Chapter 17

A lmost before the echoes of his grand welcome die out, Fortiss launches into a treatise of what we’re supposed to do next, offering a million and one instructions as I try to look both intelligent and relaxed.

I’m completely unnerved to be talking to him again. This is why I wanted to leave the tournament early, I remember now—but it’s far too late for that. Fortiss thinks I’m Merritt, a warrior, a fighter. How would a fighter act?

Like he belongs, I decide. Like he’s always belonged.

My stomach churns, though I do my best to project an air of easy confidence as Nazar leaves with a servant to find shelter for the horses and prepare our lodgings. Though we’ll take our meals in the First House, all warriors and their personnel are apparently housed in the barracks beneath the castle, large cells built beneath huge stone arches that have been cut into the mountain.

“Lord Rihad awaits you, Merritt of the Tenth,” Fortiss announces far too loudly, and I sense he’s finally done with his recitation. Instead, he grins at me across the courtyard then gestures me to approach. “You and your squire, since he’s chosen not to leave you.”

“I won’t, either,” Caleb assures me, and I swallow my shaky laugh.

“Thank the Light.”

I stride with shoulders back, remembering to swagger as I approach Fortiss, but I feel his gaze on me too keenly. When I reach the base of the stairs, he lifts a hand.

“Your sister,” he asks, with an interest that makes my guts twist. “She is safely on her way back to the Tenth House? I enjoyed talking with her, did she tell you?”

“She did, but she didn’t share much else,” I say, too quickly. “She was—overwhelmed, I think. Embarrassed? She wouldn’t say much more. Caleb here…”

“Embarrassed, to be sure,” my squire pipes up, as guileless as spring flowers after a long and blustery winter. “She giggled a lot.”

“Giggled,” Fortiss echoes as I shoot Caleb a vicious glare. Then I swing my gaze forward again.

“I think she enjoyed speaking with you, Lord Fortiss, but well—she’s not used to so many people. She prefers the safety of the mountains. She’s a quiet and docile sort.”

“Your sister,” Fortiss clarifies. “That’s who we’re talking about?”

“Yes, of course.” I give him a stare full of dim-witted innocence as the next warrior knight enters the courtyard behind me. I bow gravely to him then straighten. “Well met, Lord Fortiss.”

Caleb and I mount the stairs as quickly as possible, stifled snickers between us. But as we enter the shadowy foyer, both our moods dampen quickly. A pair of guards await us and turn to move ahead, escorting us deeper into the castle. The moment they draw far enough away for discretion, Caleb begins whispering to me about the number of guards, warriors, nobles, and staff in the castle, how to greet them all and where I’d find them.

Once again, irritation flares in my gut. All these careful rituals! All these polite displays of manners and grace. How many of the men who’ve entered these halls and stood before the Lord Protector are capable of murdering their own? Only one, in all of the Protectorate? I don’t believe it. Instead, I feel the very walls of the First House press down on me, as if longing to share the truth of the treacherous villains who’ve passed before me.

Caleb gestures to the stone passageway ahead.

“This leads to the throne room, though the Lord Protector doesn’t want it called that. It’s what it is, though,” he murmurs as we walk down the long corridor, silent guards flanking us. “You’ll be presented, and you should bow at the waist like you did with Fortiss. Don’t kneel. Kneeling means you’ve pledged your allegiance to this house.”

He snaps his mouth shut as the guards stop sharply and turn to face each other, creating a wall of men for us to walk between. When we step into the “throne” room, however, I can’t help but gasp. Caleb is right, there’s no other way to describe the opulence of this chamber.

The room is filled with gold.

Rich enameled flooring extends from the base of the central throne to the far walls, and great gilded tapestries hang against every wall. Where there isn’t cloth, there’s artwork, richly framed and lushly painted scenes of war and glory—one of which depicts the enormous castle at the center of the Exalted Imperium’s capital. I stare in wonder. The Tenth House has a similar painting, but a fraction of the size. To each according to their merit , runs the inscription beneath. I never realized how meaningful that phrase was until now.

“Keep going,” hisses Caleb, and as I stride forward, one hand on my belt as both Nazar and Caleb have instructed me, my booted feet ring out on the floor. My other hand holds my cloak wide, to display the fact that I’m carrying a sword but also to assure that I have no intention of grabbing it.

As if I’d attempt to wield a sword in a place with so many warriors primed for battle.

Caleb falls into position behind me. Eventually, he too, stops, but I move forward with another guard until I reach the base of the short staircase that leads up to the Lord Protector on his throne.

I saw him on his stone platform at the coliseum, so I knew he was tall—but I don’t realize how tall until now. Thin and sharply angled, with an aquiline nose and strong jaw, Lord Rihad gazes down at us. His most compelling feature is his eyes, I decide. They appear nearly black at this distance and pick me apart like a carcass worked over by vultures.

I stare back, my expression flat. This is no time to let my true emotions show.

The Lord Protector’s long fingers grip the edge of his gilded armrests—not in concern or dismay or even great emotion, I think. It seems almost as if it’s merely his habit, to remind himself that the throne is there in his grasp. He’s a pale man, the kind whose emotion would easily be seen in the flush upon his skin. His hair is black, peppered with gray and swept back from his forehead, and his lips and nose seem pinched, for all that he smiles.

The guard beside me halts and announces my name again. As instructed, I bow at the waist, then stand straight beneath the gaze of the Lord Protector.

“We have not had a warrior of the Tenth House take part in the Tournament of Gold since Lemille last tried his hand, long years ago,” Rihad says, leaning forward to place his elbows upon his knees. When he looks at me that way, I’ve no choice but to stare back at him, though I can sense others standing behind the throne. Not more soldiers, but priests in long robes, all of them eyeing me with scant interest. How many fighters have they seen cross this great hall, how many tournaments?

How many murderers?

But the Lord Protector’s next words jerk me to attention. “How does your father fare?”

“Well, Lord Protector Rihad.” I nod. My voice is a rough rasp, but it’s loud enough in this cavernous hall. “His foot pains him, but he’s in good spirits and rides whenever he’s able. The crops in the mountain fields have fared better than expected these past few seasons.”

“Good.” The Lord Protector’s arched eyebrows lift. “And yet he hasn’t petitioned for more banded soldiers. If he is thriving, it is his due.”

I didn’t know this, but it makes a certain sort of sense. Beyond its secondary warrior knights, the First House has so many banded soldiers because the First House is large and robust, and probably has been that way since its earliest days. If any of the subsidiary houses thrive, then they would be granted more soldiers as well.

With the Lord Protector waiting, however, I manage a grim smile. “Perhaps I will do him the honor of faring well enough in the Tournament of Gold that we’ll be granted soldiers from my efforts.”

“Indeed.” The Lord Protector claps his hands together, the sound loud enough to echo off the far walls. “You’ll be in good company. Fully fifty-one warrior knights are committed thus far, and we receive more every day. The Tenth House is a welcome addition; perhaps the remaining houses will offer their warriors as well.”

He speaks without guile, and I peer at him, accusations regarding the murder of my brother leaping within me. But what words can I speak? I have nothing—not a name, not a face. Only a knowledge that I shouldn’t have, except that I was traveling with my brother when he was killed…on my way to my own wedding . As a girl .

If I share that, I’ll lose everything.

“It’s an honor for every warrior to have his chance upon the battlefield,” I say instead, reciting the words Caleb fed me on the long ride up. The Lord Protector is as much a traditionalist as my father, it would appear. To him, everything is about honor.

“Your men are settled in the barracks?” He directs the question not to me, but to a figure behind me. I assume it’s Caleb, but then Fortiss’s clear voice responds. I jolt with the awareness that he’s so close.

“They are, my lord,” he says, his voice rich and smooth. “We also expect warriors from the Eighth and Ninth houses yet this day. It will be a grand celebration.”

“Good.” The Lord Protector pounds his armrests and stands, and I am struck again by his height. “Tonight, we feast, and soon we fight. For the honor of the Protectorate!”

I hear the sound from all around me, the crunch of knees upon the ornate floor. I bend at the waist as I’ve been instructed, but when I straighten again, the cruel, pale face of the Lord Protector is fixed on me, like a hawk on its kill.

“Soon,” he says again. “We fight.”

I should be unnerved, I know. I should quail and shrink. But I don’t. Partly because I know I can’t show fear. But partly because the barely banked rage I carry within me is stoked by the challenge in Lord Rihad’s eyes. I am here for my house; I am here for my brother.

But now that I’m here, I resolve, I will not go quietly.

I will not.

Another warrior is announced, and I move to the side, turning to see guards dressed in the flamboyantly orange livery that marks the Eighth House flow into the room. The men of the westernmost House of the Protectorate are dark-skinned, tanned almost ebony, and I don’t have to feign my interest as they step forward to be introduced to the Lord Protector.

“The Eighth House wasn’t expected this year.” Caleb stands beside me once more, murmuring in my ear. “Though their house is small, their Divhs are said to be unbeatable.”

Three men, not one, stride forward, each bowing at the waist as the Lord Protector addresses them. “We are honored to welcome you to the Tournament of Gold.”

“And we are honored to win it for the greater glory of the Protectorate.”

The tallest warrior speaks in a loud, resonant voice that seems to carry great weight. I’m watching the Lord Protector, not the men in orange, but what catches my eye this time isn’t the tall, slender leader of the First House, but the dozen men gathered behind him, each garbed in gold and black like their leader. These men aren’t powerfully built guards or even quick-eyed warriors. Instead, they wear their age like a mantle, gray hair flat against their heads, wrinkles mapping their years upon their faces. To a one, they tense at the Eighth House warrior’s bold words, and one clutches the chain of gold at his neck. I can’t tell if they’re amused or frightened by the baseless claim, but something in their look unsettles me.

“And we will be pleased to watch you try,” announces the Lord Protector. I keep my focus on the collection of his priests and advisors with their pinched and worn faces.

Then the First House company shifts, and I notice something else. Caleb was right. They aren’t all men.

I stare, fascinated, as a slender, white-haired female turns to the man beside her to murmur something in his ear. Her hair is short, her face as equally lined as her counterparts’, and she wears no paint upon her skin to augment her looks—no kohl at her eyes nor salve on her lips. Her gown is long and gray beneath her gold and black cloak, like those of her fellows, belted at the waist to display a thin, unfeminine body. Is that how she’s able to get the other advisors to listen to her? By dressing and looking more like them? I tug at my own tunic, aware of the irony.

Around the room, there are no women who stand as proud warriors, and only the one who stands as an advisor. The remaining handful of women in the chamber are huddled off to the side, dressed in court finery, their sacred hair coiled around their shoulders in elaborate braids and cascading down their backs. They watch with intelligent eyes and smiles that range from shrewd to excited, but they might as well be figures in a menagerie, collected for display.

I sense a gaze upon me, and I flick my glance back to the throne, suddenly afraid that the Lord Protector is watching me ogle the women of the First House. Only it isn’t Lord Rihad but the female advisor. Her gaze is clear and untroubled, and it spears me across the wide room with a power I wouldn’t have thought possible. I keep myself from jerking back, but only because Caleb is right beside me. I hold the woman’s gaze for a long moment, but I’m glad when she moves her glance from me and takes in Caleb. He’s fairly bouncing on his toes, and a smile twitches at her lips.

Good. Focus on my squire, not on me.

I shift my gaze to the Lord Protector as he claps his hands together again. He’s still on his feet, and he spreads his long arms wide once the attention of the entire room is upon him. “Tonight, we feast,” he declares once more. “But soon we fight!”

The rest of the day passes in a blur of activity. I’m officially added to the rolls for the tournament, a laborious process involving a scroll-bearing scribe who painstakingly enters my name and my house, the name of my father and mother, and my intent to compete. I grow increasingly nervous as the questions continue, wishing I had Nazar by my side. Instead, I have Caleb, who nevertheless stands with me staunchly, his slender body seeming several times wider than I know it to be, a barrier between me and the clutch of warriors behind me.

In addition to the Eighth and Ninth Houses, the Second House has sent more delegates that they want entered in the rolls. Not every warrior of every House is expected to participate, but rumors are traveling quickly throughout most of the Protectorate. Anyone within easy passage of the traveling bards heard the first call to arms, and now the closer houses are learning of the boon of fifty banded soldiers to be parceled out among the winners and are sending more to improve their chances. The First House will soon be full to bursting.

In truth, the great hall is already teeming with people by the time Nazar, Caleb, and I set foot in the space for the great feast. Unlike the warrior feasts once the tournament is underway, this is a more informal meal, for all that it is immense. Warriors can sit with their own houses, or with friends. Many of them are doing so, and I watch their broad smiles and back clapping with growing dread.

“This isn’t my place,” I mutter to Nazar. “I know no one, and no one knows me. I’m an outsider.”

“Everyone is an outsider when they arrive,” he says. “You have merely to look like you belong, and you begin to create the expectation in others that you do belong.”

Easy words for him. He’s a priest . People don’t even see beyond his white hair and ceremonial robes, just scurry out of his way bowing and muttering swift hosannas to the Light. Whereas I’m supposed to look like a swaggering warrior knight with no care in the world except when my next chance will be to impress everyone.

I look around, stretching my face to mimic the entitled smirks of my fellow warriors, and Caleb and I jostle forward to find a set of seats at one of the long tables. My dark-green tunic proclaims me as a warrior of worth, and people bow and smile, which helps keep me from feeling like a fraud. I don’t have the luxury to hide in the shadows, not anymore. Now I must stand for my house.

We press on and at last, there’s a shout and a raised hand. I turn toward it eagerly, then stiffen as I realize who it is.

“Go,” orders Caleb, his voice low. “That’s the greatest honor you can hope for this night.”

“I’m not here for honor.”

“Then go for Merritt. Because he wouldn’t be such an idiot as to give up such a chance.”

I shoot Caleb a glare as Fortiss waves us forward.

“Join us,” Fortiss calls out, and his table of nobles shifts easily to make the space. “You have the smallest entourage of any of the houses; you’re easy to dine with.” He grins at his own joke, and I grimace—then catch the faces of other men, in the table beyond them. Warriors of the Second House, also enjoying Fortiss’s joke…maybe a little too much?

My jaw sets as anger and suspicion knife through me, but either way, Caleb is right. Dining with Fortiss is the highest honor I can have this night, and I should make the most of it. Never mind that my hands are shaking, and my mouth is dry.

“Well met,” I say, gesturing to Nazar and Caleb. “We prefer to travel light.”

A man sitting next to Fortiss, dressed in the gold and black of the First House, snorts a laugh. “Light enough to be missing an arm is light indeed.”

This newest, well-thrown barb would have felled a lesser man or caused awkwardness in a lesser group. But Caleb knows his role here as well—and he can act even better than I can. He grins and rests his right elbow on the table as we seat ourselves. “I never knew how lazy I was until I was forced to use one hand to do the work of two. Trust me on this—one-handed is harder.”

His rejoinder merits a laugh, and the moment passes. The servants flood the hall to bring in the first course, and we bump and shove until we’re all seated—leaving me directly opposite Fortiss.

I watch him turn to greet another man and fix my gaze on his profile. There’s no way he was the one who shot the arrow at Merritt, I decide. He couldn’t have, surely. Not and be so easy with me, so noble . He can’t be acting that well.

But…had he ordered my brother’s murder?

Even as I think the accusation, everything within me argues against it. The First House has so much strength—why would they be behind the murder of any house’s warrior son? It has to be a lesser house. Plus, Fortiss is too relaxed with me, too open. There’s no way he would be, if he’d sent one of his soldiers to assassinate me.

I don’t want Fortiss to be involved, if I’m honest with myself. And not because he’s so handsome. I just…I want Merritt’s murderer to be a seasoned warrior, not someone my own age. I want him to have the cool self-possession of a killer, not the laughing, gamboling manner of a knight. And I don’t want him to be so…alive, I decide. So confident. So?—

As Fortiss turns back to me and catches my eye, I hunch my shoulders and focus on my food, so he can’t see the flare of embarrassment that rides up my neck.

It’s easy to stay distracted with a meal such as this. The feast the First House has prepared for us makes the finest banquet ever hosted by the Tenth House look like the meanest leftovers. I’ve never even seen some of the dishes we are served, savory meat pies and dripping sweetbreads laden with thick syrup. Whole pigs roasted and spitted for each table, mounded over with candied fruits and roasted vegetables. An entire herd of fatted calves must have been killed for this meal, and from the looks and sounds of those around me, they weren’t slaughtered in vain. The chamber is filled with mostly men, and they fall upon the meal as if they haven’t eaten in days—some of them, possibly, haven’t.

The men of the Eighth House have traveled over the great plains of the west to reach us, and the soldiers from the Third and Ninth look as if they might never scrub the dust of their sandy home from their faces. The revelry of these warriors is unforced but also tinged with desperation, and I wonder at that. The Tenth is a small House at the far edge of the Protectorate, cut off from allies. Marauders are an issue for us, certainly, bandits and brigands pouring in from the Exalted Imperium.

But are there worse threats that my fellow houses face?

Is their fear so great that they would turn against another, smaller house to gain some kind of advantage?

If so, then why the Tenth? We’re not the smallest house, but we’re certainly one of the farthest away. Beyond our position on the very border of the Exalted Imperium, we offer no threat or appreciable benefit. So, why…

The questions chase their own tails in my mind, making me dizzy.

“Merritt.” Nazar’s voice is quiet, but it instantly recalls me, and I fix a bright smile on my face as I glance at him. He’s eating sparingly, but he is eating, playing his own role to perfection. Priests of the Light aren’t kept separate from the masses, but they are expected to maintain their sense of decorum at all times. I suspect Nazar has never suffered from a lack of decorum in his life.

To my right, Caleb chatters on, and with each new round of laughter, my stomach knots anew. My new squire won’t hurt me, I remind myself. Not on purpose, anyway. And yet…

“How was the journey over the Eastern Mountains?”

The question comes so quickly, so fluidly, it feels like an attack. My pulse leaps, and I turn sharply to Fortiss, the heat coming to my face well-earned, for all that my words are too quickly blurted out.

“You of all people know it was not a smooth one,” I reply coldly. “The attack on the Tenth was an abomination. It will be avenged.”

My intensity surprises everyone, even me. I don’t look at Nazar but sense his careful gaze. Fortiss, however, commands my complete attention—and that of all the men around us.

“I, of all people…?” he asks, letting the question linger.

I let it hang there too. For no other reason than I have absolutely no idea what to say to walk back my accusation. What was I thinking? Why can’t I hold my tongue?

Fortunately, Fortiss assumes my continued silence is embarrassment. His eyes flash with earnest comradery.

“Lord Merritt, if the Tenth House has been wronged, then we will do all we can to strike down who is responsible,” he declares. “You have my bond.”

Seeing my chance, I nod quickly, praying I can end this conversation that I’ve so rashly blundered into. “As you say, Lord Fortiss,” I reply with credible force.

“As I do say,” Fortiss insists. “House protects house. And the First House protects all.”

A low, resounding tide of agreement rises around us. Flagons are lifted, toasts given to the First House. Through it all, Fortiss eyes me intently, as if trying to convince me of what he says. Once again, I feel my heart quickening to hear his words, wanting so much to believe them.

Fool.

I don’t want Fortiss to have anything to do with the death of Merritt for reasons both practical and stupid. I know this. But for Fortiss to be emphasizing the First House’s protection so stridently, means there must be others besides me who don’t trust that protection.

Pondering that, I settle back in my seat. I reach for a cup of wine and take a long draught.

“House protects house!” Fortiss cries aloud.

I join the warrior knights in another brash cheer, but no drink can wash away my growing uneasiness.

There’s something not quite right threading through the gilded corridors of the First House. Something that may lead me to Merritt’s murderer? Possibly. But there’s more to it, I think. A darkness that lies coiled at the heart of the Protectorate, waiting to strike.