by V. E. Schwab
“Well,” said Lila, “I won’t tell the Aven Essen.”
Ister’s smile tilted. “Who do you think gave it to me?” She turned the page. “Your match is at four, Master Stasion. Don’t be late.”
* * *
“Master Kamerov,” came a cheerful voice as Kell stepped into his tent.
“Hastra.”
The young guard’s armor and cape were gone, and in their place he wore a simple white tunic trimmed in gold. A scarf, marked with the same gold trim, wrapped loosely around his face and throat, masking all but his aquiline nose and warm brown eyes. A curl escaped the wrap, and when he pulled the scarf down around his neck, Kell saw that he was grinning.
Saints, he looked young, like a sanctuary novice.
Kell didn’t bother removing his helmet. It was too dangerous, and not only because he could be recognized; the mask was a constant reminder of the ruse. Without its weight, he might forget who he was, and who he wasn’t.
Reluctantly he shed the silver coat and left it on a chair while Hastra fitted the plates of armor over his long-sleeved tunic.
In the distance, trumpets sounded. The first three matches were about to begin. There was no telling how long the opening rounds would take. Some might last an hour. Others would be over in minutes. Kell was the third match in the western arena. His first opponent was a Faroan wind mage named Ost-ra-Nes.
He went over these details in his mind as the plates of armor were fastened and tightened. He didn’t realize Hastra had finished until the young guard spoke.
“Are you ready, sir?”
A mirror stood before one curtained wall, and Kell considered himself, heart pounding. You must be excited, Hastra had said, and Kell was. At first, he’d thought it madness—and honestly, if he thought about it too hard, he knew it was still madness—but he couldn’t help it. Logic be damned, wisdom be damned, he was excited.
“This way,” said Hastra, revealing a second curtained door at the outside edge of the private tent. It was almost as if the addition had been designed with Kell’s deception in mind. Perhaps it was. Saints, how long had Rhy been planning this charade? Perhaps Kell hadn’t given his wayward brother enough credit. And perhaps Kell himself wasn’t paying enough attention. He had been spending too much time in his rooms, or in the Basin, and he had taken to assuming that just because he could sense Rhy’s body, he also knew his brother’s mind. Obviously, he was mistaken.
Since when are you so invested in empire politics?
I’m invested in my kingdom, Brother.
Rhy had changed, that much Kell had noticed. But he had only seen his brother’s varying moods, the way his temper darkened at night. This was different. This was clever.
But just to be safe, Kell took up his knife, discarded along with his coat, and pulled back one of the tent’s many tapestries. Hastra watched as he nicked the soft flesh of his forearm and touched his fingers to the welling blood. On the canvas wall, he drew a small symbol, a vertical line, with a small horizontal mark on top leading to the right, and another on the bottom, leading to the left. Kell blew on it until it was dry, then let the tapestry swing back into place, hiding the symbol from sight.
Hastra didn’t ask. He simply wished him luck, then hung back in the tent as Kell left; within several strides, a royal guard—Staff—fell in step beside him. They walked in silence, the crowds on the street—men and women who cared less for the matches than the festivities surrounding them—parting around him. Here and there children waved banners, and Kell caught sight of tangled lions amid the other pennants.
“Kamerov!” shouted someone, and soon the chant was being carried on the air—Kamerov, Kamerov, Kamerov—the name trailing behind him like a cape.
IV
“Alucard! Alucard! Alucard!” chanted the crowd.
Lila had missed the beginning of the fight, but it didn’t matter; her captain was winning.
The eastern arena was filled to capacity, the lower levels shoulder to shoulder, while the upper tiers afforded worse views but a little more air. Lila had opted for one of the highest tiers open to the public, balancing the desire to study the match with the need to maintain anonymity. Stasion’s black hat perched on her brow, and she leaned her elbows on the railing and watched dark earth swirl around Alucard’s fingers. She imagined she could see his smile, even from this height.
Prince Rhy, who’d appeared a few minutes before, cheeks flushed from traveling between the stadiums, now stood on the royal balcony and watched with rapt attention, the stem-looking Faroan noble at his shoulder.
Two poles rose above the royal platform, each bearing a pennant to mark the match. Alucard’s was a silver feather—or a drop of flame, she couldn’t tell—against a backdrop of dark blue. She held a copy in one hand. The other pennant bore a set of three stacked white triangles on forest green. Alucard’s opponent, a Veskan named Otto, wore an ancient-looking helmet with a nose plate and a domed skull.
Otto had chosen fire to Alucard’s earth, and both were now dancing and dodging each other’s blows. The smooth stone of the arena floor was dotted with obstacles, rock formations offering cover as well as the chance for ambush, and they must have been warded, since Alucard never made them move.
Otto was surprisingly quick on his feet for a man nearly seven feet tall, but his skill was one of blunt force, while Alucard’s was sleight of hand—Lila couldn’t think of it any other way. Most magicians, just like most ordinary fighters, gave away their attack by moving in the same direction as their magic. But Alucard could stand perfectly still while his element moved, or in this case, could dodge one way and send his power another, and through that simple, effective method, had scored eight hits to Otto’s two.
Alucard was a showman, adding flourish and flare, and Lila had been on the receiving end of his games enough times to see that he was now playing with the Veskan, shifting into a defensive mode to prolong the fight and please the crowd.
A cheer rose from the western arena, where Kisimyr was going up against her protégé, Losen, and moments later the words on the nearest bracket board shifted, Losen’s name vanishing and Kisimyr’s writing itself into the advancing spot. In the arena below, flames circled Otto’s fists. The hardest thing about fire was putting force behind it, giving it weight as well as heat. The Veskan was throwing his own weight behind the blows, instead of using the fire’s strength.
“Magic is like the ocean,” Alucard had told her in her first lesson. “When waves go the same way, they build. When they collide, they cancel. Get in the way of your magic, and you break the momentum. Move with it, and …”
The air around Lila began to tingle pleasantly.
“Master Tieren,” she said without turning.
The Aven Essen stepped up beside her. “Master Stasion,” he said casually. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
“I fight last,” she said, shooting him a glance. “I wanted to see Alucard’s match.”
“Supporting friends?”
She shrugged. “Studying opponents.”
“I see….”
Tieren gave her an appraising look. Or perhaps it was disapproving. He was a hard man to read, but Lila liked him. Not just because he didn’t try to stop her, but because she could ask him questions, and he clearly didn’t believe in protecting a person by keeping them in the dark. He’d entrusted her with a difficult task once, he’d kept her secrets twice, and he’d let her choose her own path at every turn.
Lila nodded at the royal box. “The prince seems keen on this match,” she ventured, as down below Otto narrowly escaped a blow. “But who is the Faroan?”
“Lord Sol-in-Ar,” said Tieren, “the older brother of the king.”
Lila frowned. “Shouldn’t being the eldest make him the king?”
“In Faro, the descent of the crown is not determined by the order of birth, but by the priests. Lord Sol-in-Ar has no affinity for magic. Thus, he cannot be king.”
Lila could hear the distaste in T
ieren’s voice, and she could tell it wasn’t for Sol-in-Ar, but for the priests who deemed him unworthy.
She didn’t buy into all that nonsense about magic sorting the strong from the weak, making some kind of spiritual judgment. No, that was too much like fate, and Lila didn’t put much stock in that. A person chose their path. Or they made a new one.
“How do you know so much?” she asked.
“I’ve spent my life studying magic.”
“I didn’t think we were talking about magic.”
“We were talking about people,” he said, his eyes following the match, “and people are the most variable and important component in the equation of magic. Magic itself is, after all, a constant, a pure and steady source, like water. People, and the world they shape—they are the conduits of magic, determining its nature, coloring its energy, the way a dye does water. You of all people should be able to see that magic changes in the hands of men. It is an element to be shaped. As for my interest in Faro and Vesk, the Arnesian empire is vast. It is not, however, the extent of the world, and last time I endeavored to check, magic existed beyond its borders. I’m glad of the Essen Tasch, if only for that reminder, and for the chance to see how magic is treated in other lands.”
“I hope you’ve written this all down somewhere,” she said. “For posterity and all.”
He tapped the side of his head. “I keep it someplace safe.” Lila snorted. Her attention drifted back to Sol-in-Ar. Men talked, and men at sea talked more than most. “Is it true what they say?”
“I wouldn’t know, Master Elsor. I don’t stay apprised.”
She doubted he was half as naive as he seemed. “That Lord Sol-in-Ar wants to overthrow his brother and start a war?”
Tieren brought his hand down on her shoulder, his grip surprisingly firm. “Mind that tongue of yours,” he said quietly. “There are too many ears for such careless remarks.”
They watched the rest of the match in silence. It didn’t last long.
Alucard was a blur of light, his helmet winking in the sun as he spun behind a boulder and around the other side. Lila watched, mesmerized, as he lifted his hands, and the earth around him shot forward.
Otto pulled his fire around him like a shell, shielding front and back and every side. Which was great, except he obviously couldn’t see through the blaze, so he didn’t notice the moment the earth changed direction and flew up into the air, pulling itself together into clods before it fell, not with ordinary force, but raining down in a blur. The crowd gasped, and the Veskan looked up too late. His hands shot skyward, and so did the fire, but not fast enough; three of the missiles found their mark, colliding with shoulder and forearm and knee hard enough to shatter the armor plates.
In a burst of light, the match was over.
An official—a priest, judging by his white robes—held a gold ring to his lips and said, “Alucard Emery advances!”
The crowd thundered with applause, and Lila looked up at the royal platform, but the prince was gone. She glanced around, already knowing that Tieren was, too. Trumpets sounded from the central arena. Lila saw that Jinnar had advanced. She scanned the list for the central arena’s next match.
Tas-on-Mir, read the top name, and just below it, Kamerov.
* * *
The magic sang in Kell’s blood as the crowd roared in the arena above. Saints, had every single person in Red London turned up to witness the opening rounds?
Jinnar passed him in the tunnel on the way out of his match. It didn’t even look like he’d broken a sweat.
“Fal chas!” called the silver-eyed magician, peeling off the remains of his armor. By the looks of it, he’d only broken three plates.
“Rensa tav,” answered Kell automatically as his chest hummed with nervous energy. What was he thinking? What was he doing here? This was all a mistake … and yet, his muscles and bones still ached for a fight, and beyond the tunnel, he could hear them calling the name—Kamerov! Kamerov! Kamerov!—and even though it wasn’t his, it still sent a fresh burst of fire through his veins.
His feet drifted forward of their own accord to the mouth of the tunnel, where two attendants waited, a table between them.
“The rules have been well explained?” asked the first.
“And you are ready, willing, and able?” prompted the second.
Kell nodded. He’d seen enough tournament matches to know the way things worked, and Rhy had insisted on running through each and every one of them again, just to make sure. As the tournament went on, the rules would shift to allow for longer, harder matches. The Essen Tasch would become far more dangerous then, for Kell and Rhy both. But the opening rounds were simply meant to separate the good from the very good, the skilled from the masters.
“Your element?” prompted the first.
A selection of glass spheres sat on the table, much like the ones that Kell had once used to try to teach Rhy magic. Each sphere contained an element: dark earth, tinted water, colored dust to give the wind shape, and in the case of fire, a palmful of oil to create the flame. Kell’s hand drifted over the orbs as he tried to decide which one he should pick. As an Antari, he could wield any of them. As Kamerov, he would have to choose. His hand settled on a sphere containing water, stained a vivid blue so it would be visible to the spectators once he entered the arena.
The two attendants bowed, and Kell stepped out into the arena, ushered forth on a wave of noise. He squinted up through his visor. It was a sunny winter day, the cold biting but the light bright, glinting off the arena’s spires and the metallic thread in the banners that waved from every direction. The lions on Kell’s pennant winked at him from all around the arena, while Tas-on-Mir’s silver-blue spiral stood out here and there against its black ground (her twin sister, Tos-an-Mir, sported the inverse, black on silver-blue).
The drama and spectacle had always seemed silly from afar, but standing here, on the arena floor instead of up in the stands, Kell felt himself getting caught up in the show. The chanting, cheering crowd pulsed with energy, with magic. His heart thrummed, his body eager for the fight, and he looked up past the crowds to the royal platform where Rhy had taken his place beside the king, looking down. Their eyes met, and even though Rhy couldn’t possibly see Kell’s through his mask, he still felt the look pass between them like a taut string being plucked.
Do try not to get us both killed.
Rhy gave a single, almost imperceptible nod from the balcony, and Kell wove between the stone obstacles to the center of the arena.
Tas-on-Mir had already entered the ring. She was clothed, like all Faroans, in a single piece of wrapped fabric, its details lost beneath her armor. A simple helmet did more to frame her face than mask it, and silver-blue gems shone like beads of sweat along her brow and down her cheeks. In one hand, she held an orb filled with red powder. A wind mage. Kell’s mind raced. Air was one of the easiest elements to move, and one of the hardest to fight, but force came easy, and precision did not.
A priest in white robes stood on a plinth atop the lowest balcony to officiate the match. He motioned, and the two came forward, nodded to the royal platform, and then faced each other, each holding out their sphere. The sand in Tas-on-Mir’s orb began to swirl, while the water in Kell’s sloshed lazily.
Then either silence fell across the stadium, or Kell’s pulse drowned out everything—the crowds, the flapping pennants, the distant cheers from other matches. Somewhere in that void of noise, the spheres fell, and the first sound that reached Kell’s ears was the crystalline sound of them shattering against the arena floor.
For an instant, the blood in Kell’s veins quickened and the world around him slowed. And then, just as suddenly, it snapped back into motion. The Faroan’s wind leaped up and began to coil around her. The dark water swirled around Kell’s arms before pooling above his palms.
The Faroan jerked, and the red-tinted wind shot forth with spear-like force. Kell lunged back just in time to dodge one blow, and he missed the second as
it smashed against his side, shattering a plate and showering the arena in light.
The blow knocked Kell’s breath away; he stole a glance up at Rhy in the royal box, and saw him gripping his chair and gritting his teeth. At a glance, it could have passed for concentration, but Kell knew it for what it was, an echo of his own pain. He uttered a silent apology, then dove behind the nearest mound of rock, narrowly escaping another hit. He rolled and came to his feet, grateful the armor was designed to respond only to attacks, not self-inflicted force.
Up above, Rhy gave him a withering look.
Kell considered the two pools of water still hovering above his hands, and imagined Holland’s voice echoing around the arena, tangled in the wind. Taunting.
Fight.
Shielded by the rock, he held up one hand, and the watery sphere above his fingers began to unravel into two streams and then four, and then eight. The cords circled the arena from opposite sides, stretching thinner and thinner, into ribbons and then threads and then filaments, crisscrossing into a web.
In response, the red wind picked up, sharpening the way his water had, a dozen razors of air; Tas-on-Mir was trying to force him out. Kell winced as a sliver of wind nicked his cheek. His opponent’s voice began to carry on the air from a dozen places, and to the rest of the arena it would look like Kell was fighting blind, but Kell could feel the Faroan—the blood and magic pulsing beneath her skin, the tension against the threads of water as he pulled them taut. Where … where … there. He spun, launching himself not to the side but up. He mounted the boulder, the second orb freezing the instant before it left his hand. It splintered as it hurtled toward Tas-on-Mir, who managed to summon a shield out of her wind before the shards could hit. But she was so focused on the attack from the front that she’d forgotten the web of water, which had reformed in the span of a second into a block of ice behind her. It crashed into her back, shattering the three plates that guarded her spine.
The crowd erupted as the Faroan fell forward to her hands and knees, and the water sailed back to Kell’s side and twined around his wrists.
