14. Purgo
purgō ~āre ~āuī ~ātum, tr.
1. to clean
2. to purge
One Month Later
I clutch an elaborate diamond pendant in my fist and study the skin there.
I’m covered in stronger tendons and veins and scars. My fingernails no longer have ridges in them—nutrients and rest. My right arm feels freer without the cast, but the nanomachine scars are still bright and red and small as rice grains. My biceps feel stronger, flexing with muscle as I reach up with the pendant and gouge it into the marble wall. Not tally marks this time.
Targets.
White dust flirts with the hem of my blue silk dress, the robot-dog biting at the speckles uselessly. I reach down and pet its head. “Don’t waste your energy, little one.”
The dog barks joyfully and wags its tail.
When I’m done carving, I stand back and look at the seven circles etched in the marble wall of my bedroom—one for each fight I must win in the Supernova Cup. One for each member of a family I’ve never known who must die.
God made the universe in seven days, and I will unmake it in seven people.
The sniffing coming down the hall gives Quilliam away before his knock on my door ever does. “Miss? The master wishes to know if you’re ready.”
I close the last clasp on my bodice and look up.
“I’ve been ready for a long time, Quilliam.”
The Supernova Cup only comes once a decade, and it is an event.
Nova-King Ressinimus throws a great banquet the week before the Cup begins to welcome all qualifying Houses and their riders, and no participant is exempt. I stare out the hovercarriage window, the highway slicing vermillion through the air, noble manses flashing below us in glass and marble. The royal palace rests on the very top of the noble spire as a sprawling whitewood manse on a flat green disc, waterfalls arcing over the lip and shrouding the spiretop in a fine mist. Dozens of brightly colored noble hovercarriages helix above it, orbiting like a miniature solar system as they wait for permission to land.
“Have any of the seven Hauteclares seen my face before?” I ask Dravik. He sits across from me in a fancy silver breast coat.
“I highly doubt it. Unless you showed Rax your face and he blurted a description of you out somewhere.”
“As if I’d show him anything but the door,” I scoff.
Dravik’s smile barely pulls the corners of his lips. “A good attitude to keep.”
The carriage eventually touches down and opens its doors to pleasant laughter. I step out, and the stares at my silver-blue dress are instant. Whispers swirl nearly louder than the jets on the landing pad. A futile longing hits me for the robot-dog—I miss its judgment-less sapphire eyes, its tinny bark when it tries to protect me from the dangers of dust motes and shadows. I hold Mother’s pendant tight.
Dravik turns around and offers me his blue-silk arm. The silver tassels of his epaulets catch sunlight as he smiles.
“I know touch is difficult for you, but mayhap this once? As a show of solidarity.”
I side-eye the nobles traipsing around us out of their own carriages. Rich. Powerful. Dangerous. They narrow their eyes at the powder blue and silver of our garments like they’re unexpected dirt, filth. Something is different about House Lithroi, and the nobles seem to know it. He and I are few, and they are many.
I reach my hand out and place it on his arm.
We walk over the greenest grass I’ve ever seen, soft as cotton and waving in a manufactured wind. It’s like a dream I would’ve had as a little girl after reading about Earth’s bounty for the first time: manicured hedges, rows of rich dirt brimming with lush flowers and fresh vegetables and even a gargantuan creaking tree of redwood. Its bark is rough and its trunk the width of ten men, and it sends shivers up my spine—Earth once had millions of these. Earth was big enough, verdant enough, that a million of these could live unimpeded. It’s beneath this grand red tree that the banquet lies, neat tables crowded in rainbow as the nobles congregate by House colors. Sparkling gems, bright holographic lace and feathers in hats, sparkling liquid in glasses—everything sparkles, but all I can see is the gleam of teeth.
“Aha, Drav!”
Dravik stops and I stop, and we turn to face the voice. Sevrith. He cuts an impressive presence out of a rider’s suit, wiry muscles cording beneath his bronze-trimmed celadon tunic. I was right; he’s older than Dravik by maybe ten, fifteen years. Time plays havoc with the crow’s feet around his dark eyes and velvet mouth, and his black hair pulls back in a regal half ponytail.
“Sevrith.” Dravik makes a bow, and I do as well. For some reason, clear panic shatters Sevrith’s face at this, but then he melts into his own bow deeper than either of ours. When he comes up, he aims a searingly white smile at me.
“So—you’re the kid, then? Good to finally meet you face-to-face.”
I already know his face—I’ve been studying him in the database. Sevrith cu Freynille is a good rider in his own right but more famous for being a heartthrob twenty years ago. Growing up, I saw him on Low Ward’s fractured holoscreens: coffee ads, contraceptive ads. Always winking.
“Synali,” I say. I sense Dravik’s eyes on me as he waits for the rest of the name, as we agreed in the contract. “Synali von Hauteclare.”
Sevrith’s eyes light up as he motions to mine. “That explains the ice. And why Drav picked you up. You must be Farris’s kid.”
“What do you want, Sev?” Dravik interrupts coolly. Sevrith shakes his head.
“What, are you mad I’ve gotten smarter? You’re punting a hornet’s nest into another hornet’s nest by bringing her here.”
“Do you intend to stop me?” I ask.
The older man looks surprised I spoke up. His smile is warm—like Quilliam’s. “No. I like a little entertainment with my food. God knows these pre-Cup banquets have been boring for far too long.”
I can’t bring myself to glare at him—the memory of the capsize and his help is still too fresh after a month and some. He just smiles at me, the garden party pulsing around us, and then something moves on his face…beneath his nose. A nosebleed? No—the liquid isn’t dark enough to be blood. What—
“Sev.” Dravik clears his throat and motions beneath his nose. Sevrith starts, covering his face with his hand and bowing quickly.
“If you’ll excuse me. Good luck in the Cup, kid. I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do when you aren’t busy capsizing.”
His dark eye gives a wink before he leaves, striding across the grass.
“Is he all right?” I ask Dravik.
“That’s his business. Your concern for the fate of a noble is rather out of character, Synali.”
He’s right. Every single noble here is a potential ally of House Hauteclare—and a potential enemy of mine. “Is he entering the Supernova Cup this year?”
Dravik nods. “Sevrith is the oldest rider in the competitive ring. The seed could very well put you together. Hopefully you will have accrued enough experience by then to overcome him.”
Doubt tries to squirm its way into my brain, but I refuse it. I have done everything to win. I will do everything to win.
Dravik beckons me to an isolated table laid with a pale-blue banner. Servants sweep it off when we sit, the silver rabbit embroidered mid-sprint deftly slithering away. The noble ladies have a special way of moving their skirts to sit, but I can’t be bothered—not when the white and gold of Hauteclare glares out from the opposite corner of the garden. Seven of them sit at their tranquil table in silk and jewels, smiling with one another when they robbed Mother of her life in cold, exacting cruelty…all because it suited them. Because it would pay for more jewels.
Control yourself. A carefully tensed body like I’ve learned in the steed. Focus.
“We’re attracting attention,” I say softly. Dravik chuckles.
“It’s to be expected—House Lithroi is something of a forgotten relic. Pay them no mind.”
I look around. A table in green and black, a table in gray and orange, a table in red and brown…House Velrayd. Rax. I still haven’t seen his face properly. I search the sitting Velrayds one by one—he was tall, but many of the Velrayds at the table are tall. I freeze as disgust creeps over me; why am I looking for him? He’s an obstacle I must overcome—nothing more.
I can’t help but notice one sweet-looking girl out of the many staring—her hair bright red and her clothes forest green striped with black. Her freckles crimp when she smiles at me—a curious sort of smile. Someone curious about me, instead of furious or impassive toward me…she reminds me of Jeria—a semi-friend I made in the brothel, the only one who asked if I was alright at the end of the day. The girl’s smile doesn’t last, as the woman next to her raps the girl with a silk fan and she whips around to face front again.
“The Solundes,” Dravik answers my unsaid question. “The girl is their rider, Yatrice.”
“She’s my age,” I say faintly.
“She is smiling now, but the Solundes are the Hauteclares’ greatest allies. When they find us threatening them, Yatrice will not hesitate to cut you down.”
I inhale and focus on the king. He sits at the head of the banquet, a grand gold-and-violet robe pooling around his throne. Amethysts hang at his throat, an elaborate crown of amber beads resting on his head. His white beard is braided with redwood beads, and his eyes are a deeper green than the verdant garden. Guards armed to the last hair form a crescent around the king’s raised platform. His jester strides to and fro on neon projection stilts, dissipating them every so often to jump down and joke snidely in his ear, but Nova-King Ressinimus the Third does not smile.
Father wanted so badly to be by his side, he killed for it. My existence killed Mother, but the king’s existence killed her, too.
“Who is that, I wonder?” Dravik asks coyly.
I sneer.“His Exalted Majesty.”
“Ah, yes. Though…I called him something else, once.”
My brow quirks. “And that was?”
Just then, the king’s green eyes move to our table, and Dravik returns the stare in a way I’ve never seen from him before—completely void. Not a single scrap of emotion remains on Dravik’s face. No more placidity or calmness.
Just…emptiness. Emptiness like a weapon.
Looking back, I should’ve known. I should’ve known the moment Dravik brought me into his manse, the moment I saw his iris surgery scars—the portrait of the boy with green eyes—the moment he manipulated the guards in my favor. I should’ve known a million moments before, but it only falls into place when Dravik’s easy expression vanishes from his face, replaced with that razor in darkness.
“Father.”
My head feels rusted as it turns to look at him.
To look at a prince.