Chapter 29

“ W here have you been ?”

Caleb yanks me into our cell then sticks his head out the door, ensuring that no one is following me. Having torn off the servant’s cloak, I look perfectly normal, normal and boy-like, but his panic unnerves me even more than my racing heart and kiss-bruised lips.

“Why? What’s happened?” I ask.

“A servant fell to her death this night,” he spits. “Her death . We thought…I mean it could have been you. It could have.” He runs his hands through his hair, standing it up on end. “It wasn’t, but it could have.”

“I…” I don’t have anything to say to that, the events of the night crashing together in my mind. Nazar turns and regards me curiously as well. My priest and my squire, I suddenly think. If there’s another attempt on my life, they both may just as easily be caught by an arrow or fist. I swallow, feeling the weight of the obligation to protect them. I need to tell them about Rihad. About the fallen warriors. I won’t tell them about the marauders, though. Not yet. Not until we’re well away from Trilion, reminding ourselves how very close we came to death.

“The attempt on Merritt’s life was ordered by Rihad,” I say to Nazar, and Caleb goes rigid beside us. “And it’s not the only one. A warrior of the Ninth House has also fallen, and one from the Eleventh. The Fourth and the Fifth too. A warrior of the Third House may yet fall.”

“What are you saying?” Real fear lifts Caleb’s voice to a quavery yelp. Nazar merely watches me.

“Fortiss apparently went out to the borderlands to try and—I don’t know, stop it somehow, though he clearly failed.” I add this last as coldly as I can, forcing away his earnest face and his sweet apology from my mind. “He believes his uncle has merely foretold the deaths, but they’re coming too quickly. The hardest hit are the eastern border houses.”

“Fortiss used the word foretelling?” Nazar’s question is quiet, and I frown at him. Surely this is the least of the concerns before us, but there’s so much I don’t know about the priest that I can’t let my ignorance stand in the way of our safety. He’s proven himself both wise and knowledgeable several times over.

“He did,” I say. “And you can bet he’s likely to foretell a few more killings before he’s done. The Tenth House is at risk, Nazar. We should go now with the men we have.”

“What, you mean leave? Now ?” Caleb’s mouth opens and shuts several times as he tries to work through what I’m saying.

“You’re certain,” Nazar says. It isn’t a question.

I nod. There’s more, so much more. But that will have to wait until Nazar and I are alone. As it is, my squire’s doing his level best not to explode with panic.

“You spied on the Lord Protector and found all this out?” he seems to finally realize. “You could have been killed . Arrested.”

I squint at him. “How is that different than any other day within these walls?”

“But—”

“Squire Caleb,” Nazar says quietly. “I fear the warrior of the Tenth House may have indeed been noticed, having seen so much. Could you…” He pauses, letting Caleb see the worry on his face. “Could you use the skills you’ve amply displayed to make sure his name isn’t on anyone’s tongues? You must have a care not to be noticed.”

Caleb straightens with pride and purpose, his fear no match for his eagerness to please Nazar. “Consider it done,” he says staunchly. “No one will see me, I assure you. No one ever does.”

My heart twists at the simple, frank admission, then Caleb is gone.

The moment he clears the doorway, I pull Nazar’s tunic off my body in one rough movement.

“You’ll strain the stitches in your shoulder,” Nazar comments mildly.

“That’s the least of my problems.” I blow out a long breath, thinking again of the Savasci. The women who pledged to help me in my hour of need, but they hadn’t seen what I’d seen. They didn’t truly know what we were facing.

But what we had to fight…

I close my eyes and steady myself, and my words, when they finally come, seem to take far more effort than they should. “Nazar, I…I saw something. Someone. In Rihad’s chamber. A creature that stood in the fire.”

Nazar’s eyes flash with an emotion I can’t discern, but his voice is calm. “What did you see, specifically?” he asks. “What words were spoken?”

I try to recount the entire horrible scene. By the end, Nazar’s face has grown more pinched, his gaze now hard and flat. “I don’t know this creature—and I would, were it ever to have attacked the Exalted Imperium. It isn’t in any of my teachings of the Light.”

“Maybe because it’s from the Wes?—”

“Don’t say it,” Nazar snaps. “Such treason…” He draws a deep breath, his eyes taking on a faraway cast. “The Imperium must be told of this. And it’s you who must tell them. As Merritt. The Tenth House is the closest to the border—the last defense. It must be you who carries this tale.”

I make a face. “First, let’s see if I survive this week.” The idea of traveling to the heart of the Exalted Imperium as my brother is so ridiculous it doesn’t even spark panic in my heart.

Much.

We talk more, until I’ve begun to doubt what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears. Surely, Rihad couldn’t be planning anything so dire as an attack on the Protectorate—or, so much worse, the Imperium. Surely, I somehow misunderstood…

I’m midway through another round of rationalization when Caleb finally returns.

“There’s a good number of men out there,” he says. “Laughing and talking—but not about you. Still, it’s most of the warriors from the tournament.”

I know he’s implying I should join them, but I refuse to leave our chambers right away. Instead, Caleb and I practice our skills of not looking at each other for a while, each of us occupied with our own thoughts. At length, however, I venture out to the bonfire in the central courtyard. I’m surprised when Caleb joins me shortly after, but I can’t deny how glad I am for his company. He hands me a cup as he hefts a flagon of wine.

“Stolen,” he says with a shrug, and I lift my brows.

“They made the stealing easy I take it?”

“They practically forced it on every warrior and squire in the castle. If you’d stayed on your pallet where you should have been, you’d have probably found a girl in your bed.” He grins at me. “Not that you would’ve known what to do with her.”

I snort as he pours the wine into my cup. He’s not entirely wrong…or right. Not anymore.

We stand watching the fire for a long while as we drink, and I welcome the warmth that flows through me, both from the fire and the spirits. My mind buzzes from all I’ve learned this night, all I still don’t understand.

Caleb finally speaks, under the murmur of conversation. “The servants are still talking about that girl who fell to her death.”

“They saw her fall?” So I had been spotted by more than Rihad. Blessings to the Light for a disguise over a disguise of a disguise. Twice the blessing to Gent for saving me.

He nods. “Enough did. She leapt straight out a window and was gone. They predict her body will be eaten by wolves before it’s ever found.”

I grimace, imagining that fate. “Who do they think she was?”

He shrugs one shoulder, shooting me a glance. “No one knows—they assume a day worker from the village, like I said, but so far no one is talking. Of course, it’s not yet dawn.” He turns his face toward the castle walls. “If she did fall from that height, though, she’d surely die.”

I follow his gaze. There’s a light blazing from the high windows of what I now know is the Lord Protector’s rooms. Does he truly think a mere servant girl had been spying on him, I wonder? Better for me if he does.

Caleb blows out a long breath. “So, Gent was there to catch you?”

I stare into the leaping fire, but I can’t stop the grin as I recall the Divh’s sudden appearance and all that came after. “He was,” I say simply.

“But—how?” He pauses, his throat working. “Bad enough that you dressed as a servant and spied on the Lord Protector. Then what? You were discovered, you ran, and you jumped ? How’d you know he’d be there?”

I think about that, my headlong dash with my arm extended. Caleb’s guess is accurate enough to bring it all back in vivid detail. “Because I heard him laughing. In my mind. He was that close and…and then he was there.”

Caleb looks at me then shakes his head, returning his gaze to the fire. “You jumped into empty air and expected him to catch you.”

“Yes.” Once again, I see Merritt’s face, hear his laughter. My heart twists in pain.

Because Merritt was right…Merritt had always been right. If he jumped, his Divh would do all he could to catch him. If he called, his Divh would always answer.

Just as he answered me this night.

Caleb and I stand together for a long while, our talk eventually turning back to the feast. Caleb speaks of Fortiss making a speech to honor Kheris, and the bold southern warrior taking it all as his due, the clear favorite to win the tournament after he so soundly defeated the strange boy from the eastern border.

That catches me. “Strange?” I ask. Strange is bad, very bad. If the way of the warrior was to stick out like a squash in a field of roses, I’d have already won the tournament by now. Speaking of roses… “They don’t mean the flower petals, do they?”

Caleb huffs a laugh. “No. That escaped much attention, as far as I can tell. But the moment when you stretched your arm toward your Divh before he disappeared? That was noticed and remarked upon. Rihad made a joke at your expense, about how living in the mountains made friends hard to come by, and everyone laughed.”

“But for everyone to laugh, that meant they’d noticed it too. The connection.” I frown, turning the problem over in my head. “I thought that’s what everyone did.”

“And it’s being presented as simply a lack of experience, so you’re good,” Caleb says. “You’re from the Tenth House, after all. You’re closest to the Exalted Imperium, hemmed in by rocks and trees. Who’s to say what odd customs you’ve developed?”

“Right.” I nod. “What other talk was there tonight?” I ask, as casually as I can. “Were they able to catch the marauders in the camp?”

“Oh that,” Caleb scoffs. “You won’t believe this. Rihad is blaming malcontents from the western borders, stirring up trouble. Says the Divhs and warriors fighting in the tournament will remind them all of why we won the battles of the Western Realms, and that they’ll quail in fear once more.”

I think of the women I’d just met this night, women coming to seek the source of darkness leaching into the Protectorate. “How’d that go over?”

“A lot of cheering, knocking of mugs, stamping of feet,” Caleb says, shrugging. “Rihad knows his audience.”

We work our way back to the barracks then, and Caleb goes to look in on our horses as I rejoin Nazar. As expected, the old man is smoking his pipe. Beside him, laid out on a rack, is the servant’s overwrap.

“I need to return that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Nazar says mildly. “A servant’s garb is soiled easily and often. Extras are equally easy to come by, I expect. Keep it awhile yet.” He watches me over a curl of smoke. “The first round of the tournament has been charted. The warriors selected for battle. We have less than a week before it begins.”

I wince, moving my arm. “Am I in the first round?”

He shakes his head. “The second, and you are against a minor foe, one of the Ninth House warriors.”

“The Ninth.” That can’t be right. “They had their second warrior killed. There’s only the one left.”

“And you command arguably one of the stronger Divhs in recent memory.” Nazar nods. “You are expected to advance.”

“What about the other southern houses?” I ask. “Who are they slated against?”

“The lesser warriors of the northern, to a man. The strongest fighting the least strong, winnowing down the field quickly.” He pauses. “But Rihad has added a new element. At the close of the tournament, there will be a melee, pitting the Divhs against each other on the open ground between the First House and the spectator stands.”

I stare. In the deepest pit of my gut, I know that’s very wrong. “A melee of Divhs? But how?—”

“The details are scant, except this one: Every warrior knight still standing must participate. The entire Protectorate is anticipated to flow toward the First House for the event at the close of the tournament. Great honor goes to the First House for creating a battle that will go down in history.”

“But multiple Divhs against others? That’s never been done before, surely. Not in a tournament. Not even in open battle since—well, since the borders were closed to the Western Realms, right?”

Nazar takes a long draw on his pipe, and we stare at each other, the knowledge of tonight’s discoveries weighing down the air between us. “Then it would seem that the First House wishes to create a new tradition.”

“So it would seem.”

Caleb returns then. We make our pallets, but my mind refuses to rest. The entire night, I turn in my half sleep, dreaming of Gent’s laughter, his bounding strides and his leap into the darkness to catch me, the race along the mountainside. How had I summoned him so quickly and so well? Even now, it seems as if his enormous hand is close enough to touch, his glassy eye with its long, thick eyelashes barely a breath away.

I tumble into deep slumber at last, dreaming of blue mountains. And of all the monsters of the Divh lined up against each other, blowing and huffing like bulls about to charge.

One of those monsters I recognize too, smaller than many of her peers, but no less fierce.

The dragon trapped in the cavernous hollows of the First House’s dungeon hold.

Only now, the dragon is free and forced upon the battlefield, her broken wing flopping oddly against her body. The other Divhs watch her with a curious mix of anger and fear, and when the horns finally blow to signal the start of the melee, the monsters don’t turn on each other, they turn on the dragon in their midst, arms and paws outstretched, jaws open wide, all of them rushing, jumping, thrashing?—

I jolt awake. Nazar stands above me.

“We go to train,” he says.

In the shadows, Caleb also stands watching me, his eyes wide.

“What?” I ask him as I shoulder on my cloak. Nazar moves ahead into the barracks corridor, motioning me to follow. But I can’t ignore the horror on Caleb’s face. “What?”

“You were screaming ,” he whispers. “You weren’t making a sound but—your throat, your face…” He shakes his head. “Whatever you saw…bad things are coming, aren’t they?”

It isn’t a question.

A sudden chill clamps my stomach. “I hope not.”