Chapter 24 #2
‘There’s the mining, to start with,’ Benny explains.
‘There used to be gold on the islands, but his father ripped all of it out years ago. Yet Korvane refuses to give up. He’s ruined over half of the smaller islands digging for a treasure that doesn’t exist, and each time he finds nothing, he moves on to the next one, not giving a shit about the people whose homes he’s just destroyed or the land he’s left uninhabitable.
And it’s not like he makes room for them on the mainland.
You’ve seen how he treats people in his own city.
We’re second-class scum to him at best.’
Hard to argue with that. ‘I’m sorry, Benny. Really, I am.’
‘That’s only half of it,’ Benny continues, agitated.
‘A huge portion of the guards sent to the front line come from the Eastern Isles, despite the fact that we only make up twenty percent of the population. That’s not a coincidence.
He’s doing everything he can to weaken us so that we don’t have the power to fight back. And the children …’
‘The children?’ My stomach squirms. How much worse is this going to get?
Benny’s eyes meet mine.
‘We thought it was just the Isles, the way that the children were being born with less and less power – that it was a blip, something that would rectify itself – but it’s happening in other places, too.’
‘Korvane can’t have anything to do with that,’ I reason. ‘Power is given out by the Gods. By Mortidem. Not him.’
‘I know that – I do – it’s just … I wonder if this is the Gods’ way of punishing him, making his subjects born weaker.
’ He huffs an acrid chuckle before shaking his head, as if freeing himself from the last thought.
‘Even without whatever’s happening to the magic, we’re not the only people he’s screwing over.
And others are starting to see the truth. I just hope it’s not too late.’
When he looks at me, there’s a pleading desperation in his eyes. ‘We didn’t want bloodshed,’ he says. ‘I promise. But my mother has tried other ways of dealing with Korvane for years, and none of them have worked.’
‘The gifting,’ I utter with a sinking feeling in my gut. From almost our first meeting, I knew that whatever they were fighting for, it wasn’t an individual desire. It was greater than that. ‘That was what you were going to ask for if one of you won the gifting. For Korvane to leave you alone.’
‘A little more than that …’ he says cryptically. My mind slips back to when I visited Brandish and spoke to his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, and she made pointed comments about only answering to the Gods.
‘You wanted the Eastern Isles to be independent,’ I breathe. ‘No longer tethered to Morathka?’
He nods. ‘We wanted a bloodless, war-less separation that would last for a thousand generations. That’s what we were going to ask for.’
‘A thousand generations?’ The number is almost incomprehensible and something stirs within me. A sense of shame so great I feel it rippling through my skin. ‘And I just wanted my powers back. For Kay not to die in poverty,’ I say, my selfishness laid bare. ‘You must hate me.’
‘No. No, Rose, of course I don’t.’ He reaches forward, his anger retreating.
‘We didn’t win. If we’d been meant to, the Goddess would have made it so; I’m sure of that.
I just wish I knew what the fuck we had to do to be worthy of a little help from the Gods though.
’ His eyes lock on mine. ‘You won because you deserved to, Rose. I believe that. Truthfully.’
I try to nod, try to accept what he’s saying. I should. After all, the Goddess herself said that she chose the winner. It wasn’t a case of who got to her fastest. If that had been the overriding decision, then Zara would have won and become the gifted.
So why didn’t she choose any of the Eastern Islanders when their goal was so much worthier than mine?
‘I don’t know what made you special, Rose,’ Benny says, as if he can read my thoughts.
‘But part of me could sense from the beginning that we weren’t going to win it.
After what happened at the Sunken Temple with Jai and Coulter, I was angry.
I wanted a backup option. I felt like Etta wasn’t on our side. ’
It’s easy to see why he would come to that conclusion. By the time we left the vow ceremony, the Eastern Isles had already lost half their Rettlings, and it wasn’t like Loch was a prime candidate to win any of the trials.
‘I felt like I had to do something,’ Benny continues.
‘That I had to have control of something. So I funded and ordered the rebels to attack the palace.’ He shakes his head and scoffs.
‘Do you know what’s ridiculous? Maybe if I hadn’t done that – maybe if I had just accepted those defeats as part of the trials and continued on – then maybe Etta would have seen me as worthy.
Maybe she would have granted us the gift.
Maybe that bloodshed – people like Ruben’s friend, Peter, dying – maybe they’re the reason I wasn’t fit to win.
So as angry as I am with the whole situation, I don’t blame Etta for her choice. And I sure as heck don’t blame you.’
A single tear trickles from Benny’s eye. He wipes it away with the back of his hand.
A lump is fixed in my throat. I look at Ruben. ‘And you? You weren’t there that night, so where were you?’
Ruben shifts uncomfortably. ‘I’m not all in, never was. I help out a little here and there, sometimes.’ He looks at me. ‘They’re the ones who gave me the fire bead for you. I thought about going with Peter that night, but Mum was sick. I didn’t want to leave her, so I didn’t go.’
‘She saved your life,’ I mutter, mind reeling at the idea that I somehow also benefitted from the rebels. They gave me the fire bead. I would have died that first day if not for that expensive gift.
‘There’s something else you should know,’ Ruben says, his eyes evading mine in a way that implies I’m really not going to like it.
‘You know how you tried to send the food back to the slums? And asked me to help organise it? That was how they got in.’
‘What?’ I frown in confusion.
‘I arranged for three carriages to go to the High Hold, designated to collect the food. They’d already got clearance, so nobody checked inside. That’s how the rebels gained entrance so easily.’
A wave of nausea floods through me and I wrap my arms around my middle, trying to stave off the feeling.
‘How could you?’ Disappointment and hurt fill my voice. ‘They never sent any of the food to the slums after that. People probably died because of you, died of hunger we could have stopped.’
Ruben flinches. ‘I know,’ he whispers and looks away.
Silence starts to bloom, but Benny quickly breaks it.
‘Will you tell Kyor?’ His voice has the slightest hint of a quake to it.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘He has enough on his plate.’
Ruben snorts. ‘Yeah, because swanning around in privilege is really hard.’
‘Does he look like he’s swanning around in privilege right now?’ I snap. ‘He’s out there, keeping us safe.’ I hesitate, but anger loosens my tongue. ‘Elska says a Myrkr is following us.’
Ruben scoffs. ‘Seriously, that’s what he’s telling you? They’re just a scary folktale, something to scare the kids into behaving. Gods, he’ll do anything to keep you next to him, won’t he?’
A response burns on my tongue, but before I can spit it back at him, my attention shifts to Caz.
She’s been quiet through the entirety of my argument with Benny, but there’s something different about her silence now.
And the way she’s looking at Benny suggests a knowledge between them. What am I missing?
‘What?’ I say, shifting my gaze between the pair of them. ‘What is it?’
‘You remember I told you I once read through the entire library in Brandish?’ Benny says eventually. ‘There were diaries there. My great-grandfather’s diaries. He wrote about Myrkrs in there, more than anything else actually. Pages and pages of how he once saw one on the mainland.’
‘Rohan mentioned them too,’ Caz joins in. ‘His encounter was one of the first things he made me scribe for him. Of course, it was Rohan, so I wanted to dismiss it, but I knew he believed every word he was telling me.’
‘But they both survived?’ I say. I’ve seen Rohan myself and given the diaries Benny’s great-grandfather wrote, it feels like an obvious deduction. ‘That’s encouraging.’
‘The others he was with didn’t,’ Benny admits. ‘My grandmother said it haunted him until the end of his days. That he was never the same.’
‘Rohan’s stories are the same. Only thirty of his group survived,’ Caz says.
‘Out of how many?’ I question.
‘An entire battalion.’
It feels as if my stomach has turned inside out. One of Korvane’s battalions can easily have five hundred soldiers. And only thirty survived. What does that say for our tiny group?
A twig snaps and all four of us whirl around, blades high and ready … only for Kyor and Elska to step into the light. He nods with approval at our raised blades, then looks at me with the unspoken question in his eyes.
‘I told them,’ I say. ‘About the Myrkr. Better we’re all looking out for it. For them.’
‘Just the one, thankfully. And no sign of it for now,’ he reassures us. ‘I’ll grab some sleep while you all eat, and then Els and I will take the rest of the watch later.’
‘We’ll take turns,’ Ruben counters. ‘You’ll be no good to Rose if you’re asleep on your feet tomorrow.’
Kyor opens his mouth, but then closes it.
‘Fine,’ he replies stiffly.
As the two men move off, Caz leans in next to me. ‘Look! They’re not killing each other! And all it took was the most terrifying creature in existence stalking us. Easy.’ She grins.
Neither Benny nor I can even fake a smile.
Thirty out of five hundred.
A part of me knew it before we left, but there’s no denying the truth any longer. There’s no way we’re all coming out of this alive.