“Don’t worry so much,” shouted Cadis to her lifelong tutor.
“Pay attention,” said Marta. “You’ll be great.”
“I know!” said Cadis. “Tell me something else.”
Marta laughed. They were the most alike, it seemed. When Marta would tell little stories of her military service—never much, but short anecdotes or aphorisms she remembered—everyone agreed they sounded like the cocksure bravado that Cadis, more than the others, exhibited. Cadis—who had not known her own mother nearly long enough—was most proud of the comparison.
Cadis breathed the rhythm, spoke the calming words, and marched across the stadium as a captain would march across her deck.
Cadis turned to the king’s balcony, where Declan sat on the throne, with Hiram standing beside him. Cadis bowed, then bowed to the people. The crowd went silent.
Several attendants trotted from the auxiliary gate with iron, grated buckets filled with arrows. They placed three in the dirt, situated a hundred yards from each of the wooden billboards. They placed a fourth bucket farther back, unassociated with a billboard.
“People of Meridan,” shouted Cadis in a booming voice. She held her bow out to the side theatrically, to present herself dressed conspicuously in crimson and gold. “You have taken me into your home. Today I am one of you.”
Cadis bowed again to the people. They cheered, but only after Declan accepted the offering with a nod. When she rose again, Cadis could see Marta rolling her eyes, amused by the melodrama. At former Revels, Marta would have admonished her for grandstanding, but now, Cadis had noticed, her speeches were built into the schedule.
Enough pomp.
Cadis approached the first station and pulled an arrow from the metal quiver staked into the ground. The fletching was bloodred, the color of the Tasanese flag. Cadis nocked the arrow, squinted at the billboard all the way across the arena, whispered the calming words, breathed the steady rhythm, pulled back the bowstring, and let go. . . .
It flew.
It was the truest thing in all of Meridan.
Not a crook or a bend.
Not a turn or a flinch.
Tok!
It stuck the board at center mast and dug the entire arrowhead into the grain with a satisfying stocky sound.
Behind it flew a dozen more arrows, all perfectly spaced, each driving into the board until the fletchings formed the perfect replica of the Tasanese crest, the bituin tree.
Cadis didn’t pause once the performance began. She stepped sideways to the next station, nocked an arrow with a fletching the color of Corentine blue, and let it fly. One after another. Blindingly fast, impossibly precise. Soon the second billboard showed a constellation of blue fletching shaped like the spires of the crest of Corent.
Iren herself couldn’t have stitched a more accurate rendering.
Cadis moved on to the last station. The fletching, green. Findain. Home.
She sent the first arrow toward the center of the board to make the crow’s nest. She knew this crest by heart. She could have shot it into the side of a kite flapping in the wind, three hundred yards in the air.
The Findish clipper ship.
Fern green.
Full sail.
The arrows hit their marks as if they were blooming out of the board.
The last one shuddered into place to form the prow.
Cadis was breathing heavily.
Her fingers burned.
Her shoulder throbbed.
But it was perfect.
Three constellations as faultless as the night sky.
Several children lost themselves in the wonder and clapped hysterically.
But the rest of the crowd murmured their suspicions. It was an insult to have left out Meridan. There were no more billboards. Surely this proved the allegiance of the faithless Findish queen.
Cadis let the murmuring grow into a dissatisfied rumble. A few men booed from the balcony. It was the climax. A good story always needs some uncertainty, some tension. Cadis stepped to the last quiver of arrows, their feathers crimson and gold.
The crowd was not appeased. There was no billboard for them.
Cadis nocked the first arrow.
She raised the bow upward. The crowd shrieked and flinched away when it pointed in their direction, but Cadis lifted the bow until it aimed straight up into the sky. She aimed by aligning it to the flagpoles at the top of the mezzanine.
She let go.
The people gasped.
It could land anywhere.
Mothers and fathers covered their children.
Cadis didn’t wait for it to land, but sent another and another.
They were lost in the noon light. Cadis continued to shoot, straight up, adjusting by imperceptible degrees. And soon the first arrow whistled back down, and a rain of others followed, stabbing into the dirt floor of the arena.
Not a single stray drop—all around her. Cadis shot as if to put out the sun.
And it rained as if to mock human ambition.
Soon the mothers and fathers realized they were safe, and the children finally wrestled out of their grip to get a better look.
The arrows planted into the coliseum floor all around Cadis to form the dragon on the Meridan crest. A gigantic wyrm. The mezzanine noticed it first, and the roar began. Cadis grinned as she launched the last arrow into the air.
She had choreographed the climax for the better part of the year.
A bow to the king.
Declan, well pleased, nodded.
A bow to the people, who laughed in astonishment and continued to grow in volume as the arrows fell into place to detail the image.
And finally, as the best Findish bards knew, Cadis left them wanting more. She turned and strode toward the horse gate, even as the arrows plummeted around her. By the time the last arrow hit the ground, forming the eye of the dragon, the entire coliseum was on its feet, and Cadis had disappeared into the shadow of the gate.
“Well done,” said Marta, as she reached out to take the bow.
“Well done? That’s it?” said Cadis. She threw the bow aside, grabbed Marta in a bear hug, and lifted the shorter woman off the ground. “I did it!”
“Of course you did, darling.”
“Why aren’t you more surprised? Be more surprised.”
“Okay, okay. I’m surprised,” said Marta, laughing and straightening her uniform.
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” said Cadis, pretending to scoff. “There was never any doubt.”
They both burst into giggling until the attendants came to fetch Cadis for her next event.
They walked to the other side of the arena using the custodial tunnels so that they could prepare. Marta peeled the shooting bracers from Cadis’s forearms and replaced them with hard-plate armor.
Cadis caught her eye. “Any words of wisdom, squire-girl?”
Marta would have punished her for such a comment in training. Instead she grinned—there was time yet for a punishment.
“Yeah,” said Marta. “Don’t be so sure of yourself. This next opponent hits back.”
“Her kicks may flick and punches sting,” said Cadis. “But hits and hurts are different things.”
An attendant handed her the curved cutlass used by Findish corsairs. Cadis swung it in circles as she walked, to loosen her wrists. Her every muscle vibrated with the thrill of her performance, with the sheer glorious excitement of being great at something, truly great, and reveling in that blessing.
Marta forced her to stop for a moment in order to strap her shin guards. Cadis bounced on her toes and made it difficult, until Marta took a pinch out of her calf.
“Ah!” said Cadis.
Marta straightened. She looked Cadis in the eye—the bravura all gone, leaving only the professional soldier. “You should be careful. You hit your marks. You go fight speed, full contact. And you don’t get hurt.”
Cadis matched her stare. Deadly serious. “Marta. Marta. I know that stuff already. Tell me s
omething else.”
Marta let slip one last giggle.
“You’re a splendid braggart. Just don’t kill each other, please. It’s just a dumb circus.”
Cadis nodded and let out a whooping holler, as corsairs do before boarding enemy ships.
None of them knew why Iren insisted on a melee showcase; she wasn’t very good at them. It might have been her mother’s command—the emira of Corent. The two were always writing letters, as if Iren were away in the country, as opposed to an unwilling ward of their enemy.
Cadis begged and pleaded once, years ago, to read one of the letters. It had been a testament to their friendship—and the offer of three favors to be named later—that finally swayed Iren. Immediately after snatching the letter from Iren’s hand, Cadis knew she had given away the favors too easily. Iren and her mother would write entire letters dedicated to the intimate details of a single supper. In one Iren spent three pages explaining her plans for a tapestry. Cadis had handed back the papers, astounded by the Corentine’s affinity for all things logistical and untheatrical.
Iren took her letters and called in her first favor immediately—Cadis’s favorite practice bow. Iren had no use for it. Cadis imagined it was her way of raising the price on snooping into her affairs. Cadis handed over the bow. She had never paid so much for so little a story.
And she let Iren alone to write her letters.
To his credit, King Declan allowed all the correspondence. He had no desire to cut them off from their loved ones. It anchored them to their homes. “You are to go back and rule, after all,” Declan would say.
As Cadis walked down the stairs to the undervault of the coliseum, she thought of Jesper Terzi—her own anchor. Jesper who had once kissed her in the crow’s nest of her father’s ship—when they were barely pups. Jesper who held her hand when they heard her father’s ship had gone down—and she was orphaned to the world. Jesper who remained her friend, when all others seemed to give her up for dead. He was the only one to visit her—five times in the last ten years—when his caravan came within a hundred leagues of Meridan Keep.
Cadis smiled as she recalled Jesper and Endrit meeting like two young bucks, squeezing each other’s hands and puffing out their chests without meaning to. He acted like an overprotective brother—sizing up Endrit. It was sweet that he assumed any boy would have his sights on Cadis.
She hadn’t seen Jesper in two years, not since the rumors of a Findish rebel group had created a state of constant suspicion around her. And in the outland villages, the dangers were even worse.
A Findish caravan would be a target for Meridan scouting regiments, or even local mobs who knew they could attack with impunity. As a result, only one of every three letters ever made it to Cadis. But when they did, they came in great sheaves, wrapped in old sailcloth. They smelled of the open sea and read like he was sitting right beside her in jovial conversation.
He detailed all the drama between the captains’ guild and the caravaneers, but made no mention of a rebellion or the secret rebel group that had taken over all of Meridan’s society gossip. They called themselves the Munnur Myrath. To the imagination of Meridan nobles, they were demons and fiends—which led to the artless insult leveled at her people, the “Fiendish.” But he would have surely told her if anything so climactic was afoot.
His letters avoided such politics. He wrote less and less of Cousin Denarius, Cadis’s caretaker and mentor. The kind old man had raised her when her parents were lost to the sea. He sat in her stead as archon now. She missed Denarius most of all. But Jesper would only bring more suspicion if he spoke of the archon.
Cadis’s eyes were not yet used to the undervault of the coliseum when a gauntlet swung out of the darkness and hit her in the stomach—knocking the air out of her lungs and the daydreams out of her mind.
“Ooph,” she said, doubling over and catching the iron glove.
A calm, quiet voice spoke from the shadow behind a pillar. “You don’t seem prepared.”
Iren.
Cadis took a deep breath and fit the gauntlet over her left hand. Above them, the attendants were clearing the arrows and the crowd distracted itself with the intermission carnival. Hawkers sold skewers of dried beef and crackled rice.
“A cheaty move,” said Cadis.
“I could hear you jangling all the way from the stairs,” said Iren, stepping into the uneven light from the braziers, dressed in Corentine-blue light armor, with short rapiers sheeted in an X on her back.
“We can wait till you’re ready,” she added.
Cadis had to smile. She was easily twice Iren’s size. One solid swing of her cutlass would break any of Iren’s blocks, and yet there her diminutive sister stood, as bold as a mountain flower.
Iren tossed Cadis her cutlass.
“Oh, sister mine,” said Cadis, playing coy, “has this summer heat melted your resolve? Are you melancholic to be down among the poorly cultured and ill read?”
“We all suffer,” said Iren. “Your dreadful braids must itch with parasites, for instance.”
“Ha!” said Cadis. “There are easier ways to kill yourself, sister.”
They each stood on a wooden platform facing each other. Attendants in the corner began turning giant cranks to open the trapdoors in the coliseum floor.
As light poured into the vault, Cadis winked at Iren. “That was it?” she said. “That’s all you’ve got to goad me?”
“I suppose you smell funny,” said Iren with a shrug. “Besides, who needs head games when I’ve got such perfect odds?”
“No gambler in their right mind would bet on you against me. I’m the champion.”
“Only because Rhea can’t keep her feet under her.”
The reference to the previous year raised Cadis’s hackles even though she knew it was coming.
It had been a close match until Rhea had become distracted and stumbled. Cadis pounced as any fighter would. But to the people of Meridan, it was a disgrace. A dishonorable victory. Another treachery from the Findish.
“All I have to do is fight you to a draw,” said Iren, “and they’ll love me. They don’t care if I lose. They just don’t want you to win.”
It was true. Even if Cadis was wearing Meridan colors, even if she bowed and pledged a thousand times, she would never win them over. Iren was right. And she was smart enough to let Cadis come to the realization herself. They made a perfect pair in that regard. Cadis, eager to win back the Meridan people, their affection, their esteem for the Findish. Iren, always present, helping her remember the prizes that were simply too lofty. At best Meridan would give her begrudging respect. For Cadis—who wished desperately for everyone to love her as she loved them—this was a painfully difficult fact to remember.
Cadis reached up and unclasped her crimson and gold breastplate and let it fall to the ground beside her platform. Underneath was a light leather jerkin, unarmored, but at least unmarked by the sigil of Meridan. She would present herself—herself. She felt a wave of gratitude for Iren.
Their platforms began to rise. The dull roar of the crowd and a light rain of sand from the arena floor wafted down the open shafts.
“All right. You win,” said Cadis. “I won’t go easy.”
She could see Iren’s lips quiver, holding back a smirk. “You never have before.”
“Have too,” said Cadis, playful and petulant. “You don’t even know how much.”
Iren finally let the smile escape, like a bird from its cage. “Have not,” she said.
The proxy sisters shared a moment of connection, beaming at each other with true affection, until the arena floor severed their eyeline and the platforms brought them out once again, onto the sunbright stage, where they would battle as hardened foes. “Did you see my arrows before?” said Cadis.
They bowed to each other.
“Of course,” said Iren. “They were spectacular. But you look better now. Red and gold don’t suit you.”
A shinhound, seated somewhere near t
he king’s balcony, saw Iren and barked. Iren drew her double rapiers and set position. Cadis waved her cutlass in a figure eight to loosen her wrist.
Without warning, she sprang forward and in one charging motion swung the heavy blade down toward Iren’s head.
CHAPTER THREE
Suki
One came carried from Tasan’s Imperium
A sister dead, in a black dress clad
Spoiled and twisted by a rank delirium
Slowly and surely she . . . went . . . mad.
—Children’s nursery rhyme
Suki stood in the saddle of her horse (Helio (which was hers, even though Declan had named it)) to see Cadis and Iren sparring on the other side of a giant hedge (on the closer side to the king’s box) while she warmed up for her ride (which was next) when she caught sight of Rhea (goodiegoodie queen witch) and Endrit (gods, he was beautiful) watching from the conductor’s trench, standing extra close to each other (though that might have just been the angle of her view (because Endrit would have to be a wild pig idiot to want that mangy nag (and he wasn’t (because he had a dozen options (like Cadis for one (and he could maybe even choose Suki (hopefully))))))).
“Stay straight,” she (Suki) said to herself, as Marta had taught her. Stay straight. A kind of double meaning (old soldiers loved that sort of thing (training advice that doubled as life advice)). Suki kept the reins of Helio straight as he trotted along the wall of the arena. Some spectators said something (Suki ignored them). And she tried to keep her thoughts straight (not twisted in a thousand directions at once (but seeing Rhea (after what she said the night before) made it impossible)).
The night before.
The night before, when Endrit had whispered to her in the corner, “What would I do without you, Susu?” (after she’d patched up the sloppy cut from Rhea). He’d leaned forward to whisper it. Suki had craned her neck up. Almost a kiss. And she’d said, “I dunno, bleed I guess,” (which was very clever for its double meaning (his cut, and his broken heart)).
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