executed. He said he personally oversaw their executions.
Were there others? How big was the Uprising? What had Sev’s father done to earn their ire?
“They are more powerful than you know,” the stranger went on. “And they have eyes and ears in places you would never expect. Your family needs to flee as soon as possible.”
“Who are they, Lucrez?” Sev asked. “Is it Rasmus Orturio? It was his brothers the king executed after…”
Sev trailed off, and I knew why: to spare me the mention of my parents’ deaths, the details that had been scrubbed, neatly packaged, and dispatched across the sea so that my brother and sisters and I might have closure. I had never asked for the names of the rebels; they hadn’t mattered. I thought they were all dead, everyone who’d plotted such senseless violence.
“Orturio has never been involved with the Uprising,” the woman called Lucrez replied. “He isn’t radical like his brothers were. He made his own path.”
Sev cocked his head. “You work for Rasmus Orturio and live under his roof. You know so much about the Uprising’s movements. And yet you claim the two have no relationship.”
“He keeps his ear to the ground, and so do I.”
“What about the rumors?” he asked. “That Orturio killed his first wife for not being pious enough, that he killed his second wife for prying into his business, that he kills people for knowing too much—”
Lucrez bleated out a laugh. “You sound like a gossiping hen, Sev!”
“What am I supposed to believe? You’ve told me nothing about the Uprising. How will I know who to run from, where to go?”
“You already know where to go: your father’s cabin in the woods. It’s the only safe place. And you don’t need to know anything about the Uprising except that they won’t hesitate to kill you and your family.”
Sev quietly pushed out of his chair and crossed the room, drawing near enough to block my view.
“You can come out,” he said.
Wary, I stepped out of hiding. The woman’s mouth dropped open.
“This is Lucrez,” he explained. “She’s a friend from the palace. She was a dancer in the king’s court before your sister dismissed her. Lucrez, this is—”
“The queen’s sister, who has a bounty on her head? Who brought winter to Halithenica and spoiled the summer harvest?”
My better instincts told me to apologize and promise I would make things right. But instead, I retorted, “Pleasure.”
“Likewise,” she said, but her tone was playful. “Oh, Sev. Don’t tell me this means you’re harboring someone else…”
“Then I won’t tell you.”
Lucrez shook her head. “You make it hard, trying to protect you.”
“She ordered me to kill them both, Lucrez. What should I have done?”
“Why was your father called an elicromancer sympathizer?” I asked quietly.
Sev hesitated, staring into the fire for a moment before he said, “After the Uprising murdered your parents, King Myron sent his huntsman to track down the murderers and bring them back for execution.”
I swallowed, trying to find the words to speak. “Your father…avenged my parents’ deaths?”
He led me back to the table and hunkered down, sliding his ale in front of him, but he didn’t drink. “He died in a hunting accident just days after. I have no proof, but I always suspected other members of the Uprising killed my father and made it look like poachers.”
Eyeing Lucrez, I took the seat next to Sev.
“The Uprising has grown smarter and more secretive since,” he explained. “They have resources, funds, information. There haven’t been any more public assassinations, but elicromancer sympathizers go missing sometimes. A few years ago, one of the king’s advisors suggested asking the Realm Alliance to send a Healer to stop a raging cattle disease. He disappeared.”
“Why do they hate us so much?” I asked, but I didn’t need to hear the answer. I thought of our legacy of destructive dark magic: the Moth King, Tamarice, Ambrosine, and now…me.
“The Perispi people would rather see Navara crowned as queen rather than submit to your sister’s rule,” Lucrez explained. “But the Uprising wants to take it further. They want to kill all elicromancers and their allies, to purge the earth of what they consider unholy magic.”
“They resent King Myron for straying from the faith and marrying an elicromancer,” Sev said, and he tucked his hand in his vest pocket in a way that made me think he might be hiding an effigy there. “They want to make sure Navara takes the crown and honors her mother’s legacy. They want to manipulate her into becoming