Page 84 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Voleska pipes up in a strained tone. “From what we’ve gathered, a fairly large bunch of the people with the Order are heading out of the city as if they’ve got something important to do elsewhere. But just about everyone they’re leaving in Pima is under orders to focus on tracking the group of you down. They’ve already sent patrols around the surrounding countryside to keep watch there too.”

My heart sinks. Are they pursuing us this avidly because Borys is giving the orders, and he particularly wants to crush anyone associated with his sister?

Julita seems to think so. She recovers from her stunned silence to simply say, That treacherous prick.

I hug myself. “We thought maybe if we laid low here for a little while, it might blow over…”

Voleska is shaking her head before I’m even finished speaking. “They’re busting into people’s homes and businesses, searching everywhere. I don’t want to promise we could hide you when I’m not sure you’d be safe.”

Emor steps in again. “I don’t know if you’d be in a position to accomplish much more anywhere in Eppun at this point. They’ve sent messengers out—the Order members in other cities and towns may be on the lookout too. Frankly, you’d face an awful struggle just making your way out of the province back to the rest of Silana.”

Stavros raises his eyebrows. “Well, we have to either stay or leave. It can’t be neither.”

“We had another thought.” Voleska nods toward one of the men she was speaking with when we arrived. “There’s a trade caravan heading out tonight for Bryfeen. It’s only a few hours journey across open countryside, with plenty of ways you could be concealed, and then you’d be out of their reach.”

I stare at her. “You want us to leave Silana completely?”

She holds up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t want you to. I’d rather you could stay and keep chipping away at these assholes. But it might be the only way we can ensure you don’t end up dead within the next few days, and we owe you that much. Within a week or two, we might have been able to sway more people across the province against them, or the king’s forces might have taken back control.”

Emor offers us an apologetic smile. “If you stay near the border, you can monitor the situation and come back when the pricks have been driven out.”

The bottom of my stomach drops out. Is this really the best option we have? We meant to stop the scourge sorcerers, and instead we end up fleeing the country?

But am I really going to insist on staying and seeing the men who’ve committed themselves to this cause—to me—slaughtered because of my stubbornness?

Voleska clears her throat. “There is one condition.” She gestures toward Rheave. “The offer doesn’t include the daimon. We’re concerned that the Order may find a way to trace his movements, and the caravan runner is nervous about his powers.”

My body balks automatically. “We can’t leave him behind.”

But before I can protest further, Rheave hangs his head and then turns to me. Anguish contorts his beautiful face. “It’s all right, Little Vine. I understand why people are nervous. I want to be with you making sure you’re safe… but if the best way for you to be safe is for me to stay back, I’ll stay and do my best from here.”

The despondence in his voice wrenches at me. He thought it was his fault that Hanie betrayed us, and this situation is only going to drive that idea home.

If Voleska and the others knew what my real powers were, they’d be far more frightened of me than they are of him. It doesn’t make any sense to punish him.

He’s still got blood on his clothes from protecting me, and I’m supposed to leave him to be recaptured by the horrifying masters he escaped?

What are my other options, though?

I don’t know what would be best anymore, Julita murmurs, echoing my uncertainty.

As I rub my temple, Stavros touches my back as if to steady me. “I don’t want to leave anyone behind,” he says quietly. “But times like this call for awful decisions. I’m not going to argue for one outcome over another. You have the most at stake. It’s possible I’ll be more useful to the royal family by learning what I can along the border—certainly I’ll accomplish more that way than if the Order of the Wild does manage to get the upper hand on us.”

If even he’s willing to give up… I glance at Casimir and then Alek and find the courtesan and the scholar watching me, their faces set in similar expressions of supportive but pained resignation.

They’ll go where I go, even if they don’t like the idea any more than I do. Just like they have since King Konram first called for my execution.

The right thing to do would be to protect them, wouldn’t it? To put their safety first, to slip away where the scourge sorcerers won’t reach us.

And probably kiss our chances of getting a pardon goodbye, since we won’t be instrumental in undermining the scourge sorcerers if we’re not here. Will we really be able to return if we leave when the king is still calling us traitors?

That’s what Stavros meant when he said I have the most at stake. Maybe they could reach an understanding with King Konram once all this is over, but there’s not much short of stopping a civil war that would prove the riven sorcerer has the country’s best interests at heart.

My magic squirms in my chest, wanting to defend me but not sure how.

I look down at myself, at the spot where Kosmel once branded me with a magical glow, at my hands that have directed more power in the past few weeks than I ever thought I’d allow myself to.

Though Emor and Voleska don’t know what I’m really capable of, I do. An ordinary group of resisters might not be able to evade the Order of the Wild and continue weakening their attempted coup, but we aren’t ordinary.

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