Thirty-Seven
Tomorrow arrives with unseemly haste.
To my surprise, I did sleep after my return from Alzimyth’s, though my dreams were shot through with nightmare figures making strange, incomprehensible offers.
When I wake up, I hardly feel rested. There’s barely time to eat and bathe and dress in a brand-new fighting outfit laid out by Ky’s indefatigable seamstress before the trip to the arena grounds.
Ky is waiting for me in the carriage in fresh clothes of her own, hair tightly braided in a club thicker than my arm, her sword at her side.
Her mind is clearly heavy with her own thoughts, and she barely looks at me as we pull out of the driveway.
The tournament field has been rebuilt yet again, repairing the damage done by the previous rounds.
The stands are larger now, reaching all the way around the arena, and they’re already packed nearly to bursting.
As we dismount from the carriage, I’m surprised to hear people cheer; albeit in a restrained, decorous way that would have been inaudible back on Malkuth. I look back at Ky as she steps down.
“I guess we’re the popular choice.” Not hard when your opponent likes to grind people’s skulls into the dirt “by accident.”
“What?” Ky says, blinking as though seeing the crowd around us for the first time. “Oh. Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She squares her shoulders and looks up at me. “Just a little… distracted.”
Better her than me, I guess. We haven’t discussed what happened—or might have happened—last night, much less my conversation with Alzimyth. Time for that afterward. Hopefully.
Hisham is on the judge’s stand, talking about something that nobody is paying much attention to.
Quech and Vripiai wait in front of it, the big man in a sleeveless vest showing off thickly muscled arms, the snake newly enameled with fresh jewel patterns.
Behind them Devon Dreikin waits with Gestian and a suite of other guards.
The Dreikin Councilor has a satisfied look on his face, and he picks me out for a contemptuous smile.
Ky, meanwhile, only has eyes for Gestian.
“Hey!” A voice from the front of the stands breaks through the babble, and I look over and see Niami’s violently green hair in the front row. She waves and gives me a wide grin. “Tear him apart!”
Alzimyth appears—coming from over by the Dreikins, I note—and mounts the platform, which makes Hisham trail off in mid-sentence. The knight scans us with his usual superior air, but he lingers on me in particular. I try to give him a cheeky grin back, but I suspect it looks queasy instead.
Here goes nothing.
[Affront: speak for yourself. My efforts will be quite substantial.]
Alzimyth opens his mouth, and I prepare for the usual cursory introduction. But it’s not his amplified voice that fills the arena but Ky’s; I turn to see her pointing one trembling finger at the Dreikins.
“Gestian Vianor!” She takes a deep breath. “You betrayed and murdered my father. I demand justice.”
Alzimyth frowns, but he says nothing. Hisham steps forward and clears his throat.
“That is, um, a very serious accusation, Miss Tranto. Your father was an, um, honored member of the Council and a personal, um, friend, and I was most distressed by his passing. But for justice to be done the Council and the Arbiters would need, um, evidence. This is not the place, but if you, um, wish to present something a forum can be provided—”
“No need.” Ky’s hand drops to her sword. “I challenge him to a duel.”
Devon Dreikin starts to say something, but Gestian interrupts with a delighted look on his face. “I accept!”
“That is, um, your right. I suppose.” Hisham mops sweat from his brow. “A suitable time and place will be, um, arranged—”
“Why wait?” Alzimyth drawls unexpectedly. The knight is smiling mischievously, and he flicks his eyes to me. “We have a crowd. We have an arena. We can decide this here and now.”
Now it’s Ky’s turn to look surprised. “What?”
“I stand ready to defend my honor anytime,” Gestian sneers.
“That is, um, not how we do things, I’m afraid,” Hisham says, rubbing at his forehead again. “There’s a proper procedure—”
“And the Ascent comes first, surely,” Devon Dreikin puts in. “Its importance cannot be compared to a mere squabble—”
A muscle in Alzimyth’s cheek begins to twitch. He touches his high collar, and abruptly his voice is louder than the rest, thundering across the arena.
“Shut. Up.” In the ringing silence that follows, he speaks again in a more normal tone. “I am the executor of this tournament, am I not?”
“Y-yes,” Hisham says weakly. “Of course.”
“And the rules state that the matches can take whatever form I wish.”
“Technically”—the Council head squirms—“but there is a traditional form—”
“Fuck your traditions.” Alzimyth throws himself into his high-backed seat. “I decree that the final match include representatives from each side’s sponsor. Since two of them have conveniently volunteered themselves, I believe we have our fighters.”
“Included in the match?” Devon sputters. “That’s—”
“I thought I told you to shut up,” the knight snaps. “I’m sick of pretending there’s any dignity to this farce. Go ahead and finish this tournament of worms.”
He catches my eye, then, and the anger I see there tells me this is all my fault. Apparently a Hesed Knight does not take kindly to being backtalked by vermin.
“You heard me!” Alzimyth booms, over the rising murmur of the crowd. “Now fight!”
“Taj,” Ky says, hurrying to keep up with me and Star as we round the arena. “Taj!”
I don’t turn. “What?”
“Will you just listen to me for a second?”
“I don’t think we want to keep Alzimyth waiting.”
“Taj, I’m sorry.”
I stop abruptly, and she nearly walks into me. When I turn on my heel, she’s standing too close, breathing hard.
“Sorry for what?”
“That… I didn’t tell you.”
“Because you knew I’d try to stop you?” I shake my head. “I don’t understand. At the ball he was trying to bait you into exactly this move. Now you’re walking right into the trap?”
“I thought—” She takes a deep breath. “I thought winning the tournament would be enough. I’d get my Council seat, and Devon and Gestian would back off.
But they won’t, they’ve as good as declared war already.
This is the only way to get ahead of them.
If I can beat Gestian, force him to admit what he did—”
“And did you think for one second about me?” I snap, angrier than I’d realized. “I’m the one risking my life in this tournament. I thought we had a deal. I win this for you, and me and mine are taken care of.”
“Of course we have a deal!”
“Unless Gestian fucking kills you!” I want to grab her shoulders and shake her. “Then what the fuck am I supposed to do? You think Devon and the rest are going to protect my family?”
“I don’t—” She stops, swallows. “I can beat him.”
“The last time you fought him I had to rescue you, remember?”
“I was hurt and half out of my mind.” She stands up straighter. “I can beat him.”
“Well, now you’ll get your chance, assuming Vripiai doesn’t get to you first.”
“I thought we’d fight after the tournament,” Ky says. “I needed a public place to make the challenge, but I didn’t expect… this.” She shakes her head. “Has Alzimyth lost his mind?”
My righteous anger collapses a little. “That’s… probably my fault.”
“Your fault?” Her eyes narrow. “What did he say to you?”
Too much, with consequences I’ve barely begun to think through. “That I have some special talent for sigwork. He wants to take me Above with him. Said I should abandon the tournament.”
“Abandon—”
“I turned him down, obviously.”
“You…” Ky blinks. “You turned down a chance to go Above? Why?”
I shrug. “My family. You. But mostly because I don’t trust him. It felt like I was signing up for Above’s version of a workhouse.”
[Reminder: and me, of course.]
And you, of course.
“You turned him down,” Ky repeats, wonderingly.
“Yeah.” I glance back at the judge’s platform. “I don’t think he took it well.”
“Apparently not.” She shakes her head, then rolls her shoulders, one after the other. “All right. So what now?”
“Now?” The anger has run out of me, like pus drained from a wound, and I feel hollow but clean. “Now we win, I guess.”
“Any thoughts on how?” She puts a hand on her sword. “I’ve been practicing to beat Gestian, but if he does send that snake after me…”
“Star will handle Vripiai.” I hope; certainly no one else can. “You concentrate on your own fight.”
“What about Quech? You know he’ll be coming for you.”
The possibility has certainly been haunting me. “I’ll worry about Quech. I just need to keep him occupied.”
“Okay.” Ky grips her sword. “Okay okay okay. We can do this.”
“We can do this.” I squeeze her arm, briefly, and she gives me a fleeting smile. We walk the last few meters to the big door and wait for it to open.