“She nearly ripped out all of my hair,” I called to him.
“Yeah, well, it was quite the task I put upon the little thing.” He waved, giving Petal her leave.
“What task was that? Turn me into a lady?”
“That would be asking too much of anyone. Told her to make you smell less like a pile of dung. No need for everyone around you to be punished.”
Along the corridor, soldiers joined us. One of them was the size of a tree with greasy black hair and missing teeth who walked with a pronounced limp. Moldark.
“My ladies.” He bowed, but his eyes admired Lady Sybil in a way that made me uncomfortable.
Raleigh set a stiff hand on my shoulder. “Maggie, you will be followed everywhere you go.”
“Is all this really necessary, Sir Raleigh?” Lady Sybil said.
“Yes. I’m hardly worthy of all this . . . attention.” I tried to imitate her smile but had a feeling I looked less than sincere.
Raleigh leaned over me. “Prince’s orders. He considers you very worthy, Maggie. You would do well to show him your gratitude by holding that sharp tongue.”
With Sir Raleigh in the lead to our destination and Moldark and the others lagging behind, there would be no escape, for now.
The old knight moved at a fevered pace out of the castle, down the steps into the courtyard, and through the fortress gates that separated the king from the Walled City. He never glanced over his shoulder to see if I was still behind him, but I got the feeling he didn’t have to.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Sybil said as we fell in step with exuberant crowds.
The air was crisp, the skies a delicate blue. The sun was beaming, but it was the moon I felt, dancing on my shoulders, chilling my palms, leaving them tingling as if saying good morning. The feeling was strange but growing more familiar, and thrilling. I wanted desperately to try something else. I longed for the sanctuary of the caves on the beaches, or the deep woods where I would get lost when Xavier wanted rid of me for a day. I would be trying all sorts of things. Drawing a bird with moonlight. Making it take flight. Now, that would be something.
As I padded through the crowded streets, guarded like I mattered, there were too many eyes. I couldn’t do anything with all of them seeing. Even still, it gave me a kind of confidence I’d never felt before, as if I had a secret weapon in my pocket. “It is a beautiful day.”
Although we moved swiftly, it would take time to get to the arena. Time I could use to look for the draignoch’s keep. Ten minutes into the walk, I recognized nothing from last night’s trip into the city. Everything looked different in daylight.
So, I asked Sybil.
“I don’t know where the keep is. Sorry. I know very little about this place. Until a couple of days ago, my home was in the North. I thought I would be returning there with my father and brothers after the wedding, but apparently, I’m to stay here with Esmera.” She sounded dismayed.
“Wedding?”
“My sister, Lady Esmera, is betrothed to Prince Jori.”
“Your father is Laird Egrid? Chieftain of the North?”
“You know the North?” Sybil smiled warmly. She was fond of home.
“Never been. Like to, though. Only heard bits about it on the road. What happens when your sister marries the prince?”
“My father will no longer be laird. The North becomes . . . encumbered.” Sybil fingers gripped my arm harder.
Encumbered was the right word for it. “Why would your father do that? Hand your lands over to King Umbert? Did you not ride through the Hinterlands on your way here? You see how he treats his people.”
Her eyes on the ground lifted to find mine. “He fears for our safety, I think. My father’s not in good health. Our armies aren’t as vast as they once were either.”
“He brought you into a lion’s den. One with no escape.” I nodded to the giant impenetrable wall.
“You sound like my brother Malcolm. And”—she glanced back at the soldiers, checking their distance, and whispered—“he’s right. But my father trusts the king.”
I huffed a laugh. “Probably get him killed.”
Sybil’s face fell, and she nodded. For the first time in a long time, I regretted my words. Strife among the ruling families frequently ended in bloodshed. And a father was a father, even if he was a laird. “I’ve gone one step too far. I have a knack for that, it seems. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” she said.
After that we walked in uncomfortable silence.
The oval-shaped monolithic stadium butted up against the wall surrounding the city. I paused to take it in. In all my travels, I had never seen anything with such impressive engineering. As the city descended the high mount, so did the exterior wall to the arena. The city and stadium were separated by fifty feet at the Top, decreasing in length as the hill expanded.
Raleigh explained that each section of the city had its own entrance, which became visible when we reached the end of the quartz-paved road in Top and stepped on a gilded bridge made of steel. The stone rail had many posts, all topped with carvings: a clawed foot, a wing, a serpent’s tail, parts of the draignochs, a foreshadowing of the butchery we would witness. My stomach turned.
I looked down.
It was a long way between Top, Middle, and Bottom. But the divides were much greater than just the bridges taken.
Those around us, coming from the Top, were much fewer in number. There was ample space between families on the road, the way there was between their homes. The Toppers, as Sybil clarified for me, wore fine linens in colors I’d never seen before. Dark purples, burnt oranges, brilliant reds. With groomed ruddy and black fox furs, livery collars of silver and gold, and jewels galore, I had never seen so much wealth in one place. The steel bridge beneath us in the Middle had no decorations. It was crowded, but still many fewer than the droves taking the road from the Bottom. Middlefolk donned smoothed leather and pressed linens and wools, and carried baskets and waterskins as if they were attending a party.
The Bottom was so far away it was impossible to see anything except the crowns of their heads, of which there were so many the sea of people moved at a turtle’s clip. Thousands stacked to pass through a single entrance like sheep waiting to be penned.
Halfway across the bridge, cheering broke the awed silence. Names I’d never heard of volleyed back and forth, growing in volume and frequency the closer we came to the arena. Sir Griffin’s name heralded the loudest of all, echoing off the wall from the Top to the Bottom. The devotion was almost majestic. The people of the Walled City worshipped him. Fools, the lot of them.
Sir Raleigh corralled us to one side, moving away from the Toppers and into a separate, well-guarded tunnel, at the end of which was a large wooden lift that I suspected was used to lower competitors to the arena floor. Five men stood against the wall. And yet, looking closer at them, only three of them could grow proper whiskers. The other two’s cheeks still puffed with baby fat.
Griffin stood closest to the arena entrance. In a smoothed red tunic, he looked every bit the picture of one of Umbert’s soldiers. Wealthy too, by the look of his clothing. And yet his face told another story. The fresh wound, but also a deep older scar across his forehead, and another from his ear that ran down his neck and disappeared beneath his tunic. Those kinds of scars were the marks of a survivor.
A boy handed him his spear, but his eyes were suddenly on me. He looked away, checking the spear’s weight, then the sharpness.
I recognized another from the royal table last night too. In all black, he had red hair like Sybil.
“You missed the theatrics,” he said, smirking.
“Theatrics?” I asked.
“A long arduous play commemorating how the king became king, as if the people didn’t already know,” a blond burly man said. “Sir Silas.” He tilted his head in greeting.
“Hello.” I smiled.
“Hello. I’m Oak,” a plump boy with a ponytail perched on his cr
own said from the far end of the tunnel. He blushed three shades of red.
“Hello, Oak.” I waved back. They all seemed friendly enough.
“Happens every day of the tournament this year. Thus, why we took our time,” Sybil said with a wink. She turned back to a handsome red-haired man. “Malcolm, this is Maggie. Maggie, this is my eldest brother, Malcolm.”
He tilted his head in greeting, then set his spear down and stretched his arms over his head.
“Maggie?” Griffin fumbled his spear, wincing.
I caught it before it hit the ground.
Griffin gripped the shaft beneath my fingers. It was the briefest of brushes, the pass-off. But I could still feel it lingering afterward.
“I thought you said Griffin was a champion, Lady Sybil. But it seems he can’t even carry the weight of his own weapon.”
Sybil took my arm. “I believe he’s stupefied by your transformation, Maggie.”
“It’s simply . . .” He paused, trying to find words. I expected a snide comment, but instead he said, “I didn’t recognize you.”
“This is not my spear!” A fair-haired boy at the other end tossed his weapon on the ground as if it were worth nothing. I’d seen men kill each other for less steel than was in the tip.
Groaning, Sybil let go of my arm and padded to him. She picked up the spear, turned it over, and showed him the bottom. “This is our seal, Cornwall. And it’s too short for Malcolm, so it must be yours.”
Cornwall snatched it from her. “It’s heavier than it should be. Someone’s tampered with it.”
“Then maybe you should step out of the competition,” Malcolm said.
“Oh, you’d like that, brother, wouldn’t you?” Cornwall lifted the spear and aimed it, not at Malcolm but at Griffin. “I’m coming for you.”
Griffin laughed at him, flexing the fingers on his gloved right hand. “Odds feel in my favor if you can’t recognize your own weapon.”
Cornwall took a menacing step toward him, but Sybil pushed him back, shaking her head.
Griffin turned away from him. I leaned over and caught another wince, more subtle this time as he clenched his fist. A bandage poked out the end of the glove. Cornwall was embarrassingly full of bluster, but there was a reason for his boast. The champion was worried. It must be his throwing hand. And Cornwall knew it.
Knock him off his dais, young Northman. Griffin deserved heaping buckets of humiliation after what he did to us last night.
“Maggie, shall we go up?” Sybil asked.
Raleigh yanked open a door I hadn’t noticed before. Beyond it was a staircase leading up, every step saddled with a guard at attention.
Griffin set his spear down and met us on the first step. “I’m sorry to keep you. I just wanted to say—”
“What? After last night, what more can there be for you to say?” I asked.
“Sir Griffin! Time to lead!” a man called from the lift.
“I’ll go.” Cornwall made only a step before Griffin slammed him into the wall so hard Cornwall’s eyes bulged from losing his breath.
“No. You won’t.” His arm still on Cornwall’s chest, Griffin snatched his spear, then marched down the tunnel and onto the lift. As it lowered, Griffin’s stern frown remained fixed on me.
The private staircase filled with the arena’s blistering reverie, which rose to full heart-pounding volume when we reached the covered balcony, a constant chorus of one word: “Grif-fin! Grif-fin! Grif-fin!” I rolled my eyes, wanting to join in with a very unladylike addition to the chant, but refrained.
Over and above it, though, I suddenly heard her. The draignoch.
Her resonant whimper, repeating. It was coming from beyond the other side of the arena. Was that where they kept the draignochs? It would make sense. If draignochs were all as large as she was, they were far too big to be moved vast distances without worrying about the damage they would do to the city.
The others on the balcony paid no attention. No one else seemed to hear her. Not Xavier seated next to the king, waving like a fool at the competitors and attendees. He was already well into his cups. Not any of these others: Esmera, the prince, who ate and drank on the opposite end of the balcony. Not Sybil, who went to help an old man with crutches, her father I presumed, lower to his chair. And not the few gray-smocked servants who fussed refilling empty plates and glasses, or many guards posted.
Her voice traveled on a different plane. They couldn’t hear it, because if they did, they too would want nothing but to find her. She was so close, but at the moment I found myself utterly surrounded. There was no way to get to her.
I moved to the balcony rail to try to pinpoint exactly where her voice was coming from. The scar on my arm burned. I winced, pressing down on it.
Sybil padded over. “Are you all right?” She reached for my arm, but I put it behind my back.
“Yes. Clumsy. Banged my arm on the banister. Another bruise,” I prattled.
She pushed back her sleeve. There were several fading purple-and-black spots. “Sparring. A favorite pastime in the North. We use short staffs to keep from killing each other.” She smiled and waved at Malcolm and Cornwall below.
“Esmera spars?” I couldn’t hide my shock.
Sybil guffawed. “No. She stitches Father’s treasure troves to her dresses these days. But my sister is of the North. We all know how to fight. It is our way.”
“I really would like to visit someday,” I mused.
“You asked about the draignochs.” She pointed out a huge metal gate. “They come out there, so I imagine the keep is connected to the tunnel.”
“Yes.” All I had to do was make my way through too many guards, through the tunnel, into the arena—while the door was open. The plan was both impractical and implausible. I would have to find another way.
Three servants sipped from a single tankard before passing it to the king. Tasters. King Umbert was ruthless, but poison was a coward’s act. Hinterfolk would never stoop to such pathetic ways of killing him. After all he’d taken from them, they’d want to feel the blade enter his chest.
It was probably someone inside the city. Maybe even someone he knew. I glanced around the balcony, catching Prince Jori’s stare. He smiled.
The prince and his betrothed, Lady Esmera, were seated together. He in a long red cloak matching his father’s, and she in a lavender dress like her sister’s, only hers was trimmed with blue teardrop-shaped gems. They looked the absolute picture of a future ruling family.
Sybil took the empty chair beside her sister, leaving only one left on the other side of the prince.
As I sat down, he said, “You look much more at ease than you did last night.”
It was a strange thing to say. “Was that a compliment?” I wondered aloud.
He laughed, his dimples cratering, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I meant it as such.”
Esmera’s legs were slanted to one side, her heels were crossed at her ankles, and her hands folded in her lap. I tried to mimic her, but it took too much work to keep my legs fashioned that way.
“Well, the bed was very comfortable. Too comfortable, if you ask me.”
“Especially if you’re used to sleeping in pigsties.” Esmera wrinkled her nose.
I sniffed my arm and held it out to Esmera. “I smell like roses. Go on. Take a whiff.”
She shoved my hand out of her face. Her expression so repulsed that Sybil and I laughed.
“Everything in this place smells like rose. Why is that?” Sybil asked Jori.
“My father has an affinity for them,” the prince answered, sounding as if he didn’t share his father’s taste.
The king raised his hand.
Horns blew.
The throngs silenced.
“Finally. Here we go,” Jori declared.
The five knights stretched across the back edge of the oval-shaped arena. The marshal marked a throw line ten feet in front of them, which gave them little space to run before release.
> “Let the spear contest begin!” King Umbert bellowed.
Malcolm went first, wasting no time. Three sprinting steps and he released. The spear sailed over a hundred yards.
The audience was impressed, applauding, whistling, and yelling, “Northman!”
Silas was next. He came closer but didn’t beat Malcolm’s throw. Oak, the youngest of them, barely made it half the distance. Cornwall was up next.
“He’ll top Malcolm,” Esmera said smugly. “Has all year, hasn’t he, Sybil?”
“Malcolm is always full of surprises.”
“No. He’s not,” Jori scoffed. “Predictable by nature, and why he’ll never be champion. He’ll never beat Griffin. Neither will Cornwall.”
I didn’t care. I only wanted to get this over with so I could find the draignoch’s keep.
Cornwall tested the weight of his spear until the crowd grew impatient.
“Throw it already!”
“Nerves got you, boy?”
Laughter spread. Griping too.
“Get on with it!”
Cornwall drew back, ran toward the line, tripping, and had to start over at the last possible second.
“Like his mother was, that one. Takes a year to figure anything out,” Laird Egrid croaked. “Just throw it, boy!”
Cornwall did. A good throw too. It stabbed the earth right beside Malcolm’s. He bumped into Griffin, into his injured hand carrying the spear as he walked back to the line.
Gasps rang out.
“Knocked him on purpose!”
“Get away from our champion!” a boy yelled from far below.
“Cheater!” another called.
Griffin leaned the spear against his shoulder and pumped his injured fist. The crowd mumbled, several voicing concerns about his injury. Did their lives depend on Griffin’s performance? They literally hung on his every move.
Griffin glanced around, looking at the people. He gripped the spear tightly in his injured hand and was rewarded with steady clapping for support. But then he tossed the spear to his other hand. He was going to use his left?
I could see his conceited grin all the way up on the balcony.
The crowd jumped, laughing, relishing this game. Heavy anticipation forced a silence. A short run, a serious heave, and the spear sailed in a low arc, striking the ground a yard beyond Malcolm’s and Cornwall’s.
The Color of Dragons Page 11
