Page 41 of Court of Talons
He gapes at me. “But you can’tdothat.”
The panic in his voice brings me up short. Here once again is something I don’t understand. I stifle a groan. I amabsolutelygoing to be caught before I even attempt my first tournament battle.
“He can’t do that,” Caleb says again, this time turning to Nazar. Even in his surprise, Caleb refers to me as a ‘he.’ A tiny knot of worry I hadn’t realized I’d been weaving together unravels in my gut.
Caleb pushes on. “No warrior sets foot upon the Divh’s plane except when they’re first banded. No one ever returns from that plane other than fathers who bring their sons. And begging your pardon, but you don’t look like Merritt’s father.”
I frown into my blankets, the knot of my nerves now snarling back together. How little I know about this time-honored practice of the Protectorate. In truth, there’s been no reason for me to know, yet I draw my cloak around me more tightly, more for protection than warmth.I’m never going to pull this off,I think miserably. Never.
Nazar, however, is unperturbed.
“The Tenth House is on the doorstep of the Exalted Imperium. Its ways are different. Its warrior is different.”
Oh. Well, that sounds good.
Caleb snorts wryly as his gaze swings back to me, and I straighten despite the sick whirring in my stomach. “And itsDivh is different,” I say with a confidence I don’t feel. I throw off the cloak and stand. Surprisingly, the sun on my head and bare shoulders proves an instant balm, and I sigh beneath its healing rays, grateful for the heat that seems to blossom on my skin everywhere the sun reaches it. Even my eyesight is starting to clear, now that I’m standing.
“Exaltedlord,” Caleb stutters, and he stumbles back. I turn to him, but he isn’t staring at my face, but my arm—an arm uncovered, my tunic’s sleeves still at my side, waiting to be stitched on. I glance down.
The sentient band gleams in the sunlight, dark as onyx. But the flesh both above and beneath the band is no longer scorched. Instead, it’s ringed round with ink flowing in an intricate pattern. There are birds lifting away above the band, and a roiling sea beneath.
“That design wasn’t there yesterday,” he insists. “I know it wasn’t. But it looks like it was etched into your skin two summers ago, not two hours.”
He blinks up at me. “Did going to the Divhs’ plane do that to you? Because I have to tell you—I’ve never seen any of the younger warrior knights with a tattoo like that. The older ones…” he scrunches up his face. “Some have them, I think. But nothing that intricate, I’m sure of it.”
I study the ink with a curious detachment. It wasn’t there yesterday, of course. Caleb is right. Before, the skin around my warrior band had simply been a ruined mass of scars. But yesterday, I hadn’t truly met Gent. I hadn’t run with him, like a fish jumping through the water or a bird soaring high. I hadn’t felt his mind touch mine, hadn’t looked into that large and impenetrable eye.
I turn and face Caleb fully. “I’m a warrior from the borderlands of the Imperium,” I say evenly. “I’mdifferent.”
He shuts his mouth with a snap, but a second later, he grins widely. “That you are,” he says, his eyes once more alight as he grapples with the change in my appearance.
He moves forward and picks up one of my sleeves, gathering the length of thick thread to attach it to my tunic. “Did it hurt? It looks like it hurt. Is that why you were sick?”
I sigh. “I don’t remember it, honestly. I was sick most of the night, after working with Gent. Maybe that’s when it happened.” I hold out my arm, and Caleb stitches the sleeve in place, weaving the twine through the premade holes. “Maybe it’s his excitement about the tournament.”
“Who?” Caleb shoots me a funny glance. “The Divh? It’s an it, not a ‘he.’”
I shrug and extend my other arm, glad to have my band covered. “Mine’s a ‘he.’” I waggle my brows at him. “And some of the others?Shes.”
“Noway,” he protests, looking mortified. But he says nothing further, and at length, I’m fully dressed. At this point, I’m useless for doing anything but riding in a parade, what with my festooned tunic and heavy breeches and ground-dragging cloak. I try not to collect dust as my squire and Nazar break down the rest of the camp.
By the time Caleb saddles Darkwing and helps me up, it’s high morning, which I suspect Nazar has timed deliberately. We move through the crowd with a single-minded purpose, and there’s a smattering of cheers as we do so. Men, women, and even a few children—their faces turning up to see the warrior knight pass.
I don’t miss the exchange of money bags either, bright flashes of color catching the light.
There are even a few dark green tunics in the crowd, and I blink in surprise as I recognize the men from the coliseum the day before, the soldiers we hired, whose time is their own untilwe leave for the Tenth House. They grin fiercely at me, raising their hands in support, and I wave back at them.Mymen,I realize, trying the idea on for size. Men who would fight for me. Support me. Defend me.
Men who would hand me over for execution in a blink if they knew what I was.
Then I see a boy I remember well. He looks up at me with eyes blackened, but his mouth isn’t mutinous, merely resigned. His family stands with him, but he seems to hold himself apart anyway, cloaked in shame and disappointment. This is the boy who’d won his bout in the fighting pits, not one day earlier, by smashing his opponent’s nose…and then who’d lost when that opponent had rushed him after the fight should have been called. His competition in the tournament is done, I know instantly.
He could have been Merritt, a few years ago.
Without considering anything more than the child’s hollow eyes and grim expression, I extend a hand. “You,” I say, surprised at how far my voice carries across the suddenly hushed crowd. “In the brown tunic. Stand forth.”
I half turn, but Nazar is already riding up beside me, and in his hands, he carries a simple green tunic, the smallest of those remaining from my search for soldiers. It will fit this boy, I suspect. It may not mean anything to him, but he deserves to know he earned it.
And to make this moment memorable, I need to sound like someone I’m totally, woefully not. The fiercely proud warrior knight of the Tenth House, first-blooded and firstborn. I take the shirt from Nazar and straighten my shoulders, pitching my rough voice even lower.