Page 8

CHAPTER

Eight

“T HIS IS ONE of those parties,” Cain Ballari said, “that everyone wants to be at, unless they’re here. It’s an anti-party. A party to make you hate parties. It’s like this snack bowl,” he said, stealing one from a passing servant. “Enticing from the outside, in a gaudy way, but look closer…” He tilted the multi-coloured porcelain bowl to reveal a handful of blanched almonds sweating feebly at the bottom. “Bleak.” He tipped the almonds into his mouth. “And tasteless. My compliments to you, High Scholar. I presume this was the ambience you were aiming for? Gaudy, bleak and tasteless?” He grinned at Neema.

That grin, that fake grin. So like the real one he used to give her, when they were teasing each other. But his emerald eyes were winter cold.

She softened her shoulders. Relax. Smile. She had prepared for this, their first encounter, more assiduously than she had prepared for her meeting with Yaan Rack all those years ago. What she would say, what she wouldn’t. How she would hold herself, in her exquisite gown. The confidence it would give her. Cain looked good in his black uniform, the half-moon, half-sun sigil of the Fox glowing on his chest. He looked very good.

She looked better.

Arriving late to the banqueting hall, it had taken Neema seconds to locate him through the dense crowd. He was chatting with one of his rivals for the throne, a tough, compact young Oxwoman called Tala Talaka. With his pale white skin and bright copper hair, Cain was like a candle blazing in the middle of the room. But even if he’d dyed his hair mud brown and skulked in a corner, Neema would have found him as fast. He might be a master spy, but he could not hide from her. She could write ten thousand words on the languorous set of his shoulders. Maybe she should. Unlike her previous monographs, people might read it. She could follow it up with a treatise on his hips. People would definitely read that.

Touching her amethyst choker for good luck, she’d swished her way over and said, “Hi Cain,” as though they bumped into each other twice a day. And Cain, ever adaptable to the moment, had said, “Oh, hello Neema,” and offered her that grin. It had skewered her heart, but she would never let him see that. She’d returned his false smile with one of her own—she was a courtier, she had several.

She would talk to him now, for ten minutes. She would be polite, calm, interested. Then she would glide away in her beautiful gown, fine, fine, fine, and avoid him for the rest of the Festival. An easy task. For the next seven days, Cain, Tala and their fellow contenders would be subjected to a series of punishing Trials of skill and endurance, set by the seven Guardian palaces in turn. Not to mention the daily fights in the Festival Square. Any spare time would be spent resting or training, or discussing tactics with his contingent. If Neema kept herself tucked away in the library archives as planned, she would not speak with him again, after tonight.

Looking out across the mass of brightly dressed bodies, she had to admit that Cain was right. This party was bleak, and it was her fault, because she had come up with the idea of using the first Festival as a template. Two years ago, Neema had suffered through a very long, very frustrating planning meeting with the emperor and Vabras. One by one, Bersun’s ministers had presented their ideas for the Festival, only for Vabras to veto them as too costly and difficult to police. Exasperated, Neema had said, to the ceiling, “Empress Yasthala knew what she was doing. Seven days, seven Trials, everyone locked down on the island. Done. ”

Bersun had banged his enormous fist on the table. “That’s it! That’s it!” With the next breath, he was instructing Neema to research the original Festival and work out how to replicate it. Even Vabras looked pleased—at least, he didn’t look displeased, which amounted to the same thing.

When Neema had complained to Fenn about the extra work later, he’d snorted and said, “I’ve warned you before about being useful.”

Bersun, carried away with the idea, had demanded authenticity down to the last detail. Yasthala had begun her Festival of the Eight with an opening ceremony in the banqueting hall. So here they were again, fifteen hundred years later, shaking hands with history. The same gilded mirrors on the walls. The same painting of the constellations on the vaulted ceiling. The same raised dais and gold-painted throne at the far end, awaiting the arrival of the emperor.

The difference was, Yasthala’s feast had taken place in the short, cold month of the Raven, with only a handful of courtiers in attendance, whereas Bersun’s feast was being held in the torch-heat of high summer. All the senior courtiers from the seven palaces must be invited, plus the eight core members of each contingent; key representatives of the High Venerant families; city governors, generals, admirals, judges… Neema had struggled to keep the guest list to four hundred.

And still they streamed in from the gardens—with more to follow when the imperial procession began. Usually, the banqueting hall was the ideal choice for large, formal gatherings. Set within the lush grounds of the eighth palace, it did not favour one Guardian over another. (For the Dragon spreads its wings wide and encircles all, and there is no beginning or end to its mystery.) Its lofty proportions regulated the heat and its sprung wooden floors—Fenn’s invention—were kind on elderly joints. There were a lot of elderly joints at court.

But four hundred guests… this wasn’t so much a party as a violent assault on the senses—the overwhelming smell of sweat and clashing perfumes, the furiously flapping fans, the dazzle of jewelled clothes, the deafening roar of very important people shouting their very important thoughts out of their very important mouths.

Cain brushed crumbs from his uniform—a black slab amid the swirling rainbow of gowns and tunics and sashes. Only contenders were permitted to wear full black during the Festival, their matching uniforms handed to them on arrival. Cropped trousers, a pair of martial shoes and a sleeveless tunic embroidered with their Guardian sigil. Rivals but equals. Tala Talaka had added a black headband to keep her short auburn hair from her face—a practical addition permitted by the Festival rules.

Cain’s uniform, though—was there something unofficial about it? Neema narrowed her eyes. If she didn’t know him so well, the way things looked on him, she wouldn’t have seen it. But now she studied him more closely, it was undeniable. The quality of the fabric, the depth of colour, the way it draped, the way it moved…

Imperial silk. An exact copy of his uniform, made from imperial silk . An extremely precious material, reserved solely for the rulers of Orrun and Helia.

This was reckless, even for Cain. If the Hounds found out they would arrest him. They were on the prowl now, watching for trouble. Neema sipped her wine. She could call one over. Cain’s bid for the throne would be over before it began. But he was a Fox, and Foxes liked to play games. With her Raven training, Neema projected a few moments into the future.

She stands like an empress in her glittering ceremonial gown. Diamonds circle the huge amethyst at her throat. More jewels on her wrists and fingers. She points at Cain, humble in his black tunic. “Guards! This man is wearing a forbidden material. Arrest him!”

Still projecting, Neema shuffled through the potential reactions.

Laughter. Denial. No one wants to see Cain Ballari brought low—unlike Neema, he is well liked at court. They turn on her, instead. The bitter ex-lover.

In her best projection, she is mocked for being spiteful, and the party continues. In the worst case, she is the one arrested, for attempting to discredit a contender. It’s the prison mines of Ketu for you, Neema Kraa. Where she dies in a tunnel collapse, screaming as the rocks thunder down on her head. No one attends her funeral. The end.

She returned to the present. The sounds of the party overwhelmed her, distorted and shrill.

Cain caught her eye and winked.

A timely reminder not to trust him, not one inch. Behind the carefree facade lay a shrewd, determined schemer. As he had once told her: “I have to work really hard to look this lazy.” Long before the official guest list was announced, he would have investigated everyone’s background, gathering every last scrap of information he could find, from their favourite ballad to their most shameful secret.

He would know that only a tiny handful of people would be able to spot the difference between very fine black silk, and exceptionally fine black silk. He would also know that—for a variety of reasons—none of them would mention it.

But why take the risk? Putting aside the fact that Foxes were transgressive risk-takers by nature, Neema could think of two reasons. The fabric breathed better, and moved better—a valuable quality, especially during a summer Festival. The second benefit was more subtle—the way it would make him feel, when he put it on. Like an emperor. Which was precisely why he was forbidden from wearing it.

“Something to say, Neema?” Cain taunted. He knew how much she hated keeping information to herself. The words imperial silk were lodged in her throat, pushing against her amethyst choker.

But: she had prepared for this. She selected another fake smile from her armoury. “I was just thinking how imperial you look,” she said. “In your silk uniform.” There. She had said the words, they were released. Not perfectly, but it would do. The knot in her throat loosened.

Cain smoothed his tunic. “Are you accusing me of something, High Scholar?” he asked, daring her to try. When Neema said nothing, he smiled. “Wise choice. You’re in no position to take the moral high ground, are you?”

Tala Talaka took a half-step back, dismayed by the jagged tension thrumming between them. Oxes searched always for harmony and connection. Also Tala was young, and optimistic, and liked to fix broken things. Furniture and farming implements, mainly—but she would give this a go. “How’s the wine?” she asked.

Neema lifted her glass in appreciation. It came from the Talaka family vineyard—a gift from the Ox contingent.

Tala smiled, revealing a gold front tooth embossed with the Ox sigil. When people asked her how she lost it, she always gave a different, one-word answer. “Horse,” she’d told Neema, the first time they met. “Sex,” she’d told Cain. It wasn’t the only dent on her—her mid-brown skin was as scratched and scarred as an old desk. Tala had grown up on her family’s vast estate near Utsur before entering the Ox monastery, where she had trained in construction. Those years of punishing physical labour had built up a natural strength and stamina that would serve her well in the Trials.

Neema and Tala talked about the ceremony, while Cain flagged down a fresh tray of drinks. Neema had to command all her will to keep her attention on Tala. She wanted to leave, but she’d promised herself ten minutes. So she stood there, trapped and miserable, and smiling. I have never looked so good and felt so wretched, she thought.

“Cain’s goading Katsan again,” Tala sighed, tilting her chin towards the Bear monastery’s contender.

Katsan Brundt was standing at one remove from their small circle, hands clasped behind her back, honey-blonde hair pulled into a painfully tight knot. Neema had tried before to engage the Bear warrior in conversation, hoping to learn more about the place she would soon be calling home. The only answer she’d received was a contemptuous, ice-blue stare. Neema could guess why. Gaida had spent several weeks at the Bear monastery during her travels across the empire. She and Katsan had become close friends, despite being rivals for the throne. It was not unusual for contenders to strike up alliances—but this went deeper. Katsan called her Raven friend “Sister”—a rare honour for one who had not trained at Anat-garra.

There was a famous, blunt saying among the Bears—“The friend of my Sister is my friend, the enemy of my Sister is my enemy.” Katsan had clearly taken this to heart.

Cain was pushing a glass of wine at her. “One sip. Go on. Why deny yourself on Festival Eve?”

“It’s not denial, Contender Ballari,” Katsan replied, in a clipped voice. “I choose to keep my head clear and my body healthy.” Like all who joined the fifth monastery, Katsan followed the Way of the Bear, an old, austere spiritual path reinstated by Brother Lanrik when he became abbot. On passing through the gates of Anat-garra, novices swore a sacred oath to give up all possessions and family ties and commit to a lifetime of service. Lanrik had also introduced a rigorous new diet of fish, pulses, nuts and fresh vegetables, designed to keep his warriors in peak condition for their long winter patrols. No alcohol was permitted.

When Bersun left the monastery to become emperor, he had resolved to keep to the same regime. Over time, he had weakened. Katsan had not. Neema had to admit the Bear contender looked the very picture of good health. Her rosy white skin glowed, as if she’d just scrubbed her face with a palmful of mountain snow. Edging towards forty, she was both the oldest contender, and most likely the fittest when it came to endurance. She was also by far the most experienced fighter, having spent the last decade defending the north-west fringes of the empire from brutal outlaw bands.

“A clear head,” Cain mused, weaving gently on unsteady feet. “Sounds unpleasant. Don’t you ever feel like letting go? Don’t you get tired of being so… upright?”

“No,” Katsan replied. She gave the group a curt bow, and strode off.

“That woman has a stick up her arse,” Cain said. “And not in a fun way.”

“You shouldn’t push her to drink if she doesn’t want to,” Tala scolded him.

“He knew she wouldn’t take it,” Neema said. “That wasn’t the point. He wanted her to think he was drunk.”

Tala shot Cain a confused look. “You’re not drunk?”

“He’s as sober as Katsan,” Neema answered for him. “But now she thinks he lacks self-restraint. And tomorrow she’ll reckon he’s hungover. At some point she’ll underestimate him, and he’ll press his advantage.”

Tala took this in, then laughed. “Eight that’s so devious. Suru!” She had spotted her daughter, toddling across the room towards them with comically fierce concentration. Suru’s co-mother Sunur followed close behind, letting her wobble and stumble and find her feet again. They were both dressed in rich shades of brown to honour the Ox. Even Sunur’s spectacles were framed with burnished tortoiseshell, similar in tone to her olive skin. Tala hurried over to join her family, kissing Sunur and tousling Suru’s hair.

Which left Neema and Cain alone, together. Standing so close that she caught his scent in the air between them. She used to press her nose against his neck, and breathe him in. He used to love that.

Stop. Stop.

She took a quiet breath. She was calm, she was ready. Ring the bell.

“So, I’m curious,” he said, from the corner of his mouth. “What’s it like to lose your only friend?”

She folded her arms. Really? “You may find this hard to believe, but I barely think of you from one year to the next. Sorry if that bruises your pride.”

“I was referring to your chameleon.” He smiled. Got you. “I hear he ran away. Couldn’t stand your company for another second. How tragic. Snubbed by a lizard.”

Another lump had formed in Neema’s throat. “Actually…” she said.

“It begins,” Cain murmured to himself.

“… chameleons are natural loners and hate to be handled, so I wouldn’t take it personally. But Pink-Pink didn’t run away. Which—just as a side point—would be highly improbable in itself. Chameleons tend to move in a painstakingly slow, jerky fashion.” To her horror Neema found herself mimicking the movement with her left arm and right leg, jolting them forward in tandem while rotating her wrist and ankle.

“Excuse me, I have to turn around for a second,” Cain said, and did so. Which was a shame, because Neema missed his first genuine expression of the evening.

“I’ve taken care of Pink-Pink for three years and he’s never tried to escape before,” she said, to his back. “ Someone took him.”

Cain turned back to face her. “You think I crept into your apartment in the dead of night and stole your pet lizard?”

“He’s not my pet, he belongs to the emperor––”

“Would you like me to creep into your apartment in the dead of night?”

She rolled her eyes at him. He was trying to unsettle her, first cruel, then weirdly flirty. Testing and prodding for any weakness in her armour. He never used to be like this. Was this who he was now? She had no idea. The thought made her impossibly sad.

“But you wore this for me.” He reached out to touch her dress.

She knocked his hand away. “I wore it for me. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Contender Ballari.”

“Not yet.”

Neema snorted, but it was possible. He could win the Festival, and rule them all. Emperor Cain the First. What an extraordinary feat that would be. A child sold to the Scrappers for dope, an outcast among outcasts, so far below Common you would have to dig for days to reach him. She could see in his eyes, in the way he held himself, the effort and discipline it had taken to reach this point. He had taken every bad hand he’d been dealt, and found a way to win against the odds, every time. And now here he stood, the Fox contender. She could only guess what it must have cost him to win that title, the battles he must have fought to scramble his way to the top of the pile.

If he were anyone else, she would be cheering him on. Despite the fact that every Fox ruler in history had been a howling disaster. To see a Commoner sit upon the throne for the first time, Eight, to even imagine it—was a thing of wonder. If he were anyone else.

She heard a distinctive, deep-throated laugh, rising over the roar of voices. Gaida.

“All your favourite people in one room,” Cain said.

That was the line that almost destroyed her, out of the blue. Cain knew how thrilled Neema had been to win her scholarship to Anat-ruar. How excited she was at the thought of being surrounded by like-minded people at last, of being part of the flock. Gaida had destroyed those dreams on her very first day. Neema had never stood a chance. Four years on her own, even more lonely than she’d been back in Scartown. Cain knew that, and now he was putting himself in Gaida’s camp. Of all the ways he could have hurt her, this was the least-expected, and the most painful.

She wouldn’t let him see that. She wouldn’t hand him that victory.

She glanced at the floor. The wood was reverberating under her feet from all the people jostling about, the servants weaving through with trays of food and drinks. The boards were painted with temple symbols and the sigils of the Eight, freshly restored for the ceremony. She was standing on an ∞ , as if she’d died and her spirit had returned to the Eternal Path, ready to take its next journey.

“Nothing you want to say to me, Neema?” Cain asked. And then lower, more honest. “Nothing?”

She looked up, and their eyes locked. They were the same height, always had been. As if neither could bear to lose that comfort of being at the same level. “Eight, look at the two of you,” her mother used to say. “A pair of bookends.”

“There is something.” Neema plucked a bowl from a passing tray. “These are not gaudy, they are vibrant.”

Cain’s shoulders settled. Maybe he’d been hoping for an apology, for something heartfelt. But pedantry was on its way, and he must endure it. “If you say so.”

“The mix of colours,” Neema continued, “matches precisely the stained-glass windows of the Imperial Temple, and as such offers a message of unity between the Guardians. As for the supposed ‘bleakness’ of the snacks, as you’ll see, this bowl is filled to the brim. You took a bowl that was going back to the kitchens to be replenished.” She handed him the fresh bowl.

“Shrimps,” Cain said, and started eating. He never turned down food, especially in moments of high tension. “Shal’s watching us,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Over there.”

“That’s what he does.”

Shal Worthy, contender for the Hounds. The man who had brought Yanara Valit to court, and escorted her on her Procession of Exile. Neema had read his report, before it was destroyed. The experience had shattered him, but since then he had transformed himself into a respected senior officer, training elite recruits at Houndspoint.

Neema stole a glance in his direction. He was standing a few feet away, listening politely to a mixed group of courtiers. He looked very different from the young sergeant who used to rough himself up to fit in with his squad. These days he was impeccably well groomed, in an understated way—dark brown curls lightly oiled, short beard neatly trimmed. Flawless brown skin. (A fan of Dr. Yetbalm’s Ultimate Face Saver Cream, Neema suspected.) There was no doubt the man took care of himself, but some of it was innate. Unlike Cain, Shal Worthy didn’t need the trick of imperial silk to look good in his uniform. It was the way he held himself, Neema decided. Katsan was rigid, Cain was louche and restless, Tala was solid and tough. Shal was poised somewhere between them all. Balanced.

“I don’t like his earrings,” Cain said. They were silver, and shaped in eternal eights as a sign of his faith.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing,” Cain admitted. “He looks great, it’s annoying.” He threw the last shrimp in his mouth and rubbed his hands over his Fox sigil. Half-moon, half-sun, blurring into each other. The Fox was the Guardian of Transitions. The Guardian of Neither Here Nor There. “Let’s hope he’s unspeakably vile under the surface.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“I bet,” Cain said, “that at the first sniff of power, he’ll betray his principles and break his best friend’s heart. People do that, you know. Unexpected people, who seem nice on the surface.”

“Or maybe,” Neema countered, “he’ll turn out to be a giant hypocrite who murders people for money.”

“I think it’s best,” Cain said, after a brief but ugly pause, “if we avoid each other for the rest of the Festival.”

“I think we should avoid each other for the rest of our lives.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Neema cast around the nearest groups, hoping to find at least one friendly face, and instead saw a commotion spreading through the crowds—people turning and hissing to each other, talking behind their fans.

The Tiger contingent had arrived, which meant…

Without thinking, she grabbed Cain’s arm.

Passing through the banqueting hall, ripples of horror, and disgust.

He’s here.

Next to the abbess. Look!

Eight. Is that really him?

Ruko Valit.

Even Yana would have struggled to recognise him. Nothing left of that eager, careless boy who’d come to the palace eight years ago full of dreams and optimism. He had melted himself down in the forge of Anat-hurun; hammered himself into a new and deadly shape. An iron-hard, grim-faced warrior, towering over his contingent.

Looks just like his father , someone said, and was quickly hushed.

It was true, though. Ruko was a few inches taller than Andren had been. He wore his black hair short, and he was clean-shaven. Otherwise, the resemblance was striking. The handsome geometry of his face, the golden skin. The dark, penetrating charisma that made you stare, and stare again.

“I’d definitely fuck him,” Cain said, in her ear. “But I wouldn’t hang around after.”

Neema was still gripping Cain’s arm. She let go.

“Look at him,” Cain said.

Oh, she was looking. It was looking away that was the problem. He was so perfect, it was disturbing. If Shimmer Arbell had painted him, she would have given him a flaw, just to make him human.

“Is that the Blade of Peace?” Cain asked, knowing that it must be.

Hurun-tooth, the cursed blade. Ruko was wearing it on his left hip, sheathed in a plain leather scabbard. Only the wooden hilt was visible, equally plain.

Cain tilted his head. “The question is, do we want an emperor who killed his own sister? I think the answer’s no, right?”

“You can’t talk about her. It’s forbidden.”

He slid Neema a scathing look. “And so much worse than writing her death warrant. ”

“Technically,” she said, because she could never help herself, “it was an Imperial Order of Exile.”

“Oh, I do beg your fucking pardon,” Cain muttered.

Across the room, a servant approached Ruko with a drinks tray. Ruko looked at her. She stumbled back, as if she had been shoved hard in the chest.

“Eight, I hope he doesn’t win,” Neema said, then cursed under her breath.

Ruko was staring at her. She waited for him to move on, but he kept his gaze locked on hers, hard and unblinking. The seconds passed into something intensely uncomfortable.

“Can he read lips?” she asked Cain. “Do they teach that at the Tiger monastery?”

Ruko curled his finger at her. Come. The arrogance. She almost resisted on principle. But curiosity won out, as it always did with her. “I’m going over.”

“Have fun,” Cain drawled.

The moment she was gone, he was surrounded by fawning admirers, fans flapping. Are you enjoying yourself, Contender Ballari? Would you like a fresh glass of wine? Look, I’m wearing orange in your honour, Fox contender, does it suit me ? Of course, he said. Of course, of course. My answer is always yes. More laughter, more flapping.

And all the while he kept one eye on Neema, walking away from him.