Page 10 of Court of Talons

I extend my shaking left hand, my chin up, the grubby tangle of my once-beautiful hair nearly overweighting me. There’s nodenying the band sunk into my bicep. It’s still wet with my blood, my skin scorched black around it.

“Ididn’twant it,” I say again, more forcefully this time. “I still don’t. Can…can you remove it?”

“Here?” Nazar’s face is implacable. “No. Without the unbanding ritual or a warrior to take on the sacred charge, only death can part a warrior from his band.”

“But this is a mistake.” I reach up for the offending band, my fingers digging into my ruined, blistered skin despite the spike of agony. “I don’t want it!”

“No!” Nazar’s horrified shout barely reaches me.

I grasp the band to wrench it free as scorching fire explodes through me, punching the air from my lungs and turning my bones to milk. I wheel back, dizzy with pain, and fall to the ground. I try to get up, but my legs won’t work, my limbs instead jerking at awkward angles, my hands, my feet, even my tongue quivering as I fight to breathe, to speak.

Nazar watches me shake uncontrollably from a short distance away, never moving.

At length, when my body ceases the worst of the spasms and merely quakes, he speaks. “I suggest you don’t try that again. If you need more incentive, know this: a forced unbanding ceremony is one of the most agonizing experiences a warrior can ever endure, both physically and mentally. Once you are separated from your Divh through any other act than the normal transfer of father to child, your heart will never beat normally again, your feet will never be fully sure upon the ground. It’s a weight like stones upon your lungs, a loss that keens forever in the depths of your soul.”

I bleat out a pitiable moan. I know of course that Gent was once banded to my father, but I’d been forced to remain deep inside the manor house whenever my father had summoned him. I’d only managed to watch Merritt work with Gent in secret—and never once had thought about the transfer process of the band, forced or otherwise. “How do you know all this?”

He grimaces. “I saw it happen decades ago, by order of the emperor. Only once, thank the Light. But it was memorable.”

“Right.” I groan with a last, indulgent whimper of abject misery as I force myself to face the path that lies before me. We must return to the Tenth House as fast as we can. Which means my father will see me. See me and know the extent of my betrayal. That I didn’t protect Merritt. That I allowed him to die and stole the band from his broken body, though I didn’t want it—didn’t know—could never have imagined?—

“Very well.” When I finally speak, I don’t recognize my voice. It’s dust and rocks and emptiness, which is all that’s left for me. “We’ll go back. The band will be transferred in this…unbanding ritual. And then I’ll—perhaps I’ll return to the Twelfth House and marry after all.” If my father allows me to live after my betrayal. I don’t hold out much hope for that.

To my surprise, however, Nazar shakes his head. “There’s no time,” he says flatly. “Your house needs soldiers, now more than ever. With the loss of these five, the Tenth only has five remaining fighting men—our strongest, but still nowhere near enough. The soldiers we need can only be found at the Tournament of Gold.”

“But…” I turn back to the field of the dead, forcing myself not to shrink away. “These were only marauders. They’ll scatter. No one will know of this attack.”

“No.” The old priest’s face is resolute. “These were not marauders. That arrow was shot by a house soldier.”

A new, impossibly colder wave of queasiness sluices through me as I think of the man I saw—the warrior in gold and black. “You’re wrong,” I declare. “That’s against the Rule of the Protectorate. No warrior would kill Merritt.”

My voice is resolute. Nazar isn’t Protectorate born. He came to us from Hakkir, the capital city of the Exalted Imperium, in the summer of my eleventh year, long after the deceit of my assumed role as Merritt’s younger sister had been woven into the fabric of our house. But even though he’s not native to our land, the priest knows our laws, our traditions. Still, I say the words aloud to scrub out his accusation. “It’s illegal for any Protectorate house to strike another house outside the Tournament, on penalty of death.”

“That doesn’t change the truth of this attack.” Nazar’s words are quieter now, though no less absolute. “These men didn’t fight foolishly but with set purpose. First the initial shot to take the warrior knight by surprise, ideally to kill him and remove his Divh from the battle.”

He motions to Merritt’s pyre with a curt wave. “Then the rush to kill our horses with arrows. Soldiers on horseback followed with swords and clubs—a swift and focused attack. That’s not the mark of marauders, Talia, hungry and desperate for food or weapons or silver. That’s the mark of trained fighters.”

“But…no.” I shake my head, outrage sparking through me at his stubborn denial. “No house kills another house’s warrior knight. It’s against the law.”

Nazar’s eyes remain fixed on me, bleak and hard. “It’s against the Light as well. But it’s what happened here. None of the attackers wore any symbol to betray their house, but those that fell told their truth. Their nails were unbroken, their bellies full, their bodies strong. They were not marauders. They belonged to a holding, and a wealthy one. It’s a question solely of which.”

“No,” I insist. Again, the priest isn’t Protectorate born. He’s wrong. I know he’s wrong—and I’ll prove it.

I wheel away from Nazar, stalking out of the forest to return to the battlefield.

The sight of the horsemen still laying on the ground shocks me more than I expect. I’d seen them fallen in the heat of the battle, but now, up close, it’s so much worse. I force myself to stare hard at the attackers who lost their lives in their cowardly assault…

And I see what Nazar sees. These men don’t look anything like the marauders who have plagued the distant holdings of the Tenth House. Those were rough-skinned outlaws, their hair matted and coarse, their teeth black. But these men…

For all that they wear no colors, these men look like house soldiers. They’re young. Strong. And above all, well-fed.

Which means someone with money and power sent them out here to do this. Someone ordered this attack on the Tenth.

And I saw a warrior who wasn’t wearing gray, I think. I saw a warrior in gold and black, a First House warrior in this very forest.

How can that be possible? How could I not have realized the danger racing toward us?

I hear Nazar step up beside me, but I don’t turn. I can see nothing but the image of the Tenth House in my mind, shadows drawing closer to it with every breath.

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