Page 92 of Court of Talons
I don’t touch the food.
Looking around the room, hunkering down low so as not to be seen by my father, I survey the warriors—both those who triumphed today and those who failed. There’s still no sign of the fallen Fifth House warrior’s cadre of men—they’ve flowed away like ebbing water. While their remaining men muststay for the final melee tomorrow, they no longer have any warriors in contention for top tournament honors. The final eight combatants include two of the Third House, including Kheris, two from the First House, and one each from the Second, Fourth, Seventh…and the Tenth. Fortiss remains as well, of course, but he hasn’t fought, except in the exhibition match with Rihad’s Divh. I don’t expect him to fight again.
I grab a small loaf of bread as I think on that, and my gaze swings to the high table. By now, Father has surely stolen a look my way. He’ll instantly know something is wrong. I don’t look so much like Merritt that a father would be fooled. If he asks to see me, will he challenge me in public? Will he betray me to everyone here?
A deep, sour pain swirls in my stomach. I should never have vied for a seat at the Court of Talons. This world of politics and warriors and deceit is too complex for me to navigate. This tournament is a foolish game thought up by men to fill their ever-emptying cups of pride. There’s no honor in this.
“Stop scowling, Merritt, you’re frightening Gemma. And she’s been trying to catch your eye since we entered the room.”
“Gemma?”
Caleb’s admonition bumps me out of my dark thoughts, and I look again toward the high table, thankful that the women have been segregated to the far end, well away from Rihad and my father.
Sure enough, Gemma’s looking my way. Her beautiful dress is the rich gold and ebony of the First House, but in her hair, she’s artfully tied the long green-and-silver sash of the Tenth House. My favor.
I manage a smile, but my queasiness worsens as I see the altered colors of the Tenth House—Father willdefinitelynotice that. How can I escape this room? I can’t breathe again, and Ipick up a cup of wine, forcing myself not to drain it with one gulp.
Perhaps—perhaps I can remain anonymous. Perhaps my father won’t ask to see me until after tomorrow’s battles. It’s only one more day, after all. Surely I can manage to avoid him for one day. I’ve already come so far.
Panic swamps me, scattering my thoughts. All I have to do is escape the tournament with my life. Not win, not even close. When the close of the tournament sweeps down and everything is chaos, I can run. Iwillrun. Far to the north or even, possibly, to the wilderness of the west. I think of the Savasci. Would they accept me among them, a warrior and her Divh? They would, I think. I know they would.
In fact, I’ve already put in an appearance this night. I’ve paid my dues. I can claim illness and retire, maybe?—
Nazar’s words burst into my mind again, unwanted.You are Talia of the Tenth House, first-blooded and firstborn. As such, you will fight with power and with honor, and with the strength your blood has given you.
I can’t run, I realize. I can’t hide. I can only walk the warrior’s path.
A trill of horns brings the room to silence. Rihad stands again, his face wreathed in smiles. “It’s time to honor the men who will represent us in the final day’s battle—before we all go to war in the grand melee.”
My heart goes numb. One by one, Rihad announces the winning warriors, and they stand and stride into the center of the room, grinning widely, accepting the approval and cheers of their fellow warriors as their due. At last, when he speaks my name, I rise as well. The way of the warrior might be death, but right now, death seems preferable to this.
I lift my head high, forcing a smile to my face, an easy looseness to my walk as I stride to the center of the room.Gemma applauds fervently from her spot at the high table. I nod to her, causing more laughter and cheers to rise up as I take my spot at the center of the room.
Rihad says something else, and there’s another round of shouting, but I feel more than see the wiry figure of my father rising to his feet at the far end of the table, leaning forward to scowl at the eight of us.
My father’s face goes stony cold, morphing into the mask of fury I learned to fear so greatly as a child; a mask I counted myself lucky to have never seen at all past the age of ten, when I’d finally learned how to stay out of his way. Now that mask—a frozen expression of hauteur pierced through by eyes so fiery they could almost be red—is leveled at me.
He knows.
To my utter shock, however, he stays silent. Have I been granted some reprieve? I don’t know, but I don’t feel any better. My feet are heavy, my heart filled with tears, my skin too hot, and my breath thick in my throat. Fear like I’ve never known presses in on me, making me gasp.
Rihad dismisses us to our tables and orders the feast to continue, but I haven’t made it five steps before a guard appears at my side. “You are summoned to the high table, Merritt of the Tenth. By special request of Lord Protector Rihad and Lord Lemille.”
I nod. In the distance, at the table of the Fourth and Sixth Houses, I see Caleb laughing and drinking with his new friends. He’ll be an outcast again—far worse this time—unless I think of something. The crowd shifts, and I finally see Nazar as well. Unlike Caleb, he’s not in the thick of the feast but standing just inside the shadows, hidden and still. Watching me. His gaze meets mine across the room. Hedidknow of this trial awaiting me. He sent me in here unprepared, but he knew.
He’s betrayed me.
I blow out a long breath, immediately acknowledging the wrongness of my thinking. If Nazar had breathed one word of my father’s presence to me, I wouldn’t have come at all. That would have been the coward’s way, not the warrior’s.
Which leaves me, irrevocably, on this path toward death. Of one kind or another.
Think!My father hasn’t looked at me intently for the past several years. I seemed to disgust him more deeply the more my body grew and changed, the evidence of my femininity impossible to hide.
Still, he must know I’m not Merritt. He spent morning, noon, and night with my brother.
Then all at once, the guard and I reach the table, and Rihad watches with keen interest as my father pulls himself to his feet again.
“Merritt, myson. Well met,” my father says, and his words are low and filled with such malice, my bones fairly turn to milk. His smile, however, never wavers. “Walk with me and tell me of your success. You have made quite a name for yourself and our house.”