Page 10 of In the Ravenous Dark
“Whatever she claims I did, it’s not her fault,” I declare, drawing all eyes to me. “She’s just a silly, airheaded girl who will spread her legs for anyone, and her mother is a poppy-addled charlatan.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can even think of recalling them. They have to think Bethea isn’t worth anything, even if she’s worth something to me.
Never mind that I’ve hardly shown it before today.
Anger sparks in me, for myself, for these people holding us here… and maybe for my father, for what he said about me and my mother long ago:
Slut. Brat. Nothing.
Lady Acantha only regards us both with a level gaze. “We’ll see.”
“No,” I snap, “you’ll tell us what you want with usnow,and then let us get back to our lives. We’re citizens of this polis as much as you. We have rights.” My temper is burning away the fog in my head.
She blinks, affronted. “By right of the law, you’re here to be tested, you insolent girl, though Marklos has already insisted you are a bloodmage and auniquelypowerful one at that.”
“Then give me the test and you’ll see that I’m not.”
“If you’ll pardon my asking, why are you trying to prove you aren’t?” Acantha assesses me from her high perch. “Wouldn’t youwantto be a ward? Keeping citizens safe is a duty that shouldn’t be frowned upon, but that isn’t all we do. Some of us maintain the farms that feed the polis, the gardens that make it beautiful, or the veil that keeps out the blight. Some are celebrated craftspeople or liaisons to the palace. Why, some of us are even royals. You should be so lucky.”
I don’t shrink under the councilwoman’s gaze, but draw my shoulders back and stand taller. My hands are bound, my feet are dirty and bare, and I probably have vomit on my chiton, but I don’t care. This is my chance to give voice to what I should have all those years ago,beforemy father was taken. Before I betrayed him in my thoughts.
Without the use of my arms to gesture, I jerk my head at the smudge near Marklos. “I don’t want one ofthem.”
Acantha glances over her own shoulder, as if surprised to find a faint shadow there. “A guardian? They’re heroic citizens who haveproved themselves in this life and after, and they are here to protect us. It might not be as clear nowadays, but it is a protection we need. Those without magic don’t always understand us. They used to be a danger to us.”
They still might be, given the chance. I keep hearing the screech of the woman in the market:Witch!And yet…
I arch a brow. “Are you sure guardians aren’t meant to put thepeopleat ease more than they are you?”
Acantha’s shrewd gaze narrows. “Does it matter, if the effect is the same? Indeed, there is old-rooted fear on both sides. We have a power that shouldn’t go unchecked, that should serve the state, but that also shouldn’t shrivel in fear of the masses. Both sides rest easier with guardians in between. I assure you, they’re quite unobtrusive. Most of the time, one forgets their presence.”
I scoff. “Even when you’re in bed with someone? Maybe you get excited at the thought of a dead stranger watching, but—”
“Rovan,” my mother snaps, scandalized.
Acantha tilts her head at me. “Why do shades among the living offend you so? The goddess herself is the guardian of the threshold, straddling both life and death.”
I toss my hair. “Yeah, but she didn’t give ustheseguardians.”
“The first king did. Will you disrespect Athanatos now? He rebuilt our great Thanopolis from the ashes of chaos, brought many different peoples together under the safety of the veil, and created a paradise. It was he who first introduced the hematic arts into the royal family by marrying a bloodmage, who established bloodlines to make us strongerandused the pneumatic arts to bind guardians to us for our protection. The king respected blood magic and death magic equally, and found a way for them to work hand in hand. Why would you scorn such a gift?”
“Because those things aredeadandwrongand—”
“Ihaveheard such pointless rhetoric before,” she interrupts,her tone still more curious than offended, “and let me tell you, it leads nowhere you wish to follow.”
I shrug. “If I’m not a bloodmage, then it doesn’t matter.”
Acantha turns to my mother. “And what about you? Are you the source of this pernicious… and dare I saytreasonous… prejudice, or did it come from, say, her father? You see, Marklos has a theory, implausible as it may be. He sent word of it as soon as your daughter arrived, which is why we’re all here.”
“I don’t know what you mean—” my mother starts.
“Ah, here he is. You’ll have to excuse him. He’s not moving as quickly these days.”
A man enters the hall. He has a limp, his cane clacking on the marble tile, and a richly embroidered green himation covering his arms and head. But I can see bits of bright silver-streaked darkbluehair peeking out from the hood. And despite the deep lines in his face that weren’t there before, I would recognize those features and that voice anywhere.
“I don’t see why I need to—” He breaks off at the sight of me and my mother.
“Silvean?” My mother’s cry is disbelieving, desperate, and… betrayed. She takes a few staggering steps toward him and then lurches to a stop. “You’re alive?” she gasps, and then covers her mouth in horror. Maybe because she realizes whatshejust betrayed.
