Chapter 40

T he dungeon of the First House is deep and complex, but that shouldn’t surprise me. What does surprise me, however, is how unusual it is. Rihad has hewn pathways through the rock that all, eventually, must end up opening onto the enormous cavern fed by the waterfall. I know what’s down there now, but from the chittering cries beneath me, it seems that Szonja isn’t the cavern’s lone occupant. Depending on what other wild animals Rihad has let roam free in the vast underground space, it would make for easy disposal of any unfortunate captive when Rihad tires of housing him.

Still, it also makes for a pleasant vista, I expect, when the sun is high in the sky. As long as whatever is below stays below. For long minutes, I remain far enough back on my ledge, beyond the bars, to avoid whatever animals lurk down there. The cell is quite livable, I decide. It contains nothing but a stone floor and one of the ubiquitous jugs of water, but it’s still…habitable. I’m wearing enough clothing to turn some of it into a makeshift pillow and blanket, but I have no thoughts of sleep. Instead, at length, I venture out onto the ledge and sit, my feet dangling over the edge.

Szonja doesn’t stir in the stillness below, but I have a sense of her anyway. I wonder if there’s any other human prisoner in the other dungeon cells. The place has an abandoned feeling to it, and I suspect Rihad cleaned house prior to the tournament. At the Tenth House, we don’t even have a dungeon. We’ve never had a need for one.

I sigh, thinking of what the Tenth House manor must look like now, in high summer. I left the animals in the capable hands of the chamberlain, and the lambs would now be steady on their feet, the foals gaining size and strength. Even the chickens would be deeply pleased with the weather. The spring has been long and wet, but now there would be sunshine every day. Sunshine and grain and safety. I received as much as well, as long as I’d lived in that house. Safety, perhaps not always. But sunshine and enough food to grow strong. And even my mother…

I swallow, pushing thoughts of her away. My mother was always kind to me, even as she was a follower of the Light, and moreover of my father. But she’d still done me an immense service at the moment of my birth, and probably many times thereafter until she died. She’d kept me alive …I can’t imagine the price she must have paid for that, especially since she’d borne my father no more children after Merritt.

Yet another reason why he’s hated me so well, for so long. Had he killed me as the law had dictated he could, even should, he firmly believes the Light would have granted my mother several more children. I suspect not, but there’s no denying that Merritt’s birth assured my continued survival.

And my mother did her part as well, returning to the Light two years ago, after yet another illness. Her death allowed Father to remarry—which he did, though his second wife’s first child was also a female, the two of them now banished to one of our lesser holdings. Maybe now they’ll be allowed back to the manor house.

If they’re smart, they’ll stay away.

“Merritt.”

I scramble back from the edge of the precipice, startled at the sound of my brother’s name echoing over the surface. The abyss distorts the word and sends it back to me in odd waves. I can see nothing in the gloom for a long moment, and I don’t trust myself to respond. Then a lamp flares in the distance, and I nearly cry out. How quickly I’ve begun to yearn for light again! It seems almost like a benediction.

“Merritt.” The voice comes again, strangely harder now, but I recognize it. Fortiss. I step forward.

“I’m here. Here.” I say the words as a normal conversation and instantly regret them when the lamp flickers out. How many guards does Rihad have stationed in the cavern? Have I just broken some protocol that would result in me being taken to another cell, one not so friendly? And below me in the murk, I hear a long, fluttering shudder. The sound of a winged creature shifting against the cavern wall. I’ve even disturbed Szonja.

I sigh but creep closer to the edge of the precipice, glad to have some company in the darkness. The drift of sound below me and to my right lets me know that Szonja has moved, the deep ruffling noise conjuring up images of her broken wing, stretching in the mists. The air smells sweet here, and I wonder how far we are from the oiled stones.

“Why do you stay here, Szonja?” I murmur, too low for the creature to hear me. The sound of my own voice is comforting in the darkness.

“Who are you talking to?”

Fortiss’s voice sounds directly above me, and he laughs as I startle back, stumbling. “Stand aside, I’m coming down.”

A moment later, he drops down on light feet, and I feel rather than see the mists shift beside me. He straightens and scowls at me, while I stand as far away from him as the ledge allows. “What did you do to anger Rihad? He hasn’t stowed a man down here in years.”

My eyes widen, the need to tell my tale warring with my need to keep the fragile bond between us. He doesn’t know?

Of course he doesn’t know. He wouldn’t be here if he did. In fact, once he knows for sure…

I tighten my jaw. The way of the warrior may be death, but I’ve damned well died enough times today already.

“I suspect you’ll hear about it in the morning,” I say, pitching my voice deliberately low. He’s seen me in this space as Talia. In the darkness, his ears might tell him something more than his eyes could.

“But I want you to tell me now. I could help.”

I snort. “Not likely, but I thank you. You should go, though. There may be guards.”

He shakes his head. “Just because I honor my uncle’s rules—usually—doesn’t mean I don’t know how to elude the gaze of the guards. Besides, I wanted to come.” He peers at me curiously through the gloom, and I can barely make out the confusion on his face. “You sound…a little odd.”

I rub my hand over my mouth, trying to mask my voice. “It’s been a long day.” To forestall his questions, though, I know I must tell him…something. “I’m not Merritt,” I sigh. “I’m just one of his, um, company. Lord Lemille didn’t send me to the Tournament of Gold. When he showed up yesterday and realized my lie, he said as much to Rihad. And here I am.”

Fortiss’s shock is plain. “You’re not—but who are you? You have a Divh, and clearly a first line one. Whose house do you represent?”

It’s a good question, and I don’t have the answer to it, but I stumble on anyway. “The Tenth, still. I…I was with Merritt when he died. I took on the sacred charge of his Divh to avenge his death.”

“To avenge…” He pauses. “But if you’re not Merritt, who are you? What’s your name?

I shake my head. “I’m no one,” I say hollowly. A lie. A cheat. “You know, just call me Merritt. He’s the only reason I am here.”

Before Fortiss can say anything more, I rush on. “Tomorrow, I fight, though I dishonor the Tenth by being here under false pretenses. There’s nothing more I can do about that.”

Szonja shivers in the darkness beneath me, and I turn, warmed to see her giant, thoughtful eye now level with our ledge, her gleaming snout angled up, her lips pulled back. A stream of smoke wafts out between her teeth.

Fortiss follows my gaze.

“What?” he asks. “What do you see out there?”

I swerve back toward him, startled. It’s one thing that he couldn’t see her when we were both above the oiled rocks, but here? So close? “You cannot see the, ah, beast that roams this cavern?” I ask. “It’s right…well, here.”

Szonja twitches away but only slightly as I tug Fortiss closer. He frowns, peering into the mist. “I’ve heard it whispered that Rihad has enchanted the space. But the Lord Protector is no spell caster, for all that he believes in premonitions and dreams. I don’t know what the guards have told you, but don’t you believe it, either.” He turns to peer at me. “And you’re wrong about him, still. He didn’t kill your lord.”

“Shut up, Fortiss.” I pull his hand up and press it against the smooth plane of Szonja’s muzzle. The dragon, for her part, remains perfectly still.

Fortiss stands riveted to the spot. “What is this magic?” he murmurs, his voice heavy with confusion. I can feel the cool, slick scales too, solid beneath my fingers. Szonja twitches again, and the mist curls and scatters away, causing Fortiss to pull his hand back with a hard jerk. He turns on me.

“What’s going on here?”

“What do mean?” I protest, edging backward. There’s something different about his tone, now. He keeps shaking his hand, but he’s not looking to where Szonja is regarding us solemnly through the darkness. He’s staring at me .

“Who are you?” he demands.

The unexpected question catches me completely by surprise, and my hands go to my face, my hair, anything that might have betrayed me in the near darkness. “I don’t…”

“Your hand,” he says harshly. “I’ve touched you before, and not as a warrior. Here, in the First House. I’ve touched you. I know you.”

I can’t hide from his accusation, but the panic in his voice would have made me smile in another situation, another time. Not here, though, not now. I can already feel Fortiss pulling away from me, doubt and suspicion replacing the comradeship in arms between us that had always been a lie anyway. He’s not my people; this isn’t my place. Could never be my place. The moments I’ve shared with him have been stolen and will stay that way, for all that I’ll treasure them for however long I have left to live.

“You have.” I draw myself up, saying the words that’ve been chanting in my head since I saw my father at the feast, echoing in my mind like a dirge. “I’m Talia of the Tenth House, Fortiss,” I say, stepping back almost unconsciously, as if he might take a swing at me. “Merritt is…was my brother. He died on the road to the Twelfth House. It’s been me all along. I’m sorry that I lied to you. I had no?—”

“Talia?” Fortiss stiffens in confusion at the feminine name, though he’s the one who called me out. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m Talia, Fortiss.” I frown when he doesn’t say anything. “I’m female. A woman. I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

“No.” He does take a sharp step back from me now. “No, that can’t be possible. You have a Divh.”

I smile. This would get old, having to explain it to people. Fortunately, I won’t have to do it for very long. “I don’t know why or how it happened. I was with Merritt when a warrior, I don’t know of whose house, loosed the arrow that killed him. My brother died in my arms. When he did, his band slipped off his arm and traveled to mine.” I lift my right hand self-consciously to my left upper arm again, reliving the moment. “It moved of its own will. I didn’t know it could do that.”

“It can,” he says hoarsely. “If the son is with the father when the father dies. Otherwise, it can be transferred safely by the house lord’s will alone.” He shakes his head like a bear coming out of hibernation. “But you can’t—females are forbidden to control a Divh. By order of the Exalted Imperium. To do so is death.”

I gesture to the darkened abyss. “Which is why I’m in this dungeon.”

“But…” He struggles against the idea with too much fervor, the same way Miriam did. I eye him curiously. Have I simply grown used to my new reality because I’ve personally been living it these past few weeks? It no longer seems wrong or forbidden or even particularly special that I bonded with Gent. It seems right and true. The way it should be.

“You went to the plane of the Divhs,” Fortiss finally finishes.

“Yes. A field in a blue mist, with high walls all around. I couldn’t see the sky. I could barely see in front of me. Then the mist thinned, and there was a sound, a roaring. And all at once, Gent came out of a large opening, and?—”

“Stop…stop!” Fortiss slaps his hands to his ears and turns away, as if my words cause him physical pain. “What you say isn’t possible! Not for you .”

Bitterness rings in his words, and I close my mouth to stifle my retort. Fortiss is a bloodline descendant of a great and proven warrior, and he doesn’t have a Divh. I am a woman born into a world where I am fit for nothing but service or motherhood. And I do have a Divh. My band practically throbs on my arm, as if Gent is turning toward me across the vast distance from his island home.

But Fortiss has no band. He’s not yet a true warrior knight. He’s never been given the chance.

As if he can sense the change in me and recognize it for the pity it is, he pulls back farther.

“Have a care,” I murmur. “You’re close to the edge.”

“Don’t dare to tell me what to do, Talia ,” he growls, his voice now harsh with anger. “You’ve lied about everything since you’ve come here.”

Now it’s my turn to stiffen. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You lie ,” he snaps again, his rage coming at me like a wave. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t hold your brother in your arms and crave that which made him special. You can’t tell me that you didn’t secretly mourn the loss of the greatest gift your family has ever had, the one thing that singled you out among all the others in your house. You wanted that band more than life itself, didn’t you? You wanted what Merritt had by the right of his birth, that you could never have, not truly. You?—”

“You’re wrong!” I nearly scream the words, but I don’t care who hears us. The pain that wells up inside me is like a waterskin full to bursting, and when it does, it will send my body flying in a million different pieces.

“I didn’t want Merritt’s band, I wanted my brother . My brother! Laughing, alive, free. I wanted his joy and his smile and his truth and his life, not his dead body slipping away from me. I didn’t want his band. I didn’t know I could have his band. Because you,” I jab a finger at him, “and people like you have spent your entire lives telling me I couldn’t. That I couldn’t stand and walk among warriors. That I couldn’t be strong enough to be chosen by a Divh. Well, you’re wrong, Fortiss. You’re all wrong. There are things that I see that you have closed your eyes to, refusing to acknowledge the truth. There are things I can do that you can only dream of, until you open those eyes.”

“You are a disgrace ,” he snarls back. “The punishment for a female stealing a band, attempting to control a Divh, is death .”

“Then bring it! That’s Rihad’s solution, if you’re wondering. He’ll let me fight tomorrow because it suits him, but death is the assured result. Understand this, though: I’m not attempting to control a Divh, Fortiss, I’m connected to one. And it’s been noticed at your precious tournament—you know it has. I’ve won fairly in the trials, for all that they are supposedly barred to me. Rihad knows it too, which is the only reason why he can’t kill me outright. Instead, he’ll let the men who fight me do his killing for him.”

“You lie.” He’s still seething, but at least he’s quieter now.

“About this? No.” I shake my head. “Tomorrow, I die a warrior, which I suppose is more than I deserve. But at least I’ll face that death as a warrior. Everyone else who follows Rihad’s command on that field can live as cowards for all I care.”

“You’re wrong . Rihad won’t order the men to kill you, Talia of the Tenth,”—He says my name like it’s a vile curse—“no matter the filthy way you got your band. He might want it, but he won’t command it. He won’t .”

Fortiss remains furious, and beyond him, I can see Szonja again, her beautiful head turned to regard us, her intelligent eyes filled with an emotion I cannot describe. Pride. Sorrow. Pain. She’s not watching me so much as Fortiss.

There is a connection there, I realize suddenly. A connection that perhaps they both can find their way to, if they only try.

I swing my attention back to Fortiss and blink into the darkness.

He’s gone.