Chapter 40
Ivy
Lothar collapses into a heap, blood spreading across the floorboards beneath him, but the audience got a clear look at his face. They know the leader of the Order of the Wild has been quite literally stabbed in the back.
And they weren’t privy to any of the revelations or acts that led up to this moment.
Stavros races forward to retrieve his sword. He holds up his other arm, his prosthetic flashing in the mid-day sun. “Lothar Riosemek attempted to murder Princess Petra. I did what I had to do to defend her.”
For a second, the muttering in the crowd fades, and I think that might be all the explanation they need.
But even with Lothar dead, his underlings aren’t ready to give up.
No doubt they know what fate awaits them if their full wrongdoings are uncovered.
One of the Order members in a red tunic hollers toward the stage. “Lothar would never stoop so low. I hear nothing but lies. We all saw that woman who stumbled around on the stage and ran back there. Were you defending the riven sorcerer?”
I don’t know whether he actually recognized me in the brief time I was grappling with the assassin or if he’s riffing off the original plan and hoping the false version of me can still come into play. It doesn’t really matter.
The audience erupts into an angry furor.
Accusing shouts meld together into a thunderous cacophony. Amid them I make out other voices amplified over the rest, probably from more scourge sorcerers, egging the crowd on.
“This was a set-up from the start. They duped us and killed the one man who was standing up for Silana!”
“The riven sorcerer was helping the false princess all along!”
“We can’t let them get away with this! Silana deserves better.”
Petra advances with her hands held up in a gesture for calm. “My people, let’s talk about this. I saw Lothar murder my parents with my own eyes. He would have killed me then if he could have. My guards were only protecting me.”
Her clear voice carries over the crowd, but I don’t think it sinks in. The mass of bodies is already shoving toward the defensive lines of guards, gang members, and daimon that now looks far too thin.
Spectators are pushing each other as well as the figures standing between them and the platform. A stocky man throws a punch at one of the gang members, whose colleague wrenches the guy around with an arm pinned behind his back. But there are more angry citizens pressing forward all the while.
And they’re not just coming at Petra physically. A bolt of magic sizzles through the air and chars the boards inches from where Petra is standing. She retreats reluctantly and then dives to the side as another conjured attack shrieks toward her.
My hands fly up of their own accord. This is why I’m here—I’m on my own now that Sulla’s been struck down.
With a hum of extra power thrumming into me from the sacrificial accomplices, I throw up a solid barrier of air between Petra and the rioting crowd.
A spurt of flame streaks toward her and shatters against my invisible shield. Someone yelps, and another chorus of Order voices mingle with the chaos.
“That must be riven magic right now!”
“The monster is there stopping justice from being done.”
“Why would a true queen work with a woman who’s been shunned by the gods themselves?”
I grit my teeth, willing the words to glance off me without stinging. I’ve heard similar sentiments so many times, but they still prick a little.
If only they knew how far from shunned I am… Where the fuck is Kosmel right now?
We were so close to ending the Order of the Wild and their scourge sorcery for good, and now they’ve turned the tide against us in one foul swoop.
I don’t dare step closer where the crowd might actually see me. The bodies near the base of the platform are churning as the most aggressive members of the audience grapple with our guards.
Voleska’s ponytail flashes in the sunlight as she and her people squeeze in to form another barrier between the attackers and our queen. I catch a glimpse of one daimon toppling a woman with a burst of scorching supernatural energy and a guard bringing the butt of his sword down on a man’s head.
Our allies are going to start slaughtering them—the people Petra’s been saying she wants to raise up with her. And then even more of the crowd will rage.
How in the realms do we come back from this?
Casimir and Stavros call out to the crowd in increasingly desperate voices. The shouts for justice, for riven blood, are only getting louder and more furious, drowning out most of my men’s words.
There are at least a dozen times as many spectators as Petra has confirmed supporters. What are we supposed to do?
My magic flings itself against my ribs, providing its own, typical answer.
Knock them all to their knees. Steal their breaths to stop the yelling; break their arms to end the fighting.
These people want to execute me. Why shouldn’t I return the favor?
But I don’t want to. That’s not who I fucking am.
I can’t see what choice I have that’s a good one, though. I don’t have Sulla here to ask, if she’d even have an answer.
This is why she never wanted to come down from her mountain. Right now, I’m not sure I can blame her for her reluctance.
“Stop them but don’t hurt them!” Petra calls out to the ring of figures around the platform, but there’s only so much her protectors can do. More lightning crackles. Steel clangs against steel.
Another body and another falls—and not all of them from the audience.
The crowd surges farther forward. A crash from behind has me spinning toward the back of the stage.
The rioters have swarmed right around the platform to capture us in a sea of raging bodies. Now they’re pulling apart the carts and wagons, ripping canvas and yanking off boards—in search of me?
Yes.
“Find the riven sorcerer!” someone hollers. “Destroy the monster!”
The blasted scourge sorcerers are still spewing out their toxic ideals. “We have to prove to the All-Giver that we embrace everything we’re meant to be—and that we’ll clean this country of everything we’re not. Tear down the traitors who tried to trick us and lead us astray.”
With a renewed roar, the audience heaves toward the platform. Grunts and groans warble through the air alongside the thump of collapsing bodies.
I can’t calm them myself. To soften their anger, I’d have to stir up more to balance it out.
Soothing half of the people around us won’t do any good if the other half rage even more furiously.
But I have to do something.
I reach for the boost in power the sacrificial accomplices have offered, but I can’t sense them emanating their gifts anymore. My stomach flips over.
Have they been caught up in the riot too?
Clenching my jaw, I stretch out my arms and release a wave of magic that’s all my own. It whips around the platform in a much larger shield than the one I created for Petra. More of the carts collapse, disintegrating as I shatter their wood in exchange for solidifying the air.
I haven’t unleashed this much power in weeks. My thoughts seem to wobble in my head, and a spark of panic sears into my gut.
All these people want to carve me up and rip me to shreds. Even Tinom hates me, even Baron Cyris.
I can’t trust any of them.
No.I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, pushing back against the rush of paranoia as forcefully as I can manage.
Hold strong, Ivy, Julita would have told me. Don’t let them break you now.
It’s not just our enemies threatening to tear me apart in this moment, though. The worst threat may be the power surging inside me.
A cry breaks through the tumult. It sounds like Rheave. Instinctively, I push the barrier farther, trying to protect all our allies from the onslaught.
They don’t deserve my effort. What have all those guards and gangsters ever done for me other than glare at me with suspicion? Let them fall.
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
A clang sounds right behind me. I flinch, but when I wrench my head around, there’s no one there.
Shudders pass through my body from limbs banging against my shield of solidified air. It’s already wavering.
I’m going to need to feed the barrier even more power. And on and on—for how long?
How much will it take before they stop?
“The gods will want justice,” someone is bellowing. “Let’s set things right!”
It isn’t even true. The gods want…
The gods wanted me.
Kosmel wanted me to stay alive so I could stand up to the scourge sorcerers. All the godlen wanted the riven souls they poured their magic through to end the horrors centuries ago.
They didn’t curse us—they called on us as vessels for divine power.
Breaking us was an accident, not a condemnation.
If these people could just see… what really matters to me… what really matters to Petra…
What the gods have in their hearts, as much as they have those…
In the midst of my scrambled thoughts, a voice from my past rises up, but it’s not Julita I’m imagining this time. It’s my little sister, sprawled next to me as we stare up at the stars.
They’re so beautiful, the way they sparkle. Do you think someday we could fly all the way there to see them up close?
I remember how I giggled before I answered, with a seven year old’s unshakeable confidence. Maybe they’ll soar down to meet us. But we’ll have to be careful we don’t get burned.
A sudden jolt of inspiration pierces through my muddled mind—or maybe it’s more insanity. But it’s something I can do.
Something only I can do.
The gods came down among us and used the riven to channel their magic, to stop what we humans couldn’t on our own. But destroying the villains left even more destruction in its wake. It left the wildness and chaos the Order wants to breed.
If the godlen regret their stumble, why can’t they balance the scales? I’m right here.
Yes, my powers were a mistake. They’re also the only thing stopping this riot from turning into an outright slaughter.
I’m broken, but I could turn the tide toward peace if I just let myself break a little more.
Maybe it’s time for me to step into the light and meet my fate. For the stars to fall down to shine through me.
Even if I get burned like Linzi’s ribbon in Lothar’s hand.
My innards turn to ice at the thought of what opening my soul up even farther might do to my tenuous grip on my sanity. But it isn’t going to take much more of this before I’ve torn myself to shreds anyway.
I knew I might end up making my final sacrifice today. I’d better make it a good one.
Closing my eyes again, I pitch my inner voice as loud as I can, up toward the sky where I imagine the godlen might be watching.
Kosmel! You once told me you’d be there for me if I knew what I wanted. I’ll only ask for one more thing. Send your power through me again, you and whatever other godlen care whether the realm falls into chaos. Use your divine will to show these people what really matters to the gods—and that it’s not what the murdering scourge sorcerers say.
No voice answers, but a trickle of uncertainty winds through my thoughts that I don’t think is my own. My conviction is holding perfectly steady.
I clench my jaw alongside my answer. I know what it might mean for me. I don’t care as long as we can calm the madness out there. Please. You set me on this journey. I need you now, just once more. Believe me. Believe in me.
It’s been a long time since I heard the overwhelming voice that floods all my senses a moment later. I hear you, my wayward rogue. This isn’t the fate I wanted for you. But maybe I can offer you something better.
Before I can ask what that’s supposed to mean, a torrent of power blares through the center of my body.
It’s not like when I drew magic from the sacrificial accomplices. The boost they offered was a tiny creek compared to this roaring river.
And it shatters straight through me rather than welling up inside.
The divine magic explodes out of me, but not in a hail of fire like the stories of the Great Retribution. Even with my eyes closed, I see the brilliant glow that streams out across and above the platform, rising higher than the towers and the obstacle course, blazing brighter than the unclouded sky.
I hear it. I taste it. I feel it vibrating through my bones.
Symbols form across the expanding glow—the sigils of each of the godlen, flaring into being one after the other until I count all nine. Distantly, I’m aware of the clamor of the crowd dwindling, the gasps of shock and awe.
We need more than this. More.
Show them!
You are so much more than this, Kosmel replies, in a tone that makes me want to sob, and then the glow shifts.
The divine light spreads even farther, rises higher, forming an image of a castle. Figures flit in and out of the doorways and along the road outside it.
They come together and embrace. They share pieces torn off a loaf of bread and gulps from a bottle of wine. They laugh and dance, nobles in fancy trimmings holding hands with urchins in scruffy clothes.
Peace. Happiness. Compassion. Cooperation.
A wave of emotion sweeps over me and out across the crowd. A collective sigh ripples from all around the platform.
Another figure appears, with a gleaming hole lit right in the middle of her. As if there’s a crack in her soul.
As if it’s been riven through.
The other people don’t recoil. They gather around and embrace her too.
The light shines out of her and whirls away the palace into a farmland scene. Children clamber up trees to pick apples while adults offer food and water to the animals. Everything is bright and joyful.
The farmyard glimmers into a ballroom where lovers entangle themselves in intimate clasps. Then a squad of soldiers marching together, bumping fists and cheering each other on. A library where students huddle together to murmur insights from the books they’re reading.
This is what life could be. This is what we should aim for.
Love and friendship and learning. Kindness and consideration.
The gods have spoken.
The energy leaves me all at once. My legs give; my knees smack the floor. Incoherent words sputter from my mouth.
And then I’m not there at all.
I’m floating in a mass of glowing light that shows no sign of the outside world. But it’s warm, so warm, in the coziest possible way, like snuggling in bed under your favorite blanket.
Nine streaks of starker light materialize in a circle around me. Somehow I know where they all are even though some must be behind me.
Even though they’re nothing more than a blurry glow, I also know the one directly in front of me is Kosmel.
“Hello, wayward rogue,” he says in a voice that’s somehow more here and also more everywhere both at the same time. Every particle of me, however much of me is present, quivers with it. “You served me well, didn’t you?”
“I did my best for the kingdom and the people in it who needed help the most,” I find myself saying.
What’s going on here? Is this some side effect of all the magic I channeled?
Maybe this is the final stage of my riven madness, and he’s not speaking to me at all. Maybe none of this is real.
As if he can hear my thoughts, the trickster godlen chuckles. “Oh, it’s real in the most fundamental possible way. And I wanted to offer you an opportunity within this reality, as a reward for everything you’ve done.”
I give his glowing form a puzzled look. “A reward?”
“Our mistakes left you with more than a lifetime’s worth of guilt and pain. You’ve protected the realms despite that. I think you deserve just as much peace as the rest of those you fought so hard to save. What you’re feeling right now, that can be yours always. You can linger here in the divine for as long as you wish until you’re ready to release your soul.”
I grapple with those words for a moment. “You’re saying I’ll be dead.”
“You’ll die eventually either way. I can’t guarantee what awaits you down below, but it will definitely be more difficult and fraught than anything you’ll experience among us.”
My lips part, but no sound comes out.
He said I’d find only peace here. That I’d get to escape all the pain of my past existence. But a tiny ache has already bloomed in my heart.
What about Stavros and Casimir, Alek and Rheave? Am I really going to walk away from them without even a good-bye?
What about seeing Petra finally claim her throne? What about the promise I made to Julita to ensure her old county was in good hands?
What about all that life I’ve only just started really living rather than lurking on the fringes like a shadow?
Kosmel’s voice gentles. “All those desires would quickly melt away in this place. You might not satisfy any of them if you return. Even we don’t know what effect your last act will have on your mind.”
I might be absolutely crazed if he returns me to my body, he means. I might have a few more minutes of agonized existence and then fade away into the nothingness of death.
Do I really want to trade this comforting warmth for that possibility?
Even as I ask the question, my certainty about my answer grows.
There are so many other possibilities ahead of me now. There’s so much else I want to accomplish.
There will be pain and guilt and sadness along the way. It might be all I have left.
But it might not.
Even a slim chance at having more of the loving joy I found is worth all the rest.
I haven’t spoken, but I get the impression of Kosmel nodding. “I see your resolve. I won’t argue with you, and I hope your decision brings you more happiness than anguish.”
I suck in one more breath of the glowing air, contentment rushing through my veins, and then I’m plummeting.
I slam back into my body with a heaved breath and more gibberish tumbling from my mouth.
An arm is wrapped around me, a hand cupping my cheek. A vial tips against my lips with a spill of cool, bitter liquid.
“We’ve got you,” Casimir says tenderly, with a hint of a rasp. “And this is where we’ll stay—right here, with you.”