CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TRISTAN
“Galen, take it,” I said, shoving the bag of coins at him.
“No. I don’t need it.” Galen looked away, staring out at the arena of the Nutavian Katurium. His arms were folded across his chest. He wore no tunic or armor, enjoying the early whisperings of spring and the bright sun.
“Please,” I said. “You should at least accept me as your sponsor.”
“The Palace is my sponsor,” he said coolly.
I sighed. Sure, the Palace was housing him, giving him the arena to train in every day and providing basic meals. But not enough. He needed more, and at the very least I wanted to give him that. But he was so fucking stubborn.
“Why are you offering me this anyway?” Galen pulled on his arms, stretching them side to side before lifting them over his head. A habibellum was happening in the field. Every day there was one as all of the potential soturi for the Valabellum auditioned and fought to earn their roles in the arena. Every day, soturi were being cut and sent home. But Galen kept making it to the next level. “You know that I don’t need it. Nor have I ever asked for anything like this from you.” His face tightened. And underneath, I detected the smallest bit of resentment.
I sometimes forgot just how much money my Ka had. And how vastly different that level of wealth was from the other nobility. Ka Scholar was on the cusp of such noble status. Since his people mostly stayed in Scholar’s Harbor, and most took up posts there in the Library or in the temples, they were not always included amongst the nobility. Nor invited to most events. But I’d never paid attention. Never thought twice about Galen’s status. Not until my grandmother pointed it out.
Apparently, Galen had noticed. More than he’d willingly let on in our long years of friendship.
His dark eyebrows furrowed, and he reached at last for his tunic on the bench. Once the next hour was called, he’d be in the next set of trials. These were for the roles of the Guardians. Under no circumstances could Galen be cast. These games were deadly. And the last thing I wanted was to see him harmed. He risked enough as a soturion as it was.
“Last I heard,” he muttered, pulling his tunic down past his waist, “you were giving your coin to my enemies.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
“Betting against your best friend. Real fucking nice.”
“I’m not betting against you!” I said. “I’m trying to keep you safe!” I gestured towards the habibellum happening before us. “This is a bad idea. People are going to get killed. I’ve lost too much already.” I paused, feeling the familiar pang in my chest. “If she was here …” my voice cracked, “Ha—” I stopped. I couldn’t say Haleika, not without crying.
“But that’s exactly why I am here!” he snapped.
All the nights we’d spent together grieving, drinking … I had no idea the anger he was carrying deep down. I’d never realized that calm, logical Galen, Galen who hailed from Ka Scholar, would be the one to carry such vitriol.
“Galen, fuck. Come on. I can’t lose you too.”
But Galen wasn’t listening. “I have to do this,” he said. “I have to make him see. Emperor Theotis needs to see.” His jaw was set and anger was radiating off his aura. “If I can at least look him in the eye, and say out loud what he did, it’s worth it. Don’t you want that?”
My hands fisted at my sides, my own anger pulsing through me. I couldn’t think about it. Couldn’t think about it without feeling the horror washing through me, attempting to drown me and push me back into my grief and shock. I understood how Galen felt. I felt it, too. But there was a strategy, a way to do something. And it wasn’t this.
Gods. I had enough to worry about. Least of which was what was still happening to me.
I sat back, watching as Galen began to fasten the clasps of his golden Bamarian armor around his chest.
“I need to stretch,” Galen said. “If you’re going to be like this, then I don’t need you here. Don’t try to hand me money and claim you support me, not when I know what you’re really doing.”
“Auriel’s fucking bane. I’m not betting against you,” I hissed. “I’d never bet against you.”
“Then what?” Galen’s voice darkened.
I was trying to form an alliance, trying to find any soturi I could bribe, and convince them to make Galen a target. I wanted them to get him out of the trials. If he wouldn’t leave himself, if his strength wouldn’t fail, then my only option would be to have him disqualified.
The bells rang.
“I want you to be safe,” I shouted. “Don’t you get it. I’ve lost enough. I don’t … fuck. You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose you.”
Galen looked away. “It’s not just me,” he said. “His Majesty has been losing his popularity for a long time. Do you know how many people are here who want to see the Emperor be held accountable? How many more wish to see him fall?”
I leapt up from my seat, and gripped his armor, pulling him toward me.
“Fucking listen to yourself,” I hissed. “You’re speaking of treason.”
“I’m speaking facts.”
“Fine. Facts. If there’s others who want to bring an end to …” I paused. I didn’t want to speak treason. I couldn’t afford to. My existence was treason enough now. “If others want that, let them then. Let them take care of it. But you? You do nothing.”
“I loved her,” he said.
“And I didn’t?” I said. “She was my cousin. I loved her.”
“It’s not the same,” he said.
I shook my head. “What about Leander?” Her apprentice had been her lover, too. Not just Galen. I couldn’t understand why he was so driven when I was still not sure if Haleika had truly returned his affections.
“I don’t care. I know she loved me. And I loved her—even if she loved others, even if she loved them more. They’re not here. He’s dead. It’s up to me. Anyway, you’re one to talk. Let’s not forget Lyriana. And yet, you’re going through all the motions—and I mean all of them—with Naria.”
Lyr. She didn’t love me. Not the way she loved the forsworn. And yet, when I thought about her in danger, or what the Imperator had demanded of me, I wondered if I, too, would have the strength to defy it, to fight back. If the forsworn couldn’t do it, could I step up, even knowing where her heart was?
“I’ve got to go,” Galen said. He pinned a flag to his armor. The number forty-four. Then he glared at me. “Just stop. Stop what you’re doing. You want to stay out of this mess? Play it safe? Keep the status quo?” He leaned toward me. “Then do it, Tristan. Do it. But nothing changes unless someone does something. And if no one does, there will be another Haleika. Even if I wasn’t the love of her life, it doesn’t matter. It’s as good a cause as any. Someone has to do something. And it won’t be Leander. Or you, or Ka Grey.” He stepped back, before I could say anything, and then ran out into the arena with the others.
I sank back against the bench, my gold coins still in my hand. Utterly fucking useless. What good was money if I couldn’t use it to help my friend?
The Katurium mage walked out onto the field and new silver circles to bind the fighters were drawn. A few of the soturi I’d spoken to, Galen’s competition, walked onto the field, and noticing me, dipped their chins in respect.
I looked away.
“Since when do you take an interest in arena games?” Imperator Kormac drawled. His golden Laurel of the Arkasva gleamed in the sun, as did the golden border of his black robes, as he made his way down the aisle to my bench. The Bastardmaker and about a dozen more wolves followed behind him.
I jumped to my feet, my pulse pounding as I bowed.
“Your Highness,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen you in sometime.”
“Not since we heard news from the North,” he said, and gestured for me to sit.
I did, and then he took the seat right beside me.
“Leave us,” he ordered his men.
We were silent as they walked away. Not far. Away enough for us to speak in private. But close enough to remind me of the threat they posed.
“Lord Tristan,” he said, “If I remember correctly, you were never exactly told what would happen to you if you failed to bring me Lady Lyriana and Rhyan Hart.”
I swallowed. “I remember.”
“Well,” Imperator Kormac said, draping his arm across my shoulder. His other hand was on my chest. The touch was, I supposed, friendly enough. Not something that would cause anyone to gawk if they walked by our bench at that moment. And yet, my heart was thundering, sweat beaded at my forehead. Because it was anything but a friendly touch. I had the sudden realization that if he wanted to, he could crush me. Right then and there. It didn’t matter my station, or how much money I could access. If the Imperator turned on you—that was it.
It’s a dangerous thing, my dear, to not have that man on your side.
My grandmother’s warning flashed in my mind.
“You should know,” the Imperator said, “I’ve been watching you since you’ve arrived here.”
Now my heart stopped beating. Watching? How closely? Who was watching me? And when? What could they have seen? My stomach twisted violently and every part of me was hot and cold at once.
My vorakh. The visions. I’d had them again since I’d arrived—the same thing each time. The monster who killed my parents. The promise that my parents would regret what I would become. The evil inside me.
My chest tightened as I waited for him to spell it out. To tell me I was damned—that I was next for Lethea.
But no, no. He couldn’t know. I’d only had two instances. Two visions. One in the shower, and I’d been sure I was alone. The other came in the middle of the night when I was still in bed. I thought it was a dream, until the repeating images came, and the season’s sudden shift into spring did nothing to remove the chill in my bones.
If anything, I’d proven my loyalty to him and to his cause just this morning. It made me sick. I’d had to rush to the bathroom right after, I puked up my guts. But I’d found a vorakh in the Palace, visiting their brother who was competing in the trials. I’d captured them. Had Bellamy and Eric deliver them directly to the Palace prisons before I sent word to Imperator Kormac.
“Watched?” I said, nonchalantly, my pulse thrashing. Galen was in the middle of a Five and expertly doling out punch after punch. “Surely, beyond today’s excitement with the criminal I apprehended, I’ve not been so interesting to observe.”
“You seem to have taken a great interest in these trials,” he said, his tone light and conversational, like he wasn’t threatening me, like my life didn’t lie between his two hands.
“It’s the reason we’re here,” I said. “The Valabellum.”
“Not the reason you’re here,” he snapped. “You could have arrived later, arrived with your betrothed. You came early because you had a job to do. And since that job has shifted, I expected you to pivot. The entire story of Lyriana’s engagement stinks of gryphon-shit. And I expected you to find out more. To party, to schmooze, to find out what’s really happening in the North. Maybe you can’t legally hunt for her in Hart’s lands, but I did not intend for you to make daily trips out to the Katurium, to spend hours in the arena and the soturi apartments. You’ve never done that before. Not even when your girlfriend became a soturion.”
I stared ahead, terrified to make eye contact with him. His hands were still on me, and it was taking all of my focus and energy not to shake.
“N-no. But—” I swallowed roughly, my throat constricting. “But this is a unique event. The place to be it seems.”
“People don’t change. Their interests don’t change. Nor do their habits. I pay attention to such things. You’ve gone years without a shred of interest. Your Ka won’t even employ soturi. You’ve never been one for the games.”
I shrugged, the movement awkward, constricted by his hand tightening on my shoulder. “I’m not exactly one for them now,” I said. “But, like I said, these are unusual circumstances. A grand event in the Emperor’s honor.”
“Are you interested in knowing more about what we discovered as we watched you? It seems there’s someone in the trials of interest to you. Someone you’ve tried to sponsor.”
I stopped breathing. “Hard to know where to place bets when like you said, I’ve never been one for the games.”
“Galen of Ka Scholar,” he said.
My throat bobbed, my entire body still.
He removed his hands and laughed. Though the sound was more like a howl. “Number forty-four. Doing quite well in his trials today, isn’t he? I figured you had plans for betting on him to win the final games, to see him get cast into some major role. If you were offering money to support his training, I could only assume it was an investment. Perhaps you were gambling. But then your money patterns changed. You started offering money to his opponents instead. You even began funding alliances. All working against him. The one soturion you seemed loyal to.” His mouth was against my ear as he whispered, “At least, after your forsaken cousin, that is.”
My throat tightened, and then my chest followed. I could barely breathe. I wanted to get up, to run out of there, to find my room and slam the door and get into bed until this was over. How had I not noticed his spies? How had he realized all of this so quickly?
“How about this?” Imperator Kormac said. He stood, and stepped forward, leaning against the wall which enclosed us in. A jerk of his chin signaled for me to join him.
I did, resting my elbows on the white wall, watching Galen fight. A powerful kick of his leg, and the last soturion in his Five was down. His silver binding broke, and he ran into the fray in the center of the field.
“You want him safe, yes?” he asked.
“Yes,’ I admitted.
“He shouldn’t be cast in a major role then. And of course, we cannot have him playing Moriel.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Very well. Galen will not make it to the final round. Nor will he appear in the games on Asherah’s Feast Day. So long as you fulfill your promise. Lyriana and Rhyan will be here soon with Imperator Hart. Your task still stands, your mission only on pause while they’re unreachable. You still must hunt. Not just vorakh—which we thanked you for earlier.”
My stomach twisted.
“You will uncover the truth and bring them to me. You will find a way. The minute they are under the roof of the Palace, I expect to know what I need to take back control.”
“It will be done,” I said.
He smirked. “A shame. Soturion Galen truly is a great fighter. He could have gone to the end. Too bad he won’t.”
Then he walked away, and I sank back to my seat on the bench, eyeing Bellamy and Eric from a distance, my heart feeling like it would explode. I was a traitor. A traitor in every way. To everyone I loved, no matter what I did. But worst of all, to myself.