Chapter 3
Three
Stavros
As we wander the city streets, I keep the stump of my left wrist hidden in my pocket. The empty prosthetic base still strapped to it feels unnervingly light.
With fifteen years behind me since I sacrificed my hand in my dedication ceremony to Sabrelle, I can’t say I miss it at all. After all this time, the metal and wooden contraptions that’ve taken its place are even more familiar than the flesh I gave up.
But going completely without leaves me at too obvious a disadvantage.
Unfortunately, the metal combat prosthetic that’s the only option I have available is far too identifiable, making it a disadvantage in itself. It’s too large for me to easily conceal it in a pocket and too inhuman to escape notice.
And I’m not entirely sure whether I’m prowling Regica as a returning hero or a wanted criminal.
A glow streaks through the thickening night from various pub and restaurant windows. When a cluster of jovial patrons emerges from one of the pubs, the four of us draw to a stop not far away as if we’re pausing to debate our destination.
Rheave studies them for a moment and murmurs beneath a burst of their raucous laughter. “They don’t look very important.”
The daimon in human form tends to state the truth baldly—a quality I’ve come to appreciate in many circumstances.
I dip my head in acknowledgment. “They don’t. But you never know who might have seen or overheard something odd they’ll decide to mention to their friends.”
Alek shifts restlessly on his feet. Between the shadow of his cloak’s hood and the thin scarf he’s wrapped across his lower face to hide his scars, I can’t make out the scholar’s expression, but I can guess what he’s thinking.
We have to take whatever slim chances we can get of dredging up information, because we’ve gone all day without discovering anything at all.
With every peal of the temple bells on the hour, the dread in my gut has expanded. I’ve fought unpredictable enemies before but never any as baffling as this.
The pub-goers exchange a few crude comments about one of the barmaids complete with gestures of demonstration and then make noises of commiseration while one complains about his harsh boss at the bathhouse. They amble off leaving us just as uncertain as before.
Casimir grimaces and rakes his fingers through his tawny hair, an unusually tense gesture from the normally serene courtesan. “Whatever happened to Ivy and Hessild, it might not have anything to do with Regica. What if we’ve come to the wrong place?”
Alek speaks up in his flat, matter-of-fact tone. “The only thing we can say for sure about the scourge sorcerers is that they wanted to destroy the royal family. The royal family is here. At least, they were here as of last night.”
He glances toward me with a question in his brown eyes.
I peer down the street toward the palace’s high towers several blocks away. A few windows gleam with lantern light, blurring after a moment with my damaged vision.
My thoughts slide back to last night. “The Order of the Wild’s army posed an obvious threat, but as far as we can tell, none of their forces breached even the city walls.
In a scenario like that, it’d be unwise for King Konram to leave a secure position and put himself in a potentially precarious one on the road. ”
“Especially when his advisors are being murdered with magic on those roads,” Rheave says helpfully. His dark brown curls sway with the cock of his head.
My stomach clenches at the reminder.
We left Hessild Korinya, the king’s primary magic advisor, and her two soldier escorts lying on the road where they died. It felt disrespectful to abandon their bodies like that, but any attempt at rites we offered them could be seen as a sign that we had a hand in their death.
We can hope that leaving them undisturbed will increase the chances that the king’s people can determine what—and who—killed them. And that it wasn’t the fugitives she’d been sent to retrieve for his pardon.
I left a note tucked beneath her arm, saying that the scourge sorcerers had struck and that we’d ridden off to pursue them. But of course, that’s only part of the truth.
The battle that’s torn at me since this morning surges up again.
I should go to the king and inform him directly of what happened. Warn him that there’s an even greater threat than we realized, one working by methods more subtle than we could anticipate.
But if we go to him without any answers and without the woman he most hesitated to pardon, I don’t need my gift of glimpsing the future to predict the outcome.
He’ll assume Ivy is to blame and resume his call for her execution.
In my silence, the curiosity in Rheave’s smooth face dims. His brow furrows before he speaks more hesitantly than before.
“What if it wasn’t the scourge sorcerers who attacked?
We know that Ivy would never have purposefully hurt those people, but her magic didn’t always let her think right. It wouldn’t be her fault.”
Casimir shakes his head emphatically. “Ivy hadn’t used her magic at all in over a day. It wouldn’t make sense for the madness to come over her all of a sudden like that, so much stronger than before. And she never spoke to us mockingly even in the worst past times.”
Our lover’s parting words echo up from my memories. I got what I needed, and now we’re done. Did you really think I cared about you? You’re ridiculous, all of you.
It didn’t sound remotely like the woman I’ve spent nearly every waking minute with for weeks. The cracks of insanity that’d wriggled into her mind made her paranoid and jumpy, not sneering.
Every particle of my body rejects the possibility that those claims came from Ivy, regardless of her state. Even the laugh she let out sounded forced.
A group of scourge sorcerers who weren’t part of the march must have launched a new attack—striking down Hessild and then wrenching Ivy away from us.
Unfortunately, they covered their tracks so well that I couldn’t manage to follow her. I ran back to my mount as quickly as I could to give chase, but by the time I launched the stallion into motion, it was as if the woman I love had vanished.
My hand drops to the pocket at my hip. The locket all of us except Rheave carry matching copies of hasn’t given off the pulse of its magical signal all day.
If Ivy regained control of the situation, she’d come back to us or signal us to come to her, wouldn’t she? Which means she’s still trapped… or she’s no longer capable of reaching out at all.
The knot in my gut squeezes tighter, but I can’t deny logic. Regardless of the power the scourge sorcerers can summon from the accomplices they’ve had mutilated, nothing can rival Ivy’s boundless riven magic.
They could very well have wanted to simply eliminate her to ensure she couldn’t interfere with their plans any further. Perhaps I couldn’t find her… because she was already gone.
My hand balls at my side. I lift it to tap down my front in the gesture of the divinities.
If that’s the case, those miscreants will pay beyond any punishment I already hoped to inflict on them. But Sabrelle give me strength, let it not be true. Let her still be alive.
Let us find her.
I square my shoulders, girding myself. “Let’s wander a little closer to the palace. Now that it’s dark, we don’t have to worry quite as much about being recognized.”
Alek nods. “Nothing appears to have gone wrong here yet. We should take that as a good sign. Ivy may have escaped already and simply be waiting until it’s safe to reach out to us. She knows how to extricate herself from a dangerous scenario.”
As we head toward the palace, Rheave’s strides take on a renewed energy. “Yes. Our little vine doesn’t let anyone stop her. The next time we see her, she might have totally destroyed the Order of the Wild all on her own.”
I wish I could summon the same optimism. Tension stays coiled tight around my innards.
It is true that there’ve been no disturbances in the city. If any fighting had broken out, we’d have noticed—
A distant thump brings my head snapping around. A squeak of a cry reaches my ears, followed by a thunder of pounding footsteps.
My pulse skips a beat. I jerk my hand toward my companions, already swiveling to track the sounds. “This way!”
The commotion is coming from the general direction of the palace, but not straight ahead. I dash down the street and take a right turn with the other men at my heels.
Whatever’s going on might not have anything to do with the scourge sorcerers, but we need to know for sure.
There’s another thump and a gasp sharp enough to carry past the nearby buildings. I sprint faster, my heart thudding in my chest.
Could that be Ivy fleeing her captors?
We dodge a cart and skid to a stop at the edge of one of the city’s broader roads.
Six figures are racing through the darkness, hurtling toward us. Heavy velvet cloaks flap around the three being chased, the form in the middle gripping the other two’s arms as if urging them on.
Less than a block behind them and closing the distance with every step, three palace guards charge in pursuit. Their expressions are set with stern determination.
My legs lock up with the uncertainty about who the actual victims here are.
Rheave makes an urgent noise in his throat. “The soldiers—they’re all captured daimon.”
At the same moment, the wind ripples over one of the fleeing figure’s hoods. As I twitch my gaze to track the movement, the fabric flaps back enough to reveal dark hair framing a pale face I recognize in an instant.
Not the woman I was looking for, but a girl who it appears needs my protection even more in this moment.
I don’t know why Princess Klaudia is running away from the guards who would normally be defending her or who she’s with, but the captured daimon are the scourge sorcerers’ tools. I doubt their intentions are good.
“We take the guards down,” I bark at the others, and leap into the street.
I miss my prosthetic hand more than ever, but my sword slides from its sheath with a reassuring hiss. I barrel past King Konram’s daughter and her companions straight toward their pursuers.
A flash of startled confusion crosses one of the guards’ faces just before I slam my sword into his chest. The moment the blade penetrates his heart, his body hardens into the clay it started as.
As he thuds to the cobblestones with a crack of the fired clay, a lightning-like bolt of energy careens through the air and smacks into the woman next to him. She reels backward, the side of her head charred by Rheave’s supernatural attack.
Before she can regain her balance, I’ve slit her throat and spun toward the third pursuer.
He tries to dodge me, lunging after the princess. In the same moment as I drive my sword into his side, an arrow smacks into his temple.
I’m not sure which weapon causes his ultimate end. Like the other two, he stiffens into clay and collapses.
I whirl in the direction the princess was running.
My friends were racing over to help me in the confrontation, Rheave with his bow and another arrow in hand, the other two gripping their knives.
With the fall of the last body, we turn to consider the three figures in their fancy cloaks who’ve hesitated in a tight huddle by the doorway of a darkened shop.
Princess Klaudia’s voice wavers from beneath her hood. “General Stavros?”
I lost my military position more than a year ago with the injury that damaged my sight, but I’m not of any mind to correct her now. The fact that she recognized me may be the only reason she hasn’t kept running.
I lower my sword and hold up the stump of my wrist in a gesture of surrender. “I only wanted to ensure they wouldn’t hurt you. What’s happened, Princess Klaudia?”
The only answer I get is a muffled sob as she presses her hand to her mouth. The girl is only sixteen—gods only know what she’s been through to bring her to this point.
Stepping closer, I make out her brother’s face beneath one of the other hoods. Prince Jacos is even younger, and his skin has turned sallow despite the blotches of exertion from their run.
The figure in the middle who was clutching them lifts her head to meet my gaze. In the second before my vision fogs again, I find myself staring at one of my former students—Petra, her name is.
Her dark eyes hold mine so solemnly my stomach hollows out.
She’s a distant relative of the queen’s—not even from the Melchiorek line. Why would King Konram have evacuated her along with the immediate royal family?
Why is she with her cousins and not the king himself or any of their actual protectors?
When she speaks, her clear voice holds steady other than a brief quiver of emotion she can’t totally suppress. “Ster. Stavros, we need your help. King Konram and Queen Ishild are dead.”