Chapter 39

S ince we’re already behind the high table, there’s no disruption to the feast as the guards swoop into the room. Clearly, my father knew they were following us. When they hear the word “traitor,” they stomp to either side of me.

My father gloats as he takes in my confusion. “You forget I wasn’t always deep in the mountains,” he says. “I fought in tournaments as well, long before you ever saw your first accursed sunrise.” He seems poised to say something else, then changes his mind. “I’ve asked Rihad for an audience. Show me to him.”

We emerge from the antechamber and immediately enter the archway that I know leads to Rihad’s chambers, and my guts wind tighter with each passing step. I don’t have a strategy for this. This isn’t war, not in the way I know it. I sense there is a strategy to be had, for war isn’t only fought on the tournament grounds or at the tip of a sword, but my mind is filled with wind and rushing words, nothing clear to me. The guards hasten me along at a fast clip, their long legs sturdier than mine, and all too quickly I find myself once more in Rihad’s private sanctuary. There’s the enormous fireplace, crackling despite the heat of the day, and there is Miriam.

Once again, she stands perfectly composed, beaming as Father strides toward her.

“It’s worse than I imagined,” he says stiffly, and she extends a comforting hand but says nothing more as her cool, unreadable gaze slides over me.

“Rihad will join us presently,” she says. “He’ll be honored that you have alerted us to this danger.”

“It’s a disgrace and an atrocity,” my father snarls. “And to think this creature carried forth in such a manner in front of the entire Protectorate. The shame is agonizing.”

“What’s this?”

Rihad steps into the room, still in full flush from the triumph of the feast and the long day before it. He claps his hands together. “Lemille! You’ve only just arrived, and you’ve already found something to complain about? It truly feels as if we were both twenty years younger, and you were still fighting in the tournament yourself. I must say, though, I am surprised that Merritt is some sort of traitor. He’s conducted himself as?—”

“He is not —!” Father sounds as if he is choking on his own words, but he catches himself in time, then straightens. “It would be better if we had complete privacy, Lord Protector Rihad.” He gestures to the guards. “I don’t wish to offend…”

“Not at all.” Rihad seems to be enjoying himself far too much. I remain stiff and unyielding as I watch my father pace back and forth, waiting for the guards to clear the room. Rihad even has them check to ensure that there are no other hidden ears in the rooms off the narrow corridor. He’s wise to check, given what I’d seen from that space just a few days earlier.

Still, even as Rihad reenters the grand chamber and my father squares his shoulders, I can’t believe that Father will betray me in the end. I can see him outing me as a charlatan, yes. That I’m not Merritt. But to reveal me as a female would be to sign my death warrant. Surely, he will stop short of that.

“Very well, Lemille,” Rihad says, watching my father keenly. “State your case.”

“The creature you see standing before you is not Merritt of the Tenth House as you’ve been led to believe,” my father betrays me without hesitation, refusing to even glance my way. “ She is Talia, a servant of my own house. And a female.”

I gape at him, more shocked at his refusal to name me as his daughter than at the revelation of my sex.

Rihad is clearly stunned, however, as is Miriam. Or is she? I frown at the woman, who maintains an expression of incredulity. I assumed she’d already guessed my subterfuge with her gift. Then again, she’s stood in front of me only twice, surrounded by crowds of men. And of course, I am a banded warrior. Her mind apparently couldn’t process a female in that role. If so, then Miriam’s gift is mighty, but it’s also grievously flawed.

Rihad recovers first. “Councilor Miriam,” he snaps. “Verify?—”

Light and fire, no . I won’t be stripped in front of these people unless I am truly incapacitated first. “There’s no need for that, Lord Protector,” I say sharply. “I’m female. I came to seek retribution for…Merritt of the Tenth. I was in his party when he traveled the mountain road. I was with him when he was murdered.” I glare at Rihad. “Which makes him yet another warrior knight cut down on the road to the Tournament of Gold. The list has grown long.”

“But you’re a woman.” Strangely, it’s Miriam whose voice cuts across the room, not Rihad, who merely watches me with undisguised curiosity. “A woman…wearing the band of the Divh.”

“The penalty for a female attempting to band with a Divh is death ,” growls my father. “Immediate. Let it be known that I exposed this traitor to you, Rihad. A traitor under your nose that you didn’t sniff out in all the days that she was here.”

“She is of your house.” Rihad slides his glance to my father, and I catch the danger in that gaze.

My father doesn’t. “Was,” the old fool says succinctly. “And I myself would not have believed any woman capable of the depravity to which she has sunk. I allow no traitors to live in my midst. When the bards came to extend your invitation, I had no idea of the events transpiring here. No way of knowing…” His voice catches. “I hoped to find my son here. Instead, I find not only a traitor, but a female .” He straightens his shoulders. “It’s an abomination.”

“But it can’t…” Miriam echoes quietly, still apparently at a loss, and unhappy for it. “It’s not possible.”

“When?” Rihad turns on me and pins me with his snakelike eyes. “You say you came to seek retribution for your house’s warrior knight. But you have a Divh. When did you get it? How?”

I refuse to look at my father, but there’s no strategic value in lying to Rihad. If nothing else, Miriam will know, should know, that a woman’s position can be gained by doing something other than serve a murderer. Even if I’d held my position as warrior knight for only a few short days, I’d done it. And if I can do it…

I firm my resolve, then speak.

“Lord Merritt died. In my arms. I was the first one to reach him. His Divh collapsed some distance away, then disappeared. I…” I shake my head. “I assumed he was dead when he left this plane.”

“It,” my father snaps, but I pay him no mind.

“As I held my—Merritt’s arm, his warrior band changed. It turned as if to liquid, or as a snake, and before I could draw back, it had peeled away from Merritt’s arm to slide up mine.” I grimace, recalling the moment as if it’d been dredged up from the depths of time, though it happened a bare two weeks earlier. “It…hurt.”

My father explodes. “You should have died in the attempt! It is against every edict of the Exalted Imperium.” Something else seems to finally occur to him. “Where is Nazar ? The other guards? Surely they would not have let you?—”

“Hold, Lord Lemille.” Rihad crosses over to his throne and settles into it, looking down on me as if he’s been charged with solving a particularly perplexing riddle. “We are in your debt for your service and fervor. But you’re not being entirely honest with us, I think.”

He slides his glance to Miriam, who nods once. Rihad curls his lip. “I thought so. Would that your intuition could cut with a sharper blade, Councilor Miriam. For us to not realize that there was a woman in our midst…”

She appears unfazed by his rebuke, and once again I wonder how much she truly knows. “But there is a misdirection that I have perceived,” she says, her eyes flashing. “Lemille, share the whole truth with us. This girl is your daughter.”

“No, she’s not!” My father’s denial is less alarming the second time. As he squares off against Miriam, my thoughts slip ahead to my own death.

Will they kill me by the time-honored form of execution, beheading, or will they simply call the guards in to slit my throat? I could run straight out of the First House—escape the way I did before, summoning Gent to carry me far away. But I had the advantage of surprise then…and a head start. This time I’d never reach the open air, where I could safely summon Gent. I’d be running directly into the arms of the guards.

I grit my teeth. The way of the warrior is death, Nazar has told me, too many times to count. I knew it when the band bit its way into my arm. I knew it when I first cut my hair and donned the attire of a man. Silently, I pray that Nazar and Caleb fled once they saw me disappear with my father. Nazar might have, I think. Caleb, I don’t know. He’s already displayed a perilous tendency to make unwise choices. And he isn’t exactly anonymous with his missing arm.

“Talia of the Tenth House.” Rihad’s voice seems to have acquired added resonance, and it quiets my own thoughts as well as my father’s and Miriam’s squabbling. “Either way, you cannot die this night.”

That sets Father off again. “She must ,” he blusters. “It’s the rule of the Imperium.”

“And we must ever follow the orders of the Exalted Imperium,” Rihad says, derision dripping from his words. He leans forward, studying me like I’m a particularly poisonous beetle. “Oh, she will die, must die, as you say. But not tonight, I think. You weren’t watching the battle at the Tournament of Gold today, Lemille. You didn’t see what your daughter did.”

“The petals.” Miriam’s words are so low as to be a whisper, but I hear her. She stares at me with renewed interest. “The connection with your Divh. But a woman…even a direct descendant of the first line.” She frowns. “It simply cannot be.”

Rihad continues as if Miriam hasn’t spoken, trampling over her words. “She beat multiple warriors, Lemille, or her Divh did. One she should have killed outright to save me the trouble. The others, however, were men of strength and worth.”

My father’s scoff is absolute. “She could do no such thing.”

“She could and she did, in so doing capturing the attention of the masses, I’m afraid. For Merritt of the Tenth House not to show his face tomorrow would cause…significant unrest. I can’t allow it.”

Beside Rihad, the great fireplace seems to sputter and pop, and I find my gaze drawn to it as the Lord Protector speaks. A shadow cast in the flames surges up with each crackling sizzle, and I imagine more than see the creature who was there before, staring at Rihad from the center of the blaze. A figure with his face in shadow, cloaked in fire…

“Talia!” Rihad barks the word so loud, I jump, and I force my attention back to him.

He still leans forward, his right arm bent, resting his elbow on his knee. “You will fight tomorrow, and you will fight honorably—or dishonorably, it makes no difference to me. But you will die, know that for certain. As will your attendants at the moment of your demise. Whether you fall by the hand of one man or many, it will be done by this hour tomorrow night.” He waves out toward the coliseum, far across the open plain.

“The Tournament of Gold is intended first and foremost as a skill competition between the very best warrior knights. It can be much more than that, however. It is also an opportunity for men to kill, if they are lucky…” He twists his lips. “Or be killed, if they aren’t.”

I lift my chin. If my life is ash, what I say here won’t matter. “There’s no honor in killing for sport. Surely some of the warriors left in this tournament believe that.”

“A true warrior knows no honor other than to his lord.” This time, it’s my father who speaks, not Rihad. Apparently, he’s regained his backbone, at least enough to spit words at me. “Which you would know if you were a man and had any shred of worth to you.”

I stiffen, but the matter is already settled in Rihad’s mind. “The men of the First and Second are mine to command,” he says, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll face both in equal combat. And your partner in the team competition shall be Kheris of the Third.” He laughs as he sees the expression on my face. “At least you know his serpent well. Your Divh will have to be careful that it doesn’t face three opponents on the tournament field, not two.”

“She shouldn’t even be allowed to compete,” whines my father. For once, I almost agree with him. The mercy of a quick death seems far preferable to what awaits me in the coliseum.

“ She won’t,” Rihad holds up a hand, in a voice now stony with command. “Merritt of the Tenth House will. And there he’ll also die—a second time—for the greater glory of the Protectorate. Guards!”

He eyes me as the men march into the room. “This night, you’ll be the esteemed guest of the First House,” he says, his lips flattening into a thin smile. “I trust you will be comfortable.”