Chapter 21

M y night doesn’t improve.

It’s another hour before I make it back to the barracks, and another still before the castle quiets down enough for me to follow Nazar’s instruction to reach out for Gent.

The moment I call for him, Gent mentally draws me into the training yard of his own plane. But though he mimics my movements and eventually follows the lead of my thoughts, I have nothing really to prepare him for. I’ve never fought a Divh. I’ve herded animals and occasionally fended off a guard too drunk for sense, but that’s not the same, no matter how Nazar insists I should pay attention to such trifles as these.

At my side, murmuring into my ear, judging my experience as I share it in fits and starts, the priest seems unusually content—too content, given the fool I’m about to make of myself. It’s too soon for me to fight—far too soon. I’d thought I would have days yet to practice.

Eventually, I sleep, only to be plagued by nightmares of the tournament field. I wake into an early dawn weighed down by exhaustion—which perversely seems to please Nazar as well. He dresses me in yet another heavy tunic and cloak, thick breeches and boots. Hanging from my belt are more green sashes, along with my sword and a pouch for a ceremonial warrior’s knife.

“I’ll swelter in all of this,” I grumble, trying to stifle a yawn.

“But with any luck, you won’t bleed through it,” comes the unhelpful response.

I peer at the priest to see if he’s joking, but can’t read the expression on his face. Instead, he continues talking. “All warriors bleed. In time, all fall. Timing, in truth, is how you will win this battle.”

“Nazar,” I groan. “I won’t win this battle.” I thought of Gemma’s words the night before, the first time I’ve thought of her again in my panic to prepare. Now, with no more preparation possible, I frown. “That favor you gave me to present to Gemma. What was it? She recognized it, I think.”

“She recognized the bird, nothing more. A mourning dove. A fitting gift for a young woman so beautiful.”

“But how did you—” I groan as Nazar’s eyes brighten, and I hold up a hand. “Stop, no. I can’t bear it. The way of the warrior is timing, I know. You’re going to tell me you somehow anticipated this. Anticipated it and came to my aid before I even realized I needed help.” I shake my head. “Thank you, Nazar.”

Nazar stands back from me, but amusement is still evident in his face. “It’s not unreasonable to believe that you would be plied for gifts in advance of the tournament.”

“This isn’t the tournament, though. Not yet.”

“Isn’t it?” Nazar asks mildly.

The guards arrive, and there’s no talking for a long while. Darkwing is restless and eager, and I think again of Merritt, so proud to sit atop this warhorse and charge into the Tournament of Gold.

I will do all I can to not fail either my brother or his beautiful horse.

“Merritt.” Nazar’s prompt floats to me, and I straighten, knowing the rebuke for what it is. There are too many people around us. I can’t show weakness, even to myself. My mind thrums with Nazar’s words as he’d stood beside me through the long night. The warrior Kheris of the Third House has fought at previous tournaments, Nazar has learned. And so his Divh is well known—known and feared among the other combatants, known and adored among the battle-lusting crowd. It’s a long, sinuous serpent, as thick as Gent is wide, and more than five times as long. Though a snake would normally not seem interesting to watch, this one can leap in such a way to seem like flying, and it prefers to squeeze its opponents to death, or to lock its jaws tight around a shoulder or leg or arm.

None of that sounds terribly appealing.

I’m still contemplating how best to protect Gent when we clear the lower gates of the First House, and Nazar rides up to keep pace with me. Caleb falls in behind. The guards along the route stretch the distance between us, giving us privacy to speak and strategize. The same respect is allowed Kheris, who follows me at a distance of a half mile. Runners have been sent ahead to assemble the populace. It is to be a grand, unexpected spectacle, we’ve been told.

“You are holding yourself in a grip of iron,” Nazar says now. “Be as a river, flowing from one movement into the other. To be tight is to let your enemy see that you aren’t prepared.”

I glare at him. “I’m not prepared.”

“You must believe that you are. Think of Kheris, laughing boldly at the feasting hall. He does not know you or your Divh. However, he has been a warrior long enough to know that the gifts of the Divh can be awe-inspiring. He may worry on this, but he won’t show his worry. He will know he is prepared and be certain that you know this as well. And that gives him the advantage. He is as the river.”

“The river,” I grumble, but Nazar’s words spark through me. I ease the tension in my brow and straighten my back, and he nods in approval.

“Good. You must hold yourself with your head erect, your gaze neither low nor high nor off to the side. Your brow shall be calm, your stare unblinking. Your shoulders shouldn’t hike above your ears but remain low and at the ready. Your belt shall remain tight, not slack, your sword wedged in.”

I nod, but my lips twist. “No swords, Nazar.” He’d done this often in the night, speaking of swords. Caleb had been staring at me through most of it, but I’d been too tired to challenge any of the priest’s teachings, even that coming from a man who spent his lifetime not fighting, but praying to the gods who dance between the Light and the Darkness.

“When you see, there is both the far and the near. The two are equally important. The near view will ensure you remain protected, the far that you will win. Focus on the far, on the slightest move of your enemy’s shoulders. You must see without moving your eyes.”

“Oh, is that all.” Still, I allow Nazar to continue, his words a soothing cadence in my mind as the trail rolls on.

Before we’re anywhere close to the coliseum, I can hear the crowd. My stomach knots and my hands clench the reins.

“Merritt.” This time it isn’t Nazar beside me, but Caleb. He’s remained silent for most of the long night, charged with keeping watch at the door to our quarters, that we might practice unmolested. He’s remained quiet during the morning preparations as well, listening to Nazar as if he’s absorbing the words of a master. Now he rides up beside me and keeps his smaller horse at a quickened step to match mine.

He says nothing further, though, and we ride like that for a long minute more before he speaks again, his eyes on the far horizon. “You’ve never actually fought with your Divh, have you? Not against another Divh. You haven’t had time since…” He pauses, shifting his glance to me. “You haven’t had time.”

My lips twist, but there’s no reason to deny it. “I haven’t.”

He nods then turns his gaze away again. “Well, you need to know that despite all that, you can win this. In any tournament battle, there’s always that possibility. You have to believe it.”

Irritation knifes through me, but Caleb takes my clear skepticism the wrong way. “I know the advice of a cripple is tough to swallow. But even now, I know I can win any battle I find myself in. It’s why I enter so many. And you’re more reckless than I am.”

I snort, but he continues, “In time, I can teach you how I can handle a sword with one hand, when the balance is all off. I’ll teach you how to pin your opponent when they don’t expect to, because you slip beneath their defenses. Nazar can teach you?—”

“Nazar is a priest,” I growl, real fear beginning to claw at my eyes. For all that I’ve listened to the old man the whole night through, the truth is still there, mocking me. “A priest, Caleb. He knows the Light, nothing more.”

“No.” Caleb leans close, though I can sense that he wants to check on Nazar’s position behind us. “That man may be a priest, but he’s not only a priest. Surely you know that as well.”

“He came to us?—”

“We all come to places we don’t expect,” Caleb cuts me off. “You listen to him, yet you still doubt him. Well, don’t. He’s not only a keeper of the Light. He’s a master of the sword and of strategy. I know it as sure as I’m born.”

I start to protest then stop. Nazar is a priest—and an old man—but he was also the only other survivor of the attack on the Tenth House caravan in the mountains. I…I’d never really thought about that, until now.

Caleb continues, “It’s not important how, though, not now. What’s important is that there are many things he can teach you. Everything but one. He can’t teach you heart. I can’t give you heart either, though I’d sacrifice another limb if I had one to spare, to enter into the Tournament of Gold as a banded warrior. To feel what you feel and see what you see when your Divh takes the field.”

Caleb’s voice is so caught up in enthusiasm that it tugs at me, lifting me slightly from the mire of my own dread. “It’ll be good to see Gent here, out in the open,” I say reluctantly.

The smile my squire turns on me is almost radiant. “Good? It’ll be a moment to savor for a lifetime! I haven’t seen your Divh, and I cannot wait. No one has seen it—him—up close.” He eyes me knowingly. “Kheris hasn’t seen him either. Remember that.”

“Kheris.” I frown. Perhaps…perhaps I do have an advantage, after all. Though Caleb’s wrong, of course. Fortiss has seen my family’s Divh. Fortiss and whoever killed Merritt.

I pray they’re not one and the same person.

At that moment, the horns of the tournament sound. The distant roar of the crowd flows over us like a surging tide. Caleb falls back with Nazar as I ride forward, surrounded by a battery of guards. As the challenger, my task is to enter on the far side of the fighting field. I feel my shoulders relax, my brow ease as a stiff wind kicks up. My long, dark-green cloak flows out behind me, and I and a few outriders break off from the main line of guards to take the secondary path to the tournament field.

Less than a quarter hour later, we’re in position at the far end of the field. The coliseum is even fuller than it was earlier this week—has it only been a few days since I saw the men of the Fourth and Sixth House in battle? It already seems like a season has passed. The horns down the far end of the field blare but distantly, and Darkwing blows and champs, held too long in check from the gallop he craves.

“Soon.” I pat his shoulder. “Then you’ll show them all.”

One of the guards looks at me, startled, and I give him a half shrug.

“He was meant for the race, I suspect, not for the battle. But he’s got a good heart.”

The second guard flanking me gives a grudging laugh. “Better hope he’s got strong legs too, to get you out of here.”

“If he gets that chance, you’ll be well ahead of the game.” A third guard saves the words from being a sneer, but only by a hair. “Kheris wasn’t chosen lightly. You’re a lamb being brought to the slaughter.”

“Probably.” The guards chuckle darkly, perhaps surprised that I know the fate that lies before me. Meanwhile, I face forward again, tightening my knees against the horse’s sides.

I do know the fate before me, I realize. That fate is the way of the warrior, to hear Nazar tell the tale. And the way of the warrior is to be prepared to face death at every turn.

This day won’t bring me death, I think. Not yet.

But it will bring me Gent. Here in the bright sunshine, where I can truly see him with my own eyes, on my own plane. And for that, I am grateful.

The far horns sound again, and the guards urge me on, their cheers more heartfelt than I would have expected. Beneath me, Darkwing races across the field in a blissful bounding gallop, and I feel the warrior band on my left arm burn in sudden awareness of the animal’s fervor. Unexpected laughter surges up within me, suffusing my entire body with its light. Gent will be coming, I think, and Gent loves nothing more than to run and feel the land fall away beneath his feet. He’ll enter this world a hero and he’ll leave it as such, I vow. All of Nazar’s words coalesce in my head, and I bend forward over the horse’s withers, urging him on.

Darkwing needs no more encouragement than that. He surges forward, easily beating Kheris’s mount to the center of the field, and dances as the crowd roars with delight and laughter. He’s won his race this day. The rest is up to me.

Kheris clearly wasn’t expecting that move, and though he lifts his arm in acceptance of the enormous rolling cheer, his face is already dark with annoyance. “You so quickly want to die, boy?” he shouts at me. The weight of his anger slams into me like a malevolent fist. “I can help you with that, if so.”

“I’m honored to fight you, Kheris,” I shoot back, “Nothing more.”

He blinks, but he can’t find the insult in my words, nor any challenge.

“Then you’ll be equally honored to lose.” He turns his steed sharply, pulling hard at the bridle as the horse fights against it.

I turn as well with a squeeze of my legs, but Darkwing knows his duty. He pivots and trots up to the two wooden towers. It suddenly occurs to me that the towers are all that remain of what I’d seen when I was last on this field, at this place. There are no fighting pits surrounding us, nothing but bare ground.

The attendants help both Kheris and me dismount, and we turn to our respective towers amid more raging cheers from the crowd. Two of my guards stand at the door to my tower, and they nod at me grimly. I give them a rueful smile. “Go easy on my horse. He just wanted to run it out.”

Once again, they start in surprise, and I pass by them, also grateful for my horse’s need to run. It seems to have cleared my head. The guard at my back speaks up. “A moment, Merritt of the Tenth. I’ll take your cloak. To keep you from tripping.” I wait until he pulls the heavy garment from my shoulders and feel lighter still. Bounding up the stairs, I round the series of tight corners and all too quickly find myself at the final door at the top of the platform. The light breaks in around it, and the guard comes up the stairs behind me. He speaks again. “You haven’t been in a tournament before.”

I grimace. It must be obvious to everyone. “I haven’t.”

“You’ll exit and acknowledge the crowd, then stand at attention, facing the Lord Protector while Kheris does the same. When the Lord Protector gives the signal—he’ll lift his arm—you’ll lift your left arm high and cross your heart with your right. When he drops his arm, summon your Divh.”

Hearing these instructions settles my nerves yet further. “Thank you,” I say, turning around to meet his gaze. “You may only be doing your job, but there are many ways to do one’s work. Yours is appreciated.”

He might have said something in return, but the door is opening now. I face forward and step into the sunlight.