly and slip my hand around her arm. “I didn’t mean it like that, Kindness. I haven’t for one second regretted standing by you on this journey. I’ve only worried that… the debts I’m failing to honor may have brought bad luck our way.”
Ivy’s forehead furrows. “What debts? Why would they matter out here?”
I open my mouth and close it again, the shame of my history congealing in my chest. But I probably should explain it to her so she understands the responsibilities I carry—and how deviating from my course could have lost us my godlen’s favor.
“I told you that my mother was a courtesan as well,” I say.
Ivy nods, picking up another rod but glancing over at me again.
I run my fingers over the leaves I’ve fletched my arrow with.
“She was a very admired and prominent courtesan. Some say no one of her generation served Ardone’s will quite so well.
But her pregnancy with me and the birth were difficult—both took their toll on her.
It strained her nerves in some way that she lost much of her former grace of movement; she developed tics that made it difficult for her to even hold a smile. ”
“And the royal medics couldn’t heal the damage?”
I shake my head. “From what I understand, it was too extensive and deeply set. Apparently her situation would have been even worse without their intervention. As it was, the effects were mainly superficial… but appearances matter a lot in our line of work.”
“Of course.” Ivy frowns. “But what does that have to do with you having debts?”
Surely it’s obvious?
The weight of the knowledge makes my shrug sluggish. “It was my fault. If she hadn’t birthed me, she’d have been able to carry out her calling for who knows how many decades to come. So I’ve done my best to spread as much joy and pleasure in the world as she would have.”
Ivy blinks at me. She puts down the arrow she only just started fletching and turns toward me. “Casimir, you don’t really think you’re obligated to do the same work just because she couldn’t, do you? It wasn’t your idea to be born. She made that choice—she must have known there were risks.”
My mouth tastes ashy. “She couldn’t have known she’d sacrifice anywhere near so much. I wouldn’t be alive without her sacrifice. She always said I was the gift she was giving to the world in exchange. Ardone deserves a champion just as worthy as the one that was lost, after all.”
“That’s ridiculous! That’s… that’s as bad as the scourge sorcerers conning twelve-year-olds into carving themselves up for their purposes.”
A flinch ripples through my body at the comparison.
I manage another chuckle. “I don’t think creating beauty and pleasure is anything like their awful cause.”
Ivy grimaces. “Okay, maybe it’s a slight exaggeration—but my point still stands. Nobody’s supposed to be able to demand that other people give up their lives in service.”
“It’s my calling. I chose it; I enjoy it. No one gets to decide how every part of their life turns out.”
It’s Ivy’s turn to wince, though I wasn’t even thinking of her situation when I made my last remark.
She sets her hand on my shoulder. “You have options. You can make your life about whatever you want it to be. If Ardone would punish you—or all of us—because you haven’t been fulfilling your mother’s legacy for a few months or some bullshit like that, then she isn’t a godlen worth serving.”
“Ivy—”
“No,” she says. “You’ve fought and spied and scavenged and so many other things so we could make it this far toward saving the kingdom from the worst villains it’s faced in five hundred years.
All of that counts, even if it doesn’t fit with being a courtesan.
” She kicks at a stray pebble on the floor.
“Be glad that you can pitch in by all those means.”
I don’t need to ask to understand what she means. “You’ve offered more than your magic, Ivy.”
“Sure. A little.” Her head droops. “For just a moment this morning, I felt hopeful. But all I did was find out more information we don’t know how to react to.
I’ve been wracking my brain for hours, and I haven’t come up with a single way I could block the scourge sorcerers’ attack for more than a second or two without using my power. ”
“It isn’t all on you. We’ll figure something out together.”
“But I’m the only one who could do it—who could wipe them all out in a matter of minutes, just by wanting to.”
The laugh that tumbles out of her next is so dark it scares me.
“If I truly care about the people they’ll hurt, maybe that’s what I should do.
What the gods would want from me. Why Kosmel set me on this course to begin with.
Forget about my sanity, forget about the innocent people in the mix who’ve been duped—blast them all away and have Stavros ready to put me down before I can harm anyone else. ”
The horror that rushes through me at her suggestion drowns out every other sensation.
I wrap my arms around her and hug her close, an anguished burn coming into the back of my eyes. “Don’t say that, Ivy. Don’t ever even think that. You are not a sacrifice.”
Ivy tips her head against my shoulder. She sounds choked up herself. “How is it any different from you giving up your life to replace your mother? I’d be saving the whole kingdom.”
Gods help me, have I pushed her toward thinking this way?
I tighten my embrace, grappling with the torrent of emotions coursing through my body.
Is what she said now how it sounds to her when I talk about fulfilling my mother’s legacy? But that damage was already done by my arrival on this earth—
I suppose Ivy could say the same thing about the damage she’s inadvertently caused in the past.
“No,” I murmur. “I don’t believe it that far. We both deserve to live. We deserve to have some part of our lives that belong to us. We can find our own ways to serve our gods without giving up everything that matters to us. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that.”
But believing it and feeling it in every moment aren’t always the same thing.
Ivy lets out a shaky breath. “I want a life of my own too. I just— I don’t know if I’d want to live in a realm taken over by scourge sorcerers anyway.
What if I’m the only chance Silana has? The king’s hands are tied trying to protect the country against the Darium threat as well. And he thinks we’re the enemy.”
A snort escapes her that sounds more like her usual self. “Everyone’s against us, even the people we’re trying to save.”
I rub my hand up and down her back. “We’ll prove him wrong. And we may find support in places we’re not expecting it. Look at Rheave. He started out as the scourge sorcerers’ tool, but then he became our ally… and now he’s even more than that to you.”
Ivy stiffens just slightly. “I—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her before she has a chance to think I’m accusing her rather than simply acknowledging. “I love seeing that you’ve found even more happiness. But who would have thought it’d come from such an unexpected place?”
“True.” Ivy hugs me back and then leans into my embrace with a sigh.
“It doesn’t seem as if any of the other captured daimon have been able to shake off the scourge sorcerers’ control.
And nothing we’ve done has rattled their supporters in the march enough for them to question whether the Order of the Wild really has good intentions. I don’t see who…”
She pauses for long enough that I pull back to check her expression. Her eyes have lit with a feverish sort of glint.
Ivy straightens up. She stays silent for several more seconds, wetting her lips, before meeting my eyes. “Casimir, if I had an idea that sounded insane but didn’t involve me going insane… would you trust me enough to try it?”
It’s a simple, straightforward question, no pleading or cajoling. But I can see in the strain on her face how much she needs me to stand by her right now.
And I know down to the core of me that I’d follow this woman right over the edge of the world if she asked me to.
“Yes,” I say. “Whatever it is. Just tell me what you need.”
Before she can answer, footsteps rustle outside. Stavros appears in the doorway, his hair rumpled from his ride, his expression unreadable.
A flicker of hope rises in my chest—that maybe he’s seen thousands of royal soldiers already arriving to defend the king or evidence of some other response that’ll make whatever danger Ivy’s planning to hurl herself into unnecessary.
“Any news?” I ask.
The twist of his mouth makes my heart sink again before he even speaks.
“The local forces are clearly more on the alert, but with the numbers currently stationed here, I’m not sure how much of a defense they’ll provide.
From what I overheard, there are reinforcements on their way, but they’re more than a day out. ”
“Too far,” Ivy murmurs, and focuses on him.
“The scourge sorcerers are attacking before dawn tomorrow. But Casimir was just reminding me that sometimes enemies can become allies. I think we can set a trap that could mean the end of the Order of the Wild—or at least, of any chance of them harming the royal family tomorrow.”
Stavros lifts his eyebrows. “What’s that?”
Ivy’s gaze slides to me. She takes my hand. “I’m going to need all your skills for putting people at ease, Cas. We’ll have to win a little trust from both the scourge sorcerers and a bunch of Darium soldiers.”
A different sort of glow forms in my chest. I have no idea where she’s going with this, but my answer remains the same. “Any talent I have is yours as well. What’s this trap we’re going to lay?”