Chapter Eighteen
During the weeks that follow, I keep a careful distance from Ronan.
The first time I see him in the courtyard of the palace after our dinner a couple of days later, he asks me to join him again that evening.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I need to focus on the tournament.”
It’s a pathetic lie, the kind that doesn’t require the magical power of empathy to detect. But I can’t tell him the real reason I choose to stay away.
I tell him no because I want to say yes. And I don’t know what to do with that feeling.
I do ask him when I see him in the dining hall a few days later if there’s been any news about our friends.
He tells me Marcella has been released to a city jail to await trial, and that he gave the city watch the order to find Vesper.
Although, as he suspected would be the case, they haven’t been able to turn up anything new yet.
Ronan is there at the tournament every time I compete, as he promised, though he does keep his distance as well.
He watches from the royal box as I defeat a baker with a surprisingly accurate thrust, then a member of the city guard who fights as if he’d just woken up, and then a young cousin of House Juni, who flourishes her sword so wildly in sweeping spins and daring flips that I’m terrified of her until I realize that she actually can’t fight worth a damn.
And he’s there watching as I finally fall in the fifth round to the heir of House Faber.
I give him—and the crowd—a good fight, at least. Titus, like me, was too young to fight in the war, but also like me, he clearly spent his entire life training for it.
His house is renowned for their smiths, and his handling of the issued weapon is the best of anyone I’ve fought with or witnessed.
It flows from his arm like it’s a part of him; he never fumbles with the balance or his grip.
He dominates me in the beginning of the fight, taking a quick 4-0 lead and nearly ending it there before I make a miraculous parry that causes us to double hit each other, negating the points.
I can almost hear Ronan from across the arena repeating what he taught me weeks earlier. Everyone has a tell. If I had days to practice with Titus, maybe I could find his, but I only have one point before it’s over.
I’m not sure why I even care about winning.
If I win this, I’ll have to fight Adria next, and that will be the end of it either way.
And I’ll have to deal with listening to her gloat endlessly, or at least until she beats Quinn, who she’s nearly guaranteed to face in the final, just as they predicted.
Titus flicks his red hair back over his shoulder—it’s long, and for some reason, he hasn’t bothered to pull it back.
And then I think back to the last point, the one I parried.
He flicked his hair, and he took a high attack.
It’s like he cleared the weight of it to enable his guard.
It’s the kind of automatic movement I doubt he even notices himself making.
And sure enough, he attacks from a high guard so fluidly that I wouldn’t have seen it coming. Except that I do. I parry and throw off his sword, coming in for a thrust to his neck before he can regain control.
“4-1!”
The crowd, which is much fuller at this later stage of the tournament, begins to shift to this side of the arena.
On his next attack, he doesn’t flick the hair.
He’s favored a low guard that baits me to attack when he doesn’t go for the high guard, and that’s exactly what he does.
I don’t fall for the bait. I keep my distance, using my point to protect me as he moves to the side, looking for an opening.
He finds one, but I guess that he’s feinting, trying again to bait me again into a futile attack, and I withdraw further, nearly touching the line out of bounds.
He laughs. “Come on.”
Then he flicks the hair again.
I lunge for a low attack while he’s taking his guard, and it connects with his thigh.
“4-2!”
There are some scattered cheers from the crowd. Not many, both because I’m Nithyrian and I’m still losing, but I don’t think even the most patriotic Selaran can resist a good comeback story.
I win over more of them as I score once again, this time by landing a lucky cut that I definitely shouldn’t have gone for.
“I thought you were a better fighter than that. And you were, I guess,” he says with an appreciative nod. “Well played.”
At least he’s nice. “Thanks,” I say while gasping for air. He, on the other hand, has barely broken a sweat.
The point I land to tie the match is the one I’m most proud of.
My middle guard forces an attack from him, which I bind, and I manage to win the bind despite the weaker position by sidestepping and going for a cut above his blade to his arm.
It’s a risky move that leaves me open on the left, but I think about what Ronan said: this isn’t life or death; it’s a sport.
The worst that could happen is he lands a double hit, and we’re back to square one.
The best that could happen is I land a clean point, and that’s exactly what I do.
“4-4!”
Titus smiles as I back away from him. “You are fearless.”
He’s right. Knowing he won’t hurt me, knowing he can’t hurt me, not with Ronan watching, frees me to enjoy what I’m doing.
I’m having fun now, but I wish it had happened earlier because I’m also exhausted. My arms feel like jelly as I try to get back into position. This fight has gone on for far longer than usual, and I’m apparently the only one feeling it. Titus looks as fresh as when we started.
Titus takes a middle, point-first guard this time—a first for him—another stance that will force an attack from me.
It’s a strong position, one where attacks from above or below can be easily parried to the side or to the ground.
I can bind him easily enough, but he’ll have the reach and strength advantage, and I can’t count on my last move working again.
I haven’t paid much attention to my stance until now, the desperate fight to remain in the match drawing most of my attention, but I decide to take a moment and recenter myself before attacking.
I do exactly as Ronan showed me: I stick out my chest and my ass, tightening my core and flexing my sword arm, testing different guards.
Titus loosens his guard a bit, distracted by…well, me, by the looks of it.
It’s my opening. I lunge to his left, but he sees me coming and blocks me by grabbing his sword with his free hand.
It’s a very strong parry, and I reel back and off balance upon impact.
He reaches out for the grapple, and I almost manage to bring my point back down in time, but there’s too much backwards momentum.
He takes hold of my sword arm, and I have no choice but to do the same. But this is a disastrous position for me. He’s at least a foot taller, and though he’s trying to be gentle, he overpowers me easily, forcing me to drop my sword.
He doesn’t pull me to him as Ronan did when he grappled me. Instead, he backs away and taps his blade lightly on my shoulder. It’s very gentlemanly. “Well fought,” he says.
“Not quite as well as you,” I say with a bow.
“Victory! Victor: Titus of House Faber!”
The roar is deafening; the entire arena has moved over here to watch us. Adria comes over to help me after I shake Titus’s hand and exit the ring. Larus has gone with Felix to the Enez Islands, and part of me is glad he wasn’t here to watch me fail.
“You know, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” says Adria. High praise from her. “And you exposed a lot of his weaknesses.” Which will help her when she fights him in two days’ time.
“Happy to be of service.” A servant hands me a canteen of water, and I gulp it down gratefully. Then they refill it from the air with their magic. Arnan bless the water-born.
We head into the section of the stands reserved for the Great Houses to watch the shadow-born trial, which I’m grateful I didn’t participate in, given the timing.
At the center of the arena, an elaborate set of metallic hoops has been constructed.
Each hoop holds a lens or a mirror; their purpose is to concentrate the sunlight to levels of increasing brightness.
The shadow-born succeeds if they can darken the area enough that the judges can’t read a word displayed on a slate.
I don’t recognize any of the participants, nor did I expect to.
The only other shadow-born I know are Ronan’s spies, and of those, only Nico could have participated.
I’m clapping for a young woman who’s doing remarkably well with only a couple of lenses to go when someone clears their throat beside me.
It's Taran. “He wishes—”
“To see me,” I finish with him. I don’t argue with him. There’s no point with much of the rest of the court around. “Lead the way.”
Taran takes me through a tunnel and up a stairway to the entrance to the royal box. It’s guarded by four of Ronan’s guards, and there are an additional two stationed at the door into the arena.
Inside, Ronan sits with Grand Vizier Cyrus, Typhon, and Quinn. Quinn, who won her own fight earlier, smirks as she sees me, but she keeps her mouth shut in front of the king.
“A valiant effort,” says Typhon. “And Larus told me it’s not even your best event. I’m looking forward to the archery final in a few days.”
“As am I,” I say, bowing to him. Archery has gone much more smoothly than sword-fighting, that’s for sure.
It’s been clear since the first couple of rounds who the finalists would be: the woman I met during qualifying, a man from House Santori, and myself.
The others are a bit better than me in most of the trials, but only just. Any of us could win.
Typhon shifts in his seat, rubbing his bald head and trying to act casual. “When will Larus return, do you know?”