Page 22 of Court of Talons
“It’s enough.”
Curling my arm into his, he leads me out of the shadows and down a long corridor until we step into the sunlight once more. Then he turns, and we mount the steep stairs that take us to the spectator seating. The massive rows of stands are sturdily built, for all the groaning I heard far below. How many battles have been fought here in the past three hundred years? I’ve no idea. There is still so much—too much—I don’t know.
We jostle our way to where the crowd finally thins. Nazar sits at the edge of bench where we settle, his eyes keen on the field below. I squint to see over the mass of heads, fixing on the horses and riders far below who have already engaged in combat by the time we’re seated. “They’re too small to see.”
He snorts. “This field wasn’t meant for men.”
I frown but the battle below has become a hopeless snarl, and I can make nothing out. I lean forward, straining, and at length, Nazar sighs and fishes in his robes. He withdraws a small enameled cylinder and hands it to me. “Put it up to your eye.”
As I take it, I realize I’m not alone in my prize. Most of the wealthier spectators around us—male and female alike—have a similar tool, and I lift mine, turning it in my hand until I realize it’s a lens of glass set into a long tube. I lift the narrower end to my eye, and the scene below me leaps into crystal clarity.
“Oh,” I breathe. I can see every horse and rider, every stroke of the blade. My fingers tingle and my arm burns, which makes me sit up straighter. I’ve forgotten about the band wrapped around my bicep and am doubly glad for the heavy covering of my cloak to keep it from prying eyes.
The fight beneath us roils as more spectators flood into the stands, both on our side of the field and in the far distance where another bank of stone seats looms, now thronged with hundreds of watchers. I lift my glass toward those stands and see a constellation of glinting glasses in return. Even with all the seating, the tournament field is immense, and I sweep my glass along the crowd until another platform catches my eye.
It’s carved into the stone embankment at the midpoint of the coliseum stands, nearly two-thirds of the way to the top of the wall. Before it on the battlefield are two towers made of wood, each with a broad rooftop space accessible by a door that clearly opens onto a steep stairway inside the narrow structure. The towers stretch up to just over half the height of the observationplatform, but their rooftops are empty, both of them lonely sentinels standing between the melee and the coliseum stands.
The stone overlook directly above those wooden stands isn’t empty, though. Several richly dressed noblemen crowd the space, each more pompous looking than the last. The glass makes them look as close to me as Nazar, and I gape as I take in their fine robes and heavy, jeweled belts.
One of them arrests my attention, and I stare openly. Fortiss. Standing among his retinue of men, his face stern, his gaze sweeping the crowd, he somehow manages to appear even nobler than he had on his white horse. He definitely looks more like a warrior knight than the idiot Hantor, who fought Caleb. He looks more like a warrior knight than I do too.
Beside me, Nazar notices my attention. He seems to not need a glass. “That’s the company of Lord Protector Rihad, Master of the First House, governor of the Protectorate.”
“Did you really think what Fortiss said was true?” I swing my glass to the crowd below. “That they’re going to awardthirtyDivhs and banded soldiers to the top house of the tournament—twelve to the winner of the winged crown alone? Caleb also says it will happen.”
“Caleb would know,” Nazar says mildly. “There are already more than a dozen such men in the First House’s barracks now, warrior knights and banded soldiers alike. To add more would make them powerful indeed.”
Caleb said as much to me already, but now I pause, considering the ramifications. Someone—another house—dispatched its soldiers to attack the Tenth House, to kill Merritt. Were we the only house struck? If our attacker is growing secretly stronger while weakening other houses, what could that mean?
Thinking of the squire brings another concern to mind. I study the seeing glass in my hand for a long moment, then I push forward. “Can we, ah, trust Caleb?”
Nazar glances at me, his expression mildly surprised. “Why? Did he handle the money improperly? Steal it?” He frowns then, growing more concerned. “Did he guide you to hire weak soldiers? He seemed well pleased with your choices.”
“No! No, nothing like that,” I say hurriedly, instantly regretting my words. Caleb has done nothing but help me. “It’s just—we don’t know him.”
“We don’t know him,” Nazar agrees, but he says nothing more. Clearly, he’s not worried, but that does nothing to assuage my own concerns.
Instead, I turn my gaze to the men on the platform. Once again, an unexpected thread of anger coils through me. My purpose here isn’t vengeance but protection…and yet, I am close—soclose to whoever took Merritt’s life. Could I find that warrior? Force him to face justice?
I swallow. “Do you think it’s the First House that sent the soldiers who…?” I don’t finish the words. To even say them out loud seems sacrilege.
Nazar doesn’t respond at first, pauses so long that I don’t think he will.
When he does speak, it’s to ask me a question, not provide the answers I crave.
“Why would they do that?” The priest’s murmur is for my ear alone, and I instantly know it’s a test.
I grimace. “I don’tknow, Nazar. That’s why I’m?—”
His mouth tightens, and I swallow my own hasty words. Even though I’m wearing a dress, I’m now a warrior knight, the protector of my house. There must be some reason why the priest is asking me to puzzle through the question. I sigh, then repeat what I’ve heard about these people, this place—notNazar’s scant few days of teaching, but the snatches and songs I’ve heard from the bards over the years. It’s the only way I can think of to find the answer he seems to believe I already know.
“Lord Rihad rules the Protectorate,” I recite. “The First House is the strongest of the twelve ruling houses. Those twelve houses are in charge of the Protectorate’s security and by extension the security of the Exalted Imperium, shielding it from the threat of the Western Realms.” I shiver as I say the words. No one knows what the Imperium discovered beyond the western borders of the Protectorate that halted their most recent attempt at expansion a hundred years ago. But whatever it was, it sent the imperial army all the way back to its capital city, ostensibly to rearm. They never returned. As it has for the last three hundred years, the Protectorate remained in place after the army’s departure, our mighty Divhs arrayed against…something. But the attack from the Western Realms never came.
“How does the Protectorate remain strong?” Nazar prompts.
“Through its houses and Divhs, and, to a lesser extent, its unbanded soldiers.” I gesture to the battle below us. According to legend, however, now gilded with three hundred years’ gloss, ordinary soldiers hadn’t saved us against whatever we encountered in the Western Realms. Only the Divhs and a dozen banded warriors had done that. “The tournaments give them an opportunity to practice for warfare, should it ever come again.” By the Light, I pray it doesn’t.
“And why would a house take on another house?”