Chapter 24 #2
He doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he gives my raised palm one final inspection before he returns it to my side and picks up the other. “And finally, if you still want to go, you must go flameward.”
“I know, you told me. The wither—”
He shakes his head, pressing his thumbs around a splinter I refuse to look at. “I’m not just talking about the shadoward roads on your journey away from the castle. You must go flameward, as far as you can. Straight to the center. Stay there. Build your life there.”
My back prickles. Close to the center means close to Illios, and close to my father. The last place I want to be. “Why?”
He releases my hand, and I flex it. Both palms sting, dotted with tiny red spots. The splinters are gone.
He produces a sprig of lavender, holding it out toward me. He waits until I take it, then enfolds both my hands in his, pressing them together around the flowers. The sting cools and fades.
“Keep that there.” He turns away. “I’ll show you.”
He walks to his desk, takes the letter opener from the drawer, and fits it into the knot in a wall panel. The hidden compartment I found a few days ago pops open.
He pulls out a roll of paper and carries it to the sitting area, spreading it across the low table.
It’s a map of the provinces, but even from here, I can tell the edges are…
different. Ink crowds the coastlines and edges of the continent, little circles in gray and red and yellow overlapping so densely they look like scribbles.
Some are no bigger than a pinprick, others the width of my thumb.
Alaris places his finger on a small sketch of a castle.
He drags it to a red circle in the nearby woods.
“This is the patch of forest we rode to. It’s the farthest flameward point the wither has reached this year.
” He moves his finger up and to the right, landing on a larger red circle.
“And this is the most recent, where Culdridge stood.”
This is a map of the wither. The lords of death have no province, but according to this map, they have claimed the most land of any divinial house with their destructive magic.
Death surrounds us completely.
“This is…so much land, gone.” I step closer despite myself. Colors of ink are swatched and labeled in a key in the top corner. Gray from fifteen years ago. Yellow from ten. Red from the last five. The red is the thickest.
“If you leave,” he says again softly, “go flameward.”
“They can’t get much closer to the flame. The emperor’s power will prevent it.”
The central expanse of untouched land is proof enough of that.
“No, Ly, it won’t. The wither isn’t what you think.” He stares at me for a long moment. “The emperor wants people to believe it’s the cursed power of the gods of death. But it’s not Thanovar’s power.” He points to the heart of the map, where Illios gleams in gold ink. “It’s Ignar’s.”
I stare at him, searching for some hint I’ve misunderstood. But his face is locked in the stoic expression I’ve seen more and more often since the townspeople arrived. “That doesn’t make any sense. The forest wasn’t burned.”
“The emperor has kept his eternal summer going for millennia. The wither is the cost.”
“There is already a cost,” I sputter. “The shadoward lands are colder. Your mild summers. Your harsh winters. In exchange for the capital’s warmth.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not enough. The emperor pulls more than the sun can give, and the energy has to come from somewhere.” He traces his finger along the edge of the map. “It drains from here. From the living things the sun once fed.”
When I think of the limits on Ignar’s power, I imagine things freezing. Heat, flame, and sun giving way to barren cold. But this?
It was easy to believe what I saw in the forest was death magic, because everything was dead. But it wasn’t decay. It was desiccation. Could that be what it looks like when what came from the sun gets ripped back?
He taps the edge of the map. “Why would the lords of Thanovar spend their strength on barren mountains? On seaweed and fish? Why would divinials of death waste their power killing things no one will ever mourn?”
My eyes rove over the lines again. The marks don’t cluster around cities. They sprawl across uninhabited mountain ranges, empty waters, stretches of forest where no road runs.
“Many in the shadoward lands ask these questions. That’s why the emperor watches us.” He meets my eyes. “That’s why Drina is in my house. To see if I’ve figured out the thanovarians are not to blame, and whether I plan to do anything about it.”
I was so certain there was no other reason Orso’s soldier would be here but me.
But maybe the soldier was just receiving Drina’s regular report to the palace on the comings and goings of a shadoward sovereign.
She still might be suspicious of me, given that she snooped in my room, but that doesn’t mean she’s figured out who I am.
And it’s more likely she was in the aviary to intercept Alaris’s messages than for anything to do with me.
If everything Alaris has said is true, even having this map is treason. “You are planning to do something about it, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he rolls up the paper and slides it back into the compartment. “I’m only telling you this because things are going to get worse, and soon. If you go, go flameward.”
He should hate me. I stole from him, lied to him, and used my mouth to get my hands around his throat, yet he’s still trying to warn me.
But without the stone, I’ve stayed in one place far too long.
I grit my teeth. “Then I guess you’ve cleared up my misconceptions,” I say coldly. “Does that mean I’m free to leave?”
He nods, the expression on his face unreadable. “As promised.”
“I’ll go at first light.”