Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
CHAY
“Cornered dogs bite.” ~ La’Angi saying
M y lungs burned from the fight I’d just won when Mikus strode up to the edge of the stands. The crowd was still screaming for him, and the Duke looked on with quiet approval from above. But Audrey just continued to look through him, utterly unaffected as he did everything except demand her favor.
Why had she offered it to me?
The way she’d danced with Kadan like she was hewn from granite yesterday made me doubt she wanted the attention of a man just to upset her father, and while I knew she’d been watching me, it wasn’t with warmth.
I rolled my shoulders and didn’t stare at the spectacle Mikus was making or look at what Kadan was up to, instead heading toward the boy with the water and drinking ladles. Callum and the crew had Kadan for today. And if they didn’t, that flimsy railing wouldn’t keep me from him.
“Apologies, Your Grace,” I heard Mikus call up past my whiskey-eyed onlooker with her bored expression. “My momentum carried me through. Trust I’ll make amends with…” he paused for a moment, “…the knight’s family.”
I’d heard the poor bastard’s knee shatter from across the field. That was the strength of a charging bull, sure, but it was being inflicted against specific targets with surgical precision.
I doubted he was truly so callous to have shattered the knee of a knight he didn’t know. He was aware of whose life he was forever changing. He just made it look like he was a mindless beast.
I’d tried to talk myself out of competing. We were here for Luca—and I for Kadan. I shouldn’t have entered. I knew I shouldn’t. Luca had told me. Callum had told me. Even Kadan had looked surprised.
But, curse it, I’d always dreamt of taking out the La’Angi sword, or mayhap even the melee. There was no higher honor…and I didn’t have so much I could leave an opportunity like that behind. Not since my grandfather had anyone in my family been worth anything. I’d grown up hearing the stories about him and staring up at the medal he’d won.
It had sat above the mantle in our hall for years, beside his cloven shield and broken helm. And I remembered when my pa had tossed that medal at a debt collector to pay for the lifestyle he couldn’t afford.
I assumed the helm and shield were still there. Even melted down, they wouldn’t be worth much.
A hand on my arm dragged me back to the present, and I looked at the steward’s painfully neutral expression.
“Yes?”
I followed his gaze past where Mikus had been standing and saw her, skirts in her hands and eyes on me as she danced down the steps to the edge.
I considered smiling, waving, and walking away.
I wanted that medal for me , this time. I didn’t need her approval. I didn’t need anyone’s.
But one ribbon wouldn’t undo that, either , I told myself. And a small part of me trusted her. She’d never know we were forged in the same manner, tempered to a sharp but brittle edge. I’d been re-forged. Had she?
My feet were already moving toward her before I’d finished my thought. I felt like the eyes of every single person in La’Angi were on us, and I didn’t like the sensation. I was comfortable in the shadows of those more used to weathering the attention. But I heard Luca’s dismissal of her and remembered my own thoughts of her survival skills.
She knew separating herself from the herd made her weak, but she did it, anyway. Why?
“I’d like you to win for me,” she said, before I was close enough to see the freckles I knew dusted her strong nose. She didn’t wait for an answer, one of her hands reaching up to the ribbon tradition dictated she give to one of us, along with her blessing.
It felt like a moment since we’d been this close, but I could remember the weight of her still. Mayhap this was why it was called a favor.
She needs a champion.
It was a tourney. It didn’t mean anything. I was sworn to Kadan, and even if I weren’t, he’d saved my life. More, he’d saved my soul. I wasn’t for hire.
In the stands behind her, the watching faces peered at us like crows waiting for an injured cow to still. Soon, they’d pick over our corpses.
Somehow, I remembered to bow. Her hair tumbled free in waves where it still wanted to adhere to the pattern it had been held in, gleaming red where it drank in the sun’s warmth. She untangled her ribbon impatiently where it caught in her hair. I kept my face impassive as I thought about how long she’d be spending brushing those snarls out later. Or whether fingers might work…and what it might feel like to tangle myself in it.
She was pale under the flush splashing over her cheeks. I watched her shake the snarled ribbon, her strong hands white-knuckled. Though it was just a small movement, it spoke of a world of irritation and not a lot of forethought.
The woman wasn’t tempered, but not in the way the circling crows believed.
“Can I help you, Embers?” I asked, bracing a hand against the rail so I didn’t reach for her.
If she heard me, she didn’t respond. The ribbon finally flew free, and she shook hair out of her face. A tiny bit stuck to her bottom lip, and I resisted the urge to ease it away. “Mikus’ll fight dirty,” she murmured as she leaned in close with the ribbon, her hair whipping around us. I felt it tickle my face and struggled not to react. “Dirt. Elbows.”
I’d figured that out already. The bigger question was why she was telling me any of this. I drew in the smell of her, something light and floral, as she wrapped the ribbon around my shield arm with brisk movements.
Was she worried about me?
“He keeps a knife in his shield, and he’s slipped with it before,” she went on, her eyes firmly on my arm where she was tying the ribbon. “He won’t stop once the fight’s done. Don’t turn your back.”
I resisted the urge to look up and assess the Butcher’s reaction to me being so close that his daughter’s hair tickled my mouth, too.
“He’s your father’s man,” I said, cutting over the bubbling words. “Don’t get involved.” She should know that by now. “I don’t need your concern.”
Even if Luca was right about her taking unnecessary risks, she did it due to the relatable drive to escape those watchful eyes and the ever-present threat.
She tied the knot harder than she needed and something about that show of temper made me feel better. The pressure bit through my gambeson. Her too-hasty fingers dug to rectify her mistake. “I’m already involved,” she returned. “Your shield work is sloppy, and he’ll have seen it. He’ll go up and under. Move forward, not back, if he does.”
She didn’t know about the rebellion. Luca had all but said it. How was she involved? My mouth was a desert. “Are you safe, Embers?”
I regretted the words as soon as I gave them to her, but couldn’t take them back.
Her breath shook, and her fingers slipped again. I stood impassive and resisted the urge to soothe her.
“No one goes toe to toe with Mikus,” she said, the words tumbling over each other. “He won’t expect it.”
No one went toe to toe with the Butcher, either.
I wasn’t saying I wanted to, but I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t.
“I’ll look after me. You look after you.”
She stepped back with a curtsey. “May you seize victory, sir Chay.”
Once more, I didn’t look up to where the Butcher reigned on high.
Seizing victory was the goal, yes.