Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Ivy
“You aren’t even giving me a chance!”
The crisp teenage voice carries from one of the temple doorways up ahead. I expected to find Petra down here, but that sounds like her younger sister.
As I hesitate, Petra’s voice follows, not quite as loud but still forceful. “It’s not about giving you a chance. This isn’t your place. Father and Mother didn’t go riding into battle. That’s what the army is for.”
Princess Klaudia lets out a scoffing sound.
“Father and Mother had an army. We’ve barely pulled together a squadron.
We’ll have a difficult enough time overcoming the damage Lothar’s done with all of us contributing.
I don’t want to keep sitting around here at the temple while the rest of you handle the dangerous parts. I hate it.”
Spoken like a true sixteen-year-old. But even as my lips twitch with a hint of amusement at the teenage rebelliousness, an ache forms in my gut.
It’s her parents’ deaths Klaudia wants to avenge, her sister she wants to see take the throne. Our struggle is far more personal for her than it could ever be for me.
All the same, I can understand Petra’s refusal.
There’s a rough exhalation, and the future queen says, “You can contribute without putting yourself face to face with the enemy. You could help me clean these—”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Klaudia snaps. She barges out of the room with a rustle of skirts.
When the princess sees me, her steps falter for just a moment, the angry flush in her cheeks darkening with embarrassment. At least she doesn’t flinch. Then she marches on past me without a word.
She certainly has the Melchiorek pride.
I venture to the doorway and poke my head inside. At the movement, Petra’s gaze jerks up where she’s standing by one of the tables, wiping down a sword with a cloth.
A flicker of disappointment crosses her face before she schools her expression into her usual stoic calm, although a little tightness lingers at the corners of her mouth. She was probably hoping her sister had reconsidered and come back.
“How much of that argument did you overhear?” she asks in a resigned tone.
I ease into the room, taking in its contents. It’s one of the temple’s smaller spaces, with only two narrow tables for furniture. But every wall is set with racks holding an assortment of swords, daggers, spears, bows, shields, and helms.
I draw my gaze back to Petra. “Enough to know she wants to fight and you’re not letting her. Which I don’t blame you for, by the way.”
Petra sighs. “Word came in from one of the people from Pima who’ve been scouting around for us.
He thinks he’s found the site of the facility where the scourge sorcerers are creating their clay figures to trap the daimon.
I made the mistake of mentioning it to Klaudia before we’ve set a plan in motion. ”
Her head droops, her hand stilling against the sword. “I don’t like that I have to send anyone off to fight my battles for me. The facility must have all kinds of protections, guards—that’s partly how the scout identified it. Klaudia’s never experienced combat outside of self-defence classes.”
“She shouldn’t be there,” I agree. “But it does her credit that she wants to help. Maybe we can find another job for her that isn’t quite so dangerous but also a little more thrilling than…
” I glance around the room again. “…polishing weaponry. I have to say, even though Delfis told me you’d gone to the armory, I hadn’t pictured anything quite like this. Isn’t Elox the godlen of peace?”
Petra manages a short laugh. “I said something like that when he showed me to the room. He said that in desperate times, a little warfare can be required to restore peace.”
She tips her head toward the weapons around her. “It’s clearly been quite a while since this temple needed to put that philosophy into practice. I don’t think these arms have been taken off the racks in decades.”
I grab a cloth for myself from the bin in the corner and pick out a sword I could see Stavros happily brandishing. The blade is coated with a layer of dust.
As I set the sword on the table across from Petra, I study her stance. Tension shows all through the set of her shoulders and the clench of her hand around the scrap of fabric. But like the droop of her head, something about her posture looks deflated as well.
My stomach knots. “Have you gotten any other news? More challenges ahead of us?”
Petra shakes her head and resumes her cleaning.
“What we do have is good news, isn’t it?
If we can stop the scourge sorcerers from capturing more daimon and turning them into soldiers, we’ll have fewer opponents to worry about.
Those are the most ‘loyal’ subjects Lothar has.
And there must be at least a few of the sacrificial accomplices there lending power to the process—we’ll be freeing them as well. ”
“It’s definitely good news.” So why does she seem so unsettled by it?
We work in silence for a few minutes before I speak up again. “You know that the rest of us will be happy to go out there and tackle the scourge sorcerers, right? I want to destroy that facility. I’ll go up against Lothar and his asshole followers as many times as it takes.”
Petra’s mouth twists. Her voice comes out so quiet I could almost miss the words. “But should you have to?”
I pause. “I don’t have to. I’m choosing to.”
“Because you want to see Silana restored. But what if… what if I can’t do that after all?”
I stare at the woman I’ve seen as my future queen for a few thuds of my heart before I can manage to reply. “Why would you think that?”
Petra drops her cloth and swipes the back of her hand across her face.
She looks at the table rather than me. “It isn’t just Florian…
The people in Tupno were frustrated with my family too.
I’ve never ruled anything. I wasn’t even acting as a Melchiorek for the last seven years of my life.
I couldn’t save my own parents when the threat was obvious and right in front of us.
How can I be sure I’m worthy of the trust we’re asking of them? ”
My stomach sinks. We won’t be conquering any enemies at all if the woman meant to lead us loses her confidence.
She’s seemed so unshakeable through all the troubles we’ve faced so far. I’ve never caught more than brief hints of vulnerability.
Maybe I should have guessed there had to be more going on beneath the surface.
She did watch her parents murdered in front of her. She’s got the weight of the entire country’s hopes and security on her shoulders.
How could anyone not start to buckle under the pressure?
But who could take her place if she totally crumbles?
I swallow thickly, searching for the right thing to say. My own doubts swell in my chest.
Scourge sorcerers ravaged this continent once before. Taking them down turned into even more of a calamity. So many people died.
The divinities abandoned those like me, one of whom must be a distant ancestor of mine—cast us aside to be feared and hated by the rest of society.
Who is Petra to set the current catastrophe right? Who am I to decide that she should?
For a second, my awareness of all the history looming behind us and the uncertain future spread out ahead suffocates me. My lungs constrict.
I look down at the sword, the gleam of the newly polished blade. My reflection wavers on the metal surface.
Who are any of us to make any of these decisions? We’re all just people… but we have to do something. If no one steps up, then the whole world falls to pieces.
Or into the hands of psychopaths like Lothar.
“Some people might have their doubts about your family’s past reign,” I say carefully. “But I don’t think they’d see the real Lothar as a better option. They were horrified when they found out how the scourge sorcerers had used Poltus.”
Petra lifts her gaze and offers me a tight smile. “I know. And I know I can at least be better than him. I just want to be more for the country than the only not-awful alternative they have.”
She still looks uncertain, but my own doubts ease. That statement right there is exactly why I’d want this woman to be our queen.
My mind wanders back to the shouts of the crowd in Tupno yesterday. All the talk about worthy rulers… The Order of the Wild has had a lot to say on that subject too, haven’t they?
I tap the tabletop thoughtfully. “You know… Lothar and his followers have been going on about the old kingship trials. Talking about rulers proving their worth—and obviously the common people are starting to buy into their rhetoric now too. What if we could use that idea for ourselves?”
Petra knits her brow, but a glimmer of interest lights in her eyes. “How do you mean?”
“I don’t think most people really want us to go back to some distant past, but they like the general idea of their rulers meeting a challenge.
There could be some way we can give them what they think they want but designed to fit the world we’re in now.
Make a new legacy. A version of trials that’s our own—not so vicious or deadly, but still showing your strength.
Give them a demonstration of your capability as a ruler.
Show that you’re willing to take risks to earn their favor, that you’re more than the name you were born with. ”
For both them and herself.
Petra cocks her head as she takes that in. “That might actually be—”
She’s interrupted by a crash of breaking pottery from the hall outside. With a lurch of my heart, I spring to the doorway.
Filip is standing just a few paces away, holding up his hands and staring down at the fragments of a vase that’s shattered on the floor.
The Order defector glances up at me, his face sallow. “I didn’t mean—I bumped into it and tried to catch it, but the glaze was so slippery—”
He just happened to bump into one of the temple’s decorations while right outside a room where the future queen was having a strategic conversation? All my past suspicions come rushing back to the front of my mind.
What are the chances he was merely taking a stroll rather than purposefully eavesdropping?
Petra has appeared at my side. She takes in the scene and responds much more gracefully than I’d have managed. “That’s a shame. It was a lovely piece.”
Filip wrings his hands. “Gods, how old was it? The devouts are probably going to be furious with me.” His frantic gaze darts to me. “Unless… you could fix it, couldn’t you? With your magic? Good as new?”
He looks so genuinely desperate that some of my hostility fades. My magic quivers in my chest, but I clamp down on it firmly.
“I don’t think putting a vase back together is worth trading a little sanity for,” I say evenly. “But it shouldn’t be a big problem. We’ll go tell Delfis so he knows what happened. Petra and I can confirm that it was an accident. I don’t think he’ll be angry.”
Petra nods. “Absolutely not. Accidents do happen. It’s only a vase.”
“But it was theirs. We’re guests here…” Filip rakes his hand through his tawny hair with such a distressed air that I have to wonder who punished him for mistakes in the past.
Considering the company he was keeping, I can make a few decent guesses.
Petra steps out into the hallway. “Here, let’s pick up the largest pieces to clean it up some and then we’ll go straight to Delfis and sort it out.”
For a moment, he just stares at us. “You would really speak for me? You didn’t—you weren’t even in the hall to know for sure how it happened.”
I can’t restrain a laugh. “We don’t have any reason to think you’d be toppling vases on purpose, do we? It’s not that hard to give the benefit of the doubt.”
On this particular subject, anyway.
Filip lets out a shaky chuckle of his own and bobs his head to both of us. “I appreciate it.”
He crouches to hastily gather the pieces alongside Petra. As I sink down beside him, more thoughts spin in my head.
I don’t need Casimir’s sensitivity to pick up on this man’s fears of being dismissed or outright punished. Even if he isn’t perfectly loyal to us yet… couldn’t we start the process of earning that loyalty right here, right now?
If we can win over a former scourge sorcerer, the rest of the country shouldn’t be a problem.
If Casimir were here, he’d be asking what this man really wants. To be treated as a valued colleague? To be trusted?
Well, we have the perfect opportunity right in front of us.
I scoop up a few of the larger shards and glance over at him. “Filip, how would you feel about joining in on a mission to destroy a whole lot more clay vessels?”