Trumpets.
Every eye swings to the valley as a stream of mounted men thunder toward us. Bastian screams his triumph, tells his boys to take heart, as the world quakes. Every Ashlord rallies, trying to take up their formations, but in their desperation to scale the ramparts, they’ve become too scattered. A wind-whipped flag leads our liberators into battle.
The Reach. Longhand soldiers. Hundreds of them.
Up on the ramparts, Bastian tightens our circle. I stand behind them, knowing now that we can live, and craving it so much that my whole body rebels against the idea of dying at the last possible moment, catching a stray spear or bullet. I would feel like more of a coward if Bastian and the others weren’t doing the same thing. My heart beats a little faster seeing Luca standing in our circle, blood running down one arm, but alive. We hold our ground as the fresh Longhand troops come pouring into the entrances of Gig’s Wall.
Caught between both groups, every single Ashlord falls. When it’s done, the Longhands whoop and holler. Bastian looks carved from blood-spattered stone. His crew shouts and whoops but his eyes lock on mine. We’re both quiet and an understanding passes between us.
This was about more than my stolen powders. This was about more than rebels.
The Longhand presence means one thing: war.
They don’t treat my wounds properly. That’s the first sign that something’s wrong.
Normally I wouldn’t care, but with each minute that passes, I’m learning new definitions of pain. The Dread’s protection has long faded. My fall at the finish line is going to be watched across the Empire for weeks, but none of them will feel what I felt, what I’m still feeling. My whole right side is fire. I’ve got a pair of gashes that can only ever become scars. Lights are too bright and noise is too loud.
My head’s a dying storm, but I stay as focused as I can as they escort the riders to the waiting carriages. There are never any ceremonies on-site at the end of the Races. We’ll be taken back to Furia to get cleaned up, dressed in designer clothes, presented to the masses. I’ll stand below Pippa on the stone tiers and wonder what happens next.
Daddy wanted me to win so he could start a war, but I came in second. What now?
All of it sits uneasily in my stomach. Officials whisper nearby. There’s a tension riding their shoulders as they escort a broken Thyma into the first carriage. Only nine racers remain. I count the number twice, just to make sure I’m not going mad. I know Capri’s dead, but on my second count I realize the Dividian has gone missing, too. That has me worried. Now the only witnesses are Ashlords. What’d they do to her?
I wish I hadn’t handed over my switch. Not that I could do much with it right now. They lead me into the final carriage. By some traditional mandate, I have to share a carriage with Pippa. She enters. The fire and fight have burned out of her. She looks half a ghost herself.
I want to stay alert, but my body rebels. The horses start and the bumps of the road draw out every ache and tired muscle. My eyes slip shut. I shake myself, but it happens again…
…and I wake to night. Pippa sits across from me, eyes tracing the stars. Lights glow in the corners of our carriage. Everything else waits in shadow. We’re not moving anymore. The officials are gone. I reach for my face and groan as the motion tugs one of my wounds.
Pippa’s eyes find me. She drinks me in and an unexpected emotion flashes over her face. I watch as she reaches down into her bag. I’m only half awake, but the movement has me on guard. It’s not a knife, though. She pulls out bandages. The look she’s giving me is the same look most people reserve for dying animals. In her eyes, I’m a broken thing.
“I was waiting until you woke up,” she says, still picking through medical supplies. “It’s dishonorable not to treat your wounds. I wanted to wait until I could ask for your permission.”
I stare back at her. “How do I know you won’t poison me?”
That drags a laugh from her lips. The smile on her face is not the one she flashes in her interviews. It’s less forced somehow, more honest.
“The Races are over, Adrian. What would be the point of poisoning you now?”
The reality behind those words thunders through me. She thinks this is the end. This was only ever a race to her. It didn’t stand for something bigger and brighter. It was not the collective dream of her people. No, it was a bright crown to add to her pile of gold. She has no idea that a war might be coming or that the two of us could be leading armies against one another.
It takes a few seconds to process everything. I nod permission.
“It does hurt like hell.”
Her lips slip into another smile. “Sit back.”
I watch as she wets a rag and dabs it with antiseptic. She gestures for my right arm, but raising it even slightly drags another groan out of me. Pippa slides across the carriage instead. The light dances across her features. I stare straight ahead and pretend I can’t feel the heat of her knee pressed against mine. She gently takes my right arm and starts to scrub carefully at the wounds. Her dark brows knit together as she works.
“Stop flexing,” she says.
“I’m not flexing.”
She rolls her eyes and keeps working. When most of the packed dirt and dust have been wiped clean, she twists around to grab a needle and thread. Her dark eyes lock on mine.
“Do you want me to stitch them?” When I nod, she lifts a questioning eyebrow. “I’m being serious. If you complain, I’m not going to do it.”
I lean back, gritting my teeth, and nod again. She repositions my arm delicately before starting. I can feel the tempered needle diving in and out of my flesh, but the warmth of her hands keeps most of the pain at a distance. She finishes the first wound and moves on to a second.
“You’re good at this,” I note.
She makes a thoughtful noise. “Of course I am. No one else can fix your wounds on the course. My father taught me. You should be pleased to know I inherited his steady hands.”
The daughter of champions. I’ve always thought of her father and mother as former winners of the Races, not as parents who taught their daughter useful skills. Of course they did.
“Knowledge that you’re now using to help a sworn enemy. I thought this kind of work was beneath someone like you.”
The next stab is just a touch sharper. It’s quiet for long enough that I open my eyes, expecting her to be glaring at me. Instead, she’s focused on her work. Steady hands and a focused expression. I watch as she draws the thread up into the air.
“You have misinterpreted this gesture.”
I almost laugh. “Is that so?”
“This is an ancient tradition.” She pulls the thread again. “In the Old Games, victors would often tend the wounds of the person they defeated. It was an intimate moment shared between them. A reminder from the victor. These wounds? I gave them to you. I defeated you once, and every one of these scars will be a reminder that I can beat you again.”
She finishes her final stitch before looking up at me, one hand still resting on my arm. Her expression isn’t guarded. This is not the carefully groomed champion everyone sees on the Chats. There’s fire in her eyes. Heat pulses in the air and this time I can’t tell if it’s something in her or something between us. My body feels like it’s charged with the same heat and lightning.
And the moment ends. We both look away.
She hands me the extra bandages before returning to her side of the carriage. The retreating heat produces a chill, and I do my best not to shiver as she speaks.
“The other wounds require an actual doctor. I’m sorry I was the cause.”
Back to neutral, guarded. We are competitors again.
I frown. “Are you really?”
She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t answer.
“What was it?” I ask, remembering the ghostly face. I can’t g
et that flash of blue out of my head. “Revel had one, too. I saw the thing jump from your horse. I saw its face.”
“Quinn,” she says. “Her name was Quinn.”
That has me grinning, which hurts like hell. “You gave it a name?”
“She already had a name. But she’s gone now. Back to the underworld.”
There’s no one present to hear that admission but me. The Ashlord gods supposedly live in the underworld. Anything that comes into our world does so with their permission. That can mean only one thing: She cheated. “You know I had you. I’ll definitely tip my hat to that bit of riding you did when Bravos slammed you. Never seen anything like that. Your whip strike? It was gorgeous. But at the end, I had you.”
That brings a little of the fire back to the surface. Pippa raises her chin and her eyes look like a pair of burning coals. “I would have won either way.”
“Hard to tell with the gods tipping the scales.”
Annoyance flashes over her face. I’m surprised how quickly it bleeds into outright anger.
“You think it’s unfair? That the gods favor us? You know nothing, Longhand. You forget that the Dividian came here to make us bow. You forget that we were loyal worshippers to the gods that your people abandoned. We bowed to them so we would never have to bow to either of you. There’s a price in ruling this world. Always there has been a cost. We rule with iron and fire because it’s the only thing someone like you will respect. So tell me. Is it our fault you’re too afraid to dance with the gods?”
She doesn’t look very satisfied with her own answer, but she turns her eyes back to the window. I can tell she wants the conversation to end. She’s not wrong, but she’s not right, either. Our past is complicated. Our history is bloody. This land was shaped as much by the dying as it is now by the living. I think about why Daddy sent me in the first place. His own son. He sent me into a den of snakes to start a war, one that might avenge his beloved wife.
And then there’s the lesson I learned from Capri. The only way to beat them is to become them. We have to be as bloody, as cruel. We might even need some of their gods to pull it off.
“It never ends,” I say quietly. “You’ll hate me. And my children will hate your children. Your gods must be excited. Things are about to get bloody. Just the way they like it, right?”
I’m expecting her to bite back. Instead, Pippa turns to look at me. Her glare burns across the carriage and I can tell for the first time she has a sense of what is coming. This was more than just a race. Our world is about to burn.
And the two of us are the ones who will set it on fire.
The door of our carriage opens. Officials stand beneath the stars.
“Adrian. Come with us.”
Pippa watches with curious suspicion. All my fears return. They’ve stopped on the road in the middle of the night. What will they do with me, out here in the desert?
An official sets a hand on my shoulder as I exit. He leads me forward without violence, but it waits like a promise in his open palm. If I resist or flee, he won’t hesitate to punish me. A second flanks my opposite side. It’s never a fair fight with the Ashlords.
Other officials wait in the distance. The riders watch from their carriage windows, some curious and others simply bored. A new carriage sits in the road ahead. I note the three men standing in front of the unwelcome carriage. Their uniforms mark them well.
The Quespo.
Ashlord society has employed the question-police ever since the war. They’re the subtle threat that lurks in every tavern, a network of spies. As the officials lead me over, I note the insignias on each breast. Two of them are interrogators in the Ashlord army. One’s a police general. None of them are good news.
My eyes search the night. I wonder how far I could get before they caught me. One of the Quespo steps forward and speaks. It’s the only thing that stops me from breaking the hand on my back. It’s a voice that I know, because Antonio made me memorize it. The man’s uniform has changed, but he looks exactly as he did in the wine cellar. An Ashlord who styles his hair in a faux-hawk and looks far too old to wear it well. His dark eyes weigh me.
One of the ten faces I need.
His name is Atl. His favorite food is goose liver.
“Adrian Ford. You are to be arrested for the death of Capri. His family and the Empire Racing Board are invoking the third amendment of the contract you signed, which expressly forbids that you, under any circumstances, kill another contestant during the Races. Accused of this crime, we cannot allow you to appear in the ceremonies to come. You will come with us.”
Atl gives no sign that he’s ever seen me before. I realize that he’s acting, the accusation is a trick, and he’s clearly expecting me to play my part. I let my eyes narrow and my arms flex.
“That’s not fair!” I shout. “He stole my horse. You saw him steal it!”
I turn, struggling against my officials, so that all the other riders can hear me. I’m not sure exactly what Atl’s plan is, but I’m guessing that whispers of my arrest are the first move. It won’t be hard for people to believe that the Empire Racing Board attempted to imprison me on false charges. So I sell them my anger in the hopes that it’ll buy me my freedom.
“He stole my horse! He knew what would happen! He stole my horse!”
The butt of a switch lands against my stomach. A second blow punishes the back of my head. All the echoing pain has me on hands and knees, with the world tilting around me.
“Get him up and get him inside,” Atl commands.
Hands move me. Someone twists both arms behind my back and starts tying my hands together. I can hear Atl and an official bickering about paperwork. Atl quietly reminds the man of his rank and of his ability to use that against the man if needed. Someone calls out a taunting jeer from the other carriages, but I can’t make out which rider it is. I’m shoved into the back of a carriage. The door slams shut.
I wait in the dark cabin, thinking. Atl has come for me. Antonio gave me ten faces to trust, and his is one of them. My fears quietly shift. Away from fear of an arrest and to the fear of being discovered. What if the officials question him? What if they don’t believe he’s really there to arrest me? There’s a faint rattle as the other carriages start moving again. I hear their wheels and their horses grind past us, grow distant, and fade. There’s silence outside of our carriage until the door opens again. A toss of black night and distant stars frame Atl’s figure.
“Let’s get you home,” he says softly. “The Reach is marching.”
I frown at him. “But I didn’t win.”
“You did the next best thing,” he answers. “That vid of you coming down the homestretch is playing on every screen in the world right now. We all saw you nosing ahead at the end. And we all saw the flash of light that knocked you off your horse. We saw it the night before when you tried to go for Revel. Even some of the Ashlord analysts were questioning their methods. Everyone thinks Pippa cheated to beat you. A victory would have worked, but I think you handed your people something even better. You’re a living and breathing example of the injustice they’ve faced their whole lives.”
So war comes.
Every labor of the last five years has been to take that word from a whisper and make it into a shout. The Reach is rising. The revolution begins. But the expected adrenaline doesn’t come. My mind doesn’t start working through tactics or battle plans. Instead, I see the couple at the Crossing match. The father and his three sons. Capri’s words echo.
You’re just like us.
“We’ll head to the eastern front,” Atl is saying. “You’ve got a war to win.”
You sit perfectly still as a crew does your makeup and hair. You watch in the mirror as magician’s hands resurrect the beauty of your tired face. They powder and pull and press until you’re a statue again, beautiful and cold and unfeeling. There’
s no thrill to any of it now. You do not take any pleasure from the way they’ve remade you.
Instead, you think about Quinn.
Where has the girl gone? You can still see that wicked smile on her face. It’s the same one she gave you when she first arrived in this world. You secretly hope that she escaped. That she’s causing chaos somewhere and freeing her loved ones. It sounds romanticized, but after spending a few days with the girl, you think she’s capable of anything.
“Pippa?”
The name pulls you back to the present. All the stylists have stepped away. There’s a perfection about you now. They’ve made each curl of your dark hair shine seductively. The bruises you earned during the Races are well hidden. Someone’s contoured your cheekbones until they look sharp enough to draw blood. Everything’s dark. The eyeliner, the lipstick, the clothes. It’s a surprising scheme. In former years, the winner was made to look delicate and graceful.
A jewel to be set in a crown.
But they’ve sharpened your soft edges.
They’ve made you into a blade.
“I don’t understand.”
“I asked them to do it.” The Brightness stands at the entryway. You notice him in the mirror for the first time. With a brief signal, he empties the room of other ears. “The Races are over. The War begins.”
You know you should turn, honor him by speaking face to face and not through a mirror, but his words cut through the very core of you. It’s impossible to do more than repeat them.
“War begins?”
The Brightness nods. “We have reports out of the mountains. A company of Ashlords was attacked by Longhands. Other reports suggest the Reach’s armies are moving. I would have you speak to our people. Not just as the winner of the Races, but as a leader in our army. I want our people to rally around your defeat of the Longhand.”
“I am to be a symbol?”
“At first,” he says. “But then you will do what every winner of the Races was trained to do. You will lead armies. You will win battles. You will drive the enemy back to the Reach. You already know the names of the generals who will serve you.”
Ashlords Page 26
