Page 88 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

“Crossroads,” Alek points out, tapping his fingers lightly against a sign post I can only make out when I step closer. “I can’t read where the other route leads.”

Julita speaks up in my head after a long quiet. Given our course, that should be Lumya to the east and Dalo to the west.

As I relay her information, Stavros studies our surroundings with a discontented air. “We only have another hour or two before it gets light enough that we’ll need to seek better shelter. There hasn’t been any sign of campfires or torches.”

My gut twists, but I prod him forward. “Let’s keep going just a little longer. If we haven’t found the scourge sorcerers by daybreak, we’ll wait and follow that last bunch from Pima when they go to join them.”

Hopefully they won’t be traveling too fast or too far from here to meet up with the others.

“You’re going to need to rest soon, Ivy,” Casimir says gently as we tramp onward.

I shake my head. “I can push through until we know what we’re dealing with. I’ve missed nights before. This?—”

I hesitate, taking in the faint tingle that’s just drifted over my skin.

My men freeze around me.

“What is it?” Alek asks in a faint whisper.

“Magic,” I murmur, and bring my finger to my lips to urge them silent.

They keep pace with me as I walk forward at a more cautious pace than before. The tingling sensation gradually thickens, as if I’m pressing into a fog of magical energy.

When the tingle starts to fade, I adjust direction, seeking out the most intense patches of it. My feet travel off the road and over the wilted winter grass.

Nothing around me looks as if it’s been altered by magic, but I keep walking.

Something is going on here. If I can just?—

I take one more step, and a totally new scene swims into reality before me. I have to clamp my lips shut against a gasp.

Tensing, Stavros flicks his hand down his front in the gesture of the divinities.

We’re standing at the edge of what looks like a vast military camp. Starting just ten paces away, dozens of tents dot the field off to the side of the road. At least twenty supply wagons are parked in their midst. I glimpse equine bodies shifting restlessly near the far end of the camp area.

Guards stand around a few firepits, warming themselves while they watch for intruders. It’s only thanks to my magical concealment that they haven’t spotted us.

Rheave pitches his voice so low I can barely hear him even standing right in front of him. “There are a lot like me here. So many I don’t even need to see them to feel it.”

I swallow a slightly hysterical laugh. “The scourge sorcerers are sending an entire army to attack the royal family. And no one will have any clue unless they stumble right into their march.”

The only chance of stopping them might be the five of us.

Twenty-Six

Ivy

Alek paces back and forth in the small clearing where we’ve set up our barebones camp, more keyed up than I’m used to. The tense vibe he’s giving off matches the ominous gray of the clouds that’ve congealed overhead in the dwindling twilight.

“You won’t want to spend too much time near the scourge sorcerers,” he says, glancing at me. “We don’t know what other magic they might be using to ward off intruders.”

“They didn’t notice us this morning,” I point out. “But of course we’ll be careful.”

None of us were in a state fit to challenge an entire army after a night’s hiking with no rest. After we’d determined where the Order of the Wild people had camped out, we were able to grab some sleep for ourselves while they finished with their own slumber and waited for the final group from Pima to arrive.

They took up the march again in the mid-afternoon, and we followed at a distance. The sorcerers in their midst must be covering all signs of their passage with magic, because we passed no trampled ground or extinguished fire pits.

Little do they know, that works in my favor. I can pick up the traces of their lingering magic as a trail to follow them.

---