Page 53 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)
Chapter fifty-three
The Sacrifice
Fern’s panic was obliterating. She ran without seeing, her heart a block of ice in her chest, her stomach churning with nausea.
She was too late; she would be too late. She had been wrong, blinded by her own emotions, no matter how careful she’d tried to be.
Lautric had been the easiest answer, but Fern would never have accepted an easy answer if she hadn’t wanted to believe it in the first place. And the whole time, the real answer had been right in front of her.
She had seen Srivastav the evening Josefa’s work had gone missing, the night after the attack on Vittoria. She had seen him leave the Alchemy Wing last, and the night before, when the Door’s influence had knocked her sick, Srivastav had been alone near the Alchemy Wing too.
And more recently even: she herself had told Srivastav where she was working in the Elemency Tower. She’d assumed Lautric had fallen for her trap and stolen her work because she’d set the trap for him .
She’d hunted for a specific answer and never paused to question if she might have found the wrong one.
And Josefa’s door. She hadn’t been able to use the lock. Lautric had shown Fern the doors in the Mage Tower were impervious to wards, but neither of them had thought to try pyromancy.
Why should they? Fern had never considered Srivastav as a suspect, not once.
She had even seen his bandaged hands earlier and had assumed he must have burnt them during the assignment. But of course, he was a master pyromancer, far too skilled for such a simple injury, and Fern had slashed out with her knife before being pushed into the pit.
It was Srivastav.
It had been Srivastav all along. She had been handed all the evidence and been blinded by her hatred of the Lautric House. She had been wrong, and she would never forgive herself if she was too late.
She ran breathlessly, straight into the main entrance to the undercroft without even thinking who might see her or what the consequences might be, and then through the great dark chamber. Edmund was at her heel, and others too, she could hear running footsteps and voices. Wild fear whipped her onwards through the cavernous chamber, down the stairs, down the long corridor and towards the sewer.
Dank air hit her lungs, algae and mould and water and the smell of something acrid and rotten—not decay, but sulphur.
Fern’s feet faltered to a stop as she entered the underground sewers .
It was no longer sunk in darkness. Bright flames circled the chamber now, casting lights and shifting shadows across the stone floor and lichen-covered walls.
On the edge of the sewer pit, Srivastav knelt, head bowed down, staring into the pit as though desperately searching for something.
Before Fern could open her mouth, before she could so much as catch her breath, Edmund slammed past her, almost throwing her off her feet.
Fern stumbled and was caught by a firm hand on her elbow. She did not even have time to pull away from Lautric before a crackling sound ripped the air.
An alchemical symbol formed in front of Edmund, so large and bright it rivalled the red circle of fire coursing the perimeter of the chamber. Edmund smashed through the alchemical symbol, magic shimmering along his skin, and grabbed Srivastav by the collar, dragging the general up to him.
“Where is she?”
His roar was louder than the fire, amplified by the room, or by fury, or by magic—Fern could no longer tell. Lautric was drawing her back, placing his body between hers and the alchemical symbol, which arranged itself without Edmund even looking.
Fern glimpsed the key symbols, black sulphur, the crocus of iron, arsenic and aqua fortis, and she swallowed a knot of fear. Srivastav did not even seem to notice the spell gathering.
He faced Edmund with hollow eyes.
“She’s gone.” He shook his head slowly, almost in disbelief. “She’s gone. ”
Ripping her arm out of Lautric’s grasp, Fern rushed to the pit, kneeling at the edge to peer down. In the blazing firelight, she could see the rusted pipes jutting from the walls of the pit like severed bones through skin. She could see the cold black water, the whirlpool at the far end of the pit.
Nothing else.
Fern remembered Emmeline’s cold skin and trembling limbs, and her eyes burned.
“What did you do?” she asked in a hoarse croak, looking up at Srivastav.
But Srivastav wasn’t looking at her—he barely even seemed to notice Edmund standing in front of him. His gaze was fixed on some faraway point, as though he were looking at a different place in time.
“We can’t all become Grand Archivists…” He spoke so quietly Fern barely heard him. His voice was sad, tired. “Was it not you who said so, Ferrow?” He wiped a tired hand across his face and spoke almost in a murmur, “The Emperor did not send me here to fail.”
“You came here to compete, not to kill!” Edmund bellowed, shoving Srivastav away from him.
“And you did not?“ Srivastav said, shaking his head. “You said yourself the Poison Tower did not send you here just to sit exams and let the best candidate win. You told us all what you and your sister were capable of. Some of us listened. At Carthane, you must become predator or prey—you cannot avoid this fate.”
“What did you do?”
Fern looked up, surprised to hear Lautric’s voice. He stared at Srivastav unflinchingly, but there was no surprise in his face .
At his words, a cold, hateful grimace replaced the empty sadness on Srivastav’s face.
“Spare me your judgement, Lautric,” he spat. “The power of your house will only get you so far, boy. Soon, you shall learn that getting what you want isn’t as easy when you have to take it yourself.”
“I won’t ask you again,” Edmund interjected. “Where is my sister?”
Srivastav tore his eyes away from Lautric and looked at the alchemist.
“I intended only to trap her, not to kill her. I did not wish to punish your sister for what she did—for it was not my place to do so. But neither of you could remain in Carthane, you told us yourself you’d allow nothing to get in your way. I knew you would never stay without her . I intended only for you to leave. I never meant for any of this…” He let out a soft laugh of wonderment. “Fate knows better than any of us, in the end. Your sister killed Josefa Novak, and I killed your sister, and now, you’re going to kill me.” He tilted his head. “Who will kill you , alchemist?”
Edmund sprung towards Srivastav, his expression a blank canvas of rage.
“Liar!” He spat the word like searing bile off his tongue, like rank poison. “Speak of my sister again and I will rip you apart!”
“Your sister,” said the general, “killed Josefa Novak because it’s what she needed to do. You both came here knowing Josefa’s relationship to Lord Battyl—your sister killed her to secure your positions. I did not intend to kill your sister, but she would have killed me first had I given her the chance. I could not give her the chance.” Srivastav caught his breath and lifted his chest as though he were about to scream, and then his voice melted from him like molten iron. “You and your sister came here together, you are fortunate. I was forced to leave my loved ones behind.” The pain in his voice burned white-hot, eroding everything away. “My men, my household, my daughter, my wife, whose laughter is the sun my existence orbits. The Emperor holds their lives in his hand. I’ve given him everything I’ve had to give—I cannot give him this.“ He met Edmund’s eyes. There was fear mingled with his pain, but he spoke with the cold steel of conviction. “I gave your sister’s life for theirs, just as you would have given theirs for hers. I would do it again.”
Before the words had even time to fade into echoes, Edmund’s alchemical symbol flared and shattered with a boom like thunder. Fern started and looked up, hoping Sarlet or the Grand Archivists had arrived, that they had finally intervened.
But the entrance to the sewers was a blank portal of shadows—nobody had come.
Fern barely had time to register the Grand Archivists’ absence before her eyes flew back to Srivastav and she understood what had happened.
The pyromancer’s hand was raised, the veins beneath his umber skin smouldered like embers in the wind. He had destroyed Edmund’s spell in an instant. Now, his mouth was open, and he was reciting an incantation, and the fire swirling around the room gathered to him like serpents of flame summoned by the will of a fearsome master .
Srivastav, it would seem, had come too far to turn back.
“N—”
Fern’s scream did not even leave her lips. The air exploded into flames.