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I’m not alone, inside or out.
But I’m not here to murder by burning alive either. All I want is to sow chaos against the people who’ve encouraged it—and remove the scourge sorcerers’ means of escape.
I fling the fire toward the wagon we arrived in, letting it lick across the discarded clothes on the grass in between. The lumps of fabric and the wagon’s canvas covering burst into flames.
I yank their searing heat down toward the base and its wheels, holding it back from the horses and their squeals of panic.
Kosmel’s wryly divine voice reverberates through my body.Very good, my wayward rogue. A few houses that had caught fire in the next province over have found themselves abruptly saved so you could bring the flames here. I’m sure you don’t mind.
I have to hold back a laugh. Power vibrates through my veins.
I can do this. I can bend my own wild power to serve a good purpose.
Let the scourge sorcerers see the results oftheirarrogance. Let them think about why their worshipful fire might have turned on them.
I will another blast of flames toward the second wagon—
And they sputter out before they reach the arched canvas.
The heat sizzling through the air dwindles. The fire on the first wagon snuffs out too.
Julita gasps.What in the realms…?
My gaze flicks around the hilltop, understanding hitting me like a jab to the gut.
Something is countering my magic.
Forty-Seven
Ivy
“Be calm!” Ster. Torstem calls out to the gathered worshippers in their animalistic guises, with a tingling rush of magic that prickles through my nerves.
The panicked voices fade. The fire droops lower.
Oh no,Julita murmurs.
As I stare at the law professor, Alek’s voice filters up from my memory: “His gift on record is the ability to quell anger.”
Plenty of people find ways to adapt the gifts their godlen blessed them with to broader uses than they were originally intended for. Esmae’s talent with the wind was meant for carrying “messages,” but she managed to twist it into flinging knives as well.
You could certainly see a fire’s destructive blaze as a sort of anger.
It never occurred to me that Torstem might be powerful enough to deflect my riven magic. But that’s what’s so dangerous and reviled about both my power and the kind scourge sorcerers take on, isn’t it?
He’s not using only his gift but the benefits of Ginelle’s immense sacrifice as well.
And he doesn’t even need to worry about consequences. The sacrifices have already been made.
The Order of the Wild members start to chatter with awed relief, and I realize my attempt has even worse consequences of the non-supernatural kind. Torstem has managed to make it look as if his authority cooled the fire and prevented the destruction—as if the gods support him even more than his followers would have already believed.
Fuck.
My hand drifts to my side in a subtle gesture, braced over the knife beneath. I’ve already signaled Stavros—before the soldiers get close, I need the scourge sorcerers in disarray, too distraught to cover up their ritual and flee.
My way didn’t work. So now all that’s left is to kill the man in the bloody fashion the king asked for.
My ghostly passenger isn’t ready to give up. Julita shifts in the back of my head.Isn’t there anything else you could ask your magic to do? He can’t have the power to stopeverything.
