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Tinom holds out his hand, and I offer the journal automatically. He flips through a few pages. “This is all really conjecture.”
“I don’t think you’d see it that way if you read the accounts. The way the patients describe what happened to them, the witnesses confirming that they never displayed gifts like this before—none of them had any significant madness yet despite being adults.”
Another memory flashes to the front of my mind. “Ivy’s even told us—when Kosmel talked to her last, he said something about making up for the damage the gods have done. We didn’t understand what he was referring to. He must have meant her being riven at all!”
Tinom grunts. He drifts through the room, still considering the journal, and stops by the hearth.
I only have an instant for panic to kick in before he’s tossed the aged book into the flames.
A yelp bursts from my lips. I throw myself forward, already reaching toward the fire, ready to burn my hands as badly as my face if I can retrieve the precious pages.
Tinom steps in front of me and shoves me backward. I trip over my feet and only catch myself on a side table just in time to avoid landing on my ass.
When I launch myself at him again, this time he eases aside. But we both gaze into the fire to see the book has already disintegrated into embers.
“What in the realms are you doing?” I demand, my voice rasping up my throat. “We needed that book to prove?—”
Tinom speaks with an unsettling calm. “There’s nothing to prove. All we had was potentially biased reports and speculation.”
“Biased reports? Those were eyewitnesses to the catastrophe—at the very least, they confirm that the first riven weren’t born that way. They were transformed directly by the gods for a purpose. We could have had clerics appeal to the gods for further signs to support?—”
“To what end?” Tinom asks quietly.
I stare at him for a moment before I recover my words through my rage. “How can you even ask that? So we can tell the world that people like Ivy don’t deserve to be shunned. There’s nothing shameful about how they came to be. They should be helped, not executed.”
The magic advisor lets out a soft huff. “It sounds to me as if you’re thinking with your groin rather than your brain, young man. If you weren’t entwined with one of the riven, would you even care?”
The accusation stings because it comes with a jab of guilt. I can’t say the subject would matter quite as much to me if Ivy wasn’t in my life. But all the same...
“Perhaps I wouldn’t care as urgently, but I would still want the truth to be known. They aren’t criminals. They don’t deserve what they’ve faced. If we were prepared to help them adapt to their riven souls rather than executing them on discovery, they might make this world better rather than worse.”
Tinom shrugs. “There are far fewer of them now than there ever were. The fear runs deep. Telling people a thing can’t erase their ingrained emotions. We’re dealing with enough troubles without confusing all Silana’s people over their beliefs, making them feel guilty for a past they can’t change.”
I have to pry my gritted teeth apart. “What about the people who’ll keep getting hurt? You’d consign Ivy to that fate after everything she’s done for the kingdom?”
Tinom fixes me with a look so unwavering it sends a chill coursing under my skin. “I accept your paramour because she’s amply proven that, for now, she has her magic under control, and because she could make the difference between seeing the Melchioreks retake the throne and letting Lothar win. That doesn't mean I trust her for more than the next few days.”
As I grope for an effective retort, he spins on his heel. “If you care about peace in Silana, you won’t mention what you just told me to anyone. Not even your lover.”
He stalks out of the room, leaving his last statement ringing in my ears like a threat.
Twenty
Ivy
When I come up beside Cleric Delfis by the doorway of one of the treatment rooms, he dips his head in a brief nod and returns to watching the patients inside. An air of sadness hangs over the normally buoyant man.
After I glance into the room, it’s not hard to see what’s deflated his spirits.
The eight sacrificial accomplices are sitting or lying on the simple but comfortable beds they’ve been given. A couple of devouts are moving between them, talking to them in soothing tones. One is bringing around glasses of water that she helps each figure drink from. Another rubs a salve into a scar on a man’s knee.
The accomplices’ mutilations are on full display, the shrouds removed so the temple’s people can tend to these poor souls effectively. I have to gird myself against a grimace of revulsion.
It isn’t fair to recoil from the marred faces with their blank sockets for eyes and pared off ears and noses. To want to cringe at the sight of their warped bodies, missing both arms to the shoulders, pieces of legs, and more beneath the surface of their uneven chests.
As I watch, one of the figures lurches to her feet. “This isn’t where we’re supposed to be,” she rasps out. “We need to help—we need to give over our power?—”
One of the devouts hustles to her side and guides her back down on the bed. His voice trembles a little as he rubs the stump of her shoulder. “Hey there. This is the best place you could possibly be. Once you’re completely well, you’ll be able to help set Silana back on the right course, just as you wanted.”
