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He motions to the soldier. “Hovi, return to the others and have them follow. The sooner they can catch up with us, the better.”
The guard bobs his head and lopes off in the direction we came from. We continue onward at a faster pace, but all my senses stay vigilant for further magical protections.
Only the vague, drifting impression of magic remains. It intensifies as we continue, until the trees start to thin up ahead and I make out a couple of squat wooden buildings in a clearing some fifty paces away.
We all go still, peering between the trunks. We have a little illusionary magic wrapped around us to deflect attention, but that won’t hide us from magical surveillance or particularly attentive guards. We don’t have enough of the more potent charms to conceal much of a fighting force.
And whoever strikes the first blows will automatically become a target.
As we study the buildings, the rest of our force catches up with us. Most of the group hangs back several paces, but Casimir and Alek tread carefully over to where the four of us are standing.
A couple of men emerge from one of the buildings and amble around it with only brief glances toward the trees. They look as if they’re pretty confident that their magical protections are all they need to fend off intruders.
Rheave sucks in a breath and speaks under his breath. “One of those is a captured daimon. This is definitely a place of scourge sorcery.”
“Then we need to find out what they’re up to,” I mutter. “But we don’t know how many of them are here right now or what kind of magic they can wield.”
A few deep gouges mark the ground farther out from the buildings. Their edges gleam with a sheen that doesn’t look like soil or grass. When I squint, I make out a mottling of ruddy gashes on some of the nearby tree trunks around the edge of the clearing.
Whatever magic they’ve been experimenting with, it doesn’t look like the peaceful type.
Sulla offers a small smile. “It shouldn’t be difficult to create a distraction with our own magic.”
I stifle a laugh. “I don’t think we want Rheave setting the forest on fire. That would be bad for us too.”
A crease forms in her brow. “I was thinking the two of us could manage enough of an effect.”
Oh. With a lurch of my pulse, my body stiffens even more than it had already.
Since she arrived, I’ve avoided talking with Sulla about the exact results of my magic usage, but I can hardly hide it now.
I force my hands to unclench, willing my voice to remain steady. “I’m only releasing my power when it’s absolutely necessary. I—I’ve already felt the madness coming on. I don’t want to push myself farther toward it unless there’s no other option.”
The older woman stares at me for a few heavy thuds of my heart, the color leaching from her weathered skin. “You only left the Haven a matter of weeks ago. You’ve already let yourself go so far— You threw aside everything I taught you?—”
I wince. “I didn’t throw it aside. I followed your teachings as well as I could. But there was so much we needed to do, and I didn’t know it would affect me so quickly.”
“I warned you!” Sulla’s whispered voice sharpens into a hiss. “After all that insistence that you knew what you were doing?—"
Stavros cuts her off with a sharp sound. His voice comes out low but fierce. “Ivy risked her life and her mind to protect this country from the scourge sorcerers. If it wasn’t for her, the entire Melchiorek family would be dead right now.”
As Sulla jerks around to stare at him, Casimir dips his head where he’s standing by my shoulder. “And as soon as she realized she was in trouble, she restricted her magic to ensure she wouldn’t lose control. As she’s shown just now. You should be pleased that she recognizes her limits.”
The courtesan’s normally gentle voice takes on a chiding edge with that last sentence. Alek rests his hand on the small of my back in reassurance, and Rheave has bristled as if he thinks he might need to leap to my defense with more than words.
Their automatic support brings a flood of warmth into my chest, but a pang of guilt resonates alongside it.
What they’ve said is true… but it’s also true that I pushed myself past what I should have known I was ready for. What any riven sorcerer would ever be ready for.
Sulla takes in their expressions and mine, and her stance gradually relaxes. The smile she gives me next looks tight but also sad.
“All right. Maybe I shouldn’t judge. I wasn’t there, because I was hiding away on my mountaintop. I still think…” She shakes her head with a sigh. “Let me handle this. For when you do extend yourself in the future… It’s important to remember that even very small acts can have a large impact.”
She scans the trees around the clearing and points to a broad oak with mottled greenish bark. “That tree’s sick—the branches will be weakening. With just a small nudge…”
Her eyes narrow in focus. Her fingers twitch at her sides—and one of the thickest branches on the tree cracks off the trunk.
It plummets with a thunderous crash. With another magical nudge, Sulla sends a second branch tumbling after it.
