Chapter 60
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAY
Power should never feel light.
—Raider’s Ban proverb
24th Day of Autumn’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 272
La’Angi Tourney Grounds
The water from the waterboy’s ladle wasn’t enough to wash away the coating of charred flesh that seemed to be stuck in my throat. Or mayhap the stink had climbed up my nose and I was just imagining I could still taste it.
“Xerberus,” said a wiry knight, offering me his hand. “Saltrocks. I lost to you in the third round last year but made it to the finals.”
I dropped the ladle back down and shook the offered hand. “Good to see you back.” Saltrocks wasn’t far from the Black Borough. If I’d been Kadan’s man, I’d’ve been wary of him. As Audrey’s man, I didn’t know who I should be wary of, apart from everyone.
“The lady, will you champion her?” he asked me, politely, the way you might ask a father if you could dance with his daughter.
I took the excuse to glance up toward Audrey. She was in her spot at the railing, as she’d been the whole tourney. Beside her, Yasmine and a vaguely familiar older woman were in conversation. Whenever I looked, she was not speaking.
She was as breathtaking as ever, but of course she was.
She wore a dress that’d cost more than most fiefs spent on seeds, and somehow managed to make that green smolder.
It was part of her privilege. I knew there were other reasons she’d made those choices that didn’t simply involve her serving cunt.
The woman was breathtaking in a thrice repaired sweat-stained shirt and a grin. She had ulterior motives, and I trusted they were worthy.
She didn’t look at all distressed by the morning’s events, but I expected no less. The cracks wouldn’t appear until the evening, and even then, they weren’t guaranteed.
“Lady Audrey didn’t mention who she’d champion,” I told him, pulling my eyes away from her.
His grin was fast. “We all know it’ll be you.”
I raised my brows. “Do you? Because I don’t.” And after what’d happened that morning, I hoped she didn’t.
Right now, I didn’t need more eyes on me.
“She’ll choose the winner,” someone nearby called. “And that isn’t you, Saltrocks!”
There was some good-natured laughter, some back and forth.
Names were called and we waited out of the sun on the edge of the field.
I didn’t let my eyes drift back up to her, not until after I’d been on and off the field twice.
Thomas’ voice was in my head. His quick, no-nonsense correction of my foot placement played on a loop.
I hadn’t lost despite what Thomas would’ve thought was an error, because here, I wasn’t fighting with others.
I needed to protect myself and no one else.
It felt…superficial.
So my eyes had to go to her, up on the stands. The rippling dress and waves of her hair made her quite a picture, but it was Kadan who I noticed beside her with relief. If he was here, then Luca was well and truly dealt with.
I’d wondered, in the past, if Luca one day managed to beg, borrow, or steal his way into her bed, whether I’d be taken by a murderous rage.
If it’d turned out differently and he’d been able to keep on fooling her, perhaps I would’ve.
What was the point in killing him now, though? He’d done as much damage to her as he ever could. He was done. Only his death would cause more harm and draw unneeded attention.
Audrey met my eyes across the distance. I couldn’t make out the nuance in her expression, but my mouth went dry.
Luca is alive. I wished I could’ve told her, so she didn’t wonder.
He won’t talk about it to anyone, and he won’t give you any more trouble, and he’s fine.
There was no hiding his oath had started to trigger.
Fucked if I knew how we’d avoided having a half-melted corpse on our hands, but we had.
“There’s betting on who she’ll pick,” Xerberus told me, when I made it back. He was grinning, but it was in a good-natured way. “Odds are long for the rest of us. How’s it feel to be the chosen of the Beacon of La’Angi?”
My heart twisted. I reached for the ladle again to quench the desert in my mouth. “Couldn’t ask for a better noble,” I managed. “But the standing around gets old.”
He laughed and nudged the bucket of water closer.
Did she want to champion me?
It made no difference to me. I’d already won the buckle from this tourney. It’d gone somewhere, along with the ribbon she’d worn and gifted me all those moons ago.
I knew which one I’d have back.
The roar of the crowd ebbed and flowed. The competition was fierce, but they didn’t know how I’d been training for months. I’d lived and breathed this, and I’d done so with four other equally driven, brilliant warriors.
“I’ll win this fight for you, my lady!” someone called.
A snort from my elbow made me glance over. Callum, light brown hair gleaming in the sun and boots unpolished, stepped up beside me. “Just stopping by. See how you’re going.”
I glanced up at Audrey again for the third time that day.
I hated that I needed to count, and I hated even more that I wasn’t there, close to her.
The sun sparkled off Kadan’s hair where he was telling a joke to the nobility that gathered around them.
The rogue sunbeam found him and lit him up like the gods themselves were trying to highlight him. But even in the shadows, Audrey burned.
“Everything’s all good at our end,” he said, the words so general that everyone in the area instantly knew there was a hidden meaning.
I ignored the looks sent our way. “Did he sober up okay?” I asked to settle people’s interest. Pretending Luca had enjoyed a late night with Audrey’s knappchs and some paid company had been the simplest option while we got him to a fit state to hasten him out of the city. But Luca hadn’t been drunk.
He had been out of his head, though. Never had I seen a grown man cry like that. The way he’d rocked, snot streaming down his face, arms around his chest, barely even noticing the blisters on his nose and around his mouth from the death he’d narrowly avoided…
Wild horses, it had been a big morning.
“Sleeping it off,” Callum told me. “Got someone with him to make sure he gets plenty of water when he wakes.”
“You’re too kind, Cal.”
“I’m glad you scraped him off the cobblestones,” Callum said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Your form looks good, friend. Damned good. Didn’t get these muscles by turning yourself into a packhorse, I see.”
“Comes with the job.”
What did Luca think came with his?
Would he step down, now?
Might Kadan be forced into his place?
I blew out a long breath. Kadan and Audrey made a lot more sense than Luca and Audrey. But my friend would never take up the crown.
I had no idea how Luca had believed so deeply he was harming Audrey irreparably by not marrying her after fucking her. But he’d come around. Apparently even the thickest skulls had some give.
Callum slapped me on the back again as my name was called. I settled the helm back on my head and climbed up onto the field, focused on my task.
Break, assess, avoid, block and feint, assess, avoid. Strike.
I threw the shield over my back in an easy move I hadn’t even noticed I’d picked up until I reflected back on last year.
She wasn’t coming down almost to the field itself to keep my neck whole. This year, nothing was at stake. I didn’t care if I won, lost, or drew. Not with the reek of Luca’s burning flesh in my head and my lady like a beacon in the stands.
I slipped back into the shade in the dugouts, knowing I’d have a few moments between rounds.
A knight from west of the Aza Ranges was standing near the water talking to a Ltonan.
The Ltonan saw me coming and said to his companion, “You think your king would have her? She’ll be old once he can use his cock. ”
The knight’s neck went a mottled red, as if he thought I’d have him shitting his own teeth for suggesting Audrey might be drawing royal attention.
We all knew she would be. She hadn’t directly addressed it, but there was no question she was trying to make them see her, and not just as the duchess-in-waiting, but as a force of her own.
They didn’t know why.
“Less than ten years,” the knight mumbled. “She isn’t so old.”
She wasn’t. I drank the water, though it threatened to choke me. If the king’s men came for her, if they tried to wed her to the child-king…
That’d be the smartest thing they could do. Marry her into power, and let her run with it.
They wouldn’t, though. They’d harness her to a broken-down cart and make her drag it. They’d whip her for speed, and they’d overload the cart, and they’d toss her to the dogs once she faltered.
“You’re up,” someone said, with the air of one who’d repeated themselves a few times.
I’d lost my helm. A hand offered it to me. No one was smiling, now, especially not the knight sweating before me.
Damned if I was letting her get roped into being a packhorse for the locways.
They roared when I came out. It wasn’t for me, though. It was for her.
“Chay the champion!” someone bellowed.
I set my teeth. I’d be her champion ’til my heart no longer beat, but they didn’t know what that meant. Not protector, but mentor. Not bulwark, but ally.
As I walked off they were stomping in time. Champ. Ee. On. Champ. Ee. On.
I’d championed her this morning with an arm around Luca’s still-naked shoulders as he’d cauterized his dreams.
Before I’d even made it back into the shade I was pulled back out.
The steward was a familiar face, one of the guards I’d covered for one evening when his surviving little boy was sick and I was bored.
He grinned at me, clapping me on the shoulder and pointing me over to a ring on the far side of the grounds. “The Son keep you,” he told me.
The Son had nothing to do with how I’d keep. I glanced up at the lists. Some of the remaining shields I knew, others I didn’t. Still, plenty of rounds to go. They couldn’t chant like this for the whole time.
“Did she name you yet?” my opponent asked, over the racket.
I shook my head but didn’t argue with the yet, reaching out and clasping his hand in friendly acknowledgement. I couldn’t recall his name, nor even place his province, but I knew he knew Kadan, and I suspected he’d been injured in the war. He moved warily.
I’d been sparring regularly with Matri’sion. I was used to wary.
The stomping continued. The chanting.
I was no one’s champion.
My body managed the give and take of the fight. My head was full of their chanting, my muscles warm, the sword a perfect weight.
She didn’t need a champion.
The idea occurred to me with such a start that I nearly ended up skewered by accident, blocking only at the last minute and rolling overtop the lunge to tag my opponent on the back, leaving a long chalk mark against his tabard.
He pulled off his helm, grinning as he clasped me in a hug. “Well struck!” he said, over the roar of the crowd, laughing in joy.
My heart in my throat I pulled off my helm and wiped the worst of the sweat off my face. Not for her. By the old gods, I was glad the weather had cooled, because the feel of her sweat-slick skin against mine as we trained had been torture. She hadn’t noticed, though.
“My lady Audrey,” I called, and the crowd roared.
She waited for the noise to crest and then ebb, leaning over the banister. “Excellent shield work, sir!” she called down to me.
Heat coiled in my belly at her words, at the reference to our shared secret exchange last year. I took a breath and felt the fire move through my veins. She’d been embers back then, waiting for the conditions to be right.
She was a bonfire now.
“I’m glad I’ve pleased my lady,” I called back. “As you know, I’ll win any tourney for you.” And fight any man or beast, alive or magic.
The crowd roared, stomping out of time. Fences were shaken.
Wood rattled. If the crowd spilled onto the field, they’d have to remove Audrey.
Kadan was up there with her. I saw his brilliant smile, bright as the sun, remain undimmed as his eyes assessed the crowd.
I turned to those people with a big, sweeping gesture.
“But we all know she needs no champion!”
The shouts. The whistles. The applause.
I turned back to Audrey. Her expression had morphed from one of politeness to something intense, something fierce.
Claim it. I waited as the crowd shouted and screamed, watching her little pocket of calm. Claim it, Audrey. You’ll need it soon.
She held out one hand in a gentle soothing motion. The noise peaked, then ebbed as people listened intently.
“I’ve learned we’re stronger with our allies close,” she called down to me.
I fisted my hand and pressed it against my chest, over my heart, bowing to her. Claim it, my bonfire. I had no wisdom to respond with, no way to shine the light back on her. Just all my love. Just all my hope.
The quiet around the arena as I straightened felt unnatural after the noise we’d survived. They all waited for her to name me, and I desperately wanted her to name herself.
“For the lady, and her allies!” Kadan called, beside her, lifting his hands in applause to her.
“The Beacon!” came the call. “The Beacon!”
A chill went up my spine. I saw her duck her head, clearly uncomfortable. For a terrifying instant, I thought she’d shrink. We were back before the fire, and she was agreeing and soothing.
Then her spine straightened and her chin lifted.
This time, when I put my fist over my heart and bowed, she accepted it with a small, tight curtsey, and the rhythm they stomped was now openly for her.
When the Butcher returned, he wouldn’t be coming back to his home, but to hers.