by Jenna Rhodes
Sinok took her by the wrists again and drew her close as if embracing her. Instead, he whispered into her ear, “You are my heir and choice. Remember that. This is only formality.” Before he broke away, he slipped a dagger up each of her sleeves. The metal felt cold and deadly against her skin.
He kissed her forehead roughly even as he pushed her away.
Lara watched him return to his position across the Dead Circle and seat himself on the edge of the litter as if he sat a throne, which the Warrior King did not own but made out of any chair he possessed. As plain as any statement, he told her across the distance, that attitude owned the title, attitude and the ability to back it up. She toed the half-helm at her feet. When she put it on, she would tell herself that she had begun and would not stop till she had achieved that which her grandfather and Warrior King wished of her . . . or she was incapacitated.
She did not have the attitude. She knew that. She could call it up, more so than Jeredon who had never had the killing spirit that Sinok Anderieon wished engendered in his get, but never enough to truly please her grandfather. She did, however, have the ability, including the Vaelinar Talent that he had bid her keep hidden her whole life. There were many among the Vaelinars who whispered that she did not hold the power and Talents that ran in their bodies, but she did. It manifested itself early and often, and Sinok had taught her how to lash it down and tame it and use it only when she called it out. During those early years she had been a difficult and frightening and . . . occasionally . . . fatal child to nurture. Those servants who had dealt with her had been taken away and she never saw them again although she was almost certain Sinok had had them put to death. He did not wish his granddaughter’s nature exposed.
Nor would he wish her to expose herself today. Not fully. Even as he expected her to prevail, he expected her to be circumspect in all things, for the day would come when she would need all she held within and without herself to triumph.
Instead, she had shown a brief and fleeting Talent in public to possess animal minds, particularly those of the war hawks, giving her some slight advantage over the battlefield. That Sinok had encouraged in her, weak though it had been at first, cultivating it until it, though not greatly valued among the Vaelinars, at least kept the rumors down that she was not worthy to be a candidate as his heir.
She stepped back, and Jeredon moved forward at her back.
“What did he gift you?”
“Two daggers. Throwers, I think.”
“Only two? Likely to have poisoned blades. Take care if you must handle them.”
She gave the slightest of nods. She had not yet donned her helm, so her hair hung unbridled over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. “And you,” she murmured. “Remember the ild Fallyn can fly.”
“Levitate,” he corrected in his best big brotherly tone, before adding, “No doubt the reason I am here. I am used to bringing down the winged.” He shifted his weight and the arrows in his back quiver gave the faintest of rattles.
At their right, the ild Fallyn candidates sat as quietly as great cats, their eyes of jade and smoky green watching them without blinking. Tressandre had hidden most of her beauty under the ebony-and-silver colors of her arms and armor, and her brother Alton stayed off her left hand, an echo of the same. Unlike Lara and Jeredon, the two were as ruthless and capable as their parent might hope. If any candidate here could take the position from her, it would be one of the ild Fallyn. By any means.
Osten coughed to clear his throat. The Drebukar was here because he deserved to be, but she knew that he had no great desire to reign over the sacred valley of Larandaril and the unruly families of the Vaelinars. Not that the Warrior King or Queen did so. No one House ruled, but the Council was undeniably influenced heavily by the Warrior King. The Drebukars were the stout shields that protected leaders, the savvy advice in the ear that gave leaders a battlefield advantage, but they did not carry the leaping insight, the drive, the vision that leaders often carried. To their credit, they knew and understood that.
Perhaps it had been different in the beginning, in their own lands, but as invaders here on Kerith and in the provinces known as the First Home, on the western coast of this sprawling continent, they could only guess at the true intent of the roles and titles they assumed. The Istlanthir were not here because they had their hold and their kingdom: the wide blue sea. They were staunch allies, but they also held an allegiance, a yearning, for the wilderness that lashed its tides upon their coastline. They cared not to rule land, but to conquer the unconquerable sea.
She looked to her father’s right hand, where Bistel Vantane stood, his silvered hair bare to the early morning sun, his heavy mail shining, his sword point down as if it could be a staff. He had a staff, a great piece of aryn wood slung across his shoulders, for the warlord was both a reaper of men and grain. His fields to the north rippled with winter wheat and ripened in the summer with the sweetest of orchards, both fruit and nut, and the aryn trees, which grew best at his behest, made a living wall against the chaotic debris to the east, where the Mageborn had ruined the lands.
Bistel’s son Bistane stood at his elbow, striding back and forth unhappily, for he had not been allowed to throw in his name as a candidate. Jeredon’s peer, he had the right, but Bistel had stayed his hand. Perhaps he did not wish to cross the wishes of Sinok or perhaps he thought that the candidates might not leave a survivor standing, in which case, Bistane would be a necessary substitute. Or, perhaps even, since Bistel was already warlord in his own right, he thought it unnecessary for his son to participate in this trial.
From this distance, a look at the strong-nosed warlord could not give her a definitive answer to that question. He stood as still and silent as Bistane moved restlessly. Bistane looked at her across the distance, his face skewed in an expression she could only read as dismay and anger. She could not signal him back that she would rather he not be in the circle, as she did not wish to face him.
There were other Forts and Houses with candidates. Bannoc whom she’d faced down before, pacing warily, as if knowing that he was doomed to fall again but fated to be within the circle anyway. Quarrin of the faraway Hold of Bytrax, a Hold which stood no more since a tsunami had swept away the ocean shore of their lands, but as a family they still remained. Quarrin had become their one hope to be given new lands and restore their name. He had the faintly silvery skin and metallic hair of his lineage and wore a veil across his face in the manner of many Vaelinars who had gone to the Eastern lands which had not been marred by the Mageborn Wars. His sword held a great, curving sweep and even though he wore his battle gear, she could hear the faint sound of the bells upon his pant legs as he moved slightly.
Those bells.
They would be the death of him, she thought, signaling his movement almost before he would think to act.
Findorel, face etched deeply with lines, was near to Anderieon in age but obviously saw no reason why he was not fit to take up the challenge to become Warrior King. She did not fear him as much as the others, if only because his hands shook now and then, and she knew a weakness ran through his Fort’s lineage, the quaking illness, and that he was already afflicted with it. If he should gain the title today, it would likely be stripped away from him for infirmity. Still, he intended to try. Lariel would take advantage of his stubbornness as well as his experience.
Lithe Samboca whirled away before she could meet his eye, but he had always been a loner, not shy but almost as if the company of another was unbearable. She had always thought him strongly empathic, born and bred to be a healer, but he was fascinated with the cutting edge of objects with a far darker purpose and so he was here, seeking the title of Warrior King. If he won it, she pondered, he would lock himself away in a tower without human contact unless it was to battle and kill. A shiver of cold went down her spine.
There were the charcoal-skinned twins of the far southeast, two women with
faces like sharp iron whom she had defeated in skirmishes before, together and separately. She did not overly worry about them unless she found herself greatly outnumbered. Then and only then could the Iron Wolf sisters hope to harry her to ground.
A quarter of the circle away stood a puzzling figure, one who had petitioned to be allowed the challenge, but who, as the very last of her line, gambled much. She could wait and marry, and hope to perpetuate her bloodline the safe way—or she could charge in headlong, and hope to gain a kingdom by winning this morning. Tiiva Pantoreth stood, dressed in hand-me-down leathers and mail, her spine straight, her chin up, her copper skin as dazzling as an early sunrise, her thick, coiled hair bound into a snood of fine mail, perhaps the only object about her that hinted of a former glory. Her weapons at hand were serviceable, and from the way she had stretched out and exercised a while ago, she was good with them. She would need to be. She glanced at Lara as if sensing her appraisal, and they locked gazes for a long moment. Tiiva’s mouth pursed slightly as if she might say something, but she did not.
To her left, in the shadow, stood a figure all in black, difficult to see, difficult to watch even with her full attention, masked as well, and for all his sinuous grace, she could not have said if he were male or female although she thought male. Nor could she name his House. She and Jeredon had eyed him when they rode in. He had already been here, crouched at the edge of the Dead Circle, and her brother had not responded to her muttered “Kobrir” when spotting him.
Surely not. Not one of the assassin brotherhood. They were not even Vaelinar. She had waited for the man to be hustled off, but it had not happened. His presence was not only tolerated but evidently had been invited.
She said very quietly to Jeredon, “Watch the Kobrir.”
His eyebrow arched and he moved slightly, surveying their area. After a long pause, he noted, “I no longer see one.”
She shot a glance back at the shadows. The Kobrir had not moved. In fact, as if feeling her eyes on him, his head turned and his gaze caught hers. He dipped his head in the barest of perceptible nods, before turning his attention back to the circle.
Jeredon didn’t see him. Nor, she thought as she scanned the others, did anyone else. Surely she was wrong in that. Could her grandfather see him? She could not tell across the distance.
Tiiva Pantoreth tossed her head slightly, her glorious hair cascading over her shoulders as she took off her chain mail snood and then put it back on. A heat rolled through the morning mist, a heat smelling of musk and flowers and the faint aroma of a woman. It grew in lushness as it swept the grounds, grew in intensity and thickness until Lara felt cloaked in it, bathed in its warmth and alluring sensuality. She shifted her weight uneasily, distracted, wondering what had come over her. And then she realized it came from Pantoreth.
She radiated . . . no, smoldered in the new day sun. Lara could feel the heat tumbling off her, a sensual warmth that shivered over her own skin and warmed the pit of her stomach. Her heartbeat quickened. That would be one of Tiiva’s Talents, sensuality, seduction, a call so forceful and primal that Lara found herself wanting to answer. No one else so much as stirred and Lara realized she’d felt the other gathering the power to herself before using it. She could feel it being drawn from the essence of all around her and took half a step forward toward Tiiva with eyes narrowed and mouth drawn. “Do not,” she said softly, her voice pitched for Tiiva alone, “finish what you are thinking of doing.”
Tiiva blinked. A long, slow, deliberate shuttering of her eyes. The corner of her mouth quirked upward slightly as she tilted her head and looked away, and the heat of the morning bled away as she let the power slip through her fingers.
There were half a dozen others. She had looked them over, noting their strengths, their probable Talents from their Houses, and not seen anyone she had not already bested in training tournaments. They would enter the Circle. Those who were pushed or dragged out were disqualified. The last one standing captured the title.
Or perhaps not even standing. Just . . . living. Lariel wet lips suddenly gone dry and put her hands up to sweep her mane of hair into a knot and placed the half-helm on her head. As if her movement had been a signal to him, Sinok Anderieon straightened his right arm toward the sky.
“At the fall of this banner, the battle begins.”
He dropped the bit of silken cloth. It caught a draft, or perhaps a bit of ild Fallyn levitation, for it did not immediately drop. It wafted downward, gliding back and forth on a gentle updraft, moving on its own timeline, while she counted her heartbeats to steady them. She saw where the scarf would land, on his booted foot, right at the demarcation of the circle. That had significance, she thought fleetingly, but could not finish her observation as Jeredon let out a long, measured breath behind her. She knew where he was at all times, a sense between them that twins often had, though they were only siblings. She had hunted often enough with him and he with her that each knew instinctively where to place themselves to be most effective and yet stay out of each other’s way. The same with what skirmishes they had faced. Of all people on Kerith, he was her most valued. He always had been and she could not foresee a day when he would not be.
She watched the banner drift slowly to its inevitable position, aware that others about the Circle stirred into movement, readying to strike, and she knew that the ild Fallyn could stay gravity with their powers. And that they would be in place first accordingly. It struck her what her grandfather planned. This was a battle, no doubt about it—but no battle was ever won strictly on the strength of arms alone. It took strategy and cunning . . . and in this case, would no doubt take holding the possession of that banner. It had not been stipulated. Crafty old man that Sinok was, it would never have been mentioned overtly. But he had said at the dinner last night for all to expect the unexpected, to be prepared for the unannounced, and to capture the essence of what would be demanded of them in the future.
This would be the most intensive maneuver to capture the flag that she could ever imagine. To win, she must get herself to the circle’s center so that she could capture it when she willed to do so, and to defend it if anyone else had intuited Sinok’s intention.
“Now,” she whispered to Jeredon and sprang into the air, readying to turn with weapons drawn, before the world returned to normal.
Osten moved along with them, a movement she sensed rather than saw, his bulk stirring the very air and trembling the earth slightly with its impact. He brought with him the steadiness of stone and the quickness of liquid silver.
Even with her preemptive move, she barely missed Tressandre’s strike. Curved steel swung at her elbow, shearing off her bracer, sending a thrum up her arm, a message of warning. Lara landed, kicking out and swinging her leg about as she did, to bring it up, around and then behind to brace her. Her boot caught Tressandre in the jaw, snapping her head back and she retreated, shaking her head, an angry red blossoming across her throat.
Across the circle, Fin had already slashed and put one of the Iron Wolves out of the circle. She could see a movement toward the downed woman, healers in motion. It mattered little. One less, the better. Tiiva stepped across the circle deliberately and into sparring position opposite the veteran, dropping her shoulder slightly as she brought her katana up. She faced Fin, kicking back with one leg, dropping her cloak on the ground as she did so, serving notice that she would take no prisoners.
Lara jerked her attention back to their duel. She parried Tressandre away again, more worried about Alton. Alton had been tempered by the ild Fallyn like a smithy does forging a sword, all to succeed not only his own hierarchy but that of Sinok and Bistel as well. The ild Fallyn would have it all and even then, Lara realized, would not be sated. Jeredon grunted as he leaped into the air, avoiding Alton ild Fallyn’s rolling tackle, meant to sweep his legs from under him, and with that, the main event fell into position.
It would be the two of them agai
nst the two ild Fallyn.
For long moments, that was exactly how it played out. And then Lara felt the others still standing moving into play behind them. Osten muttered a guttural oath and shifted his bulk, she could feel the ground practically shake under his booted feet as he did so and she knew that the survivors had decided to join ranks, at least for the moment.
Her ears rang with the noise of clashing weapons, grunts of strain, the slap of armor being hit and hit hard, the gasps of effort and pain, and a muttered aside here and there. She knew Jeredon guarded her back as she guarded his. Tressandre leaped away for a breather, but a flicker in her gaze gave away her real reason and Lara took a bob to her right, and parried a slicing blow, thigh-high, from Quarrin, his bells shivering as they met. His blade slid downward, and he used his balance to throw a kick at her. She saw it coming. With a twist, she kept it from slamming into her temple, taking it on the point of her shoulder instead, but it still rocked her. She went with it, letting its momentum take her down to one knee, and it was there that her power thrilled through her, and she knew what the next few moments could hold for her. A leap, a turn, a killing thrust . . . it brought the taste of bitter, metallic blood to her throat to see it, to hold it in her thoughts, the inevitable which had not, but would, happen.
Lara went down, rolled, and kicked back up, making it to her feet and steadying herself. She took a deep breath. Sequence one, broken. No time to celebrate. She had two on her before she could take a deep breath, but Jeredon took out the second with a wicked slash low to the ankle and Findorel fell with a sharp cry, not cut but feeling the blow through his shattered bone. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the circle, getting a breather for herself for no one attacks a rescue operation. They did not dare, nor did they mind observing the nicety, for it put her face-to-face with three who did not want to let her back into the depths of the circle. Alton ild Fallyn, Quarrin, and Tiiva.
She reacted to the sound of the bells, betraying the southerner’s gathering of muscles, and she put the butt of her sword hilt into his head, behind his ear. He dropped. She put a hip into Tiiva and spun past her, only to see as she did that Tiiva went after Alton instead of her own exposed flank.
