Chapter Ten The First Lesson #3
He followed her finger until he was staring at the dark underside of Central.
A smile grew on his face. “Now that’s a proper dream.
No gold nor gems for you—you’re not the type to care for trinkets.
You want to belong to Central. Well, what’s keeping you from there?
Reap every coin you can from these matches and earn your seat amongst the highborn. ”
“Even if I were to have all the gold in the world, they’d never accept me.”
“Hmm?”
“I know how I come across,” she said, more bitterness spilling out of her than she would’ve liked.
“I saw the notes you took of me during our interview, and I can’t even argue with them.
I know how I look; a schoolmate once said I had a face made to be beaten.
I know how I sound, prone to stutters, odd in my word choice.
Idiot child, I was called in my youth. I know how I act, utterly lacking in social grace, shying away from attention, slouching into myself if I ever get it, always incapable of picking up the subtle cues others intuit unless I tell myself it’s a puzzle to be solved and devote my full attention to unraveling it.
I rely entirely on the charity of the naturally affable taking me under their wing and protecting me from the worst. Small wonder the only friend who’s ever tolerated me long enough to remain one is Desil alone.
How would the highborn ever accept me into their world? ”
“It’s not easy,” he said, “but it’s not impossible.
I can attest to that myself. Rub shoulders with any highborn who comes your way, see who sticks and who you can discard when the time is right.
The art of social climbing is a game in the end, and though you may think it beyond you at this moment, I’d like to remind you that you’ve already proven yourself to be quite savvy at games. ”
But she shook her head and pointed to the fighting grounds.
“I’m not even human to the spectators when I’m down there.
They judge me like I’m a beast of burden they’re considering buying.
The bulls only support me so they can fatten their coin purses even more, while the bears anticipate me failing, if not dying, for their profit.
Somehow, I despise them even more than I despise you—you lead them, but you’re nothing more than a shameless hawker peddling his wares, willing to say anything to get their coin.
But them—how can they laugh and clap as I weep and bleed on the ground? ”
Master Dothilos looked at her thoughtfully, as if her words had stirred something in him.
“Because they genuinely don’t consider your dignity to be as important as their entertainment.
Unless your life can be packaged into something entertaining with a nice moral about how working hard will get you all your dreams, they aren’t willing to extend any sympathy to you.
All those stories you grew up reading, would their heroes return to an impoverished life filled with debt?
No, somehow or other, their deeds would always be rewarded financially: a pot of gold at the end of their journey or royalty seeing their worth and marrying them.
There’s an implicit message to all these stories: so long as you strive hard enough, you will be rewarded with all the money you need. ”
“And if I’m poor and miserable, it’s because I’ve done nothing to deserve more than that,” she said bitterly.
He nodded. “It’s not about morality for them—it’s about doing your damnedest to succeed, whether by fair means or foul.
Highborns weigh the concept of individual agency heavily, and the stories they’re willing to pass on to their children are rife with it.
They want to believe they deserve the success they have now, after all.
But agency is, in fact, a rare privilege, and having it already means you were born to the right person.
Anyone who buys into the concept of a meritocracy is someone na?ve to the workings of the world.
What option have you ever had but poverty, Lythlet?
Did you have a hand in the makings of your fate?
Did you get to choose a mother who was whole of mind, a father who wasn’t a halfwit?
You didn’t even have a say in your friend dragging your life down with a fool’s debt.
That scar on your forehead—am I right in guessing a former employer gave it to you? ”
She stared at him with wide eyes. “Yes.”
“A second guess: he was not the first employer to be violent with you.”
She nodded, bewildered. The match-master was truly perceptive. Hive-Master Winaro had been the worst of them, but she could trace a long string of violent bosses through the years, from debt collectors to scam-peddlers.
“As I suspected. Now for my final guess: you didn’t quit upon first signs of abuse, because you desperately needed the coin and were willing to put aside your safety for it.”
She nodded.
He sighed. “I’m sorry, my girl. Yours is a familiar story for our part of the world.
But those spoiled, coddled highborn who have never once known poverty would never believe it.
I can already hear some of them saying, ‘ Well, why didn’t she just find another job?
’ As if opportunities were countless for a slumdog of low education and no connections, especially in this crippled economy!
‘ Well, she just has to try harder! She’s being too passive and helpless!
’ An utterly idiotic, privileged mindset.
Like warmongers who’ve never fought a battle in their lives, they will demand you work harder without understanding you’ve already worked harder than them, but it’s the age-old systems built up around you that make it impossible to escape poverty.
Ultimately, all that separates us from the highborn is nothing more than luck, the fortune of being born to the right person in the right part of the city. ”
He chuckled suddenly, struck by a thought.
“Yes, it’s not easy for lowborn like us to find our feet amongst highborn circles—they’re absurd folk who speak of family jewels and leaving behind legacies.
Legacies! All my mother ever left me was a piss-stained blanket on the doorstep of the orphanage.
What did yours ever leave you but a wounded heart?
Nothing! And that is a concept they cannot conceive of at all: that there are people in this world with truly nothing to fall back on, but to hope they stumble upon a lucky opportunity.
The naivety of the highborn is utterly infuriating. ”
She listened silently, reeling at how every word resonated with her soul, him so easily articulating a truth she’d long harbored in her vindictive heart.
“I think,” he continued slowly, “that’s why I’ve found myself intrigued by you.
There’s a palpable fury inside you, despite your moments of shying away like a meek little mouse.
I’ve seen the way you look when the spectators cheer for you after you’ve won.
Your facade cracks for a heartbeat, and there’s wonder in your eyes—shock!
Confusion! You can’t believe what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing.
But above all, there’s a glint of something magical in you.
Something I felt, too, that set my path ablaze, that’s led me from a life of fear into a life of riches. ”
She waited, anxious at what the answer might be.
He reached over and brushed her hair; she stiffened at the touch.
“Ambition. The brief, nascent stirrings of it. It’s taking root in you like an itch you can’t scratch.
You heard them praise you, you pondered your own success, and you thought, what if I could keep winning?
From one slumdog to another, I would dearly love to see someone like you rise the ranks and prove every one of those insufferable fools in Central wrong. ”
She looked down at her knees, finding it impossible to maintain contact with his pale blue eyes. Master Dothilos had spoken not as a match-master, but as one who had lived as a downtrodden boy with nothing to hope for.
“You are cunning with your words, Master Dothilos,” Lythlet said quietly. “But I know you flatter me only so I’ll accept your invitation to the next round.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Silver-tongued I may be, but the ingots gleam true. I haven’t lied to you, not even once.
We’re not friends, and I doubt you’ll ever let me be one.
But friendship is cheap, meaningless without weight behind it.
Partnership— now that’s something I bequeath only upon worthy people.
We could have that, you and I. A mutually beneficial agreement in the arena.
I saw the way you puzzled your way through the sentari and the anzura.
You have a clever mind, and the ambition to match.
But there’s something you must learn to complete the trifecta: conviction .
” He emphasized the word in a way that made it echo through her eardrum.
“Conviction in what?” She waved her hand over the arena. “In a game that demands I put not just my life on the line, but that of my dearest friend?”
“Conviction in yourself . That you deserve to stand proudly before the highborn and be judged, not as a measly little mongrel who’s crawled out of the slums, but as someone worthy of attention.
Yes, you’ll be entering a game of high risk.
But isn’t high risk, high reward a basic maxim of investing?
Some things are worth making the leap for.
Our Anvari ancestors—what was the great equalizer for them? ”
She hesitated, thinking. “Their bloodrights.”
He nodded, and his approving smile calmed her.
“Very good. You could be the poorest boy from the lowliest village, but who would spit in your face if you had the bloodright to draw fire from thin air and rain terror upon your enemies? You could be a withered old woman who’s lost everything in the world, but who would dare cross you if you knew how to traverse the geoscape and crush stone with sight alone?
No matter who you were or where you came from, if you were blessed with a bloodright, you could make it in the world.
Yet our ancestors, once they were forced to become Exiles fleeing to the west, chose to stay here in Edesvena, a land that stifles the use of their bloodrights. Why would they give up such power?”
“They had nowhere else to go—their prison island had sunk, and the Anvar motherland wouldn’t accept them back, not for their crimes,” recited Lythlet, school-day memories flooding back.
“So they sailed here in desperation and found the nomadic Oraanu clans willing to receive them as long-lost brothers and sisters. I suppose after a long, arduous journey with many sunken ships, they were relieved to finally find a refuge.”
“You think of their decision as an act of exhaustion, of resignation. But what if I told you it was conviction? Because although they had to sacrifice their bloodrights, they nonetheless knew they couldn’t squander this rare opportunity for a yet-to-be-written future.
The Oraanu were welcoming them to their new home, agreeing to work with them in establishing cities around the holy lands that sun-cursed beasts would naturally avoid without the meddling of arena-operating mortals like me.
Even if they had traveled farther west, they couldn’t be certain they’d receive such a hospitable welcome again.
And they knew—they had the conviction— that even without their bloodrights, they would find a way to survive and prosper here.
No longer were they reviled Exiles nor petty criminals—they declared themselves Ederi, People of the New Home. ”
He laid a hand on her, gripping both her arm and her attention. “What would you like to be seen as, Lythlet? Know what you want, and you shall have the conviction to mold your destiny, to craft whatever identity you want the highborn to behold you with.”
She was startled by the question. “Anything but an idiot child,” she said after a moment’s thought.
“I need no sainthood; I need no lofty praise. I only ever wanted to be seen as an interesting character, not one so easily relegated to the sidelines. Call me a thief or a liar, and I’ll gladly take those instead. ”
He blinked at her curiously, her last statement taking him by surprise.
“Thieves fascinate people,” she explained.
“Rentavos the Gentleman Thief is a beloved fictional character for a reason, boasting the perfect combination of intrigue and skill. Meanwhile in real life, the Phantom sweeps the city into a fervor every time they strike, everyone wondering who lies beneath the mask, in awe of their impossible heists. And what is a liar but someone with secrets to keep and a guileful imagination? They’re hiding something, and nothing riles people up more than a desperation to uncover someone else’s secrets.
Look at how you couldn’t resist digging into my past!
If I had simply told you who I was in our interview, would you have cared about me?
But a thief, a liar! Aren’t these so much more interesting archetypes to study than the shy, stuttering child of lowborn parents? ”
His befuddlement shifted into a smile. “Only you could provide me with so unexpected an answer. The way your mind works is a puzzle in itself, and yet so captivating in its oddness. A thief and a liar—my word, the highborn would certainly find that story a seductive tale. Someone desperate enough to sink to immoral lows to control the arc of her story. The agency you’d display to them!
I can already imagine them being tickled by your audacity, charmed by your rejection of passivity. ”
He leaned back in his seat, head tilted up to the underside of Central.
Lingering deep in thought for moments, he exhaled deeply.
“My dear Lythlet, I, too, am a fellow child of lowborn parents, once racked with so much doubt and self-loathing he only whispered, never daring to raise his voice lest he be struck. And yet, I had three things that pulled me up from the trappings of my life: a clever mind, a startling level of ambition, and the conviction that I deserved a place in this city. I earned my way amongst the highborn—I gave them no choice but to accept me. And thus, I made it.”
He gazed at her, pale eyes piercing like needles. He did not need to say the next four words, but even unspoken, they haunted her on her journey home.
And so could you .