The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(73)
“Which one is crueler, then?” he whispers as he looks out on the Motherlake. He shudders, shaking off a cold memory. “When we entered the domed chamber, he asked me how I slept at night.”
“And did you tell him about your fiery nightmares?” As powerful as Sig is, I can’t imagine his dreams are peaceful.
Sig bows his head. “No. I don’t like to talk about them. But I think the elder sensed my magic anyway. Because as I was peering at the star chart, he grabbed my arm. The sharpest pain flashed through me, hot and then cold.” He grimaces. “And I couldn’t help it.”
“Your magic rose up,” I say quietly. It protects its wielder—until it destroys him.
His face is still tense with the memory. “The star chart caught fire. The elder’s robes burst into flames. The copper inlay below my feet melted. I couldn’t control it at all. And then I passed out from the heat.” He rubs his hands over his eyes. “When I woke up, I was in a cell in the catacombs, and my head had been shaved. One of the others told me we would be initiated in the morning.”
My brow furrows. “And your father?”
“I imagine the elder told him about the fire magic and paid him off.” And I can tell by the flames in Sig’s eyes that he’s never forgiven his father for it.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to escape. The first time, they caught me, and that dark elder personally oversaw my whipping.”
“Didn’t you . . . I don’t know, melt the chains or something?”
“He used ice to counteract my magic,” he says, an edge to his voice. “He wields both, like all the elders do. And I think he wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to bleed. He . . . I actually think he . . . did something to my wounds. . . .” Sig squirms and swipes at his shoulder blades. “Stars, I don’t know. I wasn’t in my right mind. I have the strangest memories of that night.”
Goose bumps ripple across my skin. I’m betting the dark elder was Aleksi. I wouldn’t put any sort of cruelty past him. “But obviously you escaped.”
Sig turns to me, heat rolling off him in deadly waves, sweat beading his brow. “I’m the son of a locksmith.” He sweeps his hand over the key shape, turning the sand smooth. “When the elder was done with me, he put me in a cell. He was excited. He said he couldn’t believe I’d gone so long without revealing myself. And he said that if I existed, there was another like me that they hadn’t found yet.”
“Oskar,” I murmur. “He knew you were a Suurin.”
Sig leans back, looking surprised. “Oskar actually told you what he was.” His gaze darts to my pocket, where the dove hides. “I didn’t know what the elder was talking about at the time. I just knew they had something terrible planned for me. But they didn’t realize that I know how to open doors, no matter which side of them I’m on. The one gift my father left me with. As soon as the elder left to get the others, I escaped the cell. I found my way out to the temple dock and swam for my life. I sneaked out of the city and ended up finding the camp.” He snorts. “Well. Oskar ended up finding me, if I’m honest.”
I smile. “He found me, too.”
Sig is quiet for a few moments. “Oskar told me I should never show the others how powerful I was, so that no one would ever be tempted to sell that information to the priests. He said I would be safer if the elders thought I was dead. And I tried. For so long.” He stares at a patch of sand, and before my eyes, it melts into glass. “But now I’m done hiding.”
I wonder if his hatred makes the fire burn hotter. “Now you want to take down the priests before the Valtia is in control again.”
He lets out a humorless grunt of laughter. “I’ve wanted that for years. Give me one good reason why they should remain in power. Explain why they geld and shave and torture just to bend young wielders to their will. Explain why they keep the Saadella and the Valtia from mingling with the people. Explain why they use the Valtia until her body is destroyed, while they live long, long lives. And then,” he says, his voice a flame unto itself, “tell me why magic wielders can’t choose the lives they want. Tell me why we, of all people, are made into slaves.”
I frown. “The apprentices and acolytes seem happy enough with their fates, and so do the priests.”
Sig’s fingers burrow into the sand. “Then explain why there are exactly thirty priests, all of them men, and exactly thirty apprentices to replace them—and yet there are a hundred or more acolytes at any one time, with more being brought to the temple every month. Have you ever seen an old acolyte?”
The winter wind buffets my back. “No, but they’re cloistered after a certain age. They live in quarters within the catacombs.”
“Mmm. Just a different kind of cave dweller, then.” His eyes narrow. “And how many of them do you think there are now? Five hundred? A thousand? More than that? How do that many people live in complete isolation? How much food would be required to feed them all? Do you really believe that’s what happens to them?”
A chill rattles in my chest, and it has nothing to do with the cold breeze. “What do you believe?”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t say, but I will tell you that I wandered that underground maze for hours, looking for a way out. I saw chamber after chamber filled with copper ore and bars, baubles and coins, but I never once came upon a single cloistered acolyte, let alone quarters meant to house hundreds of them.”