Page 127 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Rheave lets out a growl at the reminder.

My head dips lower. “The pain brought me back, just barely. I’m the one who bowled over the soldiers Stavros brought. That wasn’t the scourge sorcerers. When the magic gets right into my head, I start thinking I have to lash out at everyone…”

I choke up for a second before I drag my gaze upward to meet Stavros’s dark eyes. “Part of me wanted to tear apart every soldier in the fortress this morning after the one put his knife to my throat. Like the riven sorcerer slaughtered your best friend. That’s why I let Julita step in.”

Oh, Ivy, Julita murmurs, sounding choked up herself.

“And why you stabbed yourself tonight.” Stavros inhales sharply. “Curse it all, Ivy, I knew you’d fall on your knife before you let yourself go too far, but I never wanted it to actually happen.”

Casimir strokes my hair. “You’re clearly not insane now. You came out of it.”

I let out a strained guffaw. “Not really. Just the worst parts. I’m still… not quite right. I don’t even know if I ever will be again or if I’ve wrecked my mind permanently.”

Alek touches his forehead to mine. “You’ll rest, and you’ll get better again. It isn’t your fault. You never wanted this magic. You were only trying to help.”

The hopeless sensation that’s been building inside me since we rode away rises up so swiftly I could drown in it. “I didn’t even take down the scourge sorcerers, not really, did I? They’re still going to attack.”

Stavros shifts his weight. “Not right away. Quite a few of them were injured, and their horses scattered. I didn’t see what happened to the soldiers I led that way, but even if the Order of the Wild fell on them, the scourge sorcerers will want to move and regroup in case others are going to investigate.”

“But they’ll find another place to hide and get organized. And they won’t wait long. Tomorrow or the next day, they’ll go to slaughter the entire royal family.”

I swallow thickly. “And I won’t be able to help at all, because I can’t risk using my magic again.”

Thirty-Five

Alek

The flat, mottled yellow-and-orange tops of the mushrooms catch my eye in the early morning light. With a smile prompted by a flicker of happiness, however brief, I hustle over to the base of the tree where they’ve sprouted.

I may not have conceived of any brilliant battle strategies, but I did manage to pick up a little useful information from my reading. If one of the books I perused while in Pima is correct, these should be edible and decent-tasting if baked.

The country may be doomed, but at least we’ll have breakfast.

I break the tops off the mushrooms’ stems, gathering the whole cluster on my arm cradled against my chest. The snap of a twig brings my head up with a hitch of my pulse, but all I see is a sparrow taking off through the branches overhead.

Stavros and Rheave went out to patrol the area around the abandoned outpost, to watch for any members of the Order of the Wild venturing in this area… and to deal with them if they do find any, I suppose.

That job is definitely not one I could handle.

I walk back to the mossy stone walls as quickly as I can while being reasonably quiet. Casimir spots me from the uneven doorway and dips his head in acknowledgment.

“I’m going to check the snares Stavros set up last night,” he murmurs when I reach him. “I don’t think Ivy should be left alone right now.”

I nod in return, my gut twisting.

When I step past him into the partly roofed room beyond, I find Ivy crouched by our fire, which is smoldering beneath a heap of collected rubble and a layer of dirt to diminish the smoke. Her face, a sallower shade of pale than I’m used to, looks as weary as if she didn’t sleep at all.

She glances up at my entrance, and I offer her a small smile. “Hey. I found something for us to eat—they just need a little baking.”

Without a word, Ivy takes a stick and pries out one of the larger chunks of rock at the edge of the pile. Last night, we used that spot to roast a ground hen Rheave managed to shoot.

I nudge the mushrooms into the hot space one by one. A delicate, rather pleasant herbal scent starts to waft into the air.

The despondence in Ivy’s expression hasn’t shifted. I hesitate and then sit down next to her, not sure if the physical closeness will comfort her, not knowing if there’s anything else I can do for her.

“We’ll find other ways,” I say. “We got an awful lot done without you needing to use your powers before.”

Ivy lets out a faint scoffing sound. “Even when I was mostly suppressing my magic, the most important things I pulled off relied on it. Stopping Wendos. Proving myself against Benedikt. Turning the tables on Ster. Torstem. Saving King Konram’s life.”

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