Chapter 11
Eleven
Ivy
Isprawl across the bough of the oak, careful not to disturb the leaves that would rustle no matter how concealed my body is. My head dips to take in the voices below more clearly.
The rough bark grazes my cheek and digs into my hands. It’s a familiar sensation, and yet my nerves remain on edge.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This place used to be where I felt most at home in the world, and now I can’t shake the sense that I’m an intruder.
Beneath me in the tiny garden that holds a few sparse vegetables and a beehive, Ewalin and Frida have been puttering around and murmuring to each other for the past several minutes.
Maybe it’s their own attitude that’s kept me in the alert.
The daughter and mother I’ve so often visited in the outer wards are clearly nervous about being overheard in a way I never encountered before.
The atmosphere has shifted similarly all through Slaughterwell. This is only the last of a couple dozen shabby houses I’ve stopped at in my survey of the neighborhood. The usual strident shouts and bellows of laughter have been replaced by hushed voices and hesitant giggles.
The change in atmosphere isn’t the only thing affecting my own mood, though. The days when I used to watch Ewalin and Frida and long to slip into their family alongside them have faded into distant memory.
I do have a family now, as odd as these two women might find it. And I don’t know that I’d fit all that well with these two anymore regardless.
“I wish I could have been there to see it myself,” Ewalin is saying as she stops to tug up a weed. “Prince Dunstam—or whatever her new name is—come back from the dead?”
Her mother exhales roughly. “I’d think something got mixed with the ale in the local pub if there weren’t so many people talking about it. Would a king hold a false funeral out of some idea of keeping his child safe?”
She shakes her head and rests an affectionate hand on Ewalin’s hair. “I can’t imagine putting myself apart from my daughter for years. But who can say what goes on in the heads of royals?”
Ewalin gives a soft huff as she straightens up. “Better if he’d spent more time worrying about the safety of the rest of us. How many children of Slaughterwell died while he and his Crown’s Watch rarely stepped past the middle wards?”
Frida sketches her hand down her front in the gesture of the divinities. Her voice drops even lower. “There’s been far too much death all around just now, if you ask me.”
Her daughter grimaces. “Yes. But at least this Order is spreading it around a little more fairly instead of it all landing on us and our neighbors. We’ll just keep our heads down and see what comes of it.”
As they drift back toward the house, a lump fills my throat. I’ve caught similar sentiments all across Slaughterwell, but hearing it from these two hits a little harder.
Before this afternoon’s ruckus in the square, I thought most of the ordinary folk of Silana would be happy to have real order restored. But I’ve obviously spent too much time among royals and nobles in the past few months, absorbing their ideals and letting them kindle my good will.
I used to feel the exact same way Ewalin does about King Konram. I roamed through these streets seeing the desperation and suffering and silently ranted about how he neglected his most needy people.
His police force has always been faster to act the richer the victims are. His laws have always favored the elites of the inner wards above even Florian’s middle class.
Why should any of the people he placed lower on his priorities jump at the chance to reestablish the Melchiorek reign?
Why should I?
The question niggles at me as I shimmy down the tree and slink along the back alley through the chilly dusk.
I don’t know Petra all that well. I don’t know what kind of a ruler she’d be.
I’m sure she’s a better option than handing the country over to scourge sorcery, but is that enough to throw my support so whole-heartedly behind her? Could there be other options I haven’t considered in my panic to push back Lothar and his cronies?
I’ve been thrown from place to place so often since Julita landed in my head, had so many voices in my ear, that I’m not sure of what I think just for myself.
A couple of lanes farther along, I pass by Zuzanna’s house. The guttering candle beyond her grubby window makes the shadows waver in the sigils of Elox carved into the building’s outer walls.
The guttural coughing that reverberates from within tells me that her son is sick yet again, her appeals to the godlen of healing gone unheard. Or perhaps he simply can’t intervene, as Kosmel hesitated to insert himself more than a little into my life.
Someday, I’d like to get the chance to ask the gods a thing or three about exactly how they’re meant to fit into our existence.
I veer closer to the window, and Zuzanna’s ragged voice carries to my ears. “I’m going to keep trying, sweetie. Maybe if the All-Giver returns, I can ask for the Great God’s blessing to shine on you.”
An ache closes around my heart. I pull myself away.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but in some ways Lothar and his ilk are just a more ambitious version of the con artists I used to steal from on these streets. Conjuring hope for incredible things in people who are so hungry for every scrap they can get.
Who from the poorest soul to the richest nobleman couldn’t imagine how their lives might be better if our highest creator returned? Who has never found any fault in our current rulers, to think we couldn’t have an even better one?
King Konram himself set the precedent that we deal with threats by slaughtering them. How many riven sorcerers did he parade in front of the city on their way to the gallows?
A gloom hangs over me as I weave my way back to the tenement building. Going up the stairs, I slip off my concealment charm and tuck it in my pocket so I’ll be visible to the people I want to see me.
No one’s in the hall that divides the two apartments on the highest floor. I head into the one where my men and I have been staying.
Alek is sitting in one of the plain armchairs in the front sitting room. I recognize the book propped open between his hands as the aged volume I retrieved from King Konram’s secret hiding spot.
He’s smiling before he glances up and takes in my expression. A shadow crosses his face. “Is everything all right?”
“Is it any worse than it was before, you mean?” I say with forced wryness. “No, not particularly.”
I amble over to claim a quick kiss and rest my hand on his shoulder. “Have you figured out what was so special about that book?”
It’s easier to talk about Alek’s discoveries than my own, especially with the way his face lights up in scholarly enthusiasm at the topic.
He pages back through the book. “I think the rumors going around the city that the gods were dissatisfied with his family must have bothered King Konram. Princess Klaudia said she remembers hearing him ask the main palace archivist for any books in the royal collection that dated back to before the Great Retribution. This is one of them.”
I peer at the book alongside him. “And it says something about what the gods expect from our kings and queens?”
“Not exactly. But there are several details I’ve never seen before about those kingship trials we’ve discussed before. I wonder if he was only preparing for what the scourge sorcerers might try to enact or thinking of finding a way to hold his own version, to prove his legitimacy.”
I swallow thickly. King Konram won’t get the chance for that now. “Why would he have kept it hidden?”
Alek gives a slight shrug. “Hard to say without being able to ask him. It is a very rare and valuable book—I’ve never seen anything like it. And he might have been worried about sparking ideas he didn’t want in other people’s heads.”
Stavros appears in the doorway that leads to the inner rooms. He strides over and wraps his arm around me in an embrace that settles just a little of the turmoil churning inside me.
“Petra wanted to speak with you as soon as you returned from your scouting,” he says. “I’d like to hear what you observed as well. We clearly need to adjust our strategy.”
I’m not sure I’m ready for this conversation—but it has to happen, and soon. Squaring my shoulders, I nod. “All right. Where is she?”
Stavros leads me to the opposite apartment. Tinom nods to us from where he’s sitting at the table in the front room with a couple of the nobles who’ve joined our cause, but I feel his wary gaze follow me as we walk by on our way to the bedrooms.
He tried to insist that the royal children should each have a room to themselves in honor of their status, but Princess Klaudia and Prince Jacos preferred to share so they wouldn’t have to spend any time alone.
Petra has taken the room across from theirs, though I suspect she spends a lot of time with her siblings all the same.
Right now, we enter after knocking and find the younger princess and prince standing with her at her vanity. She’s unfurled a map of the city and its surrounding area there.
At our entrance, all three look up—and Prince Jacos doesn’t quite stifle his wince when he catches sight of me. Princess Klaudia’s lips purse tighter.
My stomach clenches. They’ve never spoken against me in my presence, but it’s obvious they’re still not comfortable with me.
And I can’t blame them. It’s just a stark reminder that if it wasn’t for Petra, it’s unlikely I’d be welcome in this resistance movement at all.
Petra gives both of her siblings an affectionate squeeze of their arms and nudges them. “Why don’t you go back to your room and give all of this some more thought? We’ll discuss it again after I’ve heard Ivy’s report.”
Klaudia’s stance stiffens for a moment as if she means to protest, but any interest she has in being part of the conversation must be won over by her desire to get farther away from me. She and Jacos hurry out of the room.
Petra sits down at the vanity. Her dark eyes take me in, steady but pensive. “What news do you have?”
The regal tones I heard her bring out during her proclamation in the square have lingered. She’s becoming more a queen with every passing hour—and suddenly I’m not certain that’s a good thing.
I drag in a breath. My body tenses instinctively, but if I can’t be honest with her, there’s no point in supporting her at all.
“You may have an uphill battle to winning over most of Florian. I’m not sure you realize—you must have been somewhat isolated from the common folk even as a supposedly more distant royal…”
When I trail off, groping for the right way to phrase what I need to say, Petra’s voice softens. “Whatever it is, you can tell me, Ivy. I need to know.”
I can’t help folding my arms over my chest protectively.
“In a lot of ways, your father… neglected the people whose support he didn’t need all that much.
I saw it myself firsthand many times over.
It was particularly bad in the outer wards—the Crown’s Watch would look the other way when corrupt merchants exploited the poor families there, because what mattered was who paid the most taxes.
Most people who weren’t rich or noble born didn’t feel they could count on the Melchioreks in times of need. ”
Some of the color fades beneath Petra’s tan skin, but she inclines her head.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I know some of those things he simply washed his hands of, leaving decisions to the discretion of people like the leader of the Watch.
But he should have paid more attention, and he should have been there when all his people needed him. ”
Stavros clears his throat. “It’s a difficult balance, of course. Royals need to maintain some distance, or they’ll be pulled apart by all the demands. He did a lot of good, as many mistakes as he also made.” He shoots me an apologetic glance.
I wave my hand dismissively. “I’m not saying he didn’t. There have obviously been worse rulers. But, Petra, you need to convince everyone—or a lot of people, at least—that having you in charge would be better for them than waiting to see how the scourge sorcerers will rule.”
She grimaces. “They’re having children carved up to fuel their magic—they slaughtered all those clerics and devouts—”
“They’ve been keeping the first part well-hidden,” I cut in. “And every ruler has killed their enemies. They’re convincing people that they’re only destroying those who were threats to our country.”
Petra’s jaw tightens. “I was born for this. I know I can do what’s best for Silana—for everyone in it. I can learn from Father’s mistakes. If they’ll give me a chance…”
She pauses and appears to compose herself again.
“I suppose that means we need to come at the problem from two angles. One is exposing the truth about the scourge sorcerers so they’ll lose support, and the other is proving that I’m a better option so I’ll gain it.
I think you may be better equipped to handle the former.
For the latter, I’ll have to spend some time beyond the inner wards myself, seeing what’s become of our kingdom with open eyes. ”
Stavros stiffens. “You can’t wander around the streets on your own. Lothar will have his people—”
Petra holds up her hand to stop him. “I can use one of Tinom’s charms so no one will spot me. I’ve spent my whole life learning how to keep myself safe, Stavros. It’s about time I learned what the rest of my citizens need for their own well-being.”
She sounds confident enough that the worst of my doubts melt away. I don’t know how well she’ll hold up as she faces everything involved in ruling a country, but at least right now, she understands the problem.
She does care, no matter what people believe of her family.
Petra turns to me. “Whatever we find out, however we decide to approach this, we’ll need to bring more people onto our side to spread the word before we can hope to convince all of the city, let alone the country.
You’ve lived in Florian your whole life, Ivy, and mingled with every level of society.
Do you have any friends you could call on who’d be willing to take that first step of trust? ”
Friends? I restrain a laugh, and a flicker of inspiration passes through my mind.
I hesitate before venturing a careful answer. “Not friends, but I am acquainted with some people of influence who’d be very handy allies… if I can persuade them that it’s in their best interests to stand up to Lothar and his Order.”
If they don’t slit my throat for simply daring to ask.