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CHAPTER SIX

HIT ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN

C oulson Faire was brilliant. A span of merchant tents in a vast field. On the far side of the field was the great castle that could be none other than Castle Luricht. The king’s castle.

I’d outdistanced Hamelin upon the road, and now walked beneath colorful banners. Writ upon them was the hamlet’s creed: The only portent, the only prosperity—the only god of men—is coin. Beneath it, a coin I knew all too well was depicted. Smooth stone on one side, rough on the other.

I forgot the risk of wandering alone in a place I’d never been, too mesmerized by the colors, the noise, the vivacity of the Faire. Aisling Cathedral suddenly felt as lifeless as a graveyard to this place.

In the distance, pyres burned, dancers moving around them. I could hear the fiddles, drums, but for every tent I passed, the sound of coins falling on counters, coins slapping into palms, coins clinking in pockets, was louder.

Coins, coins, so many coins.

If what the abbess believed was true—that the Omens took corporeal form and visited their hamlets—how the Artful Brigand must grin at his domain. The king’s castle was near, yet it was coin that reigned.

“Toss it. Oh—smooth side up. A good portent. Order more silks.”

“Nay, an uneven sum. A bad sign. Reduce the price or I will work with another vendor.”

“No, I will not pay. The coin fell strangely. I could be ruined.”

I tarried through the Faire, feeling close to Aisling Cathedral still, as if dreaming of falling onto a bed of coins.

Ahead, a few hooded Diviners and their accompanying knights came into view. I hastened after them, only to skid to a stop at the mouth of a stall.

A merchant was there, selling finely carved limestone busts.

“Did you make these yourself?” I asked in wonderment.

He was an aged man with thick knuckles and thinning hair who didn’t look up as he spoke to me. “Why would I sell wares ’sides my own?”

“Just a question.” I leaned close. The nearest bust was of a child, so detailed I could see the tiny chiseled marks between its teeth. “It’s extraordinary work. I wonder—is it a difficult occupation? Working with stone?”

The merchant snorted. “You gonna buy something or not?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Well then, Miss Questions, kindly sod off—”

He finally looked up. Saw me, leaning close to his work. Quick as a flash, he raised his lantern. “Aisling’s waters,” he murmured. “You’re a Diviner.”

He caught my wrist, bobbing up and down in my face, trying to peer under my shroud. “Didn’t mean to tell you to sod off. I’m on hard times, you see. My business, it’s failing.” He wet his lips. “But if a Diviner came to my stall, gave an endorsement, said that the Omens favored me, perhaps? That would be such a blessing.” His voice dropped. “Or maybe let me have a peek at your eyes. Everyone says that that is how the Omens reach you. Through the spring water, into your eyes—”

“That’s not how it works.” My pulse cantered. “Let go of me.”

He didn’t. He reached his other hand to my shroud instead. “Please, Diviner, all I need is a sign—”

And then he was thrown backward, falling with an ungracious thud onto the floor of his stall.

I felt a presence at my back—saw an armored arm. When I turned, my shoulder hit a breastplate.

Two eyes, unfathomably dark, combed my face.

Gods.

Rory didn’t touch his sword. He didn’t even appear angry. And that made him all the more frightening. He spared me one more moment of his attention, then turned it on the fallen merchant, rounding the stall to look down at the man. “What do you think, Maude?” he called. “Shall I take his hands, or his throat?”

I turned. Maude was behind us, along with Three and Five, who both held cups of ale. I couldn’t see their faces, but given the way they kept bringing their cups beneath their hoods, and swaying with laughter, I imagined they found the commotion, and my mortification, wholly delightful.

Maude shrugged. “Why not both?”

“Please.” The merchant whimpered, knuckles bulging as he held his hands in a steeple. “My business. The Diviner offered to—”

“We both know she didn’t offer you anything.” Rory raised his brows at Maude, then schooled his features, turning to me with the solemnity of a hangman upon the gallows. “Well, Diviner? What would you have? His hands or throat or both?”

“ Pith , you brute—none! It was a misunderstanding.” My voice was pitched at a shriek. “No need for violence.”

“Of course there is. He put his hands on a holy Diviner.” Rory pulled a knife from his belt and held it over the merchant, who’d begun to whimper. “Any last words?”

My jaw fell open. I was about to throw myself in front of the merchant when I saw the severe turn of Rory’s mouth slip. He wasn’t solemn—he was smiling.

“You’re—” My mouth fell open. “You’re joking ?”

Rory let out a low laugh. “Of course, you twit. You think I’d butcher him? In front of everyone? You really don’t know much about knights or Traum or, come to think of it”—he scraped his teeth over his bottom lip—“anything at all, do you, Diviner?”

Three and Five choked on their ale.

“Quit playing, Rory,” Maude said in a lecturing voice.

Suddenly the notion of violence didn’t seem so abhorrent. “You’re an incomparable fiend, Rodrick Myndacious. A truly accomplished asshole.”

Rory spun his blade in an arrogant flourish and dropped it back onto his belt. “Apologies. Just trying to make things fun .” He toed the boot of the trembling merchant. “Mention you saw her, and the next time I come to your stall won’t be so pleasant.”

The merchant let out a sob, and Rory stepped out from his stall, toppling a stone bust as he went.

I stomped toward Three and Five, intending to lead them away, but Maude had already slapped a coin in a passing merchant’s hand and pulled a cup of ale from his tray. When I reached her, she thrust it into my hand. “Ignore him. And drink.”

The ale was crudely warm, slightly sour, but its effect was acute enough. I drank deeply, and a tingle began in my stomach, my teeth, my lips. It felt better than being kissed by Hamelin.

“You shouldn’t be wandering the Faire alone,” Maude said, the picture of calmness. “Where’s your escort knight?”

“Don’t know.” I wiped my lips on the back of my hand, looked into my half-empty cup, and took another swill.

Maude persisted. “Which knight was it?”

“Uh-oh.” Five elbowed Three. “Someone’s getting flogged.”

“She was with Hamelin,” Rory said flatly, procuring his own ale. “They were waylaid in the glen.”

“You noticed me go?” I scoffed into my cup. “How nice.”

“Difficult not to,” Rory bit back. “What with the show you made.”

Like an ill-timed sneeze, Hamelin stepped into the walkway, followed by the rest of the Diviners and their respective knights.

“There you are,” One called, spotting me. She glanced at Hamelin and chuckled. “That was a quick roll in the grass.”

Hamelin turned a violent shade of red, then disappeared behind a row of tents.

Rory downed his ale, tossed his cup on the grass, and stepped after him.

“Ah, ah.” Maude caught his arm. “Wait for me.” She finished her drink, then the two of them quit the walkway, heading after Hamelin—but not before Rory dropped his mouth to my ear.

“Hope he was deferential in his hastiness.”

I watched them slip away, an inferno burning beneath my hood.

Then One was there, oblivious to my ire as she linked her arm in mine. “I fancy a dance.”

The knights led us, and we made our way to one of the pyres at the periphery of the Faire where music played.

“You know,” I said to One. “I think the king and his knights are not as decent as I imagined.”

“Likely not. No one is as decent as they think. Not even us. Not even the abbess.” She ran her hand over the brightly dyed banners that hung over the mouths of tents. “I wouldn’t worry over it. Knights are shooting stars, Six. They come and go. But you and me, our sisterhood of Diviners—we’re the moon.” She smiled. “We’re eternal.”

My spite for Rory, my indignity for Hamelin, quieted. If I am as indistinct as Rodrick Myndacious says , I thought as I looked at the other Diviners, their cloaks and shoeless feet just like mine, what a happy thing to be indistinct from them .

There were more knights by the pyre. Dancers, too. Music caught in the air. A fast tune, strummed by instrumentalists fixed around that blooming fire in the heart of the Faire. “Well.” One squeezed my arm. “Shall we?”

I hesitated, afraid that I was a bad dancer. That I would look stupid or less, somehow, like a Diviner. But no carpet felt finer than being barefoot on grass, and the song—a jovial jig—was telling me it wanted all of me, so I swallowed my timidity, let the other Diviners lead me near the fire, and began to move.

A few knights danced, strangers with happy eyes, but I liked dancing with Diviners best. Hands, skirts, bare feet. The thump , thump , thump of my pulse in perfect time with the music. When we twirled in bold turns near the licking flames, I felt wildly astir. And I wondered why . Why didn’t the Omens speak to me like this? In a melody or a spin or the heartbeat of a drum? Not in the spring, in dreams, where I was in pain and afraid, but like this, loose and infinite, when my soul was split open and thrown skyward in delight.

The songs played on, and the dancers thinned until it was just us Diviners. The pyre, I realized, was surrounded only by knights and the instrumentalists, as if it were our own private gathering. More ale, have pity, was consumed. We Diviners wove together, clasping hands. “This is better than any dream,” One said to me as we spun.

I held her hands in mine so tightly they felt fused together.

It was only when the fiddlers and drummers broke for respite that I realized how late it must be—how far the moon had traveled in the sky.

There was more armor in the field now, the rest of the knighthood having joined us while we were dancing. They drank and laughed in clusters, seated at the rickety wooden tables scattered near the pyre. Maude was there, and so was Hamelin, a shiny new bruise on his jaw that had decidedly not been there when I’d been kissing him.

Rory was there, too, talking with his fellow knights, smiling in a way I’d never seen—without derision.

My pulse stumbled.

A new song began. Be it from the ale or the dancing or the seclusion we felt—alone with the knights in a wide, empty field—one by one, the Diviners began to shed their cloaks. When I dropped mine, it felt like a burden lifted. A skin, shed. Gossamer caught the breeze, and I heard more than one knight let out an awestruck sound as our dresses, white and weightless, wove together.

Then there were hands in mine—a new dance partner. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes cobalt blue, his smile a crooked line.

“Will you dance with me, Diviner?” King Castor asked.

The others whistled and made kissing sounds as I took the hand of the boy-king.

King Castor, Benji , was surprisingly spry for all that fancy armor, and his hand on my waist was well trained. Either he was working hard not to grasp me too tightly, or he did not want to.

“Are you enjoying your interlude from the tor?” he asked as we spun, my dress whooshing around us.

More than I cared to admit. “It’s my first time away.”

“Really? How marvelous.” The king’s hand clasped mine, and we danced face-to-face. “I know my friend Rory did not give you an easy time about it. And you were right, of course, to force his hand to escort you for a night on the town. He owed you—well, I did.” He laughed, his words half digested, muddled as they came out. He’d clearly been drinking. “What I mean is, thank you for not saying anything about the spring water you found in our possession last night.” He spun me. “I’d like to explain my motives, but I fear it’s one of those things that you must see to believe…” He chuckled. “Rather like the Omens.”

We turned a final time. “I’d like to pay you back in my own way for your discretion,” the king said. “Wouldn’t want you to think me thankless.”

“You should be more concerned with the five bad portents you garnered than winning my esteem, King Castor.”

He laughed, bawdy and boyish.

I scowled.

“Oh, I’m not laughing at you—Six, isn’t it?” He grinned. “I admire your conviction. You’re wildly intimidating. I like that in my friends.”

He wasn’t my friend, and I would have told him so, but the song ended, and the king dropped my hands. “I’d like to pay you back,” he repeated. “If not for your esteem, then for Rory’s truly talented rudeness.” He winked conspiratorially. “How about a little game?”

King Castor swanned back to his knights, stealing a cup of ale and addressing them at a volume only the truly intoxicated can achieve. “Listen up, you ingrates. Before we return the Diviners to Aisling, it’s time for an age-old sport, practiced by even the most dignified knights of old.” He cleared his throat dramatically. “Rodrick Myndacious. Please step forward.”

The knights whistled, chided, and Rory came forward, laughing. It was a heartening sound. Deep and scraping and rich. He was smiling—sickeningly handsome.

His sneers, it seemed, he reserved only for me.

King Castor suddenly looked downright wicked. “Care for a little challenge , my friend?”

Rory’s shoulders were an atlas, every subtle shift a new course charted—annoyance, humor, pointed resignation. Meanwhile the knights, who were practically frothing with glee, began to slam their tin cups upon the table. “ Challenge him at his craft ,” they shouted. “ Challenge him at his craft! ”

The Diviners gathered. “What’s this nonsense?” Five asked, bemused.

“Don’t you know?” Maude was there, saddled up next to us, brow damp from dancing. “It’s a tenet of Traum. Every person in every hamlet has a craft. Be it combat or wits or handiness, a challenge to one’s craft is a kind of duel, a test of their skill—and more importantly, their honor. Only the gutless, bereft of honor or merit, deny a challenge.”

Maude rested an arm on my shoulder like we were old friends. “The virtues of knighthood are love, faith, or war. Rory must accept one of those challenges. If he doesn’t, the knights will chase him through the field. Naked.”

“Really.” My gaze sharpened. “And if he accepts the challenge?”

“If he loses, he does whatever Benji tells him to. If he wins”—she shook her head, smiling at the king—“Benji will have to strip and run naked instead.”

Three grinned. “Sounds like a happy ploy to get everyone’s clothes off.”

“Bless the knighthood.” Four cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Challenge him at his craft!”

Rory folded his arms over his chest—said something I could not hear. The knighthood went wild with applause.

“Oh-ho! Challenge it is.” King Castor stepped farther into the field. “All right, Rodrick Myndacious. I challenge you to your knightly craft of war. I say you cannot keep your footing against three assaults. If you can, I’ll happily concede my loss, shed my clothes, and howl at the moon. But if you falter a step or are knocked from your feet”—the king’s blue gaze found me in the crowd—“you must return to Aisling and have your future Divined.”

Next to me, Maude was grinning. “This should be good.”

“He won’t do it,” I said, clipped. “The man has made no secret of his revulsion for Aisling, for the Omens, for Diviners.” For me.

“I don’t know,” Maude said. “He might surprise you yet.”

“Well?” King Castor drank heartily from his cup. “Will you be stripping, Myndacious?”

“Three assaults to knock me off my feet?” Rory came closer. Smacked the king’s ale out of his hand. “Fine, you git, I accept.” He crossed his arms and planted his feet wide. “So long as I choose from whom.”

Another cheer echoed across the field.

King Castor clapped, then rubbed his hands together. “I may be seeing double, but I can still knock you over.”

“Not you.” Rory turned toward the pyre. When his gaze landed on us, Diviners all in a row, it narrowed. “Them.”

All eyes turned our way. And I understood then why Rory had called me a spectacle the moment we’d met. The knights were looking at us exactly how they’d looked at me yesterday when I’d Divined for the king. Rapt. Anticipating amazement.

Wanting a good show.

“Marvelous,” King Castor called. “And to sweeten the deal—” He extracted a sash from a nearby knight, then moved behind Rory. “He’ll have his hands tied.”

Maude laughed, sauntering away to join the king. “Too bad you don’t have that hammer and chisel,” she said to me. “He’s a stone wall.”

Four was all business. “Gather, shrews.”

We huddled together, six hairlines pressing in a circle. “All right,” One said. “Who’s gonna knock him over?”

“Just to have to Divine for him later? Pfff.” Three shook her head. “Not worth it.”

I disagreed. Heartily. “I say we pummel him.”

“Absolutely. He was very mean to Six. Let’s flatten him.” Five pressed a reproachful hand to her chest. “But not me, mind. We all know my hands are my greatest beauty.”

“He was mean to you, Six?” One popped her knuckles. “I’ll take a shot at him. My blood’s up from dancing besides.”

“We don’t even know him,” Two complained. “Not very generous to knock him over.”

“Hey,” Four bit back, “don’t get sweet. You remember our pact? Knights are strictly for fun. Give ’em nothing—especially generosity. We swore it under the sacred smoke of idleweed!”

Provided by this particular knight , I noted.

“Fine,” Two muttered. “Go ahead and thrash him.”

Three chuckled. “I don’t think we’ve ever agreed on anything so fast without a short straw. One, Four, Six—you’re volunteering?”

We looked at one another. Nodded. “Let’s flatten him.”

Our circle broke, and the knighthood hollered their approval as One, Four, and I stepped closer. They beat their cups upon the tables again and again, a steady bang , bang , bang —a new drum, goading us forward.

Rory looked us up and down, then faced King Castor’s devilish grin. “Who first?”

The king leveled a finger. “The tallest.”

One rolled her shoulders.

“He’s got an injury,” I whispered into her ear. “Left ribs.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“Trust me,” I murmured. “Left ribs. Hit him. Hard. ”

She stepped away from the fire and into the field.

The knights hailed her with more animated banging. Rory straightened his back, black eyes narrowing. “Don’t hurt yourself, Diviner—”

One slammed her foot into the left side of his armor.

The resulting noise from the knights and their cups made it impossible to know if Rory cried out. His face twisted, eyes screwed shut, muscles in his jaw jumping.

But his feet stayed firmly on the ground.

“A hit,” the king called above the noise. “And what a hit it was! You got two more in you, Rory?”

He sucked in a breath. Shot it out his nose. “Hardly felt a thing.”

One shrugged and skipped back to my side. “That felt shockingly good.”

King Castor’s finger, slightly wobbly, pointed once more. “The pretty one.”

Rory’s eyes flitted to me. But the King’s finger, the knighthood’s collective gaze, was trained on Four.

She grinned. “Let’s try a new tactic.” Four walked up to Rory. Put both hands on his face.

And kissed him full on the mouth.

Breath lodged in my throat.

The knights had been raucous. Now, their noise was cataclysmic. Four deepened the kiss, pressing into Rory, who stood so still I wondered if he was even breathing.

He didn’t falter a step.

It took too long for Four to pull away. “Huh,” she said, patting her lips. “That usually works. You’re going to wish it had.” She turned with a knowing smile. “She’s next.”

Rory’s gaze shot up. Crashed into my shroud. The effect was like ale, like idleweed. A low, hazy hum through my body.

Bang , bang , bang , went the cups. Four stepped back, and King Castor’s finger was aimed once more, a pointed beckoning that landed straight over me. “My Diviner,” he slurred. “You’re up.”

The Diviners pushed me forward. When I stepped into the field, the knights whooped in delight.

Rory watched me, his bottom lip still wet from Four’s mouth. “You look nervous, Number Six.”

I said nothing, squaring off with him. His shoulders looked even wider with his hands tied behind his back. But just like last night, he did not wield his width, his height. Indeed, he stood a little hunched over, lazy and indifferent but for his eyes—narrowed and menacing and trained acutely on me.

“Good of you, by the way, telling her where to kick me.” He sucked his teeth. “My adoration for Diviners grows by the moment.”

“Thrash him!” King Castor called from the sideline, smacked over the head a moment later by Maude’s retributing palm.

Rory leaned forward. “Go ahead,” he murmured. “Hit my side. Hit me where I’m weak. Hit me as hard as you can.”

“If I let you win,” I said, a little breathless, “you won’t come to Aisling for a Divination. I’ll never have to see you again. That’s a victory in itself.”

“Let… me… win.” His lips curled at the corners. “You are nervous. Why’s that, Diviner? Thinking of kissing me, too?”

“I’d rather put you on your back.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good ti—”

I sprang forward.

He was indeed a wall. A wall that had humiliated me. Mocked and belittled me. But even without hammer, without chisel—

I knew how to mind a stone wall.

Bending at the knees, I wrapped my arms around Rory’s waist. My thighs trembled and I shut my eyes. The asshole was heavy .

Teeth gritted, muscles shuddering, I pressed up. Lifted Rodrick Myndacious off his feet. Took a full step forward.

And slammed the two of us down onto grass.

The outburst from the Diviners, the knighthood, split the sky, cheers and claps and the bang of cups upon the tables a clamorous thunder. I was on top of Rory, hands braced in the grass on either side of his hips. Arms still trapped behind his back, he was helpless but to lie under me.

“See?” We were both panting. “I know how to have fun.”

The splinter in his derision was there again, thicker than before. Eyes wide and black as ink, like he could not fully believe what had happened—that he had been so thoroughly and publicly destroyed—he looked up. Searched my shroud.

But he couldn’t find me.

“You’re a fucking scourge.” He groaned, dropping his gaze to my mouth. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to kiss me?”

“And deny myself any pleasure?”

He smiled, startling us both.

One and Four lifted me off him. Knights swept up around me—there was music, applause. When I looked back at Rory one last time, I felt like Aisling Cathedral itself. Cold, beautiful, and disapproving. “I’ll see you in the spring.”