Chapter 4

“ I didn’t want it,” I protest, already hot with shame as Nazar glares at me beside my brother’s smoking pyre. “I didn’t.”

“No?”

I wince, this single word a new and deadly cut. Because Nazar, of course, would know.

Though I’d always tried desperately never to be seen, I had mimicked Merritt’s movements in the hidden corners of the keep when I thought no one was looking. Nazar has caught me more than once in my shadow dancing. He could have—should have—had me lashed for my transgression. To my surprise, he never did, merely watched me with the same dark-eyed gaze he so often turned on Merritt. A few times, he even corrected my form with the barest word, the slightest shake of his head.

I treasured those secret, stolen instructions more than he probably ever imagined, rose-gold threads embroidered into the endless gray tapestry of my life.

Now those threads ensnare me as damningly as the cuff upon my arm.

I extend my shaking left hand, my chin up, the grubby tangle of my once-beautiful hair nearly overweighting me. There’s no denying the band sunk into my bicep. It’s still wet with my blood, my skin scorched black around it.

“I didn’t want it,” I say again, more forcefully this time. “I still don’t. Can…can you remove it?”

“Here?” Nazar’s face is implacable. “No. Without the unbanding ritual or a warrior to take on the sacred charge, only death can part a warrior from his band.”

“But this is a mistake.” I reach up for the offending band, my fingers digging into my ruined, blistered skin despite the spike of agony. “I don’t want it!”

“No!” Nazar’s horrified shout barely reaches me.

I grasp the band to wrench it free as scorching fire explodes through me, punching the air from my lungs and turning my bones to milk. I wheel back, dizzy with pain, and fall to the ground. I try to get up, but my legs won’t work, my limbs instead jerking at awkward angles, my hands, my feet, even my tongue quivering as I fight to breathe, to speak.

Nazar watches me shake uncontrollably from a short distance away, never moving.

At length, when my body ceases the worst of the spasms and merely quakes, he speaks. “I suggest you don’t try that again. If you need more incentive, know this: a forced unbanding ceremony is one of the most agonizing experiences a warrior can ever endure, both physically and mentally. Once you are separated from your Divh through any other act than the normal transfer of father to child, your heart will never beat normally again, your feet will never be fully sure upon the ground. It’s a weight like stones upon your lungs, a loss that keens forever in the depths of your soul.”

I bleat out a pitiable moan. I know of course that Gent was once banded to my father, but I’d been forced to remain deep inside the manor house whenever my father had summoned him. I’d only managed to watch Merritt work with Gent in secret —and never once had thought about the transfer process of the band, forced or otherwise. “How do you know all this?”

He grimaces. “I saw it happen decades ago, by order of the emperor. Only once, thank the Light. But it was memorable.”

“Right.” I groan with a last, indulgent whimper of abject misery as I force myself to face the path that lies before me. We must return to the Tenth House as fast as we can. Which means my father will see me. See me and know the extent of my betrayal. That I didn’t protect Merritt. That I allowed him to die and stole the band from his broken body, though I didn’t want it—didn’t know—could never have imagined?—

“Very well.” When I finally speak, I don’t recognize my voice. It’s dust and rocks and emptiness, which is all that’s left for me. “We’ll go back. The band will be transferred in this…unbanding ritual. And then I’ll—perhaps I’ll return to the Twelfth House and marry after all.” If my father allows me to live after my betrayal. I don’t hold out much hope for that.

To my surprise, however, Nazar shakes his head. “There’s no time,” he says flatly. “Your house needs soldiers, now more than ever. With the loss of these five, the Tenth only has five remaining fighting men—our strongest, but still nowhere near enough. The soldiers we need can only be found at the Tournament of Gold.”

“But…” I turn back to the field of the dead, forcing myself not to shrink away. “These were only marauders. They’ll scatter. No one will know of this attack.”

“No.” The old priest’s face is resolute. “These were not marauders. That arrow was shot by a house soldier.”

A new, impossibly colder wave of queasiness sluices through me as I think of the man I saw—the warrior in gold and black. “You’re wrong,” I declare. “That’s against the Rule of the Protectorate. No warrior would kill Merritt.”

My voice is resolute. Nazar isn’t Protectorate born. He came to us from Hakkir, the capital city of the Exalted Imperium, in the summer of my eleventh year, long after the deceit of my assumed role as Merritt’s younger sister had been woven into the fabric of our house. But even though he’s not native to our land, the priest knows our laws, our traditions. Still, I say the words aloud to scrub out his accusation. “It’s illegal for any Protectorate house to strike another house outside the Tournament, on penalty of death.”

“That doesn’t change the truth of this attack.” Nazar’s words are quieter now, though no less absolute. “These men didn’t fight foolishly but with set purpose. First the initial shot to take the warrior knight by surprise, ideally to kill him and remove his Divh from the battle.”

He motions to Merritt’s pyre with a curt wave. “Then the rush to kill our horses with arrows. Soldiers on horseback followed with swords and clubs—a swift and focused attack. That’s not the mark of marauders, Talia, hungry and desperate for food or weapons or silver. That’s the mark of trained fighters.”

“But…no.” I shake my head, outrage sparking through me at his stubborn denial. “No house kills another house’s warrior knight. It’s against the law.”

Nazar’s eyes remain fixed on me, bleak and hard. “It’s against the Light as well. But it’s what happened here. None of the attackers wore any symbol to betray their house, but those that fell told their truth. Their nails were unbroken, their bellies full, their bodies strong. They were not marauders. They belonged to a holding, and a wealthy one. It’s a question solely of which.”

“No,” I insist. Again, the priest isn’t Protectorate born. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong—and I’ll prove it.

I wheel away from Nazar, stalking out of the forest to return to the battlefield.

The sight of the horsemen still laying on the ground shocks me more than I expect. I’d seen them fallen in the heat of the battle, but now, up close, it’s so much worse. I force myself to stare hard at the attackers who lost their lives in their cowardly assault…

And I see what Nazar sees. These men don’t look anything like the marauders who have plagued the distant holdings of the Tenth House. Those were rough-skinned outlaws, their hair matted and coarse, their teeth black. But these men…

For all that they wear no colors, these men look like house soldiers. They’re young. Strong. And above all, well-fed.

Which means someone with money and power sent them out here to do this. Someone ordered this attack on the Tenth.

And I saw a warrior who wasn’t wearing gray, I think. I saw a warrior in gold and black, a First House warrior in this very forest.

How can that be possible? How could I not have realized the danger racing toward us?

I hear Nazar step up beside me, but I don’t turn. I can see nothing but the image of the Tenth House in my mind, shadows drawing closer to it with every breath.

“If what you’re saying is true, we’re already doomed,” I say quietly. “The house—whatever house it is— knows that Merritt has fallen. They’ll attack us outright.”

“No,” Nazar says. “If anyone was watching this battle, they’ll know two things: that the attack on our house happened, and that Merritt did not die.”

“Did not—” I swivel my head back toward Merritt’s pyre. Nothing of it remains. Even the ashes of the Tenth House retainers’ cloaks are destroyed. We have buried the bodies of our men and left our enemies for the carrion hunters to scavenge, but Merritt’s body is well and truly gone. By the time we leave, there’ll be only charred and overturned earth in that spot. “You burned him.”

“No,” Nazar says. “Merritt was struck down and rose again, cloaked in righteous fury. He reviled his attackers, who fled like the dogs they are. That’s the tale that will come out of this battle, if any tale is whispered at all. That the firstborn of the Tenth House was shot and did not die. That he roared forth with an even mightier Divh, who made the mountains tremble.”

I jerk as if struck, the image of that same enormous Divh branded on my mind. “Why did that happen?” I demand. “This—that wasn’t the Tenth House Divh who appeared above me. It couldn’t have been—it was far too big. And it would never bond itself to me. It’s forbidden.” Even as I speak, I recognize the stupidity of my words. The Divh had responded when I’d called its name—had bowed to me. But…how?

“When the warrior’s need is great, the Divh responds,” Nazar says evenly, but he refuses to be distracted from his point. “You stood in front of a sacred Divh, wearing the cloak of the Tenth House with your hood up. You turned the attackers back. To any who looked, you were Merritt.”

He folds his arms. “To any we meet at the Tournament of Gold, you must be Merritt as well.”

I snap my gaze to him, this new impossibility assaulting me like a never-ending storm.

“ No ,” I say, and here I know I am on solid ground. “No. You must be the one to purchase soldiers for the Tenth. I’m a first-blooded daughter , Nazar. No one would take me as a boy. Not with this.” I grab the trailing edge of my braided hair and shove it toward him, its thick, knotted length now gray with dirt and ash. “I am a daughter . I’m getting married tomorrow.”

The priest lets the silence between us lead me to the next realization. Obvious and clear and such a violation, it takes my breath away.

“You want me to…to cut it off?” These sacred coils are a symbol of my first-blooded birth, instant proof of my value to another noble house. Without them, I’ll never marry. Never leave the Tenth House, never truly live. Even if I somehow survive my father’s wrath, he’ll never let me see the sunlight ever again.

Nazar scoffs at my horrified expression. “You’re worried about your hair ? Do you know what will be left of your arm once the band is ripped from you? Rags, Talia. The muscles completely cut through, the bone broken, the entire length of your limb from shoulder to wrist scarred with twisted, mangled flesh. Many— most warriors die during a forced unbanding ceremony if they aren’t transferring the band to their own child, which is why it’s rarely performed. Many—most of those warriors die before the band reaches their wrist, where it sinks into the bone and stays there, if their Divh decrees it must, even if their bond is officially broken. Divhs don’t give up their warriors easily, once such warriors have been chosen. And you have been chosen. As clearly as if you participated in the sacred rituals. You will likely not survive your unbanding. Even if you do, you’ll be forever scarred.”

If he means to scare me, he’s succeeding. And he continues relentlessly. “If Merritt dies on this battlefield without sending reinforcements back to the Tenth, his house dies with him. The only way you can save your family, your people, is if you secure men for them. Death is the way of the warrior.” He points to my arm. “If you are to die, then die with honor. Protect your house.”

I swallow, looking away. Honor, I think bitterly. Honor for my house, in the only way now open to me. I have no other choice, if I want to honor Adriana’s and Merritt’s deaths. If I want to make the Tenth House strong.

And I will make the Tenth House strong.

“Cut it off,” I growl at last.

Nazar doesn’t hesitate. A few moments later, he’s at my side with a hunting knife, putting his hand into the great mass at my nape. Rather than uncoiling it from its bands and knots, he slices deep, sawing his way through the thick mane. At first, I feel nothing but the tug of the sharp blade. Then he pulls away.

My head springs forward, and I lift my hands to either side of my head. “Oh!”

“Turn around,” the priest mutters. “You look like you’ve been mauled.”

I know the moment he sees the thin scar stretching across my throat, so narrow beneath my chin as to be almost invisible unless you’re looking for it, but ending in a vicious, puckered whorl beneath my left ear. The scar that both my high-necked tunics and the thick, artfully arranged coils of my hair have long served to cover, a relic of the first—and last—time I strayed too close to my father when he was in one of his black moods. Nazar hesitates a long beat, studying the rough and crumpled skin.

“Your voice,” he says at last.

I shrug, keeping my chin up, my eyes cold, my expression as empty as the winter’s sky. My father’s knife hadn’t sliced my throat deeply enough to kill me, but my low, husky voice still bears the mark of his rage. So do my legs, for that matter, but those scars are more easily hidden. “I couldn’t speak for months after the injury. When I finally did, I sounded…different.”

Nazar doesn’t respond but bends once more to his task. He works the knife to either side of my face, then back around my neck. I struggle to hold myself still. The breeze against my neck prickles my skin, and my head feels lighter than it ever has, almost wobbly on my shoulders. When Nazar finally steps back, I teeter with my hands out wide by my side, uncertain how to balance.

His critical glance takes in my altered appearance, and my mind races at what he must see. My sacred hair had always been my most valuable attribute, proclaiming me as a woman of worth. My face had always seemed attractive enough, at least with my scar hidden beneath all those glorious, coiled braids. Beautiful , my mother had proclaimed, more than once. I had no fear of being rejected by the child of the Twelfth House. But now…

Now my hair is so short . My face is thrown into sharp focus and the scar along the left side of my neck exposed, this last a silent testimony to the shame I must never speak aloud.

No one would find me beautiful now. No one.

My chin lifts another notch.

Nazar stares down at the mass of hair in his hands. “We’ll keep this.”

I scowl. “Like a pet?”

“No. It’s got your dowry sewn up in it, and we may have need of that.”

I curl my lip, but he’s not wrong. If the hair was cleaned, the adornments reset, it could be sold—or broken apart for its stones. And we have soldiers to buy.

Nazar has already transferred his gaze to me, though. “You’re built straight enough. Your back is broad and strong. In breeches and loose gear, you’ll pass.” He grimaces. “Your low voice will help as well. You are the warrior son, Merritt. Firstborn of the Tenth House.”

Firstborn, I think hollowly. One falsehood undone; a new, far worse deception begun.

And I’m not alone in this new lie either.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask sourly, shifting my gaze to stare into the priest’s inscrutable, pale eyes. “If the truth is discovered, I won’t be the only one punished. You’ll be killed as well.”

“Why doesn’t matter,” Nazar says. He turns me back to the smoldering remains of Merritt’s funeral pyre, then lifts his gaze once more to the mountains looming over us to the west. They are our last barrier to the Tournament of Gold, and to the fate the Light has dealt us.

“You are Merritt, warrior knight, first-blooded direct descendent of the founders of the Protectorate,” Nazar says, my shorn pile of hair spilling over his hands. “Your feet are on the Lighted Path, the way of the warrior before you. From now until you take your dying breath, that is all that will matter.”