Page 75 of The Prince's Mage

“Lookalike?”

“Stop being difficult. You said I’m not to call her an insult or by her name, and that limits my options. Just… Promise not to tell her.”

Gavril supposed… what was one more secret?

He was already hiding the fact that she’d died from everyone, including her. There was so much he was hiding from her.

“Fine. I promise I won’t tell anyone, including Marcella.”

Nikias looked Gavril over for a moment before nodding and lowering his voice. “We received a report last night about a summit between the Sordes clan leaders. Led by the demon and the unfortunate soul that married her. They’ve been gathering resources, more than normal recently, but nothing too noteworthy or out of the ordinary until now. Their leaders brought soldiers and supplies. Enough for an army. All signs point to the demon gathering a Sordes army like we’ve never seen before and moving to strike.”

Gavril swore under his breath. “And if they move with that much force, it won’t matter if I can prove our reasons for going after them are flawed. We’ll be fighting for the same reason they are—survival. We will leave behind an ocean of blood.”

Nikias nodded, his expression perfectly solemn. “You can’t tell anyone. I’ll be telling a few of the commanders on Father’s orders and beginning preparations, but I don’t want it to come to that. Or for people to panic. We’ve put too much time and effort into your Sordes and your vision for peace. But I will not let our people be slaughtered either.”

Gavril studied Nikias’ expression. He seemed… sincere. Did he really believe in peace?

“I’ll keep quiet for now. But for the record, Marcella wouldn’t be able to do anything with that information even if she wanted to. She’s been here with us for months. She knows nothing about it.”

At that, Nikias just raised an eyebrow. “Can you blame me for being hesitant to tell such important information to any Sordes, especially one that is identical to the demon?”

Gavril had let him get too comfortable. He lowered his voice. “I can blame you for a lot of other things. Far worse things.”

Nikias stepped back, holding his good arm up. “Look, I’m trying things your way. Despite it flying in the face of all reason. Somehow, you believe we can have peace through this despite the fact that the demon is the one leading the Sordes now. We have a fierce enemy about to bring an army to our doorstep. One who was vicious enough even before we killed her father while trying to capture her. How certain is your Sordes that if you bring her this discovery, she will negotiate peace?”

He hadn’t actually talked to Marcella in detail about Hypatia and if she would have peace. When Marcella mentioned her, a fire burned in him as he always felt the ghost of the scar on Marcella’s side beneath his fingers. He could not forgive Hypatia for that. Just like he could not forgive Nikias for the thinner, cleaner scars he had also memorized the feeling of.

“Quite certain. The demon doesn’t want to spill her people’s blood any more than we do ours. And when Marcella can prove we are not two different people at all, we shall have that.” Gavril moved back to the library doors. “And if we’re running out of time, we better get back to it so this chance—and tens of thousands of lives—don’t slip through our fingers.”

Gavril was more than confident Marcella could do this.

But… he was not quite as certain she could do this in time.

He’d been skeptical when Marcella had told him of her people’s belief that ravens were a bad omen, but now… Maybe her people were right. An omen of impending destruction, failure, and death.

He understood now. Why so many of the prayers she’d taught him were pleas to Asentai for a miracle.

That’s what they needed now.

Maybe it’s what he’d always needed and never known it until now. But… he did not know… How many people got more than one miracle in their lifetime?

Chapter27

MARCELLA

Marcella’s fingers were stained every day from ink as she learned how to read and write their runes and not just speak them. Nikias always hung around and when Gavril snapped at him and tried to get rid of him, Nikias just insisted that he needed to be there and understand everything if he was going to be the one making the argument to their parents.

Nikias usually restrained himself to just glaring at her, but three and a half weeks into their work, Marcella’s hands were covered in ink and the runes were smudged and she was close to screaming or crying in frustration as she still didn’t get it, and Nikias muttered under his breath, “The fate of two countries is in the hands of an illiteratelupa.”

Gavril slammed his hands on the table and shot out of his seat, his face turning red as he snapped, “Nikias. Outside. Now.”

Marcella barely caught the ink bottle before it spilled over all her incorrect runic scribbles as she tried to write their rune for vitae correctly. Aimilia winced, but didn’t look overly concerned as Nikias rolled his eyes but did rise. Gavril practically lunged for him and started to haul him out of the room.

Marcella watched them go. They’d had some private conversation a few days before that she’d half expected Gavril would tell her about that night, but he didn’t. The fact that he did not offer it freely made Marcella too terrified of the answer to ask. Instead, she had just focused on mentally drawing runes in her head until she fell asleep while Gavril had murmured Hagne’s Prayer Seventeen.

A prayer for a miracle above all miracles.

There was so much she didn’t understand that she needed to. Marcella turned to Aimilia as the door to the library shut behind Gavril and Nikias and asked in their tongue, “Why doeslupabother him so much?”

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