Chapter 18 #2
All at once, flames burst through the darkness to the left of the house. An instant later, another fire roars up on the opposite side.
Shouts ring out as the house’s sentries dash to investigate. A few more figures hustle out of the building to join them.
Stavros taps Rheave and me. I fling myself out of the woods.
We dash across the grassy ground and the road that lies between the forest and the farm. More shouts carry through the night along with clangs and thumps of combat, but I don’t let myself glance either way.
All that matters right now is the path ahead of us.
We hit the ground on either side of the gate, crouching below the level of the wall. As more figures careen to join us, I pull the knife from the sheath at my waist.
Stavros arrives last and gestures for us to fall in with him as he eases open the gate. We dart along the path through the now-empty yard to the front door.
The hinges squeak at Stavros’s push. I wince inwardly.
“What’s going on out there?” someone calls from up the stairs. They must assume it’s their comrades returning.
My power flares in my chest as abruptly as the flames outside, and I lose a couple of seconds as I tighten my hold around it. My fist clenches, pressing against my chest.
A brief lance of pain shoots through my lungs, and I have to suck in a breath against a gasp.
Most of my companions have already rushed forward. Rheave shoots a crackling arrow up the staircase, and a body crumples against the banister.
Stavros prowls down the lower hallway. As he lunges into a room, two of Voleska’s people hurry to follow him while the other creeps up the stairs alongside Rheave.
From the muffled grunts and groans that follow, they’re taking down any remaining scourge sorcerers with brisk efficiency. Recovered from the momentary backlash of my magic, I motion the devout over to the narrower staircase I spot leading down through a gloomy doorway.
“This way,” I whisper. “The accomplices might be in the cellar.”
And so might more scourge sorcerers. I keep my knife in my hand as we slink down the stairs, my ears pricked for any sound in the space beyond.
There’s a door at the bottom, keeping whatever’s below shut away. My skin crawls.
We’ve almost reached it when the scuff of footsteps above has me spinning around. A woman who isn’t one of our companions is just poking her head through the doorway.
She hisses at the sight of us and jerks her hands as if to direct some kind of magic. But my hand moves faster.
My knife whips through the air and plunges straight into her throat.
As our attacker collapses at the top of the stairs, the devout pales. Obviously I should be the one to deal with the body on our way out.
I test the doorknob and find it turns smoothly. I push it open to reveal a wide, dark room where cots and the figures lying on them form only vague impressions in the darkness.
I’ve already snatched my other knife from my boot, but no one springs at us. A couple of the figures stir beneath their sheets.
Carefully, the devout lights the small lantern sitting on the floor just inside the doorway. The flickering glow illuminates eight sleeping figures who don’t react to the light at all.
Of course not. They’ve all sacrificed their eyes along with so much else.
“Start waking them and guiding them up the stairs,” I murmur to the devout. “You’ll probably need to tell them that they’re being called on to serve their great purpose or something like that. I’ll clear the way and come back to help you.”
At his nod, I clamber up the stairs. At least with their blindness, I only have to move the fallen body out of tripping distance, not out of view.
As I wipe my retrieved knife on the woman’s tunic, Stavros barges back into the front hall. He takes in the scene with an approving tip of his head.
“The rest of the house is clear,” he says.
I point to the cellar stairs. “We found the sacrificial accomplices—I’m going to help bring them up.”
“I’ll make sure you can get to the wagon safely.”
I dash down to the cellar to find that the devout has already roused all of the sacrificial accomplices. They went to sleep wearing their shrouds, but the fall of the fabric reveals the misshapen forms beneath. They’re sitting up, a few getting to their feet, mumbling with confusion.
A quiver in the air tells me the devout is employing his calming magic. I try to pitch my voice to be as soothing as possible too. “Come on now, everyone. Let’s get up the stairs, and you’ll accomplish everything you could have wanted to.”
I have to help a couple of the armless forms stand up. They stumble toward the stairs, all of them missing something from their lower extremities, whether merely toes or an entire lower leg.
With my hand on one of the mutilated backs, I support the accomplice’s balance going up the steps, then hustle back down to assist another.
A choked sound reaches my ears from above. When I return, I find one of Voleska’s people staring at the lurching procession with her fingers pressed to her lips.
I offer her a tight smile. “This is why we’re here. Why we’re fighting. To make sure this doesn’t keep happening.”
She draws herself straighter and swipes at the glint of tears in her eyes before catching an accomplice in mid-lurch. “Let me get you out the door. There’s a comfortable wagon waiting.”
“Anything to serve,” the accomplice mumbles. The devotion in his little-used voice makes my throat constrict.
“You’ve done so well already,” I tell him, not knowing what else to say.
Just beyond the farm’s gate, Casimir greets the accomplices with much more grace than I’m capable of. “Thank you for joining us. We’re going to ask that you climb up here in the wagon—that’s right. I’m sorry for the sudden visit, but what you’re going to do is so important for Silana.”
I step back, letting him and the devout take over. Gentle reassurance has never been my forte.
The rest of our group gathers around the wagon, returning from their initial posts. One of Voleska’s men is wrapping a bandage around a shallow gash on his arm, and a couple of the soldiers are sporting bruises on their jaws, but it looks like we got through the assault without any major injuries.
That thought has just passed through my head when an arc of light flashes through the air toward the edge of our group.
I don’t have time to do much more than sense the vicious tang of the magic in that energy and react. No blade can stop that killing bolt.
I thrust out my arm with a surge of my magic.
Training and practice come through—even as I swat at the conjured attack, my mind reaches toward the wood we left and visualizes a branch being pulled toward me in the reverse of how I’m pushing the assault away.
Wood cracks, and the arc of light bursts apart into a shower of sparks.
They dissolve in the air just inches from the faces of the two men they nearly struck. The soldier takes a step back with a grimace, his eyes flicking to me with an almost accusing look as if I’m somehow to blame for the initial attack.
Filip gapes at the spot where the attack fizzled out before his gaze slides to me too.
“It would have killed me,” he says. “I hardly saw it coming.”
I inhale slowly, my body tensed for any sign that this one jab of magic has addled my mind. “I want us all leaving this place as unharmed as I can manage.”
Was it worth the trade-off? I don’t know. But faced with the question, I can’t imagine standing back and letting two men simply die to preserve some small shred of my sanity.
Even if the soldier is still eyeing me like I might explode at any second.
A twinge of queasiness passes through me. How long will it take before Petra’s followers from Florian pass on what they’ve heard about me to Voleska’s people?
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. What matters is that I’m here, doing what’s right for the country, whatever they end up thinking of me.
Rheave has already charged off in the direction the attack was flung from. There’s a sizzling noise before he lets out a resolute grunt. “That sorcerer is definitely not hurting anyone else now.”
Casimir shoots me a concerned glance from where he’s guiding the last of the sacrificial accomplices into the wagon, and I smile in return to say I’m okay. Then I clamp down on the rest of the power squirming inside me.
Just a small push. Not that big a deal, and I controlled the consequences. I saved a couple of lives.
But I never want to get back into the habit of using it for anything I don’t absolutely have to.
Voleska sets her hands on her hips, watching the devout pull the curtains shut on the back of the wagon. “Well, hopefully this’ll put a little dent in the Order’s influence. I wonder if it’ll affect Lothar’s festival plans?”
My head jerks around. “Festival plans?”
She cocks her head with a swing of her sandy blond ponytail. “Hadn’t you heard? The Order of the Wild’s been announcing it all over the place in the past couple of days. On the next full moon just a few nights from now, he’s holding a country-wide party to celebrate King Konram’s death.”