Interlude
Autumn, three years ago. Tournament Arena.
Akilah eyes my robe.
“It’s borrowed,” I say. “For noble purposes.”
“To pretend you’re a noble, you mean.”
“That’s what I said. Noble purposes.”
I walk through the tournament gates like I belong, my brother’s wedding robe—gold-threaded vines, ridiculous silk lining—billowing behind me.
The arena is carved into the base of the Claviska cliffs, flags bright, vendors shouting, rock spiralling up into cloud.
Today: mounted archery. Magic blocked; only raw skill allowed.
Hooves thunder. Arrows fly. By the second round, I’m breathless. By the fourth, transfixed.
A glint. A smooth, shimmering false face. That composure. That infuriating grace.
Of course it’s him.
Dark leathers. An eye-catching cloak. Calix Solin rides like a blade through water, loosing arrow after arrow without seeming to aim. Horse and rider move as one: lethal, exact. I forget how to blink.
My hand bites into the splintered post. My stomach does something swoopy and undignified. I hate that I feel it. I hate that I still feel it.
Just par-linea.
The horn sounds the next round. Akilah nudges me; I pretend I’m fine. I’m not.
Calix laughs with his rivals between passes, easy as if none of this matters. Then he scans the stands.
He finds me.
The look lands like a slingshot to the ribs. I don’t breathe. Don’t blink. His gaze holds—angry? Annoyed?—and the words from the woods scrape raw again.
I wrench my eyes to another rider and cheer too loudly. Akilah side-eyes me.
Calix’s final round. I slouch like I couldn’t care less and watch from the corner of my eye while my pulse tries to outrun the horses. He splits one bullseye, then another.
The third thunks into the post beside me and pins my sleeve.
The crowd gasps. Akilah shrieks. I whip toward him, heart in my throat. Calix’s gaze is fixed, unrelenting.
I glower. He glares back. Then, without bowing to judges or rivals, he wheels his horse and rides straight out of the arena.
It’s too much.
“Don’t wait,” I tell Akilah, and bolt. I find the family horse I “borrowed” and swing up. A lone figure cuts into the mist toward the cliffs.
I spur after him. “Maskios!”
We break above the low cloud and I draw even. Calix turns, teeth bared until he sees me, the torn sleeve. I fish his arrow from my boot and brandish it. “Why?”
His jaw sets. Silence.
“Because I’m a par-linea and it wouldn’t matter if you missed and hit me?” I prod.
“If I’d wanted to hit you,” he says coolly, “I would have.”
“So you only wanted to ruin my sleeve?”
“You were unchivalrous.”
I lift the arrow between us. “And this was . . .?”
A beat. Then, through clenched teeth, “An overreaction.”
Almost an apology. I lower the arrow and tug the ruined fabric. “I’ll catch trouble for this.”
“I’ll replace it.”
“It’ll never be the one my brother got married in.”
He stares, appalled. “Why would you wear that here?”
“Getting into the games isn’t simple. I don’t own finery. I suppose I could get married, get a robe of my own . . .”
“I’ll give you some of mine,” he says, abrupt.
“And your boots,” I add, swift. “So I can run far away while you stand there barefoot.”
He blinks. “Why would you run from me?”
Heat prickles my cheeks. I look away, draw my horse back a step. “You’re . . . unnerving.”
“Unnerving,” he repeats, voice softening. “Around me, I’d say you’re rather shameless.”
I edge alongside, put the arrowhead to his chest. “When have I ever done anything shameless?”
He plucks the shaft from my fingers with maddening calm. “You’re right,” he drawls. “Not shameless at all.”
The brush of wood against my palm is nothing, and somehow everything. I snap my gaze to the path curling upward across the cliff face.
“First to the third sharp bend,” I mutter.
“I play drakopagon,” he warns. “You have no—”
But I’m already gone, thundering up into cloud, sleeve flapping, heart somewhere ahead of my horse. Behind me, hooves gather and rise; the world narrows to breath and stone and the knowledge that he is chasing me.