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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TAKE UP THE MANTLE

A n hour later, when the bathwater had gone cold, Maude brought me fresh clothes. Undergarments, two tunics, leggings, wool socks, jerkin. A belt for my hammer and chisel.

Leather boots.

Strange creatures, shoes. I held one up to the bottom of my foot. It was almost the exact right length. Someone had sized me up well.

I tossed it into the corner of the washroom. Donned the undergarments and ignored the rest of the clothes, opting for my Diviner dress. It felt profane, putting filthy clothes over freshly cleaned skin. But I was not yet ready to shed its encasement.

I did, however, wear the belt and my hammer and chisel upon it.

Maude tutted at my appearance but made no comment. She escorted me up staircases lined with books until we were on the top floor of the dormitory, standing before a tall chamber door.

A knight was there, trembling at the threshold. Next to him stood the gargoyle.

His stone nose was fixed upward. “What is the meaning of this, Bartholomew? I was roused from a perfectly fine nap.”

Maude sighed. “I figured you’d want your stone pet with you for the—”

“Don’t call him that,” I warned. “He’ll scream.”

“What are you whispering about? Why is your hair all wet and stringy?” His voice hitched higher. “Why was I brought in such a callous fashion?”

Maude nodded to the trembling knight. “You can go, Dedrick.”

He fled, and Maude stretched her lips with a thin smile and spoke slowly to the gargoyle, like he was a child. “You and Six have been invited to speak to the king.”

We entered the room, which was a richly furnished bedchamber. Like the Harried Scribe’s lair, it had a dome ceiling fashioned of glass. There were more shelves, more books, fine rugs, and a bed wide enough to fit five kings.

The gargoyle, like it was his own room, made his way to the bed, yawning.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Maude pointed at the large wood table in the center of the room. Three chairs were placed around it and three cups—plus one flagon—upon it. “He’s expecting you there.”

The gargoyle made a face. Pulled a quilted blanket off the bed, wrapped himself in it, and plunked into one of the chairs. I shot Maude an apologetic grin.

Her eyes darted between us, like she could not decide which of us was the greater oddity. “He’ll be here in a moment. Behave.”

She shut the door.

I hurried to the table. Pulled my chair close to the gargoyle’s and hissed in his ear. “I need you to comport yourself.”

“I have no idea what that means.” He sniffed the quilted blanket around his shoulders. “Sounds like something one does in a chamber pot.”

“ That. Right there. That is not a normal thing to say. Absurdity will throw the conversation off course, and I need clarity from this boy-king. For the next quarter hour, every time you feel the compulsion to say something peculiar, smother it.”

He sank into his chair and sulked. “You ask a great deal of me.”

A door on the south wall opened, straight from a shelf. King Castor strode into the room in a fine white tunic, a smattering of scabs across his face where the Harried Scribe’s ink had burned him. Midday light fell upon his head, and though he was not wearing a crown, his golden hair was resplendent.

He carried two things. That ratty leather-bound notebook I’d seen his first night at Aisling Cathedral, and the Harried Scribe’s stone inkwell.

I stood from my chair. “Majesty.”

“Six.”

Bow , I mouthed to the gargoyle.

He made a crude sound of flatulence and didn’t get up.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Apologies, King Castor. He was woken prematurely from a nap.”

“Say no more.” The king put the notebook and inkwell upon the table and took his seat in the last remaining chair, and I fell into mine.

Silence took hold of the room. “Oh,” the king said. “You’re waiting for me to speak.”

The gargoyle and I exchanged a look.

“Forgive me. It’s just—” Benedict Castor’s cheeks grew red. “This was Maude’s idea, talking to you alone. She thinks I need practice, saying things without her or Rory there to fill in my nervous pauses.”

“What do you have to be nervous about?”

That made him laugh. “Almost everything. But enough about me. You must have a thousand questions. Before we begin, however, an egregious oversight must be addressed.” He grinned. “You should really call me Benji.”

“You don’t find that disrespectful?”

“Rory does it. Rory for Rodrick, Benji for Benedict.” He shrugged. “It’s just a nickname.”

“An atrocious one,” the gargoyle muttered.

King Castor—Benji—to his credit, was not provoked. “Likely. But it fits me well.” He reached for the flagon, poured himself, then me, a healthy helping of ale. “Do you drink?” he asked the gargoyle.

“He doesn’t,” I cut in, swiping the gargoyle’s cup.

He pushed out his lips. Pulled the blanket to his chin. Five seconds later, he was snoring.

I looked across the table at the king. “This all feels very strange.”

“Traum is a strange place.”

“Not so strange that five women should vanish into thin air.”

“Fair enough.” Benji gestured at his notebook, then at the Harried Scribe’s inkwell. “Which would you like me to start with? The history of the Omens, or their magical objects?”

It was unbearable that I, a Diviner of Aisling Cathedral, should need to be lectured on either. “Magical objects.”

“My favorite.” The king brought his cup to his mouth, exhaling pleasure as the swallowed the ale. It was hardly midday—early for a drink. But the ale seemed to ease him. He took the Harried Scribe’s inkwell and dipped his finger into its ink. “As you know, the Omens each possess a stone object—the mechanics of which are rather simple. This one, like the Scribe said, never runs dry of ink. Stir it clockwise”—he began to swirl the ink—“then toss it, and that ink will transport you.”

King Castor flourished his hand like a performer upon a stage—flung black ink—and vanished.

He appeared ten paces away and bowed.

If he wanted me to clap, he could die waiting. “Like Myndacious’s coin.”

“Quite. All the stone objects have two properties. Transportive.” He returned to the table, finger back in the ink. This time, he stirred it counterclockwise. “And destructive.”

He poured the ink near the edge of the table, and smoke began to rise. The ink went red—scalding its way through the table—leaving a charred hole and the smell of burnt wood in its wake.

The gargoyle sniffed, sneezed, but remained asleep.

“The Artful Brigand’s coin makes more of an impact—I’m partial to explosions.” Benji rubbed some of the charred wood away from his ale and took his seat once more. “I’m not entirely sure how the other objects work, the oar and chime and loom stone, but I hope to soon enough.” He smiled at me. “They are the only pieces of magic in all of Traum. It is my desire to wield them all.”

What an arrogant little prat. “The stone objects aren’t the only magic in Traum. You’ve forgotten Aisling’s spring.”

“Ah—yes. To be transported into dreams is surely magic.” Benji was quiet a moment. “That spring is where it all began.” He reached for his notebook. “Which puts us squarely in the realm of history, I suppose.”

It was an ancient thing, the notebook. When Benji opened it, thumbing through the pages, I was assaulted by the smells of aged leather and parchment.

Every page was full. I glimpsed faded ink, lists and logs and maps and art—portraits and landscapes. There was very little art at Aisling, but I could tell whoever scribbled these was gifted at their craft. “Is this yours?”

“It belonged to my grandfather. Benedict Castor the First. He was the king of Traum before King Augur.” Benji drank deeply from his cup. “Have you heard of him?”

I hadn’t. “The abbess says kings come and go.”

“How right she is.” I could tell it troubled Benji to speak of his grandfather. His mouth had fallen, but he kept his tone light. “My grandfather’s hamlet was Coulson Faire, but he was an erudite, multifaceted craftsman—a man before his time. He was elected by the noble elders of the hamlets because of his familiarity with the economics of—” He grinned. “But perhaps this is boring to you.”

I was mid-yawn. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I was getting to the good part. My grandfather was a beloved king—until he wasn’t. I was five years old when he was stoned to death for heresy.”

I went still. “Oh.”

“You see, Six, there are two stories of Traum’s great beginning. The one your abbess touts before a Divination, and the one that got my grandfather killed. He wrote it here, in his notebook.” Benji ran his thumb over the pages. “I’m likely not as eloquent as he was, but I’ll tell it as best as I can.”

I watched his wide eyes, wondering if, behind my shroud, that was how I looked at the abbess: so eager to please. I suddenly felt a surge of pity. Benedict Castor was, after all, only a boy of seventeen, with everything in the world to prove. “Take your time.”

He hauled in a breath. “Approximately two hundred and thirty years ago, before Aisling was built, five craftsmen came to a tor. A thieving merchant—dubbed a brigand—a scribe, an oarsman, a forester, and a weaver. Traum was in discord. That part of my grandfather’s tale aligns with the abbess’s. The hamlets had no gods, no ruler, and were overcome by sprites. The craftsmen came to the tor in an attempt to unify. To decide who among them should lead.”

I had the gutting feeling whatever remained of my devotion to the Omens was about to crumble.

“They fought, of course. Choosing a ruler is never an easy task. The brigand was cunning, the scribe clever, the oarsman strong, the forester intuitive, and the weaver compassionate. Each thought themselves more fit to lead. But just when hope of accord seemed lost—”

He paused for effect. “Someone else came to the tor. A sixth figure, along with a foundling child. They led the craftsmen to the top of the tor, where a great limestone rested. From a fissure in that limestone, water leached, thick and slow and smelling of sweet rot. One by one, the craftsmen drank from it. One by one, they were caught up in a strange, liminal dream.”

I waited for more.

“After, the sixth figure gifted them with these—made from the same limestone as the spring.” He flipped through the pages of his grandfather’s notebook, then turned it, showing me an illustration of five distinct objects.

A coin. An inkwell. An oar. A chime. A loom stone.

“Each object carried magic great enough that the craftsmen no longer had to choose a leader among themselves—they all had power. Heartened, they retreated to their respective hamlets and used their new objects to obliterate sprites. But also, they whispered. Tales of magic, of dreams and portents and the spring upon the tor, abounded.” Benji opened his hands. “And that was how the Omens were created.”

I saw the pieces, like stained glass, come together. “And the sixth figure. The one with the foundling, who made the stone objects. That’s the sixth Omen. The one with no name.” My throat tightened. “The one we call the moth.”

“Indeed. Though if anyone were to know her name, surely it would be you.” He paused. “She’s your abbess, after all.”

The air in my body—the saliva on my tongue—went acidic.

“You saw what the Harried Scribe looked like. Stone eyes.” The king studied me a long while. “No one at Aisling shows their eyes. And the magic stone objects—the sixth Omen would need tools to carve them from limestone.” His gaze lowered to my hands—my hammer and chisel. “Those look quite old. Did your abbess give them to you?”

See what you make of them. Or what they make of you.

I didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

“It’s the spring, Six. The strange, magical spring, and the stone it bleeds from. That’s how the Omens came to be. No gods touched down into a dream. There were but six mortal craftsmen—”

I put up a hand. “And the story the abbess tells? That’s… what? Fabrication?”

“Not entirely.” Benji found a new page of his grandfather’s notebook and read aloud. “‘Traum’s histories are forged by those who benefit from them, and seldom those who live them.’” He looked up at me. “The abbess tells of a foundling who dreamed in the spring, because that foundling was indeed placed in its waters. The child drowned, dreamed—and Divination became a very lucrative endeavor. More Diviners were brought to the tor. In fact, Diviners and the Omens have always had a harmonious relationship.”

He leaned back in his chair and read another page. “‘Faith in the Omens is like a dream. Shrewd, yet shrouded. The signs from the five stone objects are plain, but the Omens themselves are never seen, smoke and mirrors and rumors, seemingly wielding these signs from everywhere at once. It is their scarcity that makes them sacred, their distance that keeps them divine, for only the privileged can access them through Divination, thusly making the master of Aisling the most potent of rulers, and the cathedral itself the most prosperous of markets. No one is above it—not kings, not nobles, not Diviners—not even the Omens. In conclusion: To rule the tor is to rule Traum.’”

“Swords and armor are nothing to stone,” I murmured, Aisling’s creed chafing my tongue. “I can see how your grandfather’s sentiments might be seen as… unorthodox.” Indeed, they made my skin crawl. “Precisely how did he come by this revised history?”

“Quite by accident. As I said—he was a scholarly man. He became obsessed with the history of Aisling, which in time led him upon a personal pilgrimage to see if the Omens did in fact walk among us.”

“Let me guess. He found one.”

“Not at first.” Benji grinned. “He found Rory.”

My brows rose. “Myndacious?”

“Good ole Rory.” Benji poured himself another drink and topped off mine, though I’d only managed a sip and a half. “He was only a child, and my grandfather caught him thieving in the gutters of Castle Luricht—”

“I’m sorry. What do you mean, gutters ?”

Benji said it plainly. “He’s a foundling.”

It took me five seconds to speak. “But he’s a knight!”

“Who began as a lowly little thief—just the kind my grandfather liked to talk to.” The king drank, then coughed in an attempt to hold in a burp. “He often said, ‘It’s the folk of the field or kitchen or the beggars on the street who know how to read the signs of life—not those heavy-pocketed nobs who go to Aisling for a Divination.’ No offense.”

I glared from behind my shroud.

“My grandfather gave Rory three gold rings and asked him if he knew anything of the Omens, here in Traum. And what would you know? Rory’s very master, who dwelled in Castle Luricht’s locked chambers on the castle’s highest floor, was an exceptionally singular man. He had fearsome stone eyes and stole all manner of coin and goods from Coulson Faire but was never caught on account of the tool he used. One that could send him through walls—or topple them.”

“The Artful Brigand,” I murmured. “And his coin .”

Benji drank. “A bona-fide Omen.”

“What did Rory do for him?”

“A number of things. Using said coin on the Artful Brigand’s behest, for one. Stealing spring water from Aisling Cathedral, for another.”

My mouth fell open, and the king grinned. “He was a cruel master, I’m told. But the Artful Brigand’s one redeeming quality was that he was a boast. He told Rory as plain as day that while Traum did indeed benefit from faith, it was the Omens who truly reaped the rewards. That as long as they had Aisling’s water to drink, they would live forever, doing whatever they liked. That the abbess paid them to walk the shadows of their hamlets, cloaked and mysterious, like mercurial gods might.”

I felt sick. “The abbess pays the Omens.”

“That was how my grandfather found them. First he smuggled Rory away from Castle Luricht, then he started his investigation. He tracked a shipment of gold from Aisling to a secluded spot in the Chiming Wood. Can you guess who the recipient was?”

This guessing game was infantilizing. “The Faithful Forester,” I snapped.

He noted my tone, eyes wide like a nervous dog. “She was a grotesque figure, the Faithful Forester. Woman, but also twisted—inhuman. Her eyes were hewn of stone. My grandfather demanded answers from her, but she would not heed him until he defeated her at her own craft. Which was… a problem for him.”

“How so?”

“Listen. I’ll be lucky if I end up half as clever as my grandfather was. But in one way, I am entirely like him—I’m useless in a fight. Which is why it’s important to have useful friends. And my grandfather did. A new knight from an old, noble family. A talented hunter, truly gifted with an axe.” He grinned. “Maude.”

My brows rose. “Maude killed the Faithful Forester?”

“My grandfather told her everything.” Benji drew his finger in a line over his throat. “And off went the Omen’s head. Only they never found that magic chime. To this day, it remains missing, hidden somewhere in the Chiming Wood.”

Benji’s cup was empty now, his hesitance to speak without his friends cured by the ale. He poured himself another. “After that, my grandfather was determined to unravel the conspiracy of Aisling Cathedral. To kill all the Omens, starting with the Artful Brigand. Naturally, the nobles of the hamlets did not like that their king was profaning the Omens. It implied that their beliefs, their creeds, their money, had all been spent on a lie. And since the sons and daughters of the nobles compose the knighthood, my grandfather’s own knights turned against him. Called him a heretic—accused him of taking up the mantle.”

And suddenly I remembered where I’d heard that phrase before.

The abbess spoke it before every Divination.

The king swore to be more supplicant than sovereign, that he would never take up the mantle of his faith for personal gain—never seek the Omens or their stone objects for his own power or vanity.

The king let out a labored breath. “My grandfather was brought to Aisling. Forced to endure a Divination. Five bad portents were Divined. After”—his blue eyes went cold—“he was stoned in the courtyard by the knights and the gargoyles.”

I bit down. Looked at the gargoyle, snoring next to me. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “He was Maude’s mentor. Rory’s deliverer.” His blue eyes flared. “And my namesake. So you see, Six, our hatred for the Omens is historical. Professional. Personal.”

I tapped my fingers on the table. “Say your grandfather is right about everything—that the Omens are mortal craftsmen who came to the tor two centuries ago and now playact as gods.” I spoke slowly, granting the question the import it was due. “How is it I dream of them in the spring?”

Benji thumbed through the notebook and found a page near the end, the scribblings faded with time. He pushed it in front of me.

I know not how the Diviners see the Omens in their dreams. It is a very strange kind of transportive magic. Indeed, there is very little I understand about Aisling Cathedral’s fetid spring. But the Artful Brigand, the beast, told young Rodrick Myndacious one essential thing:

There is eternal magic in the water upon the tor, and those who drink it are just that: eternal.

“It’s the spring, Six. That awful, rotten water. The Omens want it.” He nodded, as if coaxing me along. “That’s why I came to Aisling a week ago. It wasn’t for a Divination. We needed to get close to the spring. Rory stole the water like he used to for the Artful Brigand, and we used it to lure him out of Castle Luricht, then the Harried Scribe, here in the Seacht. The water…” He paused, his voice quieted by wonder. “It does something to the Omens, their bodies, maybe even their minds.”

What has been done to us?

I shoved the king’s notebook back at him. “I’ve been drinking that water since I was a girl. All Diviners drink it.”

The king fumbled with his cup. “Y-yes.”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

Red in the cheeks, Benji avoided my gaze. He looked like he wanted to throw himself into his ale. “I can’t be certain. But the Artful Brigand and the Faithful Forester and the Harried Scribe were, in some part, made out of stone—”

“You’re saying I’m going to turn into stone ?”

He shook his head so forcefully the table wobbled. “I didn’t say that.”

“What does your grandfather’s notebook say becomes of Diviners after their service?”

“Very little.” Benji drank, pressing his hand over the notebook. “His obsession was with the Omens, I’m afraid. I was hoping—” He looked up. “I was hoping we could find out together. That you’d help me achieve what my grandfather never realized.” He tried to smile. “I want you to help me take up the mantle.”

I stared. “That’s asking me to betray everything I’ve ever believed in.”

“Yes.” Benji peered across the table at the snoring gargoyle, then me in turn. “You believed a story, and that story was a lie. The Omens are not divine. They are mortals who are paid like kings to live like gods. Imagine where all that money for Divination might go if it wasn’t spent filling Aisling’s coffers or wasted in the hamlets on the Omens.”

I thought of the impoverished, wandering the Seacht’s streets at night. “But doesn’t some of Aisling’s money goes to—”

“Foundling houses. It does.” Gentle, his gaze. “Have you considered that may not be such a fine thing? Foundlings are but another source of income for your abbess—to keep the facade going.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

Benji leaned forward. He was young and a little unsure of himself, but I was learning by the second that he was not stupid. He could sense that I was beginning to crumble. “The Faithful Forester, the Artful Brigand, and now the Harried Scribe have been killed, their wealth distributed in a way that will grant me favor when the time comes. I can change the hamlets with that money, and my own reputation as a Castor as well. But if your abbess is indeed the sixth Omen, I will need more than money, more than Rory and Maude, more than a magic coin and inkwell, before I return to Aisling to confront her. She has her gargoyles—and hundreds of years of trust—beneath her hand. If I am not very careful, I will meet the same untimely end as my grandfather.” He smiled. “But then, he never had a Diviner at his side, did he?”

The king read a final passage from his grandfather’s notebook. “‘Faith requires a display. The greater the spectacle, the greater the illusion.’”

He snapped the notebook shut. Pinned me with his blue eyes. “Come with me to the other hamlets,” he said. “Wear your shroud. It will lend you an air of prominence. Speak those pious words— ever but visitors . No one will suspect me of anything untoward if a Diviner of Aisling travels with me. Folk of the hamlets might even look upon me with respect I don’t often garner.”

“Because you are young.”

His cheeks reddened. “Because the name Castor is of a deposed king. And I was likely chosen by the knights—and by extension, their noble families—to replace Augur when he grew too old because they believed I would work hard to rewrite my grandfather’s blasphemies.”

“But you’re determined to do the opposite.”

“I want to replace false gods. To be a ruler unbeholden to Aisling. Maude is my right hand, a knight of noble birth with great sway over the other knights and nobles of the hamlets. Rory is my disrupter, my heretic, my fearless sword. And you—” He looked less boyish. More cunning. “You could still be a harbinger. A holy signet of portents, of truth.”

“But for you instead of the Omens.” I sat very, very still. “So that you can kill them.”

“What the Omens are doing is not living.” The king’s eyes flickered to the pitcher of ale, but he did not pour himself another cup. “I’m going to reclaim their objects and sever their power. In time, I hope to reclaim the kingdom’s faith from the Omens as well.”

It was a compelling story. But it was hard to see myself in it. “I just want to find my friends.”

“Then come with us. Wherever we seek the Omens, we’ll seek your Diviners as well. The Fervent Peaks. The Chiming Wood. The Cliffs of Bellidine. In the meantime”—Benji put his hands together—“I can dispatch ten knights, today. They will venture forth with the sole intent to find your Diviners. How does that sound?”

I’d had mutton easier to chew on. “And if we cannot find either? Omens or Diviners?”

“Have a little faith, Six.”

As if he hadn’t just annihilated it in the Harried Scribe’s lair and here again at his table, with ale and a prolix tale of false gods. But the king seemed without malice—young and a little drunk, but determined. Indeed, the nervousness he’d carried into the room was gone, as if, in proving the story of his grandfather to me, he’d proven something to himself.

I stood from my chair. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. When would you need my answer by?”

“We leave for the Fervent Peaks tomorrow.”

I nodded, then stalled. “If you manage to overtake Aisling Cathedral, what do you plan to do with it?”

“Shutter it.” For the first time, the king spoke sharply. “There will be no more Diviners. No more dreams, no more signs.”

I frowned. Tapped the gargoyle’s shoulder. He stirred, half-awake, but accepted my hand without fuss. I led him to the door, stalling one final time. “There is a part I still don’t understand, King Castor.”

“Benji. Please.”

“Benji.” I paused. “Why did the Harried Scribe lick my blood off his floor?”

A cloud passed over the glass ceiling, marring the light and the illusion of a gold crown upon Benji’s head. “No one should live for hundreds of years,” he said. “The Omens may be mortal, but they have no humanity left. They desire Aisling’s spring water, and they’ll have it.” His voice quieted. “By any means.”

The room was wide, but its walls felt tight around me. “Then wherever they are, the Diviners are in terrible danger.”

The king nodded. “I hope we find them, just as I hope you will help me defeat the Omens.” He smiled, easy and boyish once more. “And I hope, in the vastness of the hamlets, you will stop thinking of signs and start looking to your own future, now that you are finally free of Aisling.”

Benedict Castor was too courteous to despise. But I resented that he was younger than me and had so much more knowledge of the world, and that clearly I, in my shroud and stupid white dress, bore only the appearance of insight.

I led the gargoyle out of the room.

Maude waited on the other side of the door. “Well? How did it go?”

“I’m going to look for the Diviners in the hamlets.” My voice sounded far away. “By taking up the mantle.”

The lines in her face tightened. “You don’t seem very sure about that.”

I handed her the gargoyle’s stone claw. “Will you find a quiet room for him and put a blanket over his head? He’s liable to break something if he doesn’t get at least eight hours of sleep.”

“What are you going to do?”

I picked my fingernail with the edge of the chisel. “Wander.”

It was early afternoon when I returned to the yard, the knell of swordplay drawing me like Aisling’s beckoning bells.

The knights were still training. Two of them. The quadrant had been diminished—it was an open square now. Dirt rubbed into my freshly washed feet as I came into the yard, standing at the lip of the square to watch the spectacle with everyone else.

They were evenly fitted in body and weapon, the two sparring knights—each wielding a sword. I couldn’t see their faces behind their helmets, but there was something distinct about the taller knight. The way he bent at the knees, like he was too lazy to stand to full height. And his shoulders, his back, long and broad—

I was growing familiar, even in armor, with the lines of Rory’s back.

They parried, Rory’s combatant the aggressor, his sword thrusting, answered and deflected every time. They churned through the yard, a chorus of clatter and force.

And then Rory was upon him.

He was ruthless. Unearthly in speed, in vehemence. Like he wanted, needed, to unbridle himself. I felt the strikes of his sword in my flesh and the bones beneath, a shocking reverberation, like when my chisel broke through stone.

Swords weren’t the only thing they wielded—their armor was its own kind of weapon. Rory’s opponent struck him in the shoulder, the jaw, with his gauntlet. The next time he tried, Rory caught both his forearms, denying him leverage—only to be hit on the chin by his opponent’s helmet.

Rory stumbled, and my heart kicked. He shook his head, steadied himself, then, with another lazy tilt of his long body—

He sprang forward.

His shoulder collided with his opponent’s breastplate, and his arms wrapped around to catch the man behind his thighs. Their feet dragged through the yard, his opponent landing blow after blow along Rory’s shoulders and back. I could see his legs trembling, hear the hot sound of his breaths, his torrid gasps, as he held on to his opponent’s legs. Rory kept pushing, kept pressing up—

Until he’d slammed the both of them down onto dirt.

Cheers erupted around me. I barely heard them. I was transfixed.

Swords abandoned, the two of them rolled, laying elbows, fists, into one another, armor screeching its discontent. I hadn’t seen knights fight before. Never seen their armor, their weapons, as anything but ornaments. I hadn’t realized so much of combat happened like this. On the ground, in the dirt.

Rory came up on top, trapping his opponent with his abdomen, his legs, his crushing pelvis. Once more he leaned forward, putting his weight into his arm, laying it like an iron bar over the other man’s neck. He was dealt more blows—soldiered more assaults to his back, shoulders, ribs. But he did not withdraw his arm. A moment later, the fallen knight tapped the ground three times.

The yard roared with ovation.

Rory’s body went loose. He raised himself to his knees, then his feet, heaving and panting. He offered his hand to his fellow combatant, brought him to a stand, and the two jostled shoulders playfully. I heard the sound of laughter, and then Rory was removing his helmet, black hair catching the light, sticking to the sweat on his brow. He seemed at ease, like whatever disquiet warring within him had been spent in combat—

And then he saw me.

He went still, mouth half-open. There was blood on his bottom lip. Some near his left brow as well. The charcoal around his eyes was smeared, staining his sweat black. I’d never seen a knight so filthy—so physically degraded by his craft. He looked entirely ignoble.

I couldn’t look away.

“Diviner.”

I jumped. A knight stood to my left, his helmet under his arm. It took me a moment to tear my gaze off Rory and recognize him. “Oh. Hamelin, isn’t it?”

He gave half a smile. “And you’re—well, you’re Six. Obviously I don’t know your real name.”

“Tried to, though.”

He laughed. “Sorry about that. I felt a little guilty for asking. Especially after I’d, you know…” He ran his hand down the back of his neck. “Ruined the moment with talk.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now.”

My lack of insult, or interest, seemed to bolster him. He put on the charm, setting those perfectly straight teeth to good use with a blinding smile. “I’d do it differently, you know. If you ever had it in mind to try me again, I’d—”

“Hamelin.”

We both turned. Rory, slouched and lazy, arms crossed over his chest, was watching his fellow knight with so much blackness his eyes looked like open graves. “You and Rothspar are up next.”

“I’m talking.”

“Not anymore. Put your fucking helmet on.”

Hamelin’s smile waned. He took a step back from me. “Right. I should really—”

I didn’t watch him go. My gaze was on Rory. On his bloodied lip. He kept his eyes on me, too, then lifted his hand. Curled a single, beckoning finger.

I joined him in the heart of the yard. “Quite the spectacle.”

He was still breathing hard from combat. “You’ve spoken with Benji?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“He’s answered your questions?”

“As well as he’s fit to.”

His eyes narrowed. “And?”

“And…” My gaze fell to my bare feet. “What would you have me say? I have nowhere to go but forward.”

“Then you’ve agreed to come with us.”

“I will. To find the Diviners, I will.”

I watched his throat work, like he was swallowing what I’d said. Then he jerked his head. “Follow me.”

“Where?”

He was working the straps of his armor. Pulling it off himself as he left the yard. I muttered a swear and hurried after him. “Myndacious.”

“The knighthood leaves tomorrow,” he said. “Traum is full of danger. There are all manner of sprites.” He looked behind us to make sure no one was listening. “Not to mention the Omens . You’ll need better clothes. Fortifications. Better… everything.” It could have been blood. Or maybe, just maybe, I caught the hint of a flush in his cheeks. “I’m fitting you with armor.”