Chapter 41

I n what seems an impossible feat of workmanship, two new wooden towers have been built overnight to accommodate the Tournament of Gold’s final four-man battles.

All along the path there are cheering crowds, from the First House gates at the base of the mountain to the coliseum. Now, as we stand on our platforms, the coliseum heaves and swells like a living thing. There’s never been a four-man battle in the past three hundred years. There’s never been a melee of Divhs, and the wide marshy plain between the stands and the First House’s mountain fortress is teeming with men as the warrior knights from yesterday’s battles gather here, waiting for another turn at glory.

This is a day that will forever change the world, Rihad boasts in his announcements to the crowd, dutifully carried from crier to crier around the stadium. This is a day no one will ever forget.

I can tell at a quick glance my father does not stand among Rihad’s cabal of spectators. No doubt he is drinking himself drunk back at the First House, lost in his schemes of how to capitalize on my imminent death. The idea of the warrior band transferring back to him sets my teeth rigid.

No . That cannot happen.

I scan the wide field and the stands beyond, noting Caleb and Nazar’s presence with the other warrior knight retainers. I’m glad but not surprised that Caleb is there, but my heart nearly breaks to see Nazar by his side. I’ve not been allowed to speak to either of them, and guards have ridden close the entire path to ensure that I don’t.

I’ve no idea if Nazar has been called yet to answer to my father, but ultimately, the man is a priest and answers to no one but the Light.

Still, my priest and my squire clearly remain alive, and for that, I’m grateful. Both men’s horses are festooned with green and silver sashes as well, the sight of which brought a sudden rush of tears to my eyes when I first stepped out into the sunshine.

Now those sashes are flying in the stands, along with banners of gold and black, sky blue, purple, sand and red. Banners of victory and hope in this mockery of a tournament. No one will know that it’s a foregone conclusion who will win this battle and who will lose.

Kheris stands on the platform to my right, ready to fight. My partner, who I know would as soon kill me with his own hands as consign himself to the limits of the tournament. He’s been scowling at me since the moment I took my place with the other combatants for this round. I don’t think he knows I’m female, simply marked for death. That’s enough for him.

The horns blast, and as one, all four warriors upon the stands curl our right hands to our hearts. We raise our left hands high into the air, and the coliseum erupts to a fever pitch of screaming as we hold our positions one moment…two…then summon our Divhs.

The roars of giants replace those of the crowd.

Gent’s awareness billows in my mind like an unfurling sail, and I can immediately see through his eyes as he swings his head left and right, taking in the unfamiliar positions of the other Divhs—and the fact that there are three, not one to fight. Instantly, he seems to grasp the nuance of primary and secondary target. The ones to the far end of the field are the first wave of attack, but the serpent to his right is also a threat. My own skin prickles as he stares at Kheris’s Divh, the memory of the acidic poison on the creature’s skin raking through both my mind and Gent’s once more.

Then the monsters at the far end of the field race toward us.

I look to the man standing opposite me on the far platform, tied to the multihorned bull. Cheric of the First House isn’t looking at me but at a space beyond me, staring at the monsters pounding across the dirt. That’s wrong, though. The way of the warrior is strategy, and the strategy of one warrior against many is a careful dance of both the long sword and the short.

Nazar’s words flow back into me. “To beat one man means you could beat many, if your gaze is true and your heart ready.”

All at once, confusion leaves me. I hear Gent’s answering call, an undulating cry of both happiness and excitement. He welcomes the battle, I know. He welcomes the race, anyway.

For myself, I know what I must do. I lift my arms slightly, in the merest hint of the movement of this dance, and flow through the steps.

The Divhs clash in a sudden blaze of bodies and spirits.

The other two warriors have clearly been better prepared for this than we have. As one they attack Kheris’s snake, leaving Gent to swerve around in a wide arc, his opponent completely ignoring him. The serpent twists and writhes, and though I have no love for Kheris or his creature, I can’t let his Divh fail the way he would surely let Gent drop. To do so will mean quick death to us both.

Instead, I lift my hand and edge it backward. On the field, Gent changes course. He runs at both of the other monsters from behind. They can’t see him and aren’t expecting him in the face of the giant serpent’s full-on defense. Gent grabs the head of the bull and cracks it hard into the mouth of the much larger tusked cat, the second snapping instinctively down, maiming his own partner.

After that, Kheris’s snake rights itself and tears into the cat, the bull apparently impervious to her acidic skin. The cat’s screams shake the stadium, and Gent swings around to the bull, who’s still reeling from the blow to his head. Neither my Divh nor I hesitate as we did in our first battle. My mind and his immense form race forward in the spirit of the one cut, attacking and attacking again, and the bull suddenly sees Gent everywhere it looks, so large is Gent in its field of vision. Gent battles the bull down to the dust of the tournament field, and suddenly, after a long, deafening blast of horns, I come back to myself.

Kheris and I have won the first battle.

I brace myself for the serpent to turn on Gent, yet Kheris doesn’t move. The battle is done, it seems, and he’s not attacking me…but why? Almost belatedly, I punch the sky with my hand, sending Gent back to his own plane. The horns sound again, and Kheris’s snake disappears as well. I slump backward, grateful that Kheris isn’t standing right next to me. We’ve survived, and the crowd is on its feet, stamping and cheering. But there are no petals at my feet, nor swirling in the air. We don’t have time for pageantry in this match.

We’re escorted back to the warriors’ dais, and I watch the other four warriors ride out to battle. Before they even gain the top of their platforms, Kheris is at my side. I brace myself for the much larger man to simply kill me on the spot, but he says nothing to me as he stands beside me as the tournament protocol demands of him. Beside him, I feel like a dwarf mushroom next to an oak.

The second battle takes longer than the first, the warriors already making adjustments to their fighting style based on what they saw in our match. Still, these pairings don’t work in perfect sync with each other. Their Divhs aren’t connected with them the way Gent and I are, the way I’d even felt with the dragon Szonja.

Unable to wonder any longer, I turn to Kheris. “You didn’t try to kill me, and you could have just now. Or at least made the attempt. You want to wait until the final round?”

I’ve managed to startle him, but he sneers down at me. “I’d kill you where you stand if it were the will of Rihad,” he rumbles. “He decided to wait until deeper in the tournament. And so, I wait.”

I glare right back. “I don’t want to kill you, but I’d still rather not die in the next round if I can avoid it. Instead, I’ll give you that chance to win you crave so much.”

He barks a short laugh.

Unfazed, I continue, “You see these Divhs? They don’t fight together. They don’t assist each other. Not the way Gent attacked your enemies from behind when your serpent was cornered.”

He bristles. “My Divh is stronger than that cow you control.”

“I don’t care. They’re both stronger working together than either working apart.” As he considers that, I press my point. “If you have a need in this next battle, allow your Divh to hear me. Only if you have a need.”

He looks as if he wants to argue, but he’s seen what the others have seen. The reaching of Gent’s long arm across the field, the swirl of petals in the air.

“What sort of sorcery is this?” he growls.

I roll my eyes. Whatever it takes to live through another round, I’m willing to do. Whatever it takes to keep Gent alive.

“The sorcery that would allow you to have your glory in the end. I won’t kill you, Kheris. I wouldn’t even if I could. But I’ll let you take your chance at killing me. If you want that chance…let your Divh hear me.”

“Warlock,” he curses under his breath, but he turns away from me as the battle ends on the field. There are now only four warriors left, and we climb again to our positions in the tower.

“There’s been a change in the tournament, to keep the crowd happy,” the guard says gruffly as I mount the stair. “If you win this round, and the expectation is you will handily, you won’t fight Kheris here. You’ll face him as opposing captains in the melee, out on the open field.”

I roll my eyes. Rihad and his meddling . “I’ve never fought in a melee. My horse hasn’t either. That won’t make for good sport for anyone.”

The guard shifts uneasily. “By order of the Lord Protector.” Then he glances at me down his long nose. “He can’t let you die till the end, Merritt of the Tenth. You have too much support.” With a quick grin, he pulls back his sleeve. Wrapped around his forearm bracer is a familiar green-and-silver sash. “The melee is another story. It’s never been done. Accidents can and will happen. You’ll still be honored, though, even in death.” He curls his hand to his chest.

“Comforting.”

Then the man is gone, and four warriors stand once more upon the platforms.

I stare across at the warrior from the Second House, the exact opposite of Hantor—where Hantor was foolish and scrawny, this man is a monster. He stares back, grinning.

My mind clears. It suddenly occurs to me that all the warriors might have been given different messages by the guards who attended them. It then occurs to me that I alone could be preparing for my death during the melee, while my opponents are still hoping to kill me in this battle.

The moment the attack begins, I realize how right I am.

The monsters both rush Gent, this time leaving Kheris’s fighting serpent twisting in confusion. I feel the outrage of the snake even as Gent deflects the first attack, making his arms as deadly as a long sword and fighting with both arms to cut and to slash. Kheris has never had to barge in on a fight, apparently, and so his serpent turns and turns again, not able to do anything but score the backs of the other Divhs as they pound on Gent.

Gent, for his part, roars in pain at one particularly vicious swipe of the shaggy red wolf-like beast he’s opposing, the creature’s teeth sinking into his shoulder. I can feel the spurt of blood at my own collarbone, as the wolf holds fast. After a long, sickening moment, Gent sends the creature reeling with a punch to its face. Then Gent staggers back, in full retreat.

Suddenly, the serpent screams.

At me .

A flood of awareness washes through me as the serpent races across the tournament field toward Gent, splitting apart the other Divhs briefly and shooting past my Divh. Kheris must have realized that with me dead too soon, he and his Divh would surely fall next. His only choice is for me to survive this round.

Either way, his Divh is right before me, and my mind flashes immediately to Fortiss’s demonstration with Lord Rihad’s Divh. If Fortiss can guide a Divh not his own…by the Light, so can I. With a flick of my hand, I reach out, and Gent swings his mighty paw. He grabs hold of the serpent’s tail and swings her—she’s a her , I realize—around, her hood full and her mouth stretched wide, poison dropping from her jaws and glistening on her skin.

She catches the other Divhs in full arc, slashing and puncturing with her teeth, clearing a swath for Gent to regain his feet. At the last moment, he releases the serpent, and she piles into both monsters with Gent roaring in behind. As she ducks and spins away, he follows up with punishing blows to the faces, heads, and necks of the other Divhs. The ground shakes as they all topple to the ground. Kheris’s snake wraps herself around the wolf, and Gent pounds away in blind outrage at the bull until the trumpets finally sound above.

The battle is over.

Gent stands and turns quickly this time, not to be denied. But he doesn’t turn first to me. Instead, he turns to Kheris on the far platform and raises both arms to the warrior, in silent testimony of the act that has quite possibly saved the tournament for us, if not our lives. As I stare, a swirl of dark blue and white petals surge around the giant man, a maelstrom of color. Then Gent turns to me, and the crowd roars.

Petals are everywhere. They burst into the space around me, but also in hundreds of places around the tournament stands, and the wind whips them into a soaring storm.

It takes four tries for the horns to quiet the crowd enough for Rihad to announce the next stage of the tournament: the melee. My guard was right in one thing at least—there will be no one-on-one fight between Kheris’s serpent and Gent. The crowds are already streaming out of the coliseum to spread out along the great plain. I instantly see the value of this. From the ground, they’ll be able to see nothing but enormous clashing Divhs. I could die a hundred times over and no one would know how.

For a moment, fear attacks me in the cut of one timing, but I am ready with a lifetime of fury to push it back. Fury at being denied everything, at being forced to scrape and cower, my life hanging by a string. I will fight in this twisted battle of Rihad’s, because I can fight.

Before, it was denied to me. But I will be denied no more.

By the time my escorts come to usher me off the platform, I’m ready.

“Your horse has been prepared,” the first man says as we clomp down the steps, the same guard who’d spoken to me before. “Your squire rides with you.”

“My—” I widen my eyes, thinking of Caleb astride his sturdy gelding. Caleb, fierce and brash, ready to run headlong into any fight, so convinced that he could win by the strength of his will alone. How can I let him risk his life for me? How will I live with myself if he’s hurt?

As if in answer to my thoughts, a smile creases the guard’s gruff, weary face. “He would not be denied,” he says. “He’s determined to ride into battle with his warrior, he says, and to face death as only a warrior can. He’s a good man.”

I nod, my heart thudding with so many emotions for my bright and irrepressible friend—pride, fear, worry, and above all gratitude —I’m surprised it doesn’t burst. “He’s the best man I know.”

There’s no more time for words as the guard resumes his clomp down the stairs, but my thoughts are not so easily stifled. The image of Fortiss leaps to my mind—unbidden, unwanted. His glorious golden eyes, his heart-swelling touch, his warm and vibrant laugh…his ultimate, damning disdain.

Did he watch me fight this day, one of the very few who knows my true nature? Did he worry about me at all—or even, like the guard, silently cheer for me? Or is that battle already lost forever?

I shouldn’t care. I don’t. I won’t.

I do.