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Gods smite me, I can’t blame the people for listening to the scourge sorcerers when we haven’t given them a chance to see the truth.
I crouch down next to Poltus. It should be his choice.
“Are you ready to give your story?” I ask. “I don’t know how they’ll respond.”
He draws his armless frame taller with an air of resolve. “It doesn’t matter. They should know what Lothar’s people did.”
My chest tightens around my heart, but when I look at Casimir, he nods.
We’re in this together, all of us—even the people down there who’d throw Petra’s words back in her face.
The scourge sorcerers are the only real villains here.
And maybe Poltus couldn’t live with himself any more than I could if we don’t expose them in every way we can. This isn’t my fight alone.
I help him to his feet, supporting him on one side as Casimir guides him from the other. We unfasten the cloak that’s concealed the worst of his deformities and let it fall. He’s already discarded the scarf.
Seeing us coming, Petra and the devout step to the side. “Behold what the Order of the Wild has done to your children,” the devout calls out. “This is how they fuel their magic—not through their own work, but through the immense sacrifices of others.”
“What have you ever—” someone starts to yell, but even that voice cuts out with a gasp of horror.
Cries and startled murmurs pass through the crowd staring up at Poltus. I restrain a flinch.
Even if they believe his story, it mustn’t be easy for him to hear their reactions.
Petra sets her amplification charm around the accomplice’s neck. He lifts his voice despite the noises of revulsion rising from below.
“Everything Queen Petra has said is true,” he says, his voice thick but steady. “The Order of the Wild is run by people who get their magic by borrowing it from other people. When I was little and had just lost my mother, a woman who worked with the Order convinced me that the best way I could protect the rest of my family and the country was by giving the most immense sacrifice I could.”
He tilts his head to make it easier for them to see his missing features. “I gave up my eyes, my ears, my nose, my arms. They took even more from inside me. I thought I was helping bring about a better world. But if they want a world that’s better for everyone, why did they keep me and all the other people who sacrificed like me shut away like prisoners? Why have they hidden us so that you won’t find out?”
A voice breaks through the uneasy tumult below. “They did this to other people too?”
“Lots of other people,” Poltus declares, his voice getting even more forceful.
I squeeze his side encouragingly, and he hurtles onward. “There were three others kept in the same room as me. Since then, I’ve met eight who were kept elsewhere. I’ve heard of dozens more. How do you think they managed to overwhelm the entire royal army? Where could all that magic have come from? It was stolen from people they lied to, and they’ll keep lying to you too until it’s too late. Unless we bring this madness to an end!”
An uneven roar of agreement ripples through the crowd. Relief surges through me.
At least some of them believe him. At least some are questioning what they’ve been told.
Several people have spun toward the Order member who was leading the dances. I see a woman pull a girl away from the dancing area while others jab their fingers as if asking accusing questions.
“Where’s the Order?” someone hollers.
“What else are they hiding?”
“We need some answers!”
A flash of crimson at the edge of the crowd brings my head jerking around. A bunch of armed figures in the new Order uniform are shoving along the edge of the crowd toward our building.
My heart lurches. I reach for Petra. “Your Highness, it’s time to go. We have to get to the river.”
The devout has already dashed to the back of the roof. His face pales. “They’re coming from both directions. I don’t think we can make it down in time.”
We were prepared for that. I sling my arm around Poltus’s back and brace myself. “Then we’ll have to jump.”
Twenty-Two
