Page 45 of Court of Talons
I hear the sound from all around me, the crunch of knees upon the ornate floor. I bend at the waist as I’ve been instructed, but when I straighten again, the cruel, pale face of the Lord Protector is fixed on me, like a hawk on its kill.
“Soon,” he says again. “We fight.”
I should be unnerved, I know. I should quail and shrink. But I don’t. Partly because I know I can’t show fear. But partly because the barely banked rage I carry within me is stoked by the challenge in Lord Rihad’s eyes. I am here for my house; I am here for my brother.
But now that I’m here, I resolve, I willnotgo quietly.
I will not.
Another warrior is announced, and I move to the side, turning to see guards dressed in the flamboyantly orange livery that marks the Eighth House flow into the room. The men ofthe westernmost House of the Protectorate are dark-skinned, tanned almost ebony, and I don’t have to feign my interest as they step forward to be introduced to the Lord Protector.
“The Eighth House wasn’t expected this year.” Caleb stands beside me once more, murmuring in my ear. “Though their house is small, their Divhs are said to be unbeatable.”
Three men, not one, stride forward, each bowing at the waist as the Lord Protector addresses them. “We are honored to welcome you to the Tournament of Gold.”
“And we are honored to win it for the greater glory of the Protectorate.”
The tallest warrior speaks in a loud, resonant voice that seems to carry great weight. I’m watching the Lord Protector, not the men in orange, but what catches my eye this time isn’t the tall, slender leader of the First House, but the dozen men gathered behind him, each garbed in gold and black like their leader. These men aren’t powerfully built guards or even quick-eyed warriors. Instead, they wear their age like a mantle, gray hair flat against their heads, wrinkles mapping their years upon their faces. To a one, they tense at the Eighth House warrior’s bold words, and one clutches the chain of gold at his neck. I can’t tell if they’re amused or frightened by the baseless claim, but something in their look unsettles me.
“And we will be pleased to watch you try,” announces the Lord Protector. I keep my focus on the collection of his priests and advisors with their pinched and worn faces.
Then the First House company shifts, and I notice something else. Caleb was right. They aren’t all men.
I stare, fascinated, as a slender, white-haired female turns to the man beside her to murmur something in his ear. Her hair is short, her face as equally lined as her counterparts’, and she wears no paint upon her skin to augment her looks—no kohl at her eyes nor salve on her lips. Her gown is long and gray beneathher gold and black cloak, like those of her fellows, belted at the waist to display a thin, unfeminine body. Is that how she’s able to get the other advisors to listen to her? By dressing and looking more like them? I tug at my own tunic, aware of the irony.
Around the room, there are no women who stand as proud warriors, and only the one who stands as an advisor. The remaining handful of women in the chamber are huddled off to the side, dressed in court finery, their sacred hair coiled around their shoulders in elaborate braids and cascading down their backs. They watch with intelligent eyes and smiles that range from shrewd to excited, but they might as well be figures in a menagerie, collected for display.
I sense a gaze upon me, and I flick my glance back to the throne, suddenly afraid that the Lord Protector is watching me ogle the women of the First House. Only it isn’t Lord Rihad but the female advisor. Her gaze is clear and untroubled, and it spears me across the wide room with a power I wouldn’t have thought possible. I keep myself from jerking back, but only because Caleb is right beside me. I hold the woman’s gaze for a long moment, but I’m glad when she moves her glance from me and takes in Caleb. He’s fairly bouncing on his toes, and a smile twitches at her lips.
Good. Focus on my squire, not on me.
I shift my gaze to the Lord Protector as he claps his hands together again. He’s still on his feet, and he spreads his long arms wide once the attention of the entire room is upon him. “Tonight, we feast,” he declares once more. “But soon we fight!”
The rest of the day passes in a blur of activity. I’m officially added to the rolls for the tournament, a laborious process involving a scroll-bearing scribe who painstakingly enters my name and my house, the name of my father and mother, and my intent to compete. I grow increasingly nervous as the questions continue, wishing I had Nazar by my side. Instead, I have Caleb,who nevertheless stands with me staunchly, his slender body seeming several times wider than I know it to be, a barrier between me and the clutch of warriors behind me.
In addition to the Eighth and Ninth Houses, the Second House has sent more delegates that they want entered in the rolls. Not every warrior of every House is expected to participate, but rumors are traveling quickly throughout most of the Protectorate. Anyone within easy passage of the traveling bards heard the first call to arms, and now the closer houses are learning of the boon of fifty banded soldiers to be parceled out among the winners and are sending more to improve their chances. The First House will soon be full to bursting.
In truth, the great hall is already teeming with people by the time Nazar, Caleb, and I set foot in the space for the great feast. Unlike the warrior feasts once the tournament is underway, this is a more informal meal, for all that it is immense. Warriors can sit with their own houses, or with friends. Many of them are doing so, and I watch their broad smiles and back clapping with growing dread.
“This isn’t my place,” I mutter to Nazar. “I know no one, and no one knows me. I’m an outsider.”
“Everyone is an outsider when they arrive,” he says. “You have merely to look like you belong, and you begin to create the expectation in others that you do belong.”
Easy words for him. He’s apriest. People don’t even see beyond his white hair and ceremonial robes, just scurry out of his way bowing and muttering swift hosannas to the Light. Whereas I’m supposed to look like a swaggering warrior knight with no care in the world except when my next chance will be to impress everyone.
I look around, stretching my face to mimic the entitled smirks of my fellow warriors, and Caleb and I jostle forward to find a set of seats at one of the long tables. My dark-green tunicproclaims me as a warrior of worth, and people bow and smile, which helps keep me from feeling like a fraud. I don’t have the luxury to hide in the shadows, not anymore. Now I must stand for my house.
We press on and at last, there’s a shout and a raised hand. I turn toward it eagerly, then stiffen as I realize who it is.
“Go,” orders Caleb, his voice low. “That’s the greatest honor you can hope for this night.”
“I’m not here for honor.”
“Then go for Merritt. Becausehewouldn’t be such an idiot as to give up such a chance.”
I shoot Caleb a glare as Fortiss waves us forward.
“Join us,” Fortiss calls out, and his table of nobles shifts easily to make the space. “You have the smallest entourage of any of the houses; you’re easy to dine with.” He grins at his own joke, and I grimace—then catch the faces of other men, in the table beyond them. Warriors of the Second House, also enjoying Fortiss’s joke…maybe a little too much?