Page 94 of Court of Talons
Chapter 39
Since we’re already behind the high table, there’s no disruption to the feast as the guards swoop into the room. Clearly, my father knew they were following us. When they hear the word “traitor,” they stomp to either side of me.
My father gloats as he takes in my confusion. “You forget I wasn’t always deep in the mountains,” he says. “I fought in tournaments as well, long before you ever saw your first accursed sunrise.” He seems poised to say something else, then changes his mind. “I’ve asked Rihad for an audience. Show me to him.”
We emerge from the antechamber and immediately enter the archway that I know leads to Rihad’s chambers, and my guts wind tighter with each passing step. I don’t have a strategy for this. This isn’t war, not in the way I know it. I sense there is a strategy to be had, for war isn’t only fought on the tournament grounds or at the tip of a sword, but my mind is filled with wind and rushing words, nothing clear to me. The guards hasten me along at a fast clip, their long legs sturdier than mine, and all too quickly I find myself once more in Rihad’s private sanctuary. There’s the enormous fireplace, crackling despite the heat of the day, and there is Miriam.
Once again, she stands perfectly composed, beaming as Father strides toward her.
“It’s worse than I imagined,” he says stiffly, and she extends a comforting hand but says nothing more as her cool, unreadable gaze slides over me.
“Rihad will join us presently,” she says. “He’ll be honored that you have alerted us to this danger.”
“It’s a disgrace and an atrocity,” my father snarls. “And to think this creature carried forth in such a manner in front of the entire Protectorate. The shame is agonizing.”
“What’s this?”
Rihad steps into the room, still in full flush from the triumph of the feast and the long day before it. He claps his hands together. “Lemille! You’ve only just arrived, and you’ve already found something to complain about? It truly feels as if we were both twenty years younger, and you were still fighting in the tournament yourself. I must say, though, I am surprised that Merritt is some sort of traitor. He’s conducted himself as?—”
“He isnot—!” Father sounds as if he is choking on his own words, but he catches himself in time, then straightens. “It would be better if we had complete privacy, Lord Protector Rihad.” He gestures to the guards. “I don’t wish to offend…”
“Not at all.” Rihad seems to be enjoying himself far too much. I remain stiff and unyielding as I watch my father pace back and forth, waiting for the guards to clear the room. Rihad even has them check to ensure that there are no other hidden ears in the rooms off the narrow corridor. He’s wise to check, given what I’d seen from that space just a few days earlier.
Still, even as Rihad reenters the grand chamber and my father squares his shoulders, I can’t believe that Father will betray me in the end. I can see him outing me as a charlatan, yes. That I’m not Merritt. But to reveal me as a female would be to sign my death warrant. Surely, he will stop short of that.
“Very well, Lemille,” Rihad says, watching my father keenly. “State your case.”
“The creature you see standing before you isnotMerritt of the Tenth House as you’ve been led to believe,” my father betrays me without hesitation, refusing to even glance my way. “Sheis Talia, a servant of my own house. And a female.”
I gape at him, more shocked at his refusal to name me as his daughter than at the revelation of my sex.
Rihad is clearly stunned, however, as is Miriam. Or is she? I frown at the woman, who maintains an expression of incredulity. I assumed she’d already guessed my subterfuge with her gift. Then again, she’s stood in front of me only twice, surrounded by crowds of men. And of course, I am a banded warrior. Her mind apparently couldn’t process a female in that role. If so, then Miriam’s gift is mighty, but it’s also grievously flawed.
Rihad recovers first. “Councilor Miriam,” he snaps. “Verify?—”
Light and fire,no. I won’t be stripped in front of these people unless I am truly incapacitated first. “There’s no need for that, Lord Protector,” I say sharply. “I’m female. I came to seek retribution for…Merritt of the Tenth. I was in his party when he traveled the mountain road. I was with him when he was murdered.” I glare at Rihad. “Which makes him yet another warrior knight cut down on the road to the Tournament of Gold. The list has grown long.”
“But you’re a woman.” Strangely, it’s Miriam whose voice cuts across the room, not Rihad, who merely watches me with undisguised curiosity. “A woman…wearing the band of the Divh.”
“The penalty for a female attempting to band with a Divh isdeath,” growls my father. “Immediate. Let it be known that Iexposed this traitor to you, Rihad. A traitor under your nose that you didn’t sniff out in all the days that she was here.”
“She is of your house.” Rihad slides his glance to my father, and I catch the danger in that gaze.
My father doesn’t. “Was,” the old fool says succinctly. “And I myself would not have believed any woman capable of the depravity to which she has sunk. I allow no traitors to live in my midst. When the bards came to extend your invitation, I had no idea of the events transpiring here. No way of knowing…” His voice catches. “I hoped to find my son here. Instead, I find not only a traitor, but afemale.” He straightens his shoulders. “It’s an abomination.”
“But it can’t…” Miriam echoes quietly, still apparently at a loss, and unhappy for it. “It’s not possible.”
“When?” Rihad turns on me and pins me with his snakelike eyes. “You say you came to seek retribution for your house’s warrior knight. But you have a Divh. When did you get it? How?”
I refuse to look at my father, but there’s no strategic value in lying to Rihad. If nothing else, Miriam will know,shouldknow, that a woman’s position can be gained by doing something other than serve a murderer. Even if I’d held my position as warrior knight for only a few short days, I’d done it. And if I can do it…
I firm my resolve, then speak.
“Lord Merritt died. In my arms. I was the first one to reach him. His Divh collapsed some distance away, then disappeared. I…” I shake my head. “I assumed he was dead when he left this plane.”
“It,” my father snaps, but I pay him no mind.
“As I held my—Merritt’s arm, his warrior band changed. It turned as if to liquid, or as a snake, and before I could draw back, it had peeled away from Merritt’s arm to slide up mine.” I grimace, recalling the moment as if it’d been dredged up fromthe depths of time, though it happened a bare two weeks earlier. “It…hurt.”