These Rebel Waves Page 8

  The girl spoke. “I think the Argridians told you to get yourself captured so your presence would create dissension in the Council and help Milo Ibarra’s proposition pass. Whatever is planned, Mr. Bell, I’m here to tell you that I will not let it progress further than this.”

  He blinked, thrown again—this time by her certainty. She cared about this island in the same way Edda cared about keeping their crew safe. Like it was a sacred task she’d been born to.

  The girl was right, though. Sort of. Should he tell her? “I am actually getting blackmailed by Argridians to sell them magic. Which I did. But I didn’t do this. I mean, Argrid didn’t ask me to get arrested, but I did do it because of them—no, wait—”

  Yeah, better to lie.

  “You think I’m working with Argrid?” Vex laughed. “Please. I’d forgotten our beloved mother country had paid us a visit until I was shackled in your courtroom.”

  “Then perhaps it was not an elaborate scheme. Perhaps all you wanted was to create unrest in the government that would lead to easier targets and bigger payouts.”

  “Which would be difficult to capitalize on if I was imprisoned. Or dead.”

  “Ah, therein lies the true purpose of my visit.”

  The girl lifted the jar to the neckline of her bodice. Vex’s eye dropped to it and he cursed himself, but he was already looking at her cleavage, and the girl was watching him look at her cleavage, and—damn it, she’d intended all this, hadn’t she?

  “I’m prepared to make you a trade,” the girl said. “This jar’s contents for an answer.”

  Vex tipped his head. “I thought I was already indebted to you.”

  “That debt will remain. This is separate.”

  Huh. “Go on.”

  “The Healica’s ability to soothe skin ailments should heal your wounds in less than a day.” The girl pressed her palms on either side of the jar. “Do we have an agreement?”

  It was odd for a politician’s daughter to know anything about magic beyond how sailors gathered it from the riverbeds and sold it. The upper class relied on apothecaries and merchants to tell them what to take and how to take it.

  “You’re willing to trust me?” Vex pressed. “Even if I’m as awful as you think I am?”

  “Is that a yes?”

  He bobbed his head, his gaze not breaking from hers.

  “There are three possible outcomes to your current situation,” the girl started. “The two that will lead to strife involve your death: either the Council kills you and angers Head Pilkvist, or Head Pilkvist kills you and Argrid is angered. The only way you will survive is via the third option—so whatever plan you or Argrid had to bring unrest to Grace Loray will not come to fruition.”

  Vex frowned. What would Argrid get out of his death? What had she said earlier—some kind of proposition from one of the diplomats? That couldn’t be good.

  “The third option,” the girl continued, “will be unpopular, but may pass more easily if you cooperate. Will you either pay the hundreds of galles in fines you owe or work off your debt under our supervision?”

  Vex’s smile stiffened. She was seeing if he’d take an out instead of choosing to stay here and keep stirring up trouble. To prove whether or not he was here with a nefarious plan.

  He’d never intended to stir up trouble. He’d wanted only to make it too difficult for his Argridian pursuers to reach him until he figured out some brilliant way to get rid of them.

  But it’d be nice if the Council didn’t kill him first.

  “How would I work for you?” he asked. “Bleed taxes out of the impoverished?”

  The girl drew back. “No one bleeds taxes out of Grace Loray’s—”

  “Yeah, yeah. ‘It’s for the good of the country; we operate for the people.’ Point is, you want me to work for the corrupt system I’ve built a reputation working against.”

  The girl’s mouth bobbed open as if she couldn’t see anything wrong with what he’d said, save for the one word he knew she’d latch onto.

  She held steady, didn’t so much as tremble. “Grace Loray is not corrupt. But yes.”

  He bowed his head. “Fine. If that’s the price of freedom.”

  He reached for the balm, but the girl kept her fingers around it, surprised by his answer. He stopped, his hand close to her bodice’s neckline. The brand on his wrist was shiny in the light from the sconces, Argrid’s crest tangled with the rough R.

  “If that’s all, Princesa.” He closed his fingers over her fist, brushing the lace along her neckline. A lightning bolt shot to his gut. “This is mine?”

  The girl’s lungs hitched, and she released the jar. Vex’s grin widened.

  He unscrewed the lid. The jar held some sort of ivory paste.

  “There are no princesses here,” the girl said, regaining herself. “I am a politician.”

  Vex frowned at her, one finger bent toward the ointment.

  “While it may be in your nature to lie, raider”—she leaned closer—“it is in my nature to control the truth. I never said the contents of the jar were healing balm.”

  Vex shook his head. What? She’d said—

  She’d said that a balm would heal him. Not that that balm was actually in the jar.

  He yanked his finger back. “What’s in the jar?”

  “Maybe healing balm. Maybe poisonous oils from Digestive leaves.” She curtsied. “Lovely speaking with you.”

  Damn it. She had played him. The tight stays, her body against the bars of his cell, every goddamn word from her had been some careful game meant to shake him up.

  The girl got a few steps away before she glanced back at Vex.

  He tipped the jar against his forehead in a salute. “Fair play, Princesa.”

  She spun around before he could read anything else on her. The door to the soldier’s alcove opened, and she was gone.

  7

  BEN’S CARRIAGE STOPPED at the base of the Grace Neus steps. He didn’t get out right away, his fingers digging into the velvet-covered seat.

  Grace Neus Cathedral was the heart of Deza. Its stained-glass windows were riots of scarlet, lavender, and orange; over the front doors stood statues representing the five pillars of the Pious God: purity, honesty, chastity, penance, and charity. Beneath them, wallowing in the Devil’s fiery hell, were depictions of debauchery, overindulging, whoring, and other impurities. High atop it, as on every cathedral, sat the symbol of the Church carved out of white stone: the curved V, cupped hands beseeching the heavens.

  For all its beauty, the cathedral was also the site of Deza’s holding cells. Beneath the sanctuary where choirs sang and congregations gathered were those struggling to purify their souls. Church servants branded the successful and released them; the unsuccessful, well . . .

  People packed the cathedral’s yard, some singing hymns and swaying with their wrists pressed together, hands cupped in the Church’s symbol. Others cried, “Nos purificar!” Purify us.

  The only place that wasn’t clogged with onlookers was the circle at the south end, so seasoned by the burned bodies of those who had refused to repent that Ben wondered if it would ever be anything but a black stain on the ground.

  The door to his carriage opened. Jakes’s watchfulness turned to concern as he leaned in. “Have you changed your mind?”

  Ben didn’t respond. Jakes pulled the door at an angle, blocking them from the crowd as he put his hand on Ben’s thigh. “We don’t have to do this.”

  Jakes’s sympathy brought Ben back to his duty here. Not to watch the daily burning that the crowd had gathered for. Not to stew in memories. He’d come to gain access to the raiders who had been detained, particularly the Mecht.

  Ben wrapped his fingers around Jakes’s, squeezed, and jumped out of the carriage.

  A line of defensors stood between the crowd and Grace Neus, a half circle of navy tunics and feathered hats. Beyond them, nobles clustered across the marble steps—Claudio, his arm linked through Salvador’s, and a few other
aristocrats from that morning’s Inquisitor patrol. They watched him, hopeful and judgmental and a dozen other conflicting, exhausting things.

  Someone broke off from a group of priests, causing everyone on the steps to turn like banners following a breeze.

  “Benat!” Elazar declared. His white and scarlet Eminence robes brushed the stones. “I expected you to be at the University.”

  “I’ve come on that business. If I may speak to you—”

  A cheer drew the crowd’s focus. Ben clenched his fists and turned, holding his breath. Across the long yard, defensors led out the condemned in wrist manacles.

  “Nos purificar!” people cried as soldiers tugged sacks over the heads of the doomed.

  Then, “Burn the barbarian!”

  Ben squinted at one of the prisoners—huge, blond, and unmistakably Mecht. The man’s head vanished under a canvas sack.

  “The raiders.” Ben spun to Elazar. “They can’t be burned already?”

  Elazar’s face was heavy from years of yanking too many souls from the brink of destruction. “The raiders you arrested are guilty of too many crimes. The Pious God demands we commit their souls and bodies to hell.”

  Ben remembered the Mecht attacking him, the fire parting his lips, smoke on his breath.

  “Father.” Ben stepped closer. “Everyone deserves a chance to choose the Pious God. Give them that—the Mecht was defending his captain. You would have done the same.”

  “Do not compare the Eminence King to these vile sinners!” a priest shouted. His voice cut like a dull knife would through flesh and grabbed all attention—the nobles; groups throughout the crowd, looking up at their leaders with wide, curious eyes.

  Ben could pull Elazar aside, ask for a private audience. But hymns continued as soldiers tied the condemned to stakes. They’d shoot the Mecht—the Eye of the Sun kept him from burning, but they could purify his soul in other ways.

  “Father,” Ben tried before the deaths could be carried out. “I need the Mecht warrior my patrol captured. He has knowledge of magic that—”

  Ben’s own words died in his mouth before Elazar shot him a stunned look.

  The Crown Prince had asked to pardon a prisoner because of magic.

  Ben’s body broke out in a cold sweat. He was reminded yet again of why Argrid had never had need of a large military force before the Grace Loray war: because all it took was one word, one whisper of unforgivable sin, to subdue the entire population.

  The priests around them gaped, their hands going to positions of prayer that might as well have been raised fists. Nobles started to whisper magic, a word none of them wanted to be caught with but everyone wanted to say.

  Elazar straightened, and Ben swore he felt the crack of knuckles on his jaw already, the blood spilling over his tongue.

  “Benat is correct,” Elazar said, loud. “Ours is a God of mercy.”

  He leaned to whisper to a nearby priest, who lifted trembling hands.

  “By order of Crown Prince Benat, they shall be spared!” the priest announced.

  The whole yard went silent.

  Heretic was all Ben could think. Heretic, heretic—

  Days after Rodrigu’s and Paxben’s deaths, Ben had wept to go to Grace Loray. He’d heard stories of crowds there overpowering priests and saving the condemned; of guerrilla-style fighters descending on prisoner transports; of the entire country rising up against the Church.

  Why did Argrid want to murder people? Why did Ben’s country take comfort in atrocities padded with words like ordained and righteous?

  He’d asked those questions of his monxe teachers, and of Elazar. All he’d gotten in response were bruises and, eventually, a broken jaw.

  Ben’s pulse throbbed in his neck, his chin aching where the bone had snapped under his father’s hand all those years ago. Eyes from the crowd and nobles bored into him, as hot as fire. Murmured words of shock and horror clumped at his feet, as deadly as dry kindling.

  “Nos purificar!” the people began again, and other prayers they seemed to send not to the Pious God but to Elazar, standing on the steps, unmoving.

  “I gave you this task,” Elazar said for only Ben to hear. “You know its delicate nature. It has been less than a day, and you are already causing unrest. Was I wrong to trust you?”

  Ben shivered and bowed. His fear crested and broke upon him.

  Can Prince Benat be forgiven for this? he already heard people whispering. The Pious God was clear about magic now. There was only one end: death.

  Which was why Elazar had ordered him to make a healing potion: to banish beliefs that stifled their country, to end the extremism and violence.

  Ben looked at his father. Was that what Elazar wanted? Was it possible for him to have changed from someone who had condemned his brother and nephew and beaten his own son to someone who wanted tolerance?

  Defensors led a new group of prisoners out. The first nine were gone, sent back to the holding cells. The crowd’s hysteria rose again, glad that someone would die, proof that evil would be expunged. A few eyes stayed on Ben, though, full of hatred and fear.

  Elazar had his hands to his chest, his lips moving in a prayer Ben caught only pieces of.

  “ . . . give these souls to prove our penitence. We pay for impurities in blood. . . .”

  Elazar would do anything to serve the Pious God. Sacrifice anything. Either the job Elazar had given Ben was what he promised it to be—an improvement to their country—or Elazar was trying to make the sacrifice Ben had felt looming over him for the past six years.

  The royalty gave hope to Argrid while they were alive. But Ben had seen the impact of dead royals—Rodrigu and Paxben had burned and brought desperation for safety at any cost, and unchecked power for the Church.

  What could a dead prince bring?

  Ben retreated, stumbling into Jakes. There was a breath of space between them, so when Jakes asked, “Are you all right?” only Ben heard.

  Jakes took Ben’s elbow regardless and pulled him down the steps. At the far end of the yard, flames fed on dry wood, racing to gobble up the tarnished souls before they could taint this country any longer. A noise filled the air, a scream that could never be unheard.

  Priests said it was the sound of evil being driven out.

  In a fog, Ben wound up back in his suite in the palace. The soft glow of the fireplace’s flames was meant to make his rooms welcoming, but it only stung his eyes.

  He marched past it, stopping to drop his hands to the top of his desk and let out a howl.

  A hand clamped his shoulder. The door to his suite was shut. He and Jakes were alone in the firelight and the curtained darkness of the sitting room.

  A better prince would have ordered Jakes away long ago. A better defensor would have apologized for crossing the line between noble and servant.

  “You’re supposed to make them question, to change their minds,” Jakes tried.

  “Am I?” Ben looked at him. “It feels like heresy.”

  Jakes smiled. Ben spun even more. “Heresy—or hope.”

  The firelight behind Jakes shone between the strands of his hair. The room pitched, the paintings on the walls and the dark cherrywood furniture throbbing with each flicker of flame.

  Jakes was humming. That hymn, and Ben still couldn’t place it.

  “What is that?” Ben whispered. “That hymn you sing when you’re nervous.”

  Jakes smiled. “I’m not nervous.” His face went rigid. “And it isn’t a hymn. My sister used to write songs. It was one of hers.”

  Ben pulled back, his brow pinching. “You never told me that.”

  “You never asked.”

  He didn’t say it accusingly, but Ben’s heart still bucked with shame.

  “Why do you love me?” Ben asked. “I’m selfish. I’m distracted half the time. The Pious God demands chastity until marriage. I’m bad for you in every way possible.”

  Jakes’s face softened. “My sister used to say you could tell a pe
rson’s character by what they considered their weaknesses, rather than their strengths.” His smile was brittle. “You’re my weakness.”

  The firelight heaved, and Ben grabbed Jakes to steady himself. That touch was all he needed—Ben followed the sway of the flames to nestle in the fold of Jakes’s neck.

  If working with magic sentenced him to burn, he hoped this smell—the one that clung to Jakes’s neck, right here, ginger spiced soap and bitter salt in the sweat on his skin—filled his final moments.

  He tangled his hands in the folds of Jakes’s shirt, getting drunk off the sweetest wine.

  8

  LU DID NOT get a chance to speak to either of her parents until the next morning. The Council had been in session when she left Vex’s cell, and Tom was one of the councilmembers at the front of the room, shouting and arguing, making it impossible for her to inform him of what Vex had told her. When Kari and Tom at long last returned to their apartment, bleary and exhausted, Lu was slumped across her desk, half-asleep working on the tonic for Annalisa.

  But finally, the new day dawned. Sunlight streamed through each window Lu passed as she made her way to the castle’s dining room. Alongside the warmth of the soft white light, Lu felt something familiar, and it made her steps heavier.

  The war against Argrid had begun when she was too small to remember. Every time Lu had gone to pick up information on the street or in rooms where one tiny girl went overlooked, she had felt she would burst with the certainty that this would be it. This piece of information, which as a child she had not truly understood—numbers of troops or the location of a battle—would end the war. Later, when Tom sent her out on bloodier missions, everything she did was because of the certainty that she would make things better.

  She felt that same certainty now. Vex was willing to cooperate—which likely meant he was not involved in a larger plot with Milo, which further meant there might not have been a plot at all. Lu may have been a fool to believe a raider, but his response had seemed sincere.

  A just-as-familiar feeling of dread rose when Lu eased open the dining room’s door—not once had her certainty as a child resulted in the war’s end.