Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
The two and a half weeks that followed were the longest Verna could remember since her mother died.
Kalen didn’t come to her room again.
She attended her training with the same focused intensity she had brought to it from the beginning, then worked in the vineyard rows in the afternoons, and ate with the guards in the evening.
On the occasions their paths crossed in a corridor or the courtyard, she offered Verna a brief nod that was courteous and impersonal, then moved on without slowing her pace.
Verna found it worse than before.
The estate continued its rhythm as the harvest moved smoothly toward its end.
With the last of the pressing done, the new wine was put in the barrels in the cool dark of the cellar to mature.
The four girls from the auction had settled in.
The eldest had progressed from wax tablets to proper parchment in her reading lessons and had taken to it with a fierce pride.
The youngest had stopped flinching at sudden sounds, which Dara reported to Verna with satisfaction.
Verna spent most of her evenings working through her great-grandmother's meticulous records in the archives.
Most of it was estate business, accounts, correspondence and the careful documentation of harvests stretching back a hundred and fifty years.
Then on day seven, she discovered a small box of personal journals tucked away on a shelf at the back.
The leather covers were dark with age, the writing inside so cramped and faded that it took some time to decipher each page.
Her great-grandmother had known about the ring.
There were references scattered through the journals, oblique at first and then more direct, a growing understanding documented over decades.
She called it the Wending, a name Verna had never heard, and she wrote about it as if she had arrived at her conclusions through research rather than first-hand knowledge.
She had written the history of the ring in the style of someone recording something she didn't fully understand. Apparently, the magic in the ring had slept for three generations before her, which meant it had remained dormant for six generations. What actually activated it, her great-grandmother didn’t know, but it either woke when it was needed or when the wearer was powerful enough to wield it.
Her great-grandmother had mentioned it many times in the years that followed, adding observations in the margins in a different ink, returning to the same question over decades. She wrote in one margin, ‘I believe the power is not in the ring. It’s only a door to that already in the blood.’
Verna had closed the journal and sat for a long time, the ring warm on her finger.
She had more questions now than when she started, which was not unusual when deciphering her great-grandmother's records.
The woman had been meticulous about what she observed, but never gave many conclusions.
She put the journals back in their box and returned it to the shelf, vowing to come back to it after the Trials.
A formal notice arrived from the palace six days before they were due to begin, delivered by an imperial courier on a horse with the palace crest on its chest band. Verna quickly scanned through it in case she had to reply.
There were nine major houses in the competition, the letter informed her, in addition to the emperor's own champion.
It was not the large field of participants she had expected.
The nine houses selected by the emperor were the most affluent in the realm.
Verna read the list of names—she knew all of them well.
Four she could count on as political allies, three were firmly in the emperor's circle, and two were notorious fence sitters.
She set the letter down and said to Dara who waited while she read it. "Borgine hasn’t opened the games to everyone. Only the top nine houses and his own house compete in the competition. Which means he knows exactly what he wants to happen."
Dara frowned. "That you come last?"
"Undoubtedly. He thinks a woman can’t defeat a man."
"And what if you do come last, My Lady?"
"Then I suspect he will force me to marry Bain as a consequence."
Dara was silent for a long moment then she whispered, "Thank the Gods you have Kalen as your champion."
"Yes," replied Verna, feeling a wave of anxiety. "She’s strong but not invincible. The other houses will have seasoned fighters, and she is still a woman."
"She can look after herself."
"I know, Dara, but I don’t want to see her hurt." Verna looked at the letter again. "There's a banquet in two nights’ time. All heads of the houses are required to attend."
"Required?"
"That's the word he used." Verna held her temper in check. "It’s at the palace. He’ll announce the rules there."
Dara was quiet for a moment. "Will you go?"
"I haven't a choice." Verna placed the folded letter in the drawer out of sight. "I'll need my light carriage for the trip, and Marleen can come as my maid. The palace secretary has booked a chamber for us in the Laurel Crown Inn."
The morning of departure arrived grey and cool, with a sea mist lying low over the terraces. The estate had been subdued since the news of the Trials, most women aware now that there would be some sort of consequence for the losing house.
She had spoken to them the previous evening in the courtyard and told them what she knew, which wasn’t much. She assured them Kalen was an exceptional fighter and that she had every reason to expect a strong result. She had told them that whatever happened, she would protect them.
Now she stood in the upper courtyard while the carriage was brought around, dressed in her travelling clothes.
Dara came down the steps with a cloak over her arm and draped it around her shoulders without ceremony. She stepped back and said softly, "Be careful, My Lady."
"I will." Verna looked across the courtyard. Kalen was standing at the far end near the gate to the lower terrace, watching her. She wore her training leathers and had the short sword at her hip that she had been working with all month.
Their eyes held across the width of the courtyard briefly, then the carriage drew up on the cobblestones between them, and one of the guards handed her up into it.
Then four mounted up to ride beside her.
She settled back against the cushioned seat as the carriage began to move beneath her.
Though there was not a breath of wind in the air, the whispering trees swayed as she passed by.
The road to Castine took two hours at a comfortable pace, the carriage rolling through the familiar coastal landscape as the morning mist burned slowly off the hills.
Verna sat with a book open in her lap that she didn't read, watching the countryside move past the window.
The sea appeared and disappeared between the headlands, grey under the overcast sky.
The vineyards on the lower slopes were stripped now, the harvest done, the workers cutting back the vines for the winter.
Her guards rode in silence alongside the carriage. She could hear the steady clip-clopping of the horses' hooves on the stone road, and the faint creak of the carriage as they swayed along. The sounds took her mind off the evening ahead.
The city arrived with the smell of woodsmoke, then the noise came, building slowly from a murmur to the full clamour of Castine in the middle of a working day. Soon the buildings closed in on either side, forcing the carriage to slow to the pace of the city traffic.
They moved through the lower districts, then up through the working quarter, past the central piazza with the lion fountain, and finally into the tree-lined streets of the wealthy district. The massive amphitheatre was on the eastern side of the palace, and the Laurel Crown sat a block away.
The inn was three stories of pale stone with a wide entrance arcade and its symbol carved above the door, a wreath of stone laurel. Carriages were drawn up in the yard, several of them bearing the crests of noble houses, and stable hands bustled around to take the horses.
Verna's carriage pulled up under the arcade and she stepped down before her guard could assist her, straightening her cloak as she eyed the carved wreath.
Then she heard her name.
Thom strode across the yard from the direction of the stables, still in his travelling coat. He had come on horseback rather than by carriage as she knew he would, and when he reached her, he looked relieved.
"I was hoping you’d arrive soon," he said. "Come inside, you look cold."
She smiled at him, glad to see he was his old self again. "It’s a dull, chilly day. Winter will be here before we know it." She turned to her maid. "Take my case to our room, Marleen. I’ll be up shortly."
He took her arm and steered her through the arcade into the inn's main room, where a fire was going in the large hearth. Several people looked up as they entered, and she recognised two faces from the list of competing houses, both of whom nodded amicably to her.
Thom found them a corner table away from the fire but close enough to benefit from it. A woman in an apron came promptly with a jug of heated wine spiced with dried citrus peel and cloves, a drink the Laurel Crown had been serving for as long as Verna could remember.
She wrapped her hands around the cup, letting the warmth move through her fingers.
"How was the road?" Thom asked.
"There wasn’t much traffic," she said. "Yours?"
"I made good time." He filled their cups and studied her carefully. "Are you worried about tonight?"
"A little," she admitted. "I have no idea what the emperor plans for us."
He raised his cup. "Have you heard anything more about the format? Beyond what was in the letter?"
"Nothing official. I've had word from one of the other houses that there is an individual combat competition, which suits us." She glanced around the room briefly and lowered her voice. "Kalen is an excellent fighter."
"I've heard she is."
Verna raised an eyebrow. "Have you indeed?"
He chuckled. "Word travels, Verna. You can’t expect to keep her a secret. One of my guards has a cousin on your estate."
"Huh," Verna huffed out.
"People are curious about her. They say she is unlike anything anyone has seen in the training yards."
"Let them be curious," she said. "Better they underestimate her. What about your man?"
"Petro is ready. He’s been training for months."
Verna nodded, knowing the man. The hulking man had been a fighter in the Nine Moon Pits before Thom bought him, and he remained intensely loyal to Thom after he’d freed him. "He will be a formidable opponent."
Thom grinned. "Anyone who survives the Pits knows how to fight dirty. Are you prepared for tonight?"
She looked at the fire for a moment. Across the room, the two other house heads were talking with a third she hadn't noticed arrive, their heads close together.
"I'll smile and drink the palace wine and say nothing of consequence," she said. "Which is the best way to be around the emperor nowadays."
He sent her a warning look and whispered, "Careful, Verna. The walls have ears."
They sat together for another half hour, talking through what they knew of the other competing houses, and which of them fielded the strongest contestants. Then Verna excused herself to go to her room to get ready.
After soaking in the tub to wash away the travelling dust, she put on the blue silk gown.
It was cut simply but expensively, the kind of garment that didn’t flaunt wealth.
Marleen arranged her hair up in ringlets, then pinned it with silver clips.
At her throat, Verna put on a single piece of dark amber on a fine chain.
After glancing in the long mirror, she made her way downstairs for a drink with Thom to wait.
The light through the inn's windows had faded toward dusk when a palace steward appeared on the threshold of the room and struck the floor twice with a staff to draw attention.
He announced in a loud voice that the banquet would begin in one quarter of an hour and that the heads of house were invited to proceed to the Palace.
Cups were set down, then cloaks were straightened as the guests rose.
Thom got to his feet and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
She smiled at this solid, dependable man in his fine coat, and took his arm.
They crossed the inn's main room together and joined the small procession moving toward the palace entrance across the torchlit street.
The arena loomed to their right, enormous against the evening sky, its high stone walls already hung with the imperial banners that would fly for the duration of the games.
The palace gates stood open ahead, guards in full ceremonial armour on either side, torches throwing long shadows across the paving stones.
They walked up the wide steps together and passed through the great doors into the foyer.