The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(52)
She bites her lip, then grins with her secret knowledge. “He wields it.”
“There are lots of wielders in the caverns.” I thought I’d met all of them in the past few weeks—and none of them seem that powerful. “Which one is he?”
She shakes her head. “Sig hasn’t been around since the fight with the miners. A bunch of the other wielders were angry after it happened—they thought it would draw the attention of the Valtia and her elders. So Sig and a bunch of his friends who are wielders left the caverns and haven’t been back since. But believe me, no one wields fire like he does. He is made of fire.”
The rumors Mim heard from Irina the scullery maid were right after all. There was a strong fire wielder among the cave dwellers. “If he has such an affinity for fire magic, why is he in the outlands instead of in the temple?”
“Why would he want to be in the temple?”
“To live a life of privilege and serve the Valtia and the Kupari people? Such a strong wielder would surely have been chosen as an apprentice, guaranteed to become a priest one day. Why would he want to live in a cave in the outlands instead?” This is something I’ve been dying to ask for weeks.
Freya’s little face squinches up. “Because he didn’t want to be gelded and shaved, to begin with?”
“G-gelded?” My stomach turns as I remember one of my lessons with Kauko, about how male horses often have this procedure to make them easier to control.
Freya leans forward, her braids swinging, and speaks in a low conspiratorial voice. “It’s when they cut off a boy’s—”
I wave my hand in the air. “It’s all right. I understand.” I think of the apprentices and younger priests, few of them as tall as a normal man, many of them with high, reedy voices. I think of all the little boys I’ve seen over the years, led into the temple after having been taken away from their families. And of Niklas, the boy who had been hit by a cart before Aleksi brought him in. Aleksi had said he was eager to get to the temple—but what if he’d been trying to get away? All the things I’ve seen over the years come back to me, painted with a much more sinister tint. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I think of Oskar and his freezing eyelashes. How was he not found by the priests?
I look into his sister’s eyes. “The wielders in this camp weren’t banished from the city, were they? They chose to live out here instead of serving in the temple. They’re in hiding.”
Freya’s mouth twists as she chews that over. “Sometimes older kids will realize they can wield magic and escape before they’re found. But sometimes their parents see what they can do and . . .” She rocks back as if she’s caught herself on that slippery slope. “What do you think Oskar will bring us for dinner?” she asks, picking up her pace as we tread the well-concealed rocky trail that leads to the caverns.
But I can’t hold back anymore. “Oskar’s a wielder, isn’t he?”
Freya stops, her skinny fingers tightly clutching the handle of her basket. “I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s a lie,” she says fiercely.
“Freya,” I say, trying to adopt the tone Mim always took when I was being stubborn about having my hair washed. “I saw him. Last night.” Every night. “His face was covered with ice as he slept.”
Her eyes shine with angry tears. “He doesn’t want anyone to know. He made me promise not to tell.” And now it probably feels to her as if she’s betraying him.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I promise her. “I’m too grateful for everything you all have done for me. I’d never do anything to hurt him or your family. You know that.”
She swipes the back of her hand across her cheek. “I wish he would tell people,” she says, still sounding angry. Like the bear cub to her brother’s full-grown grizzly. “I don’t understand why he’s hiding from it. Sig doesn’t hide. He says we’d be just as powerful as the Valtia if we banded together.”
This time I cannot hide my naked shock, at so many of her declarations. “We?”
Her cheeks glow with pink. “Oskar told me to keep quiet about it. But . . . I can wield a bit of fire myself.” She bites her lip. “Nothing like Sig can, though.”
“Sig thinks he can take on the Valtia?” My voice cracks as I say it. Here I’d thought I was foolish for believing the thieves’ caverns were as dangerous as I’d heard—and now I realize they’re more dangerous than I ever believed. “Surely he’s joking?”
Freya may only have a decade or so of life experience, but she’s clearly learned a lot. She peers at my face, then smiles and giggles. “I’m sure he was joking,” she says, starting to skip as we descend below the earth. “Sig’s funny like that.” She gasps as we round the bend—there are several horses tethered to a post in the open area in front of the caverns.
“What is it?”
“Come on!” she says, grinning, tugging my sleeve.
My heart hammering, I walk with Freya into the front cave. There’s a crowd of people milling around the center, where a young man is standing on the community hearth. He looks about Oskar’s age, but they couldn’t be more different. He’s of medium height, perhaps two hands taller than me—and a hand shorter than Oskar. He’s pale as a sequestered acolyte, like he never emerges into the sun. His cheekbones are so sharp they look like they could cut someone. His close-cropped hair is white-blond spun with gold that glints in the light of the flames around him. Although most people are wearing cloaks or at least heavy, long-sleeved tunics, this man is shirtless, wearing only trousers belted at his lean hips and a pair of leather boots. His body is angular, chiseled muscles over long bones. His eyes are two black-brown points of darkness, the only thing about him that doesn’t seem made of brightness. His arms are spread, and he’s giving some sort of speech, his voice echoing so heavily that I can’t yet make out the words.