“I know you have the magic, my Valtia,” one of the acolytes whispered as she looked down at me. “I hope this helps you.”
She shut the lid, and I gulped back the first of a thousand stifled screams. I don’t know how long ago they left me here. Long enough for me to see things. Sofia, arching back in pain, her eyes bloodred. Mim, letting down her hair when she thought no one was looking, stroking her hand along her throat as firelight made her skin glow. I hold on to that one for as long as I can, because I swear, I can feel the darkness eating me, first my toes, then my fingertips. I can sense its breath, chilling my skin, reeking of secret horrors.
I am not the first person to lie in this box. I am not the first person to stain it with the weakness of my body. And I wonder how many others have curled in here before me, and how many of them lost their minds as a result.
“Stop,” I whisper. “If the elders put you in here, it is because they believe it will help.”
I saw the need in their eyes, and I know their anger at me comes from that need. They love and serve the people, who depend on the wielders in the temple to protect them. So they have encased me in a copper sarcophagus. . . . Several bits of knowledge interlock at once, pulling my thoughts from my own plight. The Kupari people produce magic wielders, when no one else does. We live on a peninsula rich with copper—it decorates our homes, our bodies. We eat off copper plates and drink from copper pitchers. And to stimulate the magic within their new queen, they have encased her in a copper coffin.
Copper has something to do with our fire and ice magic—the source of our greatness and our shield against the world—but it seems we are running out of it. And here I lie, prophesied to be more powerful than any Valtia before. Maybe it’s because the Kupari need their queen more than ever.
Please, I pray. To the magic, the stars, Sofia, and all the Valtias past. Please do not abandon me. I lose myself in those pleas until the coffin squeaks open and the acolytes pull me out. My hair hangs around my face in damp, greasy tendrils, and my fingernails are grimy. I stink—the acolyte wrinkles her nose as she pulls my dress over my head and down my legs, covering my nakedness. If Mim were here, she would never stand for this. Stars, how I wish she were here. I swallow back my sorrow as I think of her face. If she ever looks at me with disappointment, I’ll break.
Maybe I should be grateful she’s not here now. I want to return to her victorious, so together we can move to the Valtia’s wing as queen and handmaiden. She’s given up so much for me—a regular life, a family, the chance to have children of her own—she deserves honor and ease, and I’m determined to give it to her.
“We’re taking you back to the testing chamber now, my Valtia,” one of the acolytes says as she takes my elbow and leads me to the corridor.
I smooth back my hair and try to wet my sticky tongue. I remember Kauko’s assurance, how the trials always work, how under stress, even suppressed magic bursts forth to protect its wielder. I wipe my clammy palms on my dress and follow the other acolyte, who carries a torch to light our way. The three elders are waiting inside the room, the same place we were early this morning, along with one other young female acolyte and a lean male apprentice.
In his hand is a whip.
A cold, tingling sensation descends from the top of my head all the way down to my feet. The whip is multi-tailed, several braided strips of leather hanging from the stiff handle. I’ve heard Mim tell of how disobedient servants sometimes get lashes, up to ten at a time, and can’t lie on their backs for days. My stomach goes tight. Very well. The whip. If the prickling, icy feeling in my gut is any sign, the copper grave I’ve just escaped has awakened my sleeping magic, and this will be more than enough to bring it out.
When I reach the base of the stairs, the apprentice looks me in the eye. But when I smile at him, he looks away, his jaw clenched. The three female acolytes, shaved bald like their apprentice counterparts, push back their hoods and regard me somberly. The elders take their seats, and Aleksi spreads his chubby fingers over his robed knees. “The trials will begin with thirty lashes,” he says loudly. “Acolytes, strip her to the waist.”