A Queen of Ice (A Trial of Sorcerers #5)

Chapter 28

28

T he others stared down at the Pillar even as Eira walked away. Wordlessly, they fell into step.

Alyss caught up with Eira. “What happened to caution and not rushing into things?” she murmured, glancing around. They were moving faster now through the back alleyways.

Eira kept skimming over the streets, debating whether it’d be less suspicious to walk out in the open where they could move among the crowd. “She gave me no choice.”

“We could’ve knocked her out,” Alyss said under her breath, soft enough that she might not have been intending for Eira to hear.

“So she could wake up all the more suspicious and knowing our faces?” Eira couldn’t fathom her friend’s logic.

“We’re concealing ourselves; she didn’t get that good of a look.”

“Why are you defending one of them?” Her question was harsher than she might have otherwise intended. But Eira couldn’t fathom what would ever make Alyss argue for a Pillar’s life. “You know what they did to me, to Olivin and Yonlin, all of us.”

“Of course I know.” Offense was written in the deep lines of her furrowed brow. “But that woman didn’t do any of those things. She didn’t deserve to die.”

“Alyss, you’ve seen me kill. You’ve killed, too.”

“Maybe she wasn’t one of them.” Alyss’s musing was even more faint.

“What do you mean?” Eira wasn’t letting the doubt be swept away. She wouldn’t tolerate mutiny.

“You remember what your uncle said, don’t you? That people didn’t have a choice when the Pillars rose to power. They were forced to join or die.” Alyss shook her head. “She might have been innocent.”

Protecting the innocents… Eira knew that was what Alyss would cling to.

“I saw her eyes. I know she was one of them down to the core of her soul. Even if she hadn’t yet directly crossed or potentially brought harm to us, she would’ve,” Eira said without doubt. She slipped her hand into her friend’s and gave it a gentle squeeze, trying to assuage some of her guilt. “Ulvarth’s words are a corruption that, after a point, can’t be cut out or cured. There is only one end for it. Whatever innocence she had was long gone.”

Alyss squeezed her hand back and said nothing. Still, it served as reassurance that she understood what Eira was saying, and that she felt heard by Eira. After another second, Eira released her fingers, glanced around a corner, and continued on.

The truth was…she had thought little about that woman’s history. Whether she was a devout believer of Ulvarth, or had been taken in, forced, twisted over time to their beliefs until the contortion felt natural. Eira didn’t care. Everyone who bore the mark of the Pillars, who gave them safety or sympathy, were her enemy and she would be their end.

She rounded another corner and rethought her path, avoiding another close encounter with a few individuals in the alleyway. Fortunately not Pillars this time. Just some more maroon-cloaked men.

Wait . Eira’s heart was instantly pounding. She trusted her instincts too much to think she was imagining things. Which meant only one thing:

They were being followed.

No, more than that. They were being herded. She’d been choosing the paths of least resistance—streets that were small and empty. Every fork in the road had some maroon-cloaked men and women milling about on one side.

Eira slowed her pace as she passed a window. The building was narrow and the windows aligned in just the right way that she could see through to the other side of the street. She grabbed for the door with a black X upon it. Unlocked, thank Yargen . She stretched out her magic and picked up on the echoes in the space.

We have to leave. Now. Before they find us. Get your things. We’re going to the countryside … A brief conversation played in her mind of a family making their flight. For their sakes, Eira genuinely hoped they’d made it out of Hokoh before that X was painted on their door.

Without instruction, her friends followed her into the dark home. Another gift of the goddess was that it didn’t smell like rot. Their escape must’ve been successful.

Eira crossed over to the far window and put her back beneath it. Her friends crouched down. Ducot scurried off Olivin’s shoulder, darting into the shadows.

“What is it?” Olivin asked, sliding up to her side.

Eira slowly pushed herself up, glancing over the window. The maroon cloaks were nowhere to be seen. She sat back down, sinking into the gloom of the unlit home, and stared intently at the opposite window.

“We’re being followed.”

“What?” Olivin breathed. “By who?”

“I don’t know yet.” They didn’t seem like Pillars. Of course, it could be some new sect under Ulvarth’s powers. But the Pillars weren’t known for subtlety…especially not since they had gained the upper hand. “Watch.”

Sure enough, just as Olivin’s eyes swung to the opposite window, the two cloaked men passed by. Though they now wore expressions of confusion. They glanced around before quickly backtracking.

“I don’t know them,” Olivin said cautiously.

“ Eira ,” Alyss rasped in alarm.

Eira’s head jerked to her, but there was no need for Alyss to explain. She saw what Alyss had been about to warn her of emerging from the shadows in the back of the room. The glowing dots of Ducot’s brow cut through the darkness first. Then the man emerged, a shadowed figure looming over his back.

She slowly rose to her feet. Her hand balled into a fist, frost coating it. She dipped her chin and stared up through her lashes. The figure’s maroon hood became visible in the lowlight, though his face was still obscured. Her friends moved in tandem with her, readying themselves.

“What do you want with us?” Eira asked, trying to keep the question as neutral as possible—not afraid, so there would be no interpretation of guilt. Not demanding, so it couldn’t be perceived as overly aggressive. Despite what Alyss might think, she genuinely wasn’t looking to pick fights. But if the fight came to her…

“Such a tone… You always were quite the spitfire, though. Never could take an order to save your life. Or the lives of others.” The man chuckled. His voice was deep and gravelly, raspy. As if it had suffered from overuse.

“What do you know about me?” Her tone had gone frigid at the mention of her friends’ lives.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Ducot stepped aside. The man rose his head. Eira stared at a familiar face. A ring of scars lined his neck beneath his chin.

“Mother above. Lorn?”