Page 20 of Untempered
Henry’s shield took a blow, and with my head buzzing, I looked to Isolde. Her classically beautiful face was framed by a few wayward curls. Her lips tipped up a little at the corners as if in amusement, and her eyes were hard as stone, fixed on the field below.
“Your father’s watching you,” she murmured, the words barely making her lips move.
I swallowed down the bad taste in my mouth, breathed deeply, and found the core of calm in myself, and turned my gaze forward again.
My eyes were on the field, but I focused all my energy on my breathing, the flow of the cool air into my lungs, and the way it spread through my chest. I focused on the cushion beneath me, protecting me from the hard wood of the chair, and the strand of hair that was pulled slightly tighter than its fellows.
The crowd roared. They’d been given blood.
Isolde nudged me gently, and I saw Mikus approaching the edge of the stand, his blunt sword red, looking up at me.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my chest. I didn’t dare let it out, just turned my attention away into a far-off corner of the field where two squires were talking. I’d never given Mikus my favor, and I never would. I had some hard boundaries, and publicly supporting a brutal killer was, I felt, a sensible one. The crowd blurred into the distance, a ravenous wave.
They’d eat us all alive.
“He’s gone,” Isolde murmured. “The wind would be a kindness for those in a gambeson,” Isolde mused, a little louder, flicking her blonde curls out of her eyes as the breeze made them dance.
She was providing me with cover and, pitifully grateful, I took it. “Better than the rain last year,” I agreed, seeing Fiona disappearing in the direction of the Healer’s tent, her skirts in her hands and tears on her cheeks.
I assumed my father didn’t want them getting a mage academy, then.
Grimly, I turned my eyes to the remaining competitors. Someone called for my favor, and I barely heard them.
“That man of yours is causing problems, Victor,” I heard the King’s ambassador say, as if this was an entirely new concept.
“Mikus doesn’t know his own strength,” my father responded dismissively. “Accidents happen in these settings.”
“They happen more to some than others,” pointed out the ambassador.
Isolde shot me a fast, surprised look that I was too shocked to return. Someone had spoken—albeit subtly—against my father?
“Luck’s a fortune.” The statement drifted down to where we sat, and I believed it. “Smart men know luck’s always a factor. You have to plan for it, plan for it all to dry up.”
I heard Luca make a polite response and tuned out my father’s lectures. I’d heard that one before and would be able to cobble together a response should he call on me.
Somehow, the competition continued as if a man hadn’t just been carried off on a stretcher. I watched, filling my brain with the movement and noise.
Winners after the second round started more aggressively vying for my favor. I lifted a hand, nodded acknowledgment, sometimes offered them luck, and kept my ribbon to myself. I hadn’t decided on anything. I was struggling not to wonder if Henry had been alive when Fiona made it to his side…or if he was alive now, still.
This time, Chay didn’t fight until the lineup was almost done. My eyes kept going back to him.
I hadn’t noticed his horse the other day. I wondered if it was a piebald, like the one Kadan had chattered about. I wondered if they were close friends.
As if he knew I was thinking of him, he glanced up at me as he strode onto the field and met my gaze.
Even from a distance I felt the warmth of recognition, and my belly did a slow roll. Perhaps I imagined it, but it felt like there was a hush across the stands for a moment, then a flurry of whispers behind hands.
My father would be furious if I gave Chay my favor.
In my mind, unbidden, rose an image of Chay vaulting the rail as if I needed rescuing, and I felt the pace of my heart increase. I drew in a deep breath and exhaled the childish hope that would see me waiting helplessly for a rescuer who could only ever be a different type of jailer. Before me, Chay studied and deconstructed his opponent’s strategy, and at the end of the fight he strode off without so much as looking up at me, leaving me with the familiar, bittersweet feeling of being unseen.
“Hmm.” Isolde’s eyes narrowed as she watched him go.
The speculation in her look made me wonder if he was actually a contender for something other than jogging my childish dreams.
Another round passed, then two. How he actually fought was a mystery—what he did was lure opponents into making mistakes. He had stamina and patience. His footwork was excellent. The way he used his shield wasn’t ideal, but mayhap he just hadn’t needed it yet.
Still, something about that little oversight niggled at me. Mikus had the crowd screaming for blood twice more in those two rounds, and I ran through the various possible outcomes in my head, watching as the shields on the competitor’s wall dwindled.
