Page 149 of Unrivaled
The group was gathered around Audrey and Kadan.Luca was nowhere to be seen.
“Them, and their allies.They aren’t all here.The attempt on the Duke last tourney?Luca.Theplague,Isolde—the plague.The man doesn’t deserve her.”
“That last part went without saying,” she said, her tone still even.“Tell me more.”
Themorewent on for so long.There were so many details.Yet those little details seemed so small, so silly.The meetings I’d stood before the door for.The Southern rebel asking for aid and focusing on…me?Kadan’s refusal to claim power.Brief conversations, loaded silences, quick shared glances.Luca’s infatuation with Audrey and the army he could access through her.
“I told her,” I said, reaching for reason.“I tried to, anyway.Not all of it.Not the details.I’m on the fringe, Isolde.I don’treally…but she didn’t want to hear.”I shook my head.“I’m not jealous of Luca, Isolde.He’s gotnothingI want.”
“Why would anyone be jealous of Luca?”she asked, frowning.
“That’s what Audrey thought.”I drew in a deep breath.If anyone could convince Audrey, it wasn’t me; it was Isolde.“She was…hurt.”I’d hurt her.But she wasn’t shrinking now.She’d recovered.She was okay.“Iama…” the wordprotectivewas the only one I could think of, but I wouldn’t use it.I’m a monster, too.Sometimes.I swallowed down the bile.“I want what’s best for her.And he isn’t it.”
“He isn’t even in the running,” Isolde said dryly.“Nor, might I add, are you.”
Heat swept through me again, the hideous combination of shame and hurt and rage.“I took myself off that field rather than hurt her.He doesn’t have half my grace.”
She grunted.“Noble of you.”It was said dismissively.For a moment I was a child again, invisible.The unreadable look she sent my way only increased the sensation.“You’re right, though.Does he know anything about poison, Chay?”
I struggled with the change in topic.“Poison?”I shook my head.“Not to my knowledge.”Before I could gather my thoughts, she vanished.
Relief rushed through me, driving back the darkness.
Audrey might be La’Angi’s beacon of hope, but it was Isolde who she trusted to scout the path ahead.
CHAPTERFIFTY-THREE
ISOLDE
Having a sorcerer was never a high importance to me.If they’re dying before I can get them back to camp, they’re not worth strategizing around.Still, Xander was useful, and did capture one.It was only an older woman, past childbearing age, dressed in nothing except dirt.Her hair hung almost to her knees and was quite vile.I begin to see why they die so swiftly, with not even cloth coverings.That these people call us enemy makes no sense.—in a letter from General Victor, Duke of La’Angi to General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough
23rdDay of Autumn’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 272
La’Angi Tourney Grounds
This year there would be no avoiding anyone’s roving eyes.Where previously Audrey had sat quietly and done her best to vanish into the cushioned chairs, this year she’d claimed the Duke’s seat and balcony.It had its own canopy to provide shade, and space around to have private conversations as well as the benefit of being able to largely ignore the irritating masses.
She didn’t take his throne-like dais, though.She’d draped her family crest over the wood like a soldier’s ceremonial sash, and she stood.
It had been the topic of much back and forth.What would it mean if she sat in his chair?If she had another installed for herself?If she brought up stools?
The tourney ran from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.It was a long day on her feet, but she did longer most days.Knowing she’d be standing there as a human banner, the tailors had outdone themselves.The stiff, triangular top of her dress was blood red, the fabric over her arms a gauzy red so dark it was almost black with a pattern that mimicked chainmail.By mid-bodice the color had started to lighten; when it reached her knees, it was stark, unrelenting white and flowed out behind her in big, rippling waves.
From loss came mourning.It was a reminder I didn’t knowIwould have chosen, but mayhap I came from a land where loss was too common, and grief felt like the cost of freedom.
She stood at the edge of the box, her hands on the intricately carved wooden rail, looking across the gathered crowd.I stayed back, my hands clasped in the folds of my own skirts.Where I was, the wind was broken by the canopies that protected the rich from the sun and the curve of the grounds themselves; my skirts only tugged a little.Hers rippled out like a standard bearer riding into battle.
There would be no speech from her today.She’d tried to figure out how she could possibly give one, but the reality of it was shedidn’thave the lungs of a field marshal.There were magical ways the rich made the poor hear their messages, ways to amplify sounds or carry messages across short distances, but she didn’t have those sorts of mages at her disposal today…and hadn’t thought it worth investing the limited budget in that direction.
“No one will remember you for keeping your mouth shut,” I’d warned her.
“It isn’t about them rememberingme,” she’d shot back.
A single rider walked his horse onto the field.The noise of the crowd increased as people craned their necks to see this next change Audrey had brought in.The announcers had already been circulating, telling people her message:A hundred heartbeats of silence for those fallen, and those forever changed.
It was smart.The burn of approval I’d felt when she’d told me her plans months ago had faded, but it was a new idea to these people.She didn’t have to get specific, this way.If people chose to believe she honored the soldiers fallen in the South, if they saw it as her tip of the head to the plague, if they saw this man in Raider’s Ban colors using Raider’s Ban traditions and thought it was an acknowledgement of her father’s attack on Kadan…
