Court of Fives (Court of Fives #1)

How bad a sign is it that I have been cast back in with the beginners?

Darios whacks my butt with his baton. “Don’t let your mind wander. Don’t get above yourself.”

It is a warning. But I can’t explain to him that I am not a fool in a way that he’ll believe. Instead I shove everything else from my mind and let myself live within the menageries: cat, ibis, elephant, snake, dog, falcon, bull, wasp, jackal, butterfly, gazelle, crocodile, horse, gull, monkey, scorpion, horned lion, crane, sea dragon, firebird, tomb spider.

When I work that deeply I never notice anything going on around me. It is one of the reasons I am good. Only after we finish with the deathly menace of tomb spider and I have the leisure to wipe the sweat from my face do I see the people who have come to sit on the viewing terrace.

Three women sit in a row: one elderly, one of middle age, and one young like me. The elderly woman looks as brittle as a misfired iron blade; her back is as straight as if a rod holds her up. No ribbons adorn her silver hair; she wears it in a single braid. Her gold gown has the flare of fire sewn out of rippling silk. The woman in the middle is no longer young and not yet old. She has a plump round moon face and a placid expression and a way of sitting that makes it seem she has been there forever and will be there forever, perhaps having forgotten where she came from or meant to go.

The young woman is shifting in her seat and impatiently tapping her fingers together. Her hair is a tower of ribbons and arches spun out of thin braids woven with yet more golden ribbons, and it shakes and shimmers with each of her impatient movements. If not for the presence of the other two women, I think she would have run out of here already. She has a look of bored disgust on her beautiful face, or else ants are crawling all over her body beneath her clothes.

This is my father’s wife.

I cannot help but smirk. I have gotten the better bargain.

Above the women, with a more commanding view of the proceedings, Lord Gargaron sits beside men I do not know but who resemble him enough to be kinsmen: brothers, nephews, cousins. The youngest crows out a laugh and points to a sight elsewhere on the court that I cannot see from the ground. He has a voice like a bullfrog’s, oddly deep in so small a frame.

“There he is! Ha ha! Look at Kal swing along that horizontal ladder like a monkey! I thought you said he was no good, Uncle Gar.”

All the beginners turn to stare at the speaker. Upon realizing with horror that they aren’t to stare at the lords, they glance accusingly at me as if my torrid love affair with the princely son will get them whipped for their part in the conspiracy, and finally fix their gazes on their feet. It happens in such unison that I would laugh if I weren’t quivering because I hate Gargaron so much.

Yet it is hard to fight down the smile that wants to burst out of me. Gloating will give me away so I wear my obedient face, knowing I have saved them, beaten him, and won his nephew’s trust and heart besides.

Darios whistles. We hurriedly assemble in our ranks. Lord Thynos stands in the place of honor, befitting his Illustrious status. I am sent to stand with the Novices between Gira and Dusty. Kalliarkos takes a place on the other side of Gira now that he has decided to become a real adversary who devotes his life to the Fives and not a prince playing at being one.

Lord Gargaron and his kinsmen descend to stroll up and down our columns.

He stops in front of Kalliarkos. “Well, Nephew, the Exalted Princess your grandmother and I have agreed you will be allowed one last trial at Novice rank. I have enrolled you in the victory games at the Royal Fives Court tomorrow. Lose, and you go into the army at my bidding and under my aegis.”

“What if I win?” asks Kalliarkos, annoyance flickering in the corner of his mouth.

“What if you win?” echoes Lord Gargaron, the tone shaded so close to mockery that I tense. The frog-voiced boy honks a laugh. “That would be food for discussion, would it not?”

Only now do I notice that Talon is nowhere to be seen. Are they hiding her?

My distraction catches me up short. Lord Gargaron paces past me, halts, pauses, and turns back. When he glances at Kal and back to me, I know he has heard the rumor. He measures me with an insulting ugly frown. But I say nothing. I show nothing.

“They call you Spider now, so I hear.” His smile is thin and his voice is thin but he is a man whose power is as weighty as the City of the Dead crushing the past into rubble. “Tomorrow you will run the first trial, Spider. Appropriate for the daughter to run in the victory games held in her father’s honor, do you not think?”

He pauses.

I nod obediently although my mind spins a giddy whirl at the thought of running a trial at the Royal Fives Court. In front of my father! If I could crow aloud, I would. But I mustn’t forget that I am merely an adversary on the court and he is the one in the undercourt spinning the Rings.