“You do have aura.” Genevie clasped my hand. “It is only sleeping. If anyone can awaken it, it is Madame Perle. She can help you reconnect with yourself through your deep memories.” Genevie’s autumn-brown eyes and closed-lipped smile reflected the confidence underlying her quiet voice. It dissipated the tension I’d held in my muscles for so long.
For the first time in four months, I felt rational, sustainable hope that I could be made whole again.
Just as I started to ask more about Madame Perle, Genevie’s fingers stiffened in my grasp. Her shoulders hitched, like an agitated cat with its hair on end. “Something is different,” she said.
It took me a moment to realize what she meant: she felt something different. I broke into a wide grin. “Have your friends arrived?” I moved to look out the window, but Genevie wouldn’t let go of my hand.
“No, it isn’t them.” She bowed her head in concentration. “There are many. One aura radiates strongest. It surges with a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction . . . but it feels wrong somehow. Ça me rend malade. It is making my stomach turn.”
With a shaky breath, I pulled away and squinted through the window. Past the leaded panes, a regiment of at least sixty soldiers were coming through the gate. Our guards had let them in. Of course they had. These men wore the same red-and-gold uniform of Riaznin, along with a blue sash, denoting their affiliation with the new democracy.
For one brief moment, I ignored Genevie’s warning and hope flared in my heart. Was Anton with them?
His face flashed to the forefront of my mind. I pictured the straight slope of his aristocratic Ozerov nose. His kind and fathomless brown eyes. His marble-cut cheekbones and the thin sculpt of his upper lip. I felt his warm hands on my waist. The remembrance of his strong and luminous aura.
I scanned the men, searching for his dark hair, broad shoulders, and regal posture, but I found him nowhere.
A movement below me caught my eye, close to the convent porch. One of the soldiers had ridden ahead of the others. He wore a plumed general’s hat. I couldn’t see his face, not until he glanced up.
I gasped and jumped back from the window. All the muscles in my body stiffened, and my blood ran colder than the governor’s icy blue eyes.
Feliks.
I whirled around to Genevie. “We have to wake up Sestra Mirna!” I whisper-shouted, though Feliks couldn’t have heard me. “He can’t know I’m alive!”
“Who?” Genevie peered out the window for herself.
“General Kaverin.” I tightened my fists. “I don’t have time to explain, but if he knows I’ve survived and am powerless, he’ll never let me live.”
“Why do you think he has come here?” Genevie asked.
I shook my head, rushing for the door. “The convent is an outpost for the army. Maybe enemy forces are nearby. Feliks could have brought his regiment here to prepare for battle.”
As I reached for the handle, the door flew open. Tosya stood there, panting on the threshold. His olive skin had paled to a sickly green. “Feliks is asking for you, Sonya.”
My heartbeat skidded to a stop, then broke into galloping race. “Tell him I’m dead!”
“Too late. One of the convent soldiers slipped up and said you were here.”
I stumbled back a step, clenching my hands in my hair. “What do I do?”
He reached out with his long arm and grabbed mine. “Run! I’ll help you escape.”
He yanked me into the upstairs corridor, and we fled toward the back stairs. Soldiers emerged on the landing. We turned and rushed the other way, but at the opposite end of the corridor, more soldiers stormed up the main staircase.
We backed up slowly. Panic constricted my chest. Each breath came harder than the last.
The plume of Feliks’s general’s hat rose above his soldiers’ as he came forward. The men stepped aside, letting him pass. Once he laid eyes on me, his mouth hitched in a half grin. The disturbing sense of satisfaction Genevie had felt within him showed plainly across his smug expression.
“Auraseer Petrova,” he said, his cunning gaze raking over me. “What magic you possess. It appears even the former emperor cannot kill you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“WHO TOLD YOU I WAS—?”
“Alive?” Feliks motioned for one of his soldiers to draw up an armchair in front of the fireplace. They had moved me to the convent library, where a fire was already crackling in the hearth, and dragged along Tosya and Genevie, no doubt to threaten them if I became difficult. Feliks still believed I had my power to alter emotions, otherwise he wouldn’t have traveled three days from the capital during wartime to retrieve me. “Some of the soldiers who used to be stationed here confided the truth when they returned to the city.”
My fingers curled in the folds of my skirt. “They promised to keep that a secret.”
“Whom did they promise? Anton?” Feliks sat down and leveled his gaze on me, seated across from him on a worn couch between my friends. “Not everyone treats the governor of Torchev like a prince anymore. There are other Duma councilors they must answer to—above all, their general.” He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. He reminded me so much of Valko then, an arrogant ruler on his throne.
“Does Anton know you’ve come here?” I asked, fighting to steady my erratic heartbeat. The Anton I knew—the Anton who loved me—would have protected me at all costs.
“No, I’m afraid he doesn’t. The Duma saw fit to send Governor Ozerov on a lengthy mission just before I left, so the timing worked out rather well.”
I glanced at Tosya to see if he knew what Feliks was talking about, but he shook his head, his eyes mirroring my worry. “What mission?” I asked. “If you’ve endangered Anton in any way to make me—”
“It’s a diplomatic mission, so you have nothing to fear. Anton is far too valuable an asset for me to compromise. His ties to Estengarde—”
“You sent him to Estengarde?” My voice pitched high. Alaise, the capital city, was a two-week journey to the west, sometimes more, depending on road conditions in the Bayac Mountains pass. “Why would you send him so far when the wars are here?” Feliks had to have a justifiable reason besides getting Anton out of the way. He was a practical man, if nothing else. Then it struck me: “You want him to forge an alliance.” The alliance Valko had failed to achieve last spring.
Anton had a time-tested relationship with King Léopold, who had protected him when he was a child living in hiding near the border of Estengarde. It was all a part of Anton’s father, Emperor Izia’s, plan to one day foster an alliance between nations. At least that’s what Valko suspected, for he had spent his childhood on the opposite side of Riaznin, living near Shengli, where Izia had made a similar arrangement with our eastern neighbors.
Feliks’s hands spread wide. “Free Riaznin is strong, but the former emperor has now amassed support from one-third of our nation. We cannot hope to conquer his armies and the invading Shenglin without more help. One war is taxing enough. We need the Esten alliance . . . and we need you.”
Tosya stiffened beside me. Genevie stared intently at Feliks, surely scouring his aura, though I doubted he held any secret sentiments. Feliks’s motives had always been transparent. He was a man driven by a vain sense of righteousness that allowed him to rationalize the most extreme measures he took to uphold justice.
He pulled his sleeve cuffs taut. “I see no need to mince words, Sonya. I’m willing to forgive your numerous trespasses—above all, treason—for your cooperation.”
“You want me to be your weapon in both wars,” I concluded with a grim nod. While Feliks knew I couldn’t bend the emotions of a large group of people, I’d shown I could influence individuals in high positions. At least I once could, but that power was long gone.
“To have a fair fight, we need a powerful Auraseer, like the one Valko has.”
“Dasha.” My stomach tightened. I pictured the little girl, her delicate features, large gray eyes, and dark, waving hai
r. Valko was surely fashioning her into the weapon he’d once dreamed I could be. “What has she done?”
“What hasn’t she done?” Feliks replied. The tassels of his epaulettes danced as he gave a humorless laugh. “No one but another Auraseer can say for certain, but Valko is rumored to bring her everywhere. She is seen before and after battles. Dasha rides with him while he parades through towns, recruiting his army. People fear her. Some have seen her use her power. Dasha has become a symbol of Valko’s reclaimed reign.”
I swallowed hard, feeling more helpless than ever. Feliks believed I could outmatch a seven-year-old girl, but I couldn’t, not even to save her. “You’re a fool to think you can control me. I could compel you and your regiment to leave here and ride as far as Abdara if I had the mind to.”
“Could you, now?” Feliks smirked and leaned forward. “I imagine that would require an extraordinary level of exertion. What would it take, I wonder, to sustain it?”
I’d gone too far with my bluff, but it didn’t matter. “You don’t have any real leverage, and you know it. This discussion is pointless.” At the very least, Feliks had to believe threatening my friends at the convent wouldn’t get him anywhere. As far as he knew, I had the power to persuade him to back down. I’d done so before.
“You’re forgetting who isn’t here,” Feliks said, one step ahead of me. “A little someone I found living in appalling conditions in Torchev.”
I wasn’t following.
“Have you forgotten young Kira so easily?”
My ribs contracted like prison bars across my lungs. I inwardly cursed Feliks with every foul name I could think of. “What have you done with her?” He knew I loved Kira like a sister, just as I loved Dasha. I should have predicted this was the card he would play.
His grin broadened, his manner as cool and indifferent as his glacier-blue eyes. “I have her detained somewhere; that is all you need to know. She is safe for now.”
Genevie turned her mouth to my ear. “He is lying,” she whispered.
My heart gave a hard pound of alarm. I turned to her. “How?”
“Take the other Auraseer out of here,” Feliks barked at his soldiers.
“Wait!” I clutched Genevie’s arm, but two men dragged her out of the library. Feliks couldn’t have heard what she’d said to me, but he was suspicious all the same. Clearly, he didn’t want more than one Auraseer in here, reading the intentions behind his words. If only I could. He’d lied about Kira, but which part? Was he holding her hostage or not? Was she truly safe?
“Do I have your attention now?” Feliks asked me. “I’m not asking for your help, Sonya; I’m requiring it. Free Riaznin needs you. Not only as a weapon, but to be our symbol, just as Dasha is Valko’s.”
“A symbol?” Dizziness flashed through my head. I couldn’t think clearly. Not with Kira in possible danger. “How?”
“That part is simple. Just ask your friend here, the ‘Voice of the Revolution.’”
I blinked, frowning at Tosya. The “Voice of the Revolution” was a title the people had given him because he’d penned the poem that sparked the revolution. But what did that have to do with me? “What is Feliks talking about?”
Tosya turned his hands up. “I have no idea.” Still, a slight tremor ran across his forehead. Was he afraid, or was he hiding something? No, he was my best friend.
Feliks motioned to a soldier, who brought forth a traveling bag. Feliks unbuckled it and withdrew a slim, forest-green book. He held it up for us to see. My breath caught. Embossed on the cover was the title Sovereign Auraseer.
Tosya jumped to his feet, crossed to Feliks in three strides, and snatched the book away.
A few soldiers stepped forward, but Feliks held up a hand to stall them. “Go on,” he urged Tosya. “Read it for yourself. Another excellent poem.”
Tosya fumbled through the pages, and his shoulders fell. He dragged a hand over his face.
“I don’t understand,” I said, a terrible foreboding wrenching deep in my belly. “Did you write that, Tosya?”
Our eyes met, and his dark brows rose helplessly. “I write a lot of things, Sonya. I told you, you had an inspiring story,” he said, shame creeping into his voice. “But I swear to you, I never published this. I would never endanger you like that.” He whirled on Feliks. “Where did you get this?”
“From you, naturally.” Feliks folded his hands in his lap. “You’re a terribly unguarded person, if you must know the truth. Your belongings were easy to confiscate. After I learned Sonya was alive, I had you tracked, seeing as you two are close friends. I never imagined the gem you would give me.” His fingers fanned out, pointing at the book. “You see, above all, the people in Riaznin need hope. In their terror of being conquered by the Shenglin, they’re turning to the old ways—to Valko. They see his regime as the strongest, the most capable of driving out the Shenglin. We need to show them that the democracy is stronger.”
Dread trickled into the pit of my stomach. I rose on shaky feet. “Tosya,” I said, my pulse thundering in my ears, “what did you write in that book?”
He exhaled, briefly squeezing his eyes shut. “Everything.”
“Everything?” I repeated, my tone severe.
“Everything you did for the revolution,” he clarified, lowering his gaze as he passed me the book.
My hands trembled as I flipped through it. I fought to breathe. It revealed all that I feared. My power to manipulate emotions. My role in persuading Valko to abdicate. How I’d felt a legion of auras during the One Day War—all the emotions of the peasants storming the palace—and forced Valko to feel them. On the last page of the book was a drawing: Valko cowering on the ground while I held his crown aloft in the air.
My legs threatened to give way. I stumbled backward to sit on the couch before my knees buckled. This couldn’t be happening. Feliks had threatened to exploit my power in the past, but never publicly. “This isn’t the only copy, is it?”
Feliks grinned, seeing I was catching on. “Before I left, I saw that the poem was distributed throughout Torchev. Soon it will spread to farther reaches of Riaznin. Even now, people are reading about the sovereign Auraseer who once saved them and will save them again. And those who can’t read . . . well, that picture there should suffice.”
“But”—Tosya kneaded his brow—“the people don’t know Sonya is alive, right?” I didn’t need to be an Auraseer to see the dying hope on his face. He must have known Feliks was too clever to miss a detail like that. The general wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of publishing and distributing this poem if people thought I was dead.
“Did you miss the last line of the book?” Feliks gave him a secretive grin. “I hope you don’t mind, Tosya. I took the liberty of writing that small part myself.”
Fully baited, I turned to that page. Tosya leaned over me to read it too.
Now she rests at the convent of Auraseers, waiting for the day her people need her once more.
I closed the book. Hunched over. Buried my head in my hands. “You don’t know what you’ve done,” I said to Feliks. Word would spread. Valko would find out I was alive. He’d have me hunted and killed. I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. Or save Dasha. Or anyone.
The door to the library flung open. Sestra Mirna stood there in her nightgown and an untied robe, her body tense. Even her toes clenched white on the floorboards. “What are you doing here, General Kaverin?” Her tone sounded fierce, though it rang weakly. She looked younger, more vulnerable without her gray hair tied back into a kerchief. It hung in wiry waves past her shoulders. “You leave Sonya alone. She has sanctuary in this convent.”
“Yes, if she chooses it,” Feliks replied matter-of-factly. The embers in the fireplace sparked behind him. “But after everything she and I have discussed, I believe she will see reason and come with me. Sonya is needed in Torchev.”
“She will do no such thing. She’s needed here. You can’t—”
My hands dug in my scalp. “I have no po
wer anymore!”
“Sonya!” Sestra Mirna gasped and started coughing. She brought her handkerchief to her mouth as her eyes rounded on me. I’d just revealed the secret we’d worked so hard to protect.
Feliks’s studied me carefully. “Lying won’t help anyone, Auraseer Petrova, most certainly not your young friend, Kira.”
“I am thinking of Kira,” I snapped. The sestra’s eyes widened another fraction at our talk of the little girl. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t stop hacking. “You’ll let her go if you know the truth. When Valko shot me, I nearly died. And when I woke up, my abilities were gone. All of them. I can’t even sense aura anymore, let alone overpower people. Why do you think I’ve remained hidden here?”
I met Tosya’s fearful gaze. He knew what I’d just done by confessing. My life was now forfeit. Feliks would see me hanged for treason. But I had to accept my fate. Better to die this way, before any harm could come to those I loved. “You’ve made a terrible mistake by publishing that poem,” I told Feliks. “I’m not that person anymore.”
He was quiet for several moments, then he stood from his armchair and straightened his sleeves. “Does she speak truthfully?” he asked Sestra Mirna.
Her eyes rimmed with tears—whether from coughing or in fear for my life, I couldn’t tell. The sestra had grown to care for me these past months, but I’d never known if that care extended to love, not when I couldn’t feel it.
How desperately I wanted to feel it now.
At length, she shut her weary eyes and nodded.
Feliks’s mouth flattened into a vicious line. His painstaking plan had come to nothing. He walked back and forth in front of the fireplace, scratching his jaw, his gaze fast on me. At length, he inhaled a determined breath and planted his feet. “You’ll still be our sovereign Auraseer.”
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