Page 85 of Court of Talons
“Merritt?” Fortiss is frowning at me again, and I shake my head.
“Sorry. A lot to take in.”
“I understand.” He manages a crooked smile, and I wonder if he’s thinking of me—of Talia—of our night together. You’d never know it from his manner. “You should look sharp, though. Your first real battle tomorrow is against Hantor of the Second House. To hear him talk, his Divh will crush yours before yours draws its first breath on the tournament field.”
“Hantor?” I squint at the sky. “That’s not right. I was against?—”
“There’s been a change. That’s why I was coming to find you, actually. I saw you that first day, when you mounted the platform. It seemed you and the Second House already had bad blood between you. I wanted you to know.”
“But why the change?”
“Councilor Miriam meddling again.” Fortiss says the words so off-handedly, I think I misunderstand.
“Miriam?” My heart skips a beat. “But how?—”
“She’s a sensitive. Can pick up moods and attitudes in a blink.”
I nod. So it’s no secret. “I thought as much. But how can that matter in the tournament?”
Fortiss grimaces. “Rihad has been running the Tournament of Gold since before I was born. No matter what he says, his primary goal above all things is to entertain. The greater the challenge between warriors, the better the entertainment. As you no doubt saw today.”
“You managed Rihad’s Divh well.” I don’t mention the Fifth House’s warrior knight again. Or that he’s likely dead.
Fortiss shakes his head. “I—” He catches himself, then begins again. “Thank you. But Rihad had instructed me before the battle on how the old man I fought had disdained his choice to allow me to fight in his stead. He believed it was against the old ways. Rihad wanted a lesson to be made of him.”
I think about the empty tent of the Fifth House, and now I do push the point. “Did he die?”
Fortiss hesitates. “Not yet. But it’s expected sometime later this night. And even if he hasn’t…”
I nod. “The message has been delivered.”
“Yes. It was Miriam who provided the information to Rihad that changed his mind about the tenor of the battle. She also moved through the lot of us today, talking randomly. But she listened and absorbed more than she talked.”
I think of Miriam and struggle to remember what she’d said to me as we’d stood on the platform, protected, I’d thought, from the thundering roar around us. I hadn’t suspected that I’d need to protect myself from her, even as she’d spoken her twisting words about Fortiss.
Fortiss and I turn and move back toward the camps. I don’t miss the deferential glances sent his way. These men saw him command a Divh that was not his own, and they have to suspect that the Fifth House warrior knight is dead. Now here Fortiss is, walking with me through the camp on the eve of my next battle.
I eye him. “What are you doing, talking to me? You didn’t have to warn me.”
He stops, and the glance he sends me is hurried and even a little embarrassed. “I didn’t. I probably shouldn’t have. The announcement will be made tomorrow at the tournament platform. Have the grace to look surprised.”
I nod but am even more confused. “I have no standing in this tournament. In this place. You’ll be noticed, talking to me. As you are noticed talking to anyone.”
“True.” He offers me a small smile, and the moment feels even more awkward. “Maybe I don’t care.”
“Fair enough.” I don’t push the point, but I haven’t seen him speaking with the men from the southern houses, or even with those from the west. I feel a strange emotion prick the nerves in my neck. “And I appreciate the warning. I can prepare for what I know, not for what I don’t.”
“Good.” He smiles again, and I feel it anew, the tiny shiver of awareness that could be friendship among men, comradeship…but given what happened between us last night, it’s something different, something dangerous, despite the protection of my band. Fortiss is a leader under a man who’s murdered for the greater glory of his house. Fortiss hasn’t killed for Rihad—but he would. I must remember that.
Instead, I force myself not to startle as he claps me on the shoulder. “Tomorrow, we shall fight, warrior.” He grins. “And glory will be ours.”
By the time I return to the Tenth House encampment, both Caleb and Nazar are there. Caleb’s curled in slumber, his hand clasped around Nazar’s seeing glass, which now hangs from a long chain around his neck. I eye the priest with surprise, and he shrugs, his lined face at peace in the trailing wisps of his pipe smoke.
“He has a need to see far, and I would help him do so,” Nazar says, as if that’s reason enough to give up the delicate instrument.
I find myself smiling, looking down at Caleb, but when I glance again to Nazar, the priest’s face seems unusually set. Drawn, almost. He gestures me closer, and I step near, into the protecting cover of the thick canvas walls of our tent.
“What is it?” I ask when I’m close enough that none might overhear our words. “What have you learned?”