Gedeon nodded. “For three months, I was supposedly buried in Ilasall’s prison. It’s a tactic as old as time.” He folded his arms.“Tell me it didn’t work. That our people have not forgotten their warped ideals. That they didn’t tuck their tails and crawl back.”
“It’s been quiet since your…supposed death.” Eli rubbed his nape, tousling his shoulder-length blond waves. He might have had angelic features, but the man was quick, both on his feet and in his wits. A menace concealed in an innocent package.
“Gossip has decreased at Vice too.” Jayla pulled the yellow-and-pink blanket to her chin. “It mostly revolves around what the city is planning or where people will be placed during the initial attack: front lines, special tasks, whatever. We haven’t heard any grumbles about leadership sitting on their asses and doing nothing.”
Ava studied the wall-sized bookshelf. Another strike of lightning colored the neat rows of tomes in red, the titles on their spines faded. “So what’s the plan?” she asked.
Gedeon flexed his neck, and drool flooded my mouth. The crackle of his joints was the dreamiest sound to exist.
“Have any of you heard the term ‘martyr’ before?” he asked.
Frowns popped up across the study. Ignoring Gedeon, Jayla huddled closer to Ava while Eli and Eislyn exchanged confusion-laced looks. Sadira and Ryder glanced around, as bewildered as Ezra sipping his tea.
“It has something to do with religion.” Kali shrugged. “I’ve read about it once.”
“Correct,” Gedeon said. “In the old times, when religions ruled people’s actions, a concept of martyrs was born. They were people who sacrificed themselves rather than renouncing their beliefs.
“However, their deaths weren’t always voluntary. Often, the enemy—the so-called heretics, or those under the guidance of a different faith—would abduct the religion’s leader, string him up and leave him exposed to the elements. A few days, and he woulddie of dehydration or starvation. If he didn’t, they would whip him until he bled out. Or bind him to a pyre.
“But martyrs were often considered leaders, and so their deaths would turn their followers into fanatics. They would fully embrace the worship of their chosen god and seek to convert anyone who opposed them.”
“So you turned yourself into one.” Eislyn brushed away her overgrown chocolate bangs. “A martyr.”
Gedeon dipped his chin. “Yes.”
“So that’s why you didn’t let us in on your plan,” Ava added, adjusting the woolen blanket so it covered Jayla’s legs. “It wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t unexpected. If it didn’t feel real.”
Kali sighed. “Too real.” Her recently trimmed hair flowed around her shoulders, the mass begging to be disheveled, as roughened up as the months without Gedeon had done to me.
“An act of manipulation.” Sadira dragged the end of her braid along her collarbone, her dark skin gleaming in a burst of blue lightning. “You influenced people’s beliefs. Steered them intowillingsubmission.”
“By tricking them.” Ezra scoffed, fixated on the tea dregs in his cup. “So honorable.”
I itched to rip out his vocal cords for daring to scorn my man.
Gedeon gripped my bicep, and the slight shake of his head reeled me back in. Sometimes I wondered if he could read my mind.
“You replicated Ilasall’s tactics,” Eli concluded. “Figured out how to control the masses by utilizing yourself as a tool. Like the Head of Ilasall and his speeches at major events in the city. He has turned himself into a symbol, and now you’ve done the same.”
“He’s done better.” I hooked my thumbs around the loops of my tattered jeans. “He’s become a figure, so shapely I could eathim up.” I grinned at Gedeon as he dragged a hand down his face. “You’re so edible I want to lick you all over.”
A round of groans engulfed our group, and even Jayla roused from dozing off in Ava’s lap.
Gedeon’s steely gaze roved over me, from my toes to my ears. If looks could melt, I’d be a snowflake slowly disintegrating on the sidewalk right now.
“We are going to play a game of three stages,” he said a tad gruffly. “The first was bringing the splitting factions of our people together. It’s complete. Everyone thought I had been kidnapped by Ilasall and tortured in their cells. This”—Gedeon gestured to the purplish bruise on his face—“will help to sell it.”
He continued. “The second stage is my return. Instead of dying like in the history of religions, I survived. I endured. I came back for my people.”
Ryder looked out the window. “And the third stage?”
“War,” Kali and I said simultaneously.
Gedeon went on. “The problem is, the news of me will cause noise. People will talk. If we don’t expedite matters, they won’t stay united for long. The emotions will run too high and too fast.” He surveyed the band of our friends. “What is the main thing stopping you from moving up the invasion date?”
After weighing all our options, we had set the war date as the last day of spring. We needed those weeks to find a solution to our problem.
“The city wall,” Kali gritted out. “We can’t breach it.”
