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“ T ennet of the Twelfth House!” Caleb says brightly, gaze darting from my face to the warrior’s beside me, who is most assuredly not the boy my father thought he was marrying me off to.

“I tell you plain, your name has never appeared in any official roll of the houses of the Protectorate, nor in the line of first-blooded and first born.”

He holds up his right hand to ward off Tennet’s obvious question.

“I know, because I made it my business to know two years back and more, in my studies to join the warrior class of the Second House. And yes, you’re right.

No self-respecting warrior would go about the business with only one arm, but it’s not as if I started out that way.

I simply had to make an adjustment along the path, as all great warriors do—as you did, surely, first-blooded and firstborn and all.

Shall we ride? Lord Protector Fortiss will be eager to meet you and to feed you and your men after your travels. ”

This virtual torrent of words does me the service that Caleb’s chatter has since the moment I met him. It gives me time and space to separate myself from the disasters of my own making and allow me to think.

“Warrior Tennet—no, Lord Tennet it would be, may the Light receive your father’s soul—this is warrior Caleb, banded in the great melee of the Tournament of Gold.

Now he’s in charge of training the new banded soldiers and their Divhs.

” I stop short of assigning my closest friend and staunchest supporter as a member of my newly formed house, but Tennet’s quick, assessing gaze rakes over Caleb with…

what? Dismissal? Calculation? I’m too churned up inside to know, but it’s certainly not wholehearted acceptance.

Yet another mark against him. The man will be covered in blacking stone by the time we reach the gates of the First House.

Then again, Fortiss also was quick to dismiss me when we first met, that day in the forest outside the Shattered City.

He saw me as nothing more than a bride-to-be on her way to her wedding, dressed for a life of passive, diligent service.

From the hard set of his jaw, Tennet still sees me that way.

Well, Fortiss learned the truth quickly enough. I’d make sure this hulking brute did, too.

“It seems the scant information I have received about the Tournament of Gold has been neither complete nor fully accurate,” Tennet replies, his words as neutral as a granite wall, despite his easy smile.

“We should probably start with your explanation of what exactly happened here, these few weeks’ past.”

“Then we talk and ride.” Now I wince at the gravelly rasp of my voice, though I shouldn’t care what I sound like, only that I can be heard.

Had my father’s aim been any truer when he sliced my throat all those years ago, when I was but a girl of seven, I would have lost both voice and breath in one fell strike.

Plus, what do I care that Tennet eyes me curiously as I speak, his sharp eyes dropping to my imperfectly covered throat? Can he see the ugly, puckering scar that peeks out beneath the fringe of my too-short hair that barely brushes my collar?

He looks too long. Not with disgust—but not with indifference, either. My stomach twists as I long to shrink away from him. Does he consider me gruesomely damaged? No longer worthy of being his betrothed?

Betrothed ! The word turns sour in my disfigured throat and, not waiting for the rest of them to move, I turn Darkwing roughly toward the First House and start out.

“Talk and ride, yes! Talk and ride. Two of my favorite activities in one,” Caleb announces, deftly maneuvering his horse between mine and Tennet’s, the two of them slightly behind me and to the left.

I fix my gaze on the spires of the First House while he tells the tale of the tournament, as only Caleb can.

“This year’s Tournament of Gold was destined to be life-changing well before it started, given the rewards Lord Rihad promised the warriors and their houses who turned out for it.

Promises of rafts of soldiers to the winning houses, exalted seats on the Court of Talons, and his favor at every turn.

We already had a fair number of combatants a solid two weeks out from the tournament, all of them setting up camp in the fields between Trilion and the coliseum, but Lord Rihad wanted more.

It was a time for all houses to come together and represent the glory of the Protectorate, and all able-bodied warriors who could come, should.

Begging your pardon, Lord Tennet. You verily had sound reasons for staying away, especially if your father was ill. May the Light receive him.”

Though he’s behind me, I can see Caleb in my mind’s eye as he turns to Tennet, equal parts somber and full of welcome.

I further imagine Tennet’s sour expression as his response follows hard upon.

“We received no such summons to the tournament, and it wasn’t for lack of watching the passes for any riders with word. ”

“None at all?” To my surprise and frustration at my own impulsiveness, I turn in my saddle to gaze back at the two men—who couldn’t look more different if they tried.

Caleb’s face betrays a curiosity equaling my own, while Tennet seems to only have grown more stoic in the intervening moments since he last glared at me.

“My understanding was all houses were summoned well in advance of the tournament. Merritt certainly knew of it, my father as well, for all that the Tenth had no intention of competing in the spectacle this year. Merritt was too young.”

“Too young,” Tennet echoes, never mind that Caleb beside us is barely fifteen years old, and clearly this tournament wasn’t his first. But Caleb isn’t the first-born son of Protectorate royalty. “And yet, you are a year Merritt’s junior, was my understanding—by your father’s own description.”

My gaze leaps to meet his and I see the challenge there, read it in the twist of his lips and the smirk behind his eyes.

“And you’re supposedly a boy of fourteen.

It would seem the contract forged between our houses was formed on lies and strategy, Lord Tennet,” I concede.

“Doubtless more truths will come to light before we’re done. ”

To my surprise, his smile deepens some, and something dark and fierce flashes in his piercing eyes before he schools his expression back to a mask of indifference. “Doubtless,” he murmurs.

The tension between us is thick enough to bring down a charging stag, and Caleb’s cheery voice sounds ever so slightly strained as he takes up his tale. I turn back in my saddle and ease Darkwing forward at a slightly faster clip.

“Once the tournament proper began, it seemed much as it always does—chaos, but controlled chaos, falling into the time-honored order of pit battles among the rank and file and exhibition fights of mighty Divhs to whet the appetite of the spectators. At night there was music and food and the camaraderie of a Protectorate who seeks a reason to come together and witness the glory of the warriors and their Divhs. Have you ever been to a tournament, Warrior…ah, Lord Tennet?”

Caleb either receives some sort of non-verbal response or determines that the good lord has no intention of divulging more information, for he immediately launches ahead, a baby shorebird flinging itself out of its protective nest to flap about in an unforgiving sky.

“Well! It’s a sight to behold. Warriors from houses across the Protectorate—not all, not all, but most—brought caravans of attendants, all of them setting up an unruly camp for weeks where goods were bought and sold, food and drink were celebrated, and music rolled across the plain.

When these warriors met upon the battlefield, their Divhs fought with them and for them, mighty creatures that would take your breath away.

Sandworms, winged lizards, fearsome lions, great horned beasts with powerful arms and legs—every combination of creature you could imagine. They came and they fought.”

We pass through the gates at the base of the mountain, beneath the sharp-eyed gaze of the guards at the top of the tower.

I stare up at those guards with as much mental force as I can muster, fully aware that the heat of the day and the cessation of rain, coupled with how near we are to the end of their journey, has loosened the mood and circumspection of the riding party.

The colors of their tunics are now plain to see, announcing them as Twelfth House soldiers.

I pray the moment we pass this station, the guard or one of his lieutenants will race to the top of the tower, signaling the watchers at the castle to warn them about their impending guests.

There need be no concern or undue security that gets triggered—these men are loyal to the Protectorate until they prove otherwise.

But given who is about to land on his doorstep, I suspect Fortiss will want at least a few moments to prepare a reasonable greeting, especially if Gent didn’t convey my message from earlier to Fortiss’s Divh, Szonja.

I would’ve preferred some advanced warning myself.