Chapter Eighteen #2
I’ll have to tell Larus he was missed. I wonder what he’ll think of Typhon’s interest. Will he think it’s merely polite conversation, or is the Grand Vizier’s son harboring certain suspicions about the absence of our Guardian?
“In a few weeks, we’re hoping. Assuming his mother is well.
” We’ve explained Larus’s time away from court as being due to his mother’s illness, which is close enough to the truth that no one has questioned it.
Until now.
“Of course. If you hear from him, send her my best wishes.”
Ronan has been watching this entire exchange with immense curiosity. He rises from his seat—cushioned, the only one to be so in the entire arena—and gestures for me to head back into the hallway.
It’s dark here in this private area near the royal box; only a single candle burns in a sconce on the wall. It gives me a moment to look at Ronan before he can see me clearly.
He looks as rough as I’ve ever seen him. His eyes are hollow and rimmed with fatigue, his shoulders slumped but filled with tension. Even his hair is a mess.
He’s exhausted.
“Are you okay?” he asks, reaching for my arm where Titus gripped it on the final point.
I don’t offer it to him. “I’m fine,” I say. Although the flesh there is a little sore, I doubt it will bruise. Titus was a lot gentler with me than he could have been.
Ronan doesn’t press the issue. “You did well today.”
I can hear in his voice that there’s more he wants to say. He wants to talk to me again. He wants to touch me again.
He misses me. It’s been more than three weeks since our dinner on his balcony, and he misses me.
The realization pulls at me. It draws me in; it makes me take a step closer to him.
No. “Are you doing that?” I ask, alarmed to feel myself moving forward. “Is that your magic?”
Ronan is perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“That pull. Is it you?”
“There’s a pull?”
“You can’t feel it?”
Ronan’s laugh is hollow. “I didn’t say that. But I’m not doing anything, magic or otherwise, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You can’t influence emotions? Only feel them?”
“No, I can’t influence emotions. Gods, imagine if I could. It would make a lot of things easier. Unfortunately, all I get to do is know what everyone’s feeling all the time with no ability to understand why or how to change it.”
“But the way that light magic feels. That’s something, right?”
His eyes snap to mine. “How does it feel?”
I scowl at him. “You know perfectly well. Like a warm glow. Comforting, inviting.”
“Ah. Not everyone experiences that. But some do. Do you think it’s my magic pulling on you somehow?”
“I don’t know,” I say, withdrawing a step.
“Tell me when you figure it out.” His response is unusually curt, so much so that I think I’ve been dismissed.
I begin to bow.
“Wait,” he says, sighing. He holds his forehead in his hand in frustration with himself. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to influence you with my magic, I promise. But if you think it’s making you act in ways you don’t like, I’ll continue to keep my distance. If that’s what you want.”
It’s not what I want. I know it as soon as he says it. I don’t want to walk away from him now, but I know that I need to.
Not because of the plan, but because I need to figure out what the fuck is going on with me.
“I don’t—I just—ugh,” I try to say. “Just for a bit longer.”
“For as long as you need,” he says, and he lets me go.
Two days later, I watch from the stands as Quinn advances to the sword-fighting final with ease.
Adria faces more of a challenge with Titus, but even his height advantage doesn’t help him as she defeats him 5-3. At least it’s her closest match yet, so I’m not completely humiliated.
The week that follows is the tensest since we arrived.
Adria and Quinn take every opportunity to antagonize each other, to the point that I’m not sure we’ll make it there with them both intact.
It’s only their joint arrogance at wanting to humiliate the other in front of a huge crowd that stays their hands.
I gift Zara a bottle of Nithyrian red for saving my life and spend some time watching tournament events with her on days she isn’t busy with Guild business.
She’s about the only person willing to talk to me with Larus gone, Adria preoccupied with Quinn, and Ronan off limits for my own sake.
I don’t talk to her about him. Instead, we discuss more of her life in her homeland of Eki.
“There’s no such thing as sport in Eki,” she explains. “No such thing as a fight for practice. They put real blades in the hands of children. If you make it to adulthood, your training is complete.”
“The Festival of Sport was like that too once. My mother told me that hundreds of people and thousands of animals would die at a single festival back in her great-grandmother’s day.
” It was the abolition of slavery that ended the barbaric practice.
It turns out people who aren’t in chains aren’t as happy about putting their lives on the line for the entertainment of others.
By the time the archery final comes around at the end of the week, the crowds in the arena are near capacity. It’s the next-to-last day of the tournament. Only tomorrow’s finals in chariot racing, the 100-foot dash, the fire-born trial, and trial of the blade will draw a larger crowd.
The sound is deafening. From the arena floor, which has been cleared of all except the torch and the three targets, I can barely hear Ronan’s amplified voice, his grandmother lending him her power once again.
“Welcome to the archery final! Our three competitors have bested a field of over one hundred, but only one can reign as Sai’s Champion of the Bow.”
He pauses for a cheer, which is so loud I nearly drop my bow. I’ve skipped my armor tonight, wearing instead the light Selaran clothes that keep me much cooler in the late afternoon heat.
“Will it be Linus of House Santori?”
The man on the far-left waves to the crowd.
He’s about ten paces away, but I know his face well now after five rounds of the tournament.
He’s a small, slim man of around thirty with a sharp goatee and tightly proportioned features.
His House, Santori, is a minor house loyal to House Alta, the Royal House, and he receives an enthusiastic reception from the home crowd.
“Or will it be Calliope of Parthis?”
The response for Calliope is a bit more tepid, which isn’t surprising considering that Parthis is quite a distance from here. At least I think it is. I don’t recall the geography of Velmora in much detail.
Calliope is unfazed. She waves enthusiastically, her dark curls shaking. She’s dressed in the same black leathers as the first day of the tournament, and she seems unaffected by the heat. I bet it’s hotter in Parthis, wherever it is.
“Or will it be Sylvie of House Verran?”
A shiver travels through me at the sound of my name on Ronan’s lips.
There’s a much bigger cheer than I was expecting considering my House. There are some heckles, but they’re largely drowned out by the cheers. Maybe I won some fans at the sword fight after all.
“Archers, take your mark.”
This is it. I step up to the white line that has been painted on the dusty arena floor.
There will be three rounds with three arrows each round.
If the scores are tied, and they’re likely to be considering everyone’s performance so far, we’ll go into sudden elimination where we shoot one after another until someone fails to get a bullseye. The last one standing wins.
“Nock—”
The crowd noise fades as I nock the first arrow. Nine arrows between me and victory. There isn’t much of a reward for being Sai’s Champion other than pride, but I find myself wanting it anyway.
I want to hear Ronan say my name again. I want him to place the laurel wreath on my head.
I want him to tell me how proud he is of me.
“Draw—”
I take a deep, stilling breath as I draw my bow.
The target is just like the targets in the courtyard of the castle where I was raised.
I’m there again, eleven years old. Everyone is still alive.
I’m passing time waiting for them to come home.
Larus is on the sidelines, telling me to keep my arm steady.
The bullseye is in sight. I stare at it, unblinking. I line the arrow up with it, aiming just above to account for the drop. The afternoon wind is still.
Even the crowd is silent.
“Loose!”
I shoot the bow, and I know immediately that something is wrong. Not with my shot—it’s a bullseye. But the other arrows don’t hit their targets.
A blood-curdling scream comes from the crowd, and then all hell breaks loose.
The stands echo with shouts and trampling footsteps as I look to my left. Linus is on the ground, bleeding.
There’s an arrow in his ear.
Calliope, shrouded in shadow, is running for the track.
She killed him. Holy fuck, she killed him.
Why?
“There!” I shout in her direction, and a dozen guards run towards her.
I should chase after her. I don’t know how many of the guards are shadow-born, but I doubt it’s many. I could even loose one of my arrows at her retreating figure.
I nock my arrow, but something stops me from shooting.
Why would Calliope shoot Linus in the middle of the tournament final with one hundred thousand witnesses? Why, when it won’t win her the tournament? She’ll be hanged as soon as they catch her.
Why would she risk her life for this?
And then it occurs to me.
There’s only one reason to do something that would cause this much chaos.
It’s a distraction.
I look into the royal box. Ronan is standing at the front, giving orders to Taran. Claudia is being herded out the back by Quinn and Typhon, and the Grand Vizier is shouting to someone in the stands.
None of them see the man on the right, creeping up to Ronan. How could they?
He’s hidden in the shadows.
I look around me, but no one else is looking in that direction. No one can see him but me.
Calliope killed Linus as a distraction. This man is going to kill Ronan.
I don’t hesitate. I don’t think of the consequences.
I nock one of the competition arrows.
I draw the bow.
And I loose the arrow into the royal box.