Chapter 38

T he cheer of the warriors is heartfelt and loud. I hide behind the shoulders of taller men and watch my father flush with pride. What is he doing here?

Rihad’s next words solve that dilemma. “Lord Lemille has traveled hard and fast to witness the tournament’s end. When he learned from the bards of his son’s presence in the early battles of this tournament, of the marauder attack that warrior knight Merritt survived to even compete, he knew he must come. He’ll be granted a brace of soldiers from the tournament’s finest competitors, to protect his home and rebuild its glory.”

My gaze narrows to a pinprick. I don’t know how to act, how to breathe. Is that all it takes, then, to replace Merritt—a handful of soldiers? But Father doesn’t know Merritt has died, that a usurper fights in his stead. He certainly doesn’t know that it’s by Rihad’s own hand that Merritt was killed. In accepting soldiers from the First House, he’s playing right into the trap the Lord Protector has set for him.

I watch my father stare haughtily around the gathered men. He makes no attempt to find his son in the group. It’s not appropriate for him to do so—as Merritt, I’m officially as much my father’s lackey as the meanest servant. But still…shouldn’t he at least try to look for his son? I know I would have.

Now I wonder: Had Father even loved Merritt at all, or was his son simply an extension of himself? I’d thought his affection for Merritt genuine, deep and true. He had certainly loathed me well enough. My fingers trace the proof of his hatred forever scored along my neck.

He’ll learn soon enough that Merritt is dead, though. And when he does…

My head swims. My hands go cold and clammy. When that happens, I definitely want to be gone from this place.

I try to remember Nazar’s words from the barracks. The old priest must have known. This is what he’d seen as we’d climbed the long path up to the First House, my father’s entourage. He must have seen, understood what I would be facing.

He’s also not here, I realize with a start.

“Where’s Nazar?” I’m surprised I can even form words, my throat’s so tight.

Caleb looks around, his mouth grim. “Hopefully praying to the Light that we get out of this in one piece. But look, here’s a spot. Let’s sit here. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“Maybe,” I say, though neither one of us believes that.

Rihad calls for the feast to commence, and there’s great jostling and scraping as the warriors plow into the food. Caleb has made friends with the squires of the Fourth and Sixth Houses, it seems, and we’re now seated in their midst. I’m glad of it. I need to hide.

I don’t touch the food.

Looking around the room, hunkering down low so as not to be seen by my father, I survey the warriors—both those who triumphed today and those who failed. There’s still no sign of the fallen Fifth House warrior’s cadre of men—they’ve flowed away like ebbing water. While their remaining men must stay for the final melee tomorrow, they no longer have any warriors in contention for top tournament honors. The final eight combatants include two of the Third House, including Kheris, two from the First House, and one each from the Second, Fourth, Seventh…and the Tenth. Fortiss remains as well, of course, but he hasn’t fought, except in the exhibition match with Rihad’s Divh. I don’t expect him to fight again.

I grab a small loaf of bread as I think on that, and my gaze swings to the high table. By now, Father has surely stolen a look my way. He’ll instantly know something is wrong. I don’t look so much like Merritt that a father would be fooled. If he asks to see me, will he challenge me in public? Will he betray me to everyone here?

A deep, sour pain swirls in my stomach. I should never have vied for a seat at the Court of Talons. This world of politics and warriors and deceit is too complex for me to navigate. This tournament is a foolish game thought up by men to fill their ever-emptying cups of pride. There’s no honor in this.

“Stop scowling, Merritt, you’re frightening Gemma. And she’s been trying to catch your eye since we entered the room.”

“Gemma?”

Caleb’s admonition bumps me out of my dark thoughts, and I look again toward the high table, thankful that the women have been segregated to the far end, well away from Rihad and my father.

Sure enough, Gemma’s looking my way. Her beautiful dress is the rich gold and ebony of the First House, but in her hair, she’s artfully tied the long green-and-silver sash of the Tenth House. My favor.

I manage a smile, but my queasiness worsens as I see the altered colors of the Tenth House—Father will definitely notice that. How can I escape this room? I can’t breathe again, and I pick up a cup of wine, forcing myself not to drain it with one gulp.

Perhaps—perhaps I can remain anonymous. Perhaps my father won’t ask to see me until after tomorrow’s battles. It’s only one more day, after all. Surely I can manage to avoid him for one day. I’ve already come so far.

Panic swamps me, scattering my thoughts. All I have to do is escape the tournament with my life. Not win, not even close. When the close of the tournament sweeps down and everything is chaos, I can run. I will run. Far to the north or even, possibly, to the wilderness of the west. I think of the Savasci. Would they accept me among them, a warrior and her Divh? They would, I think. I know they would.

In fact, I’ve already put in an appearance this night. I’ve paid my dues. I can claim illness and retire, maybe?—

Nazar’s words burst into my mind again, unwanted. You are Talia of the Tenth House, first-blooded and firstborn. As such, you will fight with power and with honor, and with the strength your blood has given you.

I can’t run, I realize. I can’t hide. I can only walk the warrior’s path.

A trill of horns brings the room to silence. Rihad stands again, his face wreathed in smiles. “It’s time to honor the men who will represent us in the final day’s battle—before we all go to war in the grand melee.”

My heart goes numb. One by one, Rihad announces the winning warriors, and they stand and stride into the center of the room, grinning widely, accepting the approval and cheers of their fellow warriors as their due. At last, when he speaks my name, I rise as well. The way of the warrior might be death, but right now, death seems preferable to this.

I lift my head high, forcing a smile to my face, an easy looseness to my walk as I stride to the center of the room. Gemma applauds fervently from her spot at the high table. I nod to her, causing more laughter and cheers to rise up as I take my spot at the center of the room.

Rihad says something else, and there’s another round of shouting, but I feel more than see the wiry figure of my father rising to his feet at the far end of the table, leaning forward to scowl at the eight of us.

My father’s face goes stony cold, morphing into the mask of fury I learned to fear so greatly as a child; a mask I counted myself lucky to have never seen at all past the age of ten, when I’d finally learned how to stay out of his way. Now that mask—a frozen expression of hauteur pierced through by eyes so fiery they could almost be red—is leveled at me.

He knows.

To my utter shock, however, he stays silent. Have I been granted some reprieve? I don’t know, but I don’t feel any better. My feet are heavy, my heart filled with tears, my skin too hot, and my breath thick in my throat. Fear like I’ve never known presses in on me, making me gasp.

Rihad dismisses us to our tables and orders the feast to continue, but I haven’t made it five steps before a guard appears at my side. “You are summoned to the high table, Merritt of the Tenth. By special request of Lord Protector Rihad and Lord Lemille.”

I nod. In the distance, at the table of the Fourth and Sixth Houses, I see Caleb laughing and drinking with his new friends. He’ll be an outcast again—far worse this time—unless I think of something. The crowd shifts, and I finally see Nazar as well. Unlike Caleb, he’s not in the thick of the feast but standing just inside the shadows, hidden and still. Watching me. His gaze meets mine across the room. He did know of this trial awaiting me. He sent me in here unprepared, but he knew.

He’s betrayed me.

I blow out a long breath, immediately acknowledging the wrongness of my thinking. If Nazar had breathed one word of my father’s presence to me, I wouldn’t have come at all. That would have been the coward’s way, not the warrior’s.

Which leaves me, irrevocably, on this path toward death. Of one kind or another.

Think! My father hasn’t looked at me intently for the past several years. I seemed to disgust him more deeply the more my body grew and changed, the evidence of my femininity impossible to hide.

Still, he must know I’m not Merritt. He spent morning, noon, and night with my brother.

Then all at once, the guard and I reach the table, and Rihad watches with keen interest as my father pulls himself to his feet again.

“Merritt, my son . Well met,” my father says, and his words are low and filled with such malice, my bones fairly turn to milk. His smile, however, never wavers. “Walk with me and tell me of your success. You have made quite a name for yourself and our house.”

“My lord.” Somehow, I manage the strength to bow to him without throwing up. I turn and bow to Rihad then, grateful that he’s the one staring at me and not Councilor Miriam. As we turn, though, there’s little gain in that. Miriam blocks our way, not ten steps distant.

“That’s Councilor Miriam, Father,” I say, ducking my head toward him even as he stiffens with revulsion at my nearness. “She’s a sensitive, a good one. Have a care.”

My father may be a brute, but he isn’t a fool. He strides ahead of me with three long steps, his face no doubt as open as his arms as he greets Councilor Miriam with such a wash of goodwill, I suspect the woman is reeling. Their greeting allows me to step past the councilor and move several strides ahead, a guard between us now, before my father breaks free. I wait deferentially as the two exchange more pleasantries, then my father joins me once more.

By now, we’re behind the high table, facing the three doors. I long to take the portal that leads to the chained Divh Szonja, but instead we move toward the center archway. I now realize what lies beyond it is a wide antechamber, not a corridor at all. My father steps quickly into it.

Then he turns on me.

His hand shoots out so quickly, and I’m so used to cowering before him, that I barely even flinch when he pulls me onto my toes by what’s left of my hair, exposing the long scar he inflicted upon me more than a decade ago. But I know enough to step back from the openhanded smack that follows.

I might be executed by this man, but I’m not going to be struck by him—not anymore.

Father doesn’t pause. “Where is Merritt?”

I blink at him, stunned. Surely he’s heard of the attack, surely he knows. “There—there was an attack.”

“Where is your brother ?” He fairly spits the words, though he keeps his voice low. Even now, he has no desire to draw the attention of Rihad.

“He died,” I snap, the words releasing a swell of grief I have no place to feel now. “There was an arrow—he jumped—you know how he jumps with his Divh and?—”

Before I can react, Father reaches out again. This time he grabs my shoulder, wrapping his hand around my bicep where the warrior’s band has embedded itself in my skin. Clearly, he can feel the cuff through my tunic sleeve, and his face reddens with hatred, his eyes going nearly black in their intensity as the pain of his grip sends bolts of wrenching agony through my arm.

“You shameful whore ,” he breathes. “You dog . I thought myself well rid of you when I sent you to that swine Orlof, yet not only do you not have the grace to die on the road, but you allowed your brother to die—your brother —” The mention of Merritt seems to pull him out of his anger and plunges him down another waterwheel of emotions, shock and horror and grief. “ He is the warrior of the Tenth. You aren’t. I should have killed you before you took your first breath. Rihad will never forgive this?—”

“Father! Listen to me.”

He’s so startled at my voice that he steps back, but I have not been Talia the meek and serving for more than two weeks now, and it feels like so much longer. I’ve been a warrior, fighting for my house’s safety—a safety that is now more at risk than ever. “Rihad is no true protector of our house. He knew you were sending Merritt out on that mountain road. He knew it because the bards told him as much. He sent—men. To kill Merritt and destroy his Divh. I have the arrow that took Merritt’s life.”

“You dare—!” he grates out.

I plow on. “I didn’t come to the tournament to fight. I came here to buy us soldiers for protection and then beg for restitution, for vengeance. For Merritt and the Tenth House. Only after I got here, I learned that Rihad had struck not one but three border houses. Probably more. He seeks to shore up the strength of the Protectorate with his own men, Father. Men he controls, not you. The warriors he sends you won’t be beholden to you. They will bow to you, while to him, they kneel.”

To my surprise, my father seems to actually consider my words. “You have the arrow that killed Merritt?” he asks, his voice low and ominous.

“I’d planned to present it to Rihad. It’s a gray arrow, nondescript though well made. The arrow of someone hiding who he really is. A warrior’s arrow.”

His face turns mutinous, and I rush on. “I…was with Merritt when he died. I couldn’t reach him in time.”

“You failed him.” Father’s words are so matter of fact, I jerk back again. “He was your lord. Your life was forfeit to his. Instead, he is dead and you , you who have no right to even still breathe, you walk while he is consigned to the Light.”

“I sought only?—”

“ You .” He reaches out again and clamps his hand around my arm, squeezing even harder. I nearly faint from the pain. “You stole his band.”

“I did not ,” I say hotly, wrenching from his grasp. “It—it moved. Toward me, and?—”

“No.” Father’s words are so intense, he’s almost hoarse with anger. “You are lying . It is forbidden!”

Rage surges up within me and overflows, my words stupid and desperate and coming far, far too quickly. “Forbidden or not, it happened. And I have won , Father. I’ve won battle after battle. Not the first, no, but since then, I’ve learned, and I’ve succeeded. I have brought honor to your house, not shame!”

Something shifts in my father then, deep and ugly, that seems to suck all the air from the chamber. He stares at me with flat, cunning eyes. “You have brought something, yes. At long last. From the moment you came squalling into this world, I have cursed the Light for its cruelty. Shaming my family, my house. The Protectorate. The very Exalted Imperium. A firstborn daughter is an abomination . I should have killed you a dozen times over already.”

In the face of such fury, I can only stare. Stare and stammer words that don’t make it past my throat. “I won’t fight anymore,” I try to say, all my newfound strength buried in a lifetime of shame. I’ll run. I’ll hide. I’ll stay far, far away.

But my father isn’t finished. “Even in my despair, I prayed that there would be some use to your slovenly, disgusting life, some payment for my years of torture in suffering you to live. And now there will be.”

I rear back, but he lunges at me, and this time, his hand catches my wrist, not my shoulder. “Rihad will know the traitor he has in his midst. Guards!”