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Julita’s sorry? What for? She sounds honestly anguished.
I sputter a puzzled guffaw, which hopefully sounds like derision toward the false king.
My ghostly passenger squirms in the back of my head.I thought I recognized the smell—Borys and Wendos used a potion like that sometimes to supposedly help them tap into the ‘power of their inner mind’ or some rot like that. It simply made them act like idiots. I would have warned you, I just— I figured you could deal with it yourself. You handle so much else without needing my help.
Despite her apology, resentment taints those last words. But between my unsteady mind, the magic I’m still grappling with, and a sudden blaze of fire before me, I can’t focus on Julita right now.
The shadowy heap I noted at the far end of the clearing is a big heap of firewood. One of the scourge sorcerers has set it alight. The flames surge up toward the sky, warbling like their disguised voices.
Torstem waves us toward the bonfire. “Come! Let us treat the traitor king the way he deserves. Offer him up to the gods whose will he ignored!”
Great God smite us, he doesn’t really mean—
Even as horror wrenches through me at the thought that we might be burning the man he fatally stabbed before the fellow’s soul has departed, three of the scourge sorcerers drag a figure far too big to be any living human toward the fire. The wavering orange light glances off stitched together clothes stuffed with straw and a crown that looks like it’s made of painted wood tied to the sagging burlap head.
Nice to know the psychopaths draw the line at burning a man alive. For the moment, anyway.
They really aren’t hiding their intentions now. There’s no mistaking the clear message: they want King Konram dead.
They tried to kill Prince Jacos too. I still don’t know if they murdered his older son, Prince Dunstam, years ago.
Maybe I can find out at least one vital fact while they’re in a sharing mood.
The shrouded figures motion us new recruits over to haul the straw figure the last few paces to the bonfire. I picture the flames leaping out to catch on their shrouds with an uncomfortable sense of satisfaction and clamp down on my magic when it wriggles up to offer its services.
As I join the others in grasping the straw-stuffed cloth, I let my legs sway a little more, my head loll with our movements. The drunker I seem on their drug, the less they can blame anything that comes out of my mouth on my conscious intentions.
“Death to the unworthy king!” I holler for extra credit, and heave at the figure in time with my current comrades.
The fire roars around the straw figure. In a matter of seconds, body, head, and crown are completely consumed by the flames.
I step back from the heat that prickles at my face, letting a wobble creep into my steps. “There he goes!” I babble, and turn to one of the shrouded figures. “Is this what you did to Prince Dunstam? Gotta get rid of them one by one, right?”
Ivy, Julita says nervously, like a warning.
But the scourge sorcerer just chuckles without revealing anything definite. “Everyone will get what they deserve in the end.”
I lean closer, tilting my head to the other side and slurring my words. “But really. Thatwasyou—us—what we’re doing here— He didn’t really get sick. You took care of him, didn’t you? We should celebrate that too!”
A hand claps onto my shoulder, followed by a voice that makes my pulse hitch.
“We should look to what we can do in the future, not dwell on the past,” Torstem says.
Which doesn’t answer the question either. I don’t know whether they’re trying to cover up their crime or take subtle credit for a “victory” they can’t actually claim.
But with the leader of the conspiracy standing over me, I’m not going to push my inquiry any farther.
I aim a goofy grin at him. “Of course! Let the king burn!”
This one, anyway. What have they done with the living one?Ishe still living?
Maybe if I can figure out what they’ve done with his body, that’ll be another useful bit of proof.
I lean into my drugged act, playing up my dizziness to maximum effect. I’ve watched plenty of drunken louts all through the outer wards to know what effects an intoxicant can have on the body and mind.
I raise my fist in the air. “The other fake king should burn too! Let’s send him to the gods. Where is he?”
When I stumble off toward the woods, I’m prepared for one of the conspirators to drag me back. But they must assume I won’t remember much—let alone be able to do much—in my current state.
