Chapter 13

“ T his is going to be a tournament for the ages. You’re going to show everyone, it’ll be epic!”

Caleb hasn’t stopped talking since I jumped down from the stage, the two of us disappearing into the crowd before Hantor can hunt me down. Despite my brave show, I don’t want to fight the Second House knight again, or his friend Jank, the lunkheaded banded soldier.

They’re not the only men I fear back on that stage, though. I try to remember who stared at me the longest and the hardest, in those few brief moments I stood among them. In truth, it was Jank who’d glared at me the most, once I’d declared myself. Hantor had, too—but Hantor was barely more than a boy. He’d never have been sent on a killing mission. But had Jank or one of the other warriors of the Second been given that charge? Had any of them been the one to shoot the arrow that cleaved through my brother’s heart?

What was I thinking, to imagine I could enter the tournament without any real training? I’m as much of an idiot as Merritt.

“Caleb—” I try to interrupt.

He waves me off, pausing only long enough to give directions. “Turn here, back under the stands. We can breathe again.”

I follow his lead, and soon we are in the cool half-darkness of a wide stone corridor, a distant light beckoning us onward, and more sunshine filtering down through long open slats in the ceiling. We move deeper into the stillness another twenty paces before Caleb stops and pivots to me. The smile on his face reaches all the way to his eyes, and he bounces up on his toes.

“Look, I know you don’t think you’re ready for this,” he begins.

“I’m not ready for it.”

“—And I know you’re probably worried about the Seventh House’s death worm?—”

Death worm?

Caleb keeps going. “But we have time. There’s another full week before the tournament proper begins, and maybe longer if they think they can get more warriors to show up.”

I frown at him, my guts twisting. “What do you mean, more?”

“After today’s announcement, you can bet that bards will be sent to all the houses not reporting in so far. That’ll take a while. But at least now they won’t have to go to the Tenth House and back—you’re accounted for. That’ll cut a good four days off the wait.”

“Oh. Right.”

He blows out a long breath then fixes me with a hard look. “Still, we’ll have a lot to do in a short time no matter how you look at it. What with you being a girl and all.”

My stomach drops so fast and so far, I’m surprised it doesn’t fall out my feet. I can’t do anything but stare back at Caleb in utter shock at his bold declaration, all my carefully constructed denials dying in my throat for one harrowing moment before I can recover.

But only a moment.

Chin up, eyes cold, expression as empty as the winter’s sky .

“Take that back,” I growl. I reach for my sword and Caleb’s eyes light up with interest, the squire easily circling to my left as I haul out the long, slender blade.

“That was my first tip, you know,” he says, keeping a good distance between us, his gaze never leaving mine, his face now intent, more serious than I ever thought he could be. “I wasn’t about to make a thing of it, since you’d just saved my ass and all. But you didn’t draw your sword to fight Hantor, and any boy would’ve. Plus, you fought like you’d never been in a fight before. All defense, no offense. Only, no warrior son gets beaten up in the training yards. They’re always the ones punching, while the other kids defend, because no one wants to get whipped for harming the favored boy. You’re that favored boy, and you have been your whole life supposedly, but haven’t once acted like it since I met you—not once.”

Panic rattles through me, sour and sick, but I can’t give into it. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you now.”

“You’re lucky I don’t run off and tell the entire tournament that its newest celebrated combatant is a girl ,” Caleb shoots back, his tone sharp, almost angry, the threat in his words real and immediate to my ears. “Think about how much money would be in that little secret revealed, eh? Think about that.”

Another surge of fear swamps me. This is it . After losing Merritt, after bonding with an impossibly mighty Divh, after standing on a stage and committing to fight against the greatest warriors in the country, I’ll be undone by a boy. A boy I trusted and never should have. A boy I allowed to get too close.

But Caleb isn’t finished. “And even with all that, I probably wouldn’t have thought too hard about the sword and your abysmal fighting skills, but then your reactions at the pits—” he shakes his head. “Every single thing you cared about was wrong. So was everything you saw, things a warrior son wouldn’t even notice . Certainly wouldn’t comment on, no way.”

“That boy,” I mutter, and opposite me, Caleb nods, his face flushing. When he speaks again, however, his voice sounds very different. Quieter. Almost rueful.

“That boy. The injustices. Me. Maybe you considered me a cripple when you stopped to check out my fight with Hantor. But you didn’t see me as a freak, something to laugh at and turn away from when things got ugly. You jumped in. You helped. And then…” He grimaces. “Then you let me help you. Asked for my help, even. Accepted it. You didn’t dismiss me as a broken tool, useful but only so much. You leaned on me without even thinking much about it. I’d maybe get that from a seasoned warrior, someone older, more comfortable in his own skin. But not a boy of seventeen, desperate to show off at the Tournament of Gold. That doesn’t happen. That shouldn’t happen. But with you, it did.”

I can’t help myself, I stop, this last revelation cutting so deep and true I can’t dispute it. In that moment I imagine Merritt, my beloved little brother, seeing Caleb for the first time. He wouldn’t have been cruel, I don’t think. He knew that terrible things sometimes happened to people. But he would’ve instinctively shied away from the squire, would’ve felt awkward every time the one-armed boy had approached. Whereas I…I know what it’s like to be the one in the shadows, hoping desperately no one noticed me—but wanting to be noticed all the same. And I can’t even imagine turning away someone’s assistance, no matter who offered it.

Caleb has bested me. My shoulders slump as we face off against each other, the reality of his discovery a crushing weight. The way of the warrior is death, Nazar has told me. And death can come as easily inside the coliseum as beneath it.

“So why are you still here?” I finally ask, my voice leaden. “Why aren’t you out there making all that money with this fantastic story, this secret so many people would pay real money to know?”

Caleb stares at me a long time after that, and his words, when they come, are quiet. Almost eerily quiet, floating to me like dust motes in the half-lit space. “Because you did stand on the edge of that pit where I was fighting with Hantor. And out of everyone there, all those men, all those boys, all those fighters who knew how to throw a punch and swing a sword…you were the one who jumped in to help me. You, who’d clearly never been in a fight in your life. You didn’t jerk away from me in horror or even surprise as I ran with you through the crowd to get you back to Nazar, you just held on to me and let me guide you.”

I smile ruefully. “I was nearly blind, if you’ll recall.”

“It doesn’t matter. You accepted my help then, and every moment after. Even and including making sure that ass-monger Ginn didn’t get his hands on you, letting me take you away. And what’s more, yeah. You do react to things you shouldn’t—and you especially make comments you shouldn’t—but the thing is…your eyes are still open. You saw injustices in those tournament pits that I’d long ago stopped seeing. Even after I lost my arm, I’m still blinded by my desperate need to belong . I should never have stopped seeing those things. Things a true warrior worth his salt would care about.”

He pauses. “Merritt died in those mountains, didn’t he.”

His words are blunt, but they don’t hurt as much as I expect them to, more like a blow coming at me from a long way away. Once again, I see my brother leap, his laughter bright and full. Once more, I see the arrow pierce through him, shattering the sky.

“He did. I—his Divh bonded to me. I don’t know why or how. After that…”

Caleb nods, his expression solemn. He knows, I think. He understands. “After that, yeah. You’re a dead woman. Might as well fight for your house while you can.”

I wince, the squire’s words an eerie echo of Nazar’s. “I will bring honor to my house,” I say hollowly, glancing away. Even the shadows shrink back from me now, offering me no place to hide.

Silence fills the space between us, but Caleb doesn’t—or maybe can’t—remain still for long. And his voice is different when he speaks again. The bright and chattering voice of the Caleb who’d raced with me through the crowd, holding onto me as my eye had swollen shut.

“Hey,” he says, and when I meet his gaze, his grin is back as well. Awkward and lopsided, but no less firm than it’d been before we’d rushed into this darkened space. “Is your name really Talia?”

I hesitate, this admission the final failure. But I force the words out. “Yes. It’s Talia,” I say, the word almost foreign in my mouth.

“Talia.” He tests the word on the air, seeming to savor it, then shrugs. “Eh. I think for right now, I prefer Merritt. And Merritt, we’ve got a lot of work to do, if you’re going to hold your own in the Tournament of Gold.”

I blink, taking a step back, and now Caleb’s smile splits his face wide. “That’s right. I’ve never missed a bet yet, and I’ve decided I’m keeping my money on you.” He points at my sword. “Put that away, though, and save us both the trouble. We don’t have that kind of time. You’re damned good with the stave, and your instincts aren’t completely hopeless, but the sword… Well, you better pray you never have to pull that thing for anything but show. We can work with the rest, though. You’ve got heart, and you’re idiot enough to rush in where no one else would. Sometimes that’s all you need to win, eh?”

“You—” Despite Caleb’s rush of enthusiasm, and the words that ring with such authenticity, I have to ask the question, have to know. “You’re not going to tell? There’s money in it, you said. A lot of money.”

“There’s so much money,” Caleb agrees, flinging his good arm wide. Then he winks at me, and I know he’s teasing—that he’d never seriously thought of betraying me, despite all my fears.

That said…he’s still one of the savviest opportunists I’ve ever met.

Caleb grins, as if he’s reading my thoughts. “But you know, if I place my bets right, there’s a lot more in backing the scrawny warrior knight from the border, attended only by his old-as-dirt priest and squired by a one-armed boy. That’s a bet I can make some scratch on, I tell you plain.”

He laughs and turns away as I stare at him, beckoning me toward the sunshine.

“Come on. Like I said, we’ve got a lot to do. I’ll even teach you how to fight one-handed, which is all you’ll need to manage Hantor.”

I fall into step beside him, suddenly feeling far older than my seventeen years…older but curiously lighter too. Caleb is—a friend, I decide. My second friend, ever. “I’m not worried about Hantor,” I mutter. “I’m worried about his Divh.”

Caleb snorts. “Don’t be. It’s about as frightening as Hantor is.”

And after another dozen steps, we emerge into the bright and brilliant day.