Secrets of Graves and Gold - Bonus Scene
How did Ivy’s men find her after she confronted Borys in the farmhouse—and what did they make of the scene they found? Join Alek on their rescue mission in this scene from his point of view…
Alek
I’m standing tensed in the lookout tower, my hands clenched around the railing, when the locket at my hip resonates with a familiar pulse of magic.
My actual heartbeat hitches. I stare out at the clashing soldiers and sorcerers—a few more soldiers than before, but not enough to take any real comfort in the fact amid the streaks of caustic magic—and make out no difference in the fighting.
Ivy’s calling for help. What did she find out west?
Can we get to her quickly enough?
All I know is I have to try. I scramble down the ladder to where Casimir has been poised since he returned from his quest with Stavros. The former general and Rheave stayed with the soldiers from the fort to join the battle up close.
Casimir nods the second our eyes meet. “Let’s get to her. It feels like she kept to the west like she told you.”
Without needing to exchange any further words, we dash toward the horse he rode back on. I swing up behind Casimir and clutch him around the waist, wishing I was as confident on horseback as he is.
We just have to get to Ivy. How pleasant the journey is doesn’t matter.
The locket keeps radiating its magic from my pocket. The effect should continue until we get close enough to Ivy for the enchantment to complete… or until her locket is broken, I suppose.
Gods help us, let it not come to that.
Casimir digs in his heels, and the horse springs forward. It gallops across the grassy fields. I tighten my thighs to keep my balance amid the jostling rhythm.
Nothing but darkness lies ahead as far as I can see. How far did Ivy go on foot? I’ve lost all sense of time since she rushed off.
Casimir must follow the pull of his own locket. What feels like miles of ground falls away beneath the horse’s hooves with occasional adjustments in direction.
Then a faint light shimmers up ahead. I squint and discern the faintest outline of a hill with the hard lines of a house perched at the top.
A crow swoops in a loose circle in the sky above. My throat constricts. “She’s up there.”
Casimir urges our steed faster, but its pace slows through necessity as it clambers up the increasingly steep slope. When it stumbles, Casimir lets out a noise of frustration and twists in the saddle. “Let’s walk the rest of the way. It might be faster.”
I scramble down and step to the side to give him more room. My gaze slides back the way we came—and my jaw goes slack.
The torches that mark the fort and the sorcerers’ camp gleam distantly against the darkness. Between them and the moonlight, I can tell that the tide has shifted.
Soldiers in Silanian uniforms have pressed all the way to the bank of the river. A few boats streak along the water, fleeing both our forces and the Darium soldiers on the other side, but it looks like merely shreds of the massive scrouge sorcerer march we’ve been following.
“We won,” I murmur. “She did it.” Sometime during our frantic ride, Ivy accomplished whatever she’d hoped to.
The spark of my relief is dimmed by the uncertainty much closer to my heart. Did she survive the effort?
Is she still sane enough to care that she has?
Casimir shoots me a tight smile that echoes my worries and clasps my elbow. We sprint the rest of the way up the slope together.
No sound emanates from the building, which up close turns out to be a neglected farmhouse. The front steps have crumpled, and the door there doesn’t look much better off.
Casimir pauses by it for a moment to listen and then heaves his shoulder at it. It pops open with a crackling creak.
No shouts of alarm or thunder of footsteps responds to our entry. We creep inside, peering around.
The faint glow seeps from upstairs. It’s hard to tell whether anyone’s been inhabiting the rooms on the lower floor at all.
We start up the stairs, Casimir in the lead. We’re halfway up when he exhales roughly and hurtles faster forward.
I glance up and catch sight of a limp, pale hand next to the banister. A streak of blood gleams scarlet against one finger.
Tamping down a cry, I throw myself after the courtesan. We dash onto the landing and pause briefly at the grisly scene in front of us.
Closest to us, a man slumps on the floor in a massive pool of blood. A small dagger protrudes from his throat.
It’s not one of Ivy’s knives, but I’d bet every book I own that she made that strike. There’s no way he’s not dead.
I can make out sprawled legs of what might be another corpse past the doorway of the room with the lantern.
And beyond both the fallen men and the doorway, Ivy lies on the floor of the hall, her legs partly curled up toward her chest, blood splattering her body and more seeping from a gash in her side.
Her eyes are closed, not vacant. As I leap over the dead man to reach her, I note the shaky rise and fall of her ribcage.
“She’s alive!” But for how much longer?
Casimir leaps after me. He crouches by her head, resting his hand on the spilled strands of her hair. “We’ll need to stop the bleeding as well as we can and carry her out. The remaining scrouge sorcerers might regather here…”
At a shuffling sound from the room next to us, both our heads jerk around. My breath snags in my throat.
A disfigured woman is kneeling on the floor at the far side of the room next to a heap of pale cloth that must have been her shroud. Her carved up face, blank other than its scars, makes my gut lurch.
She’s bleeding too—just a little trickle seeping from a few thin cuts in her already mottled flesh. Something the sorcerers did to encourage more magic out of their sacrificial victim?
I swallow thickly. We’ll help her too, but Ivy’s the one who needs us most urgently.
I yank off my tunic without a second thought and ball it against the wound on Ivy’s side. Her fingers twitch, but she doesn’t wake.
Casimir ducks into one of the other rooms and returns with a scarf he’s pilfered. We ease Ivy up to tie the fabric around her abdomen, fixing my makeshift bandage in place.
“The cut will need more patching up than that,” the courtesan murmurs. “But we need to get her somewhere we can clean it properly first.”
I slide my hands along her shoulders, debating how to best try to lift her—and heavy footfalls thump up the stairs.
“Where is she?” Stavros demands. His jaw tightens as he sees us, getting his answer.
Hustling up the stairs behind him, Rheave stops with his eyes widened. “Ivy fought a great battle too.”
“And she’ll be okay if we can get her out of here,” I say with more confidence than I actually feel. “General, why don’t you help us with that.”
Stavros doesn’t even bother to glower at me at my brusque use of his former title, which shows how worried he is. Between the three of us, with Rheave watching anxiously, we lift Ivy’s body and ease her down the stairs as gently as possible.
“Where do we take her?” I ask once we’ve reached the door.
Casimir points, his eyes squinted against the darkness. “There’s a stretch of forestland not far past the base of the hill. It’ll give us some shelter.”
Rheave hums approvingly. “And there’s a stream nearby. She’ll need water.” He glances at Stavros. “What do we do after we get there?”
Stavros gazes down at the woman lying slumped in our hold. He’s just pulled off what might be the greatest military victory of his career, but he doesn’t look remotely happy.
“We wait and see,” he says firmly. “She can tell us all about it after she wakes up.”
Yes. When she wakes up, not if.
Our riven sorcerer is the true hero of this night. And there’s nothing I won’t do to ensure she gets to celebrate her triumph as she deserves.