“Of course,” the woman said, handing over the tunic, “even if we learned how to cure you, many among our group think we’d be idiots to do it. They think we’re fools to have spared you. To them, you're a poisoned dart sent from the Hold to dig into our tender flesh.”
The Hold. At once, the events of my flight from Steelhold roared into my thoughts. Emperor Tovmeil had been murdered. The other Scions too, most likely. I pulled the tunic over my head, pushed the covers aside and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“I need to get to Jaliss,” I said.
“Apparently, you don’t quite understand your situation. By my guess, you can scarcely stand, much less walk. Disregarding that, we certainly wouldn’t be so stupid as to let you go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Savra
Somewhere in windswept Guralan Province
THE OUTCROPPING HID the eastern horizon, but I knew dawn was coming when gray lines emerged from the deep shadows in the forest across the road. Curled in his bedroll opposite the smoldering campfire, Havialo was snoring.
Careful not to rustle the blankets, I sat up and folded the top half of my bedroll aside. In the predawn hours, the wind had finally slowed. The resulting quiet was eerie, as if the forest were listening. Waiting. I shivered as the night air cooled my skin.
I pushed up to a crouch, wincing when one of my knees cracked. Across the fire, the geognost grumbled before rolling to put his back to me, a fold of his cloak pulled over his head. I remained motionless until his snoring resumed.
Time to find answers.
After our conversation the previous night, I’d lain awake for hours, thoughts racing. The longer I’d thought about it, the worse my fears became. The mage was hiding information from me, more than his refusal to explain my talent and what it meant. For all I knew, he’d arranged to set that fire. My mother and sister might be in danger or worse. Every time I thought of it, my chest tightened. How could I have run off without asking more questions? Sure, he’d given me the letter from my father—when I squeezed my elbow to my body, I still felt the paper crinkling against my ribs.
But it wasn’t enough.
Maybe my father was waiting for me somewhere near the capital. But he’d abandoned us years ago, while my mother had stayed to raise us. If I owed allegiance somewhere, it was to her and Avill. I needed to learn where they were being taken. Perhaps more pressing, I needed to learn if this sanctuary even existed.
Gingerly, I stepped off my bedroll and slipped into my boots. In the dark, I couldn’t spot the saddles, but I knew where to find them. The saddlebags were near. I might find nothing by looking through Havialo’s things, but my search for answers had to start somewhere.
I grimaced and froze when one of the horses snorted at my approach. After a moment, I relaxed when another snore rose from the vicinity of the fire.
“Shh,” I whispered, stroking Breeze’s neck. His fur was sleek, well-groomed. If nothing else, Havialo had a good sense for horses.
Havialo’s saddlebags were twice as heavy as mine. The water, no doubt. Yesterday, he’d kept all the water skins in his saddlebags. I wondered now if that had been a tactic to keep me dependent on him. The shadows against the outcrop were too deep. I moved the bags carefully, cringing when the weight made me stumble, pebbles crunching beneath my feet.
With fingers stiffening in the cold, I worked at the buckles closing the bags. My thumb slipped, the nail catching on a rib of leather and bending back. I stifled a curse and sucked on the injured nail before inhaling and continuing.
Wincing at every rustle and creak of leather, I groped through the contents of Havialo’s saddlebags. The water skins were on top, forcing me to lift each sloshing package and set it carefully aside. My hand landed on the scroll holder, and I pulled it out.
“Some people call metalogists by another word: spiritists.”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, whirled and caught my heel on a rock. I stumbled backward over the saddlebags and scraped my shoulder blade against the sharp crystals of the stone outcrop.
Havialo stood before me, cloak askew over his shoulders, hair mussed with sleep.
“Wha—what? Spiritists?”
“It’s an old term. From before the Atal Kingdom conquered the Provinces.”
Awkwardly, I pushed off from the outcrop to stand upright. The water skins were strewn around my feet, and the saddlebag yawned. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t been going through his things, but he hadn’t mentioned it yet, so I saw no reason to bring it up. “Why are you telling me this?”
The sky had paled enough that the whites of his eyes shone in the darkness. He glanced down at the open saddlebags.
“I’m telling you this because anyone who mistakes a metalogist for a spiritist is wrong.” He lifted his left hand, the one with the silver band around his middle fingers. “Metalogists are the corrupted tools of the Maelstrom. Even me, with my single rank. There is nothing innate about their ability, and as a result, they have no innate ability to sense its wrongness. Its cost.”
A squirrel chattered in the trees overhead. Flakes from a pinecone began to rain down. Where was the mage going with this conversation?
Havialo dropped his arm to his side. “I’m telling you this because I know you doubt my story. You may even be thinking of leaving. I won’t stop you. You are not my captive. Even if it means I never pay my debt to your father, I refuse to keep you against your will. That’s the very behavior I hated in the Empire. The reason I joined Stormshard all those years ago.”
“I still don't understand what this has to do with the metalogists.”
“Actually, I was speaking of spiritists.”
Right, he had said that. Anyone that mistakes the two is wrong. “So what’s a spiritist, if not a metal mage?”
“You are, Savra. That’s what I’ve tried to keep from you. The thing that metalogists pretend to be with their false abilities and tainted powers. It was born into you. Your father wanted to be the one to explain, but I suppose he’ll have to forgive me.” He shrugged in apology.
“All right, I'm a spiritist. Thank you for explaining. But it’s just a word that tells me nothing about my supposed talent. What does a spiritist do?”
“It’s early and it’s cold. Shall we warm the fire and see about breakfast?”
I still clutched the scroll holder. Beside me, Breeze stamped his front foot as if impatient.
“I’ll explain everything,” Havialo said. “I swear. Afterward, if you still don’t trust me, I’ll try to find someone else to escort you north. I’ll give you directions and coin plus the information you’ll need to contact your father. Will you give me this chance, though?”
The coals and their promise of fire certainly sounded better than standing here in the cold. After a moment, I nodded.
***
“If there’s anything the Atalan people can claim as their own, it’s earth magic,” Havialo said as he stirred the coals.
The sun was rising and with it the wind. As the embers flared, sparks leaped from the circle of stones and swirled into the dawn sky.
“The magic runs through merchant and elite-class families,” he continued. “If any magic should have powered the Empire’s rise, it’s geognosty. Instead, beginning centuries ago, earth mages were forbidden to marry. Our lines withered, though quite a few sire offspring or give birth in secret.”
“But why?” I blinked as a speck of dust landed in my eye. Storms, but I hated this wind.
“One of the early kings had an advisor, a mystic and alchemist who discovered the power in Maelstrom-blessed black iron. Others soon took up the study. While granting power, the Maelstrom’s energy infected its wielders with a desire for dominance. Soon enough, the Hall of Mages was built, with the geognosts all but forgotten.”
“And this is related to my talent?”
He nodded as he laid another branch on the fire. “Stormshard scholars suspect that your
talent has always been present in the provinces—Cosmal and Anisel in particular. The old word, spiritism, almost certainly comes from the nature of your abilities. But somehow, knowledge of spiritism disappeared from the land around the same time the metalogists rose in Atal. It reemerged in Anisel a century ago. You probably recognize the event.”
I nodded. A hundred years ago, the Anisel Uprising struck the hardest blows the Empire had felt since its founding, leading to—among other things—the Decree of Functions. Fewer freedoms for the Provs meant fewer opportunities to rise up.
“I’m no expert in spiritism. I can’t teach you or even explain much about your talent. So if that is enough reason for you to ride away, I cannot offer anything to stop you. But I can tell you stories from the Uprising.”
“Such as?”
“Sometimes, it seemed the Aniselans knew the Empire’s plans days before the vanguard arrived. Other times, the Emperor’s forces fled battles in absolute terror, only to find themselves unable to remember what had frightened them.”
“All because of the spiritists?”
“That’s my theory, and judging by the actions of the Emperor at the time, he drew the same conclusion. But despite the early victories, eventually Anisel Province lost, and the Empire took steps to make sure it wouldn’t be threatened again.”
“The Decree of Functions?” I couldn’t think of anything else that had happened around that time.
His lip twitched as he absently poked at the coals again. “The Decree is more than it seems. You don’t remember everything about your time with the registrar, but be sure she wasn’t simply checking her ledger and signing your parchment.”
“She asked strange questions. I remember that much.”
“Designed to root out many undesirable traits from among the population, but one threat is worse than the rest put together.” He looked at me pointedly.
“So the Emperor is afraid of our talent. That’s why I’m in danger.”
“You would have been taken away and executed had I not intervened.” Havialo grimaced as a fresh gust of wind howled overhead.
“Just based on my answers?”
“It happens all the time. There was another girl from a town near yours, Agartown I believe? They usually tell the parents that the young person has received a Function in a different province.”
A dart of cold struck my heart. The girl that Avill had spoken of. She’d been given the courier Function—according to her writ, anyway—and her family hadn’t seen her since.
“We can’t really be that threatening, not against the protectors and metalogists and everything else the Empire controls.”
Havialo shrugged. “The rumor I heard was the Emperor at the time of the Uprising had a vision. If Atal were ever to fall, it would be at the hands of a spiritist. I doubt that’s true—as far as I’m aware, no one knows the future. But it was clear that the spiritists were a threat. In the Emperor’s eyes, that threat was too great.”
As the sun cleared the treetops, its rays stabbed my eyes. I raised my arm to shade them.
“Sometimes, Stormshard rescues a suspected spiritist before the registrars come. A few times, I helped with that kind of mission. But the stakes were too great, the consequences too severe when we failed. I forced myself to attend the executions, a punishment for my mistakes, I suppose. When that became too much, I stopped aiding the rescues.”
“I can’t imagine how hard the deaths must have been to watch. But you were saving lives, too. Why not just stop attending the executions?”
His lips pressed together. “Because I’d missed my own daughter’s hanging.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. For a moment, the howl of the wind was the only sound.
“Was she a spiritist too?” I asked.
Havialo’s eyes were downcast. He tossed a pebble into the coals as he shook his head. “Just as earth magic runs in Atalan families, spiritists seem to come only from the provinces. Cartilla was like me. Atal elite-class. But you see, where the Empire can be severe when punishing Prov law-breakers, the tolerance for dissent among its treasured elites is simply non-existent. We are supposed to be paragons of imperial virtue. So when word of my involvement with Stormshard reached Emperor Tovmeil, he did the one thing that would hurt me above all else. My daughter was twelve. I heard she was terrified on the gallows. They’d pulled her from her classes at the academy in the Heights district. No explanation. Just took her straight to her death.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I could never acknowledge Cartilla openly due to the proscription against geognosts having children. If only I’d just walked away when her mother admitted the pregnancy. Hid myself in the monastery or a faraway land.”
When he turned his face to me, his eyes blazed with such a deep hatred it took everything I had not to flinch. I knew his emotion was not directed at me, but rather at the Empire and what it had done to him. After a moment, his rage seemed to drain away. “Thank you. I miss her every day. After her death, I lost all desire to fight with Stormshard. The Empire had gutted my soul. So when Teppo spoke about the Sharders deciding to oust me… I tried to be angry. But really, all I care about is fulfilling this vow to your father so I can leave the Atal Empire for good.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did the Empire find out about you and Stormshard.”
A strange ferocity entered his eyes as his lip curled. “Betrayed from within, I assume. Many Sharders never accepted me due to my Atal ancestry. I imagine they passed along the information. As I mentioned, I never agreed with your father over allowing such independence of action among the Sharders.” He snapped his gaze to mine. “Don’t mistake me. I don’t blame Evrain. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
With a sigh, he threw the stick he’d used to stir the coals into the flames. “It doesn’t matter. I no longer care about the Sharders’ squabbles. No use unearthing old arguments. So… have I convinced you?”
I considered the question. His story was tragic. But had he put my qualms to rest?
“There’s one thing that’s been bothering me,” I said.
He glanced at me. “I think I might know. Until yesterday, you had no idea how crucial Numintown’s work was to the Empire. It makes it difficult to understand how the Emperor could even consider sanctions against the town. But the answer is simple. The Emperor fears losing the Maelstrom-blessed metals. It would be a terrible blow. But there is one thing the Emperor fears more: spiritist power.”
Chapter Twenty
Kostan
Bandit hideout, Icethorn Mountains
WITH A CRUTCH shoved under an am—the moment I’d tried to put weight on my branded foot, I’d realized how helpless I truly was—I hobbled across the main cavern behind the woman’s graceful stride. She stopped before an unshaven man who sat on a three-legged stool pulling the long blade of a dagger over a whetstone. The steel hissed with every stroke.
At the edges of the room, men and women lounged in piles of furs working oil into leather, stitching ragged hems, and tending to weapons. Suspended over a central cookfire, stew bubbled in a pot and filled the air with a rich, meaty aroma. Behind the man with the dagger, the cavern’s wide mouth opened onto a talus-strewn slope painted in the golden light of midmorning sun.
“I see you roused him, Falla,” the man—the leader?—said as he inspected me. Behind him, I noticed a stack of folded clothing, the wool dyed the deep red worn by elite protectors. The crest of the order was stitched on a shoulder. That, at least, explained what I’d seen before blacking out. Only Steelhold’s clothmakers knew the recipe for the blood-red dye, which meant the uniform must have come from a genuine protector. None of the Empire’s elite soldiers would give up their clothing while alive—they’d be hanged for returning without it. My estimation of these bandits rose considerably.
The woman, Falla, stepped aside to let me approach the leader. The man nodded and stood to
his full height. Since around the age of fifteen, I’d rarely met someone tall enough that I looked up to meet their eyes. I clenched my fists to push away the faint stirrings of intimidation.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
“Kostan.”
“You’d be forced to take a new one if you were to Ascend, correct? Something marking a historical lineage?”
I nodded. “But since I never expected to be chosen, I haven’t put much thought into it.”
He fixed me with an appraising look. “Any reason you expected to fail?”
“I suppose that depends on whether you interpret escaping the throne as a failure. But to answer your question, I never wanted to Ascend. That alone should have removed me from contention.”
“Because your brand would recognize your inner weakness. Yet my healer says the mark on your foot appears to have no magical properties—aside from a festering sickness that is confounding her ability to purge it. In fact, she suggested the pattern of the eventual scar was set the moment the brand touched your flesh.”
I shrugged, attempting to keep my face even. “Is your healer a mage? The aurums are responsible for the branding.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. A smile? “Suffice it to say, she has an affinity for understanding the workings of magic as well as the humours of the body.”
My strong leg had begun to ache. I leaned harder on the crutch.
“Sit,” the man said after a moment, gesturing to a heap of cured animal pelts. “Your body has endured much. Taxing your strength will only make the infection flare.”
Heart of the Empire (The Broken Lands Book 1) Page 11