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The teenage girl darts forward and slashes with her knife. She clearly isn’t experienced, but she slices through the man’s silk tunic so blood wells against the fabric.
The nobleman lunges forward next, with a breath hissed through his teeth. He stabs the false king in the chest just below his shoulder.
As more blood spurts out, the man grunts. That’s the only sign he’s affected by the wounds.
I’m next. I grit my teeth and push myself forward, honing my mind as well as I can through the partial haze.
Whip out my hand. Hit him rightthere.
The blade glances off a rib, just as I intended. The impact reverberates up my arm, and the false king wobbles.
I bite back the apology that leaps up my throat and stumble to the side.
The woman from the city steps toward the stand-in, her knuckles pale where she’s clutching her knife. She stares at him, at the blood staining his clothes. Her body sways.
Her voice comes out slurred. “I don’t… To attack the king…”
Torstem makes a swift motion. Two of the other conspirators grab the woman and drag her away.
“Wait!” she cries out. “I can do it. I could. I just—I just wanted to be sure.”
“If you aren’t sure already, it’s too late for you,” Torstem announces, his voice booming through the clearing. “The gods will decide where you belong.”
In a grave somewhere with no one knowing what really befell her, no doubt.
My innards lurch between the impulse to leap in and defend her and the need for self-preservation. I hold myself still, telling myself this is the right choice.
Would saving her be worth blowing my entire mission? She’s been on board with everything the scourge sorcerers have asked of her until now—how reasonable a person can she really be?
My rationalization doesn’t alleviate my growing nausea. As one of the scourge sorcerers clamps a hand over the woman’s throat and they disappear between the trees, I avert my gaze.
The older man hurtles at the false king as if determined to show how very willingheis in comparison. He rams his knife into the other man’s abdomen at an angle that might pierce the liver.
I restrain a wince. That’s it. We’ve all shown our dedication—or not.
Now they’ll bring out their healer woman and—
Ster. Torstem strides up to the false king from behind. “It’s too late for this king. He’s betrayed us all with his claim to the throne. Now we bring him down!”
He slams a dagger of his own right between the man’s ribs, deep enough to pierce the heart.
I only just catch a yelp of alarm before it bursts from my throat. My power flares fiercer.
That’s the threat. That’s a man who’ll kill just to make a point.
As the false king staggers, raising no more protest than a groan, my magic tugs at me to heal his wounds. To cast away the villains who staged this vicious “ceremony.” To—
No. No, I can’t.
I yank it in, and my head spins. A burning sensation spreads across my skin as if my power is trying to sear its way out.
I fumble to suppress it, and I think it senses my drugged weakness. It lashes out with a sharper pain straight through my lungs. I have to clamp my mouth shut against a grunt.
One of the shrouded figures drags the false king into the woods in a different direction from the woman who failed the trial. I swing myself away from them, tensing every muscle in my legs to hold them steady against the onslaught.
I let a little magic free only a few days ago. Gods only know how hard it’d be hitting me if my power wasn’t partly sated.
Oh, gods, Ivy, I’m sorry.
