EM SLOWLY WALKED away from Westhaven, Aren by her side. She glanced over her shoulder several times, squinting in the late-afternoon sun, but no one followed them. She hadn’t been able to slip away to see Galo last night, but Olivia had finally gone to the courthouse with Jacobo.
“What are we going to do if Jovita and her army come for us?” Aren asked. He’d relayed his conversation with Galo from last night to her. “Can we fight off a large army ourselves?”
Em swallowed. An idea had started to form, but it was so horrible she wasn’t sure she could say it out loud. Once she said it, the betrayal of her sister would be complete. She could never go back.
“I’m surprised August is partnering with Jovita,” she said, to avoid answering. “Last time I saw him I got the impression he’d realized that attacking Olivia never goes well.”
“He probably took some time to think about it and remembered she murdered his entire family.”
“Right,” Em said quietly.
They ducked under a low branch and found Galo sitting on his pallet on the grass. He’d clearly heard them coming, and he waved as they approached. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Aren sat down and crossed his legs. “No problems during the night?”
“No problems. I didn’t see anyone.”
Em dropped the bag she’d brought to the ground and knelt down to open it. She grabbed the books first, three hardcovers she’d picked from the abundant bookshelves in her house.
“Here,” she said, holding them out to him. “I know you’re going back tomorrow, but I thought you might be bored.”
“Thank you,” he said with a hint of surprise.
She pulled out the cloth bundle tucked into the side of the bag and handed that over as well. “It’s just some bread and cheese and dried meat.”
“Thank you,” he said again. “What is your food situation like over there?”
“Good.” She sat down across from him and crossed her legs. “There aren’t many of us, and the shops were well stocked. Though it turns out we don’t have anyone who knows how to make bread. We had a few disasters in the bakery.”
Galo grabbed the roll she’d given him. “It looks fine.”
“We found some recipes and figured it out, but it’s still not quite right,” Aren said. “Edible, though.”
He tore off a chunk and chewed. “Tastes good to me.”
“Galo said Cas has been letting people come into the castle to ask him questions about the Ruined,” Em said to Aren.
Aren lifted his eyebrows. “How is that going?”
“Um, I don’t know. Everyone in Royal City knows you stopped Olivia from storming the castle the night we took it back, so they’re intrigued, at least.”
“Barely,” she said.
“Barely?” Galo repeated.
“I barely stopped Olivia from storming the castle.” She focused on a spot on the ground. “I’m not sure I can stop her again.”
“Together we can,” Aren said with a confidence Em doubted he actually felt. “It exhausts her to use her powers on me, and she can’t use them on Em at all.”
“Are you completely sure she can’t use her Ruined power on you? She healed you once, didn’t she?” Galo asked.
“I let her.”
“But has she ever really tried to use her power on you against your will?”
“I . . . I guess not.” Em glanced at Aren. “Has she?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Have you ever tried?” Galo asked.
“I haven’t.” Aren lifted his eyebrows in silent question to Em.
“Sure,” she said. “Give it a shot.”
Aren focused his gaze on her, and several quiet seconds passed. “I’m trying to move your arm. You don’t feel anything?”
“No.”
“That’s good,” Galo said.
Em and Aren exchanged a look. It was good, but they were clearly both thinking the same thing—had Olivia already tried to use her powers on Em? The thought made her feel sick to her stomach.
“Do you have any other information from Cas for us?” Em asked, to stall the conversation about Jovita and Olso a bit longer.
“We tossed around some ideas about Olivia I’m supposed to relay to you. Fair warning, some of them might be upsetting,” Galo said.
She didn’t see how anything could be more upsetting than what was already going on in her head. She reached up to rub her thumb across her necklace and found nothing around her neck. She quickly dropped her hand. “Tell me.”
Galo took a deep breath. “Right. First, she needs to see to use her power, right? What if she couldn’t see?”
“You mean blind her,” Em said.
“Yes.”
“It would only slow her down for a while,” Aren said. “I’ve known Ruined who went blind. Eventually they learn to use their other senses. Some of the Ruined who can control the mind don’t even need to be able to see the person at all, they just sense them nearby.”
“Oh.”
“And it would just enrage Olivia. Not to mention she would never forgive Em for trying to weaken her power.”
“It’s too bad, I was thinking it might be a way for her to live a normal life. If she didn’t have her powers anymore, she’d have to, I don’t know, start using her words.” One side of Galo’s mouth lifted.
Em let out a short laugh. “That’ll be the day.” She leaned back, bracing her hands on the ground behind her. “What else?”
“We could give Olivia Olso.”
“It’s not really ours to give.”
“I just meant we don’t do anything to stop her from invading Olso. You step down as queen, let her rule by herself, in exchange for her going back to Olso.”
“She would kill a lot of people. And it’s only a temporary fix. She’d eventually come back,” Em said.
“There’s always the option of warning Olso. Their technology is beyond Olivia. If they knew she was coming . . .”
They’d kill her. Em gripped the grass beneath her fingers. Was there a plan that didn’t end in Olivia’s death?
“What are your other options?” she asked.
“Put her back in a prison. If you’re right, and she can’t use her powers on you, you can get her inside a cell.”
“She’d have to be there indefinitely. And there’s the problem of the Ruined loyal to her. You’d have to lock them up too or risk them breaking her out.”
“Are there a lot?”
“A good number, yes. And their powers are growing. Anything else?”
He picked a piece of grass and twisted it around his finger. “I had an idea of my own. But can it just be between us?”
Em lifted her eyebrows. “Sure.”
“What if you gave her part of Lera? Like we divided it into northern and southern Lera, and Olivia gets the south to rule as she pleases. We’d let any Lerans who want to leave relocate, of course.”
“You’d displace thousands of people,” Em said.
“It’s better than Olivia killing them.”
“I don’t think it would help. She would eventually attack the north. If not now, then in ten, twenty years. We’d always be waiting for it.”
“We?” Galo repeated with a smile. “Does that mean you’d stay with Cas in the north?”
Em turned her gaze to the ground. Her immediate response was yes. She wanted to stay with Cas. She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, though. It seemed like a worse betrayal of the Ruined, to actually say it.
“Is Cas as king the only thing Olivia really objects to?” Galo asked. “You said the Ruined siding with you wanted Cas to give up the throne, but would that calm Olivia?”
“She’ll never let any human rule over her,” Em said. “They’re wrong to ask Cas to give up his throne. The Lerans need him.”
“Good,” Galo said, a little relieved. “I wasn’t saying he should. Cas will be a much better king than his father. The best king we’ve ever known, maybe. But I think it’s right to remove some of the power from the monarchy.” He said the last part quietly.
“You do?”
“It’s not that I don’t have faith in Cas, I do, but . . .”
“Of course,” Em said.
“But I did wonder whether it’s right to let Lera continue as they always have, considering all that’s happened. The Gallegos committed genocide. It wasn’t Cas’s decision, but sometimes we pay for the mistakes of our family. You and Cas do, anyway,” Galo said.
Em laughed hollowly. “You mean your parents have never started a war or killed a bunch of people just because they didn’t like them?”
“Um, no.”
“Wow. What must that be like?”