On the field below, the Ferens pressed the lone Harkan. Injured but still defiant, the warrior in black blocked a fierce blow from above while from the side a gauntleted fist pummeled the Harkan’s cheek. A second blow sent the Harkan stumbling. The Ferens pushed in for the kill.
Damn it all, Merit thought, this will ruin the games. Merit wondered if she should call an end to the match. It was within her right to end the contests, to declare a winner without further bloodshed. She raised a finger and the crowd’s gaze swung from the field to the platform where Merit stood. The people waited. A word would end the melee, but no sound issued from her lips—as there was no longer a need for her to act.
What’s he doing?
The highborn Feren in the silver armor had advanced across the ring and was attacking his own countrymen, clobbering one soldier with the pommel of his sword, sending the man crashing to the sand while taking the second man by the collar and tossing him outside the ring, ending his part in the contests. The last of the three Feren warriors, unwilling to raise his blade against the noble warrior in silver, dropped his weapon. The crowed roared as he scurried from the ring.
Clever man, thought Merit. He wants her all to himself.
Two combatants remained, one from each kingdom, the tall and powerful Feren in silver, the small and stealthy Harkan in black. Her head swung from one to the other, watching closely. These next few moments would be the critical ones, the moves that would decide the match.
The Harkan advanced, feet shuffling in the dirt, stirring gray clouds, sword gleaming in the light.
The crowd went silent.
The Harkan lunged with frightful speed, then faltered midstrike.
The crowd gasped.
Merit bit her lip.
Searching for an explanation for the Harkan’s failure, Merit noticed blood seeping from the black armor. Taking advantage of his opponent’s injury, the tall Feren struck at the wounded Harkan, disarming his opponent, putting his blade to the Harkan’s neck, ready for the kill.
“Halt!” ordered Merit. She swallowed an uneasy breath. “Show yourself!” she ordered the Harkan.
On the field, the Harkan angrily tore off her helm, revealing the face of a girl of ten and six years with close-cropped hair and brown eyes.
Harkana’s last warrior in the field was Kepi Hark-Wadi, second daughter of Arko, king of Harkana. Merit’s younger sister. I told her to stay out of the games. Merit had urged Kepi to sit alongside her on the platform, but her sister had little interest in Merit’s advice—little interest in anyone’s counsel save for her own.
The tall Feren took off his helm. His dark, wet hair was plastered to his head, his strong jaw lined with dark stubble. He was Dagrun Finner, the young king of the Ferens.
Below Merit, the crowd surged with anger at Kepi’s defeat.
Merit held her breath, waiting for Kepi to yield so that the match would be over, but her younger sister gave no sign, no indication that she would relent. Right, thought Merit. She isn’t going to make this easy for me.
The two combatants stood, unmoving, the Feren blade held at her sister’s throat, the crowd whispering, as soldiers from both sides began gathering at the edge of the field, ready for war. All eyes turned to Merit. But she remained impassive, unwilling to release her sister from her fate. Instead she caressed the folds of her blue dress as she watched Kepi shudder beneath the blade, watched her squirm while the crowd held its breath. Let Kepi worry.
When the moment had stretched for a sufficient time, Dagrun, the king of the Ferens, tired of holding his sword, let his blade nip her sister’s throat, drawing a sliver of blood.
Forcing Merit’s hand. Save her sister or send her to her death.
She had little choice.
Merit slashed the air with her hand, surrendering the match to Dagrun.
You won’t taste death today, Kepi.
After all, Merit had plans for her little sister.
3
“I should have gutted Dagrun while he held the blade to my throat,” said Kepi Hark-Wadi, the king’s second daughter, as she threw her black leather armor across the room so that it expelled a trail of blood onto the floor. It left a star-shaped stain on the dusty brown sandstone, a mark she knew her father would see, no matter how much she would scrub it later. “I’m fine!” she barked, waving off the consolatory murmurs of her waiting women, the worried clucking of the physician who wanted to see to the bruise on her cheek and the cuts on her neck and chest that were still dripping blood from her fight in the arena. “Leave!” she told the physician.
Kepi didn’t care about cuts and bruises. She seldom shied away from pain; in fact, if the words of her physician were to be believed, pain was the thing she sought most in life. Pain helped her forget. Whenever there was even the smallest chance of remembering her past, she would pick up a blade and pick a fight instead. Hitting things made the memories go away, and on occasion, taking a good hit did the trick as well.
She had taken more than a few hits in the arena that day, but her humiliation hurt more than the slash of any blade.
Merit should have let the king of the Ferens kill her; surely death was better than this. So close. She had come so close to defeating Dagrun. She could see it in her mind’s eye—if she had taken one more step to the right, if she had used her size and speed to react just a moment faster, she could have ducked his arm and come up behind him, caught him around the neck and pressed her blade against his throat, made him submit to her while around him rang the cheers of her countrymen. A Harkan victor in Harkana’s games. A victory against the people who had wronged her. She touched the cut on her throat and her finger came away wet with blood.
“My, my, look at all these cuts,” murmured the girl who was washing her.
“You’re black and blue,” said another. “You look like you been stompin’ grapes—like you’re covered in wine stains.”
“I’ve had worse,” Kepi said as she untied the last of her leathers. Around her, the girls fussed and fretted, cleaning the dirt and the blood from her neck and chest, bringing her fresh water and a clean gown, something suitable for the gathering in the King’s Hall.
“That’s what I’m going to wear?” Kepi looked at the flimsy linen dress and laughed without mirth. At ten and six years, slender as a teenage boy, with her wide shoulders and high forehead, Kepi was not as conventional a beauty as Merit. Her hair was a mossy brown and cut at the nape, short as a boy’s, and she had her father’s black eyes and thin nose. But Kepi cared little for her looks. In truth she had her own brand of charm, a beguilingly crooked smile, a brightness in her eyes, but as she was often standing next to her sister at public events, many found her plain.
“You’ll make a poor sight in the King’s Hall, in your fine gown and golden bangles, and that bruise blackening half your face,” said the girl who was helping her with her dress.