The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(22)
Maybe I should be grateful she’s not here now. I want to return to her victorious, so together we can move to the Valtia’s wing as queen and handmaiden. She’s given up so much for me—a regular life, a family, the chance to have children of her own—she deserves honor and ease, and I’m determined to give it to her.
“We’re taking you back to the testing chamber now, my Valtia,” one of the acolytes says as she takes my elbow and leads me to the corridor.
I smooth back my hair and try to wet my sticky tongue. I remember Kauko’s assurance, how the trials always work, how under stress, even suppressed magic bursts forth to protect its wielder. I wipe my clammy palms on my dress and follow the other acolyte, who carries a torch to light our way. The three elders are waiting inside the room, the same place we were early this morning, along with one other young female acolyte and a lean male apprentice.
In his hand is a whip.
A cold, tingling sensation descends from the top of my head all the way down to my feet. The whip is multi-tailed, several braided strips of leather hanging from the stiff handle. I’ve heard Mim tell of how disobedient servants sometimes get lashes, up to ten at a time, and can’t lie on their backs for days. My stomach goes tight. Very well. The whip. If the prickling, icy feeling in my gut is any sign, the copper grave I’ve just escaped has awakened my sleeping magic, and this will be more than enough to bring it out.
When I reach the base of the stairs, the apprentice looks me in the eye. But when I smile at him, he looks away, his jaw clenched. The three female acolytes, shaved bald like their apprentice counterparts, push back their hoods and regard me somberly. The elders take their seats, and Aleksi spreads his chubby fingers over his robed knees. “The trials will begin with thirty lashes,” he says loudly. “Acolytes, strip her to the waist.”
Thirty lashes? I turn my back to the elders so they can’t see my fear. I don’t want the apprentice or the acolytes to see it either. Cool hands touch my shoulders. “Pardon, Valtia,” one of the young women says. She has pale-blue eyes like mine and gentle hands like Mim’s. She unbuttons the back of my dress and bares my skin to men and women alike. My eyes sting with the humiliation as they pull my arms from my sleeves and leave the bodice to hang down over my skirt. I cross my arms over my breasts.
“This way,” says another of the acolytes, this one with spots all over her face. She was the one who closed the lid of the trunk, whose words of faith were the only spark of light before it all went dark. Her hands are hot as she guides me to the opposite wall; she must have an affinity for fire magic. She and the third acolyte, who has a lovely, wide face and well-defined cheekbones, each take one of my wrists and raise them over my head, placing my palms flat against the stone wall of the arena. They reach up to the first tier and pull down two bronze cuffs attached to the floor of the tier with a thick chain.
I let out an involuntary whimper as they close the heavy shackles over my wrists. How different these feel from the cuff of Astia I wore last night. That copper cuff was my ally. I felt it. But these chains—they’re the enemy, heartless and cold. My bare chest touches the damp stone wall, and I shiver violently. After so many hours spent naked in a metal box, with no water and no food since yesterday afternoon, I have no strength to steady myself. The spotty acolyte squeezes my shoulder before releasing me, as if she forgives me for all of it. I want to kiss her cheek in gratitude. I’ll remember that small kindness.
“Ice magic could shatter those chains,” Kauko says from behind me, his voice echoing off the walls in this near-empty arena. “And fire magic could melt them, allowing you to pull your arms free. Ice and fire together could fling the shards or melted metal away from your skin. Those are but a few of the ways you could show us that the magic is awakened within you.”
I press my forehead to the stone. “Proceed.”
When nothing happens, I look at the apprentice out of the corner of my eye. He has hollow cheeks and a soft chin, caught halfway between man and boy. “Go ahead, apprentice,” I say gently. “Do your duty.” I turn my face back to the wall.
For a moment, there is silence. I wonder if the apprentice will refuse to hit me. But then I hear the quick slide of boots against stone and the whistle of leather in the air, and after that I am made of pain. It explodes across my back like a lightning strike, and no sooner has the agony dulled than it happens again. And again. And again. The inferno of hurt rips a scream from my throat. My back is on fire. The searing flames wrap themselves around my body, licking at my ribs and breasts and stomach. No part of me is safe. The apprentice strikes me again, grunting with the effort.
“Shatter the chains, Valtia!” cries one of the acolytes.
Her plea jolts me back to the purpose of this torture. Magic. I am no longer an ordinary girl. I felt something last night as I lay prostrate on that stone slab—the Valtia’s power finding its new home. And I just spent hours encased in copper, which has to be the source of our strength. I have the magic inside me somewhere, and now I need it. Badly.
Ice, come to me.
The whip bites at the flesh from my neck to my waist. My body moves without my permission, my wrists yanking against the cuffs as the leather claims its prize once again. My backbone arches and bows, desperate to save itself from the molten agony. My mind is burning to ash. Finally, numbness splashes over me, filling every space. My legs give out, and I hang, my cheek pressed to cool stone, my hair plastered to my forehead.