The crowd loves it, the terraces of spectators seething with excitement, cheering, chanting, and singing.
Just as I climb up onto the platform that overlooks Rings, Kalliarkos climbs up on the opposite side. He is working on his breathing to steady himself. His gaze strikes mine, a blow hard enough to rock me back on my heels where I crouch. He is running the best Fives of his life, showing he has what it takes to be a real adversary.
“You made good time through Traps,” I say in a low voice as I catch my breath. Even as I speak I study the layout of Rings: the pattern, the varying heights, the speed of the turning wooden rings, and the way they open and close paths that lead toward the victory tower.
“I had to risk the high leap,” he says in answer. “You know what will happen if I lose.”
I do know.
Up in the seats, half the crowd is on its feet. Even my father is standing, shading his eyes for a better look. On the balcony of Garon Palace, Lord Gargaron is waiting to see if I pass muster.
No step you take can be retraced. Yesterday cannot be revisited. That is what my father taught me.
Lord Gargaron saw a girl cheat to let his nephew win. I see how he has trapped me.
If I win, Kalliarkos becomes the puppet adversary his uncle means to play on the Fives court of palace intrigue, a poisonous scheme brewing in the heart of the kingdom. If I win, he will be thrust into a war between the nastiest and most ruthless people imaginable. They will rip him apart.
If I lose, Gargaron will know I cheated because I am better than Kalliarkos on Rings. My father will suffer because of my rebellion. Whatever hope I have to help my mother and siblings and to find Bettany will be lost because I will be sold to the mines to die. And Gargaron will force Kalliarkos to march out with the army anyway because he’ll convince everyone that I lost to let the prince they all believe is my lover win. Because I did it once before.
This is the choice my father had to make that terrible morning when Lord Gargaron came to our house, the choice that is no choice at all. Whatever promises Kalliarkos has made to me, he cannot keep them, no matter what he thinks.
Lord Thynos tried to tell me: Our Kal can inherit two thrones.
The world will never leave him alone. He is naïve to believe otherwise.
The Rings spin, and he hesitates, trying to unravel a pattern that is complex and dizzying because you have to shift heights and speeds. The fastest way through is already completely clear to me. Just as Lord Gargaron knew it would be.
So I make the break clean, as Father did, even though my heart is breaking.
“Kiss off, Adversary.”
As he recoils, surprised and dismayed, I leap into the spinning pattern. I throw in a few extra twists and tucks for flair. The crowd is dancing and singing to cheer me on, everyone on their feet. Deep in the crowd I hear a word rising as more voices take hold of it and lift it toward the heavens.
“Spider! Spider!”
My arms and legs burn with exhaustion as I climb the tower and grab the victor’s ribbon.
Only then do I look down. Kalliarkos stands at the foot of the ladder, mask off, face stricken.
“Jes,” he says in all bewilderment, although I cannot actually hear him. Everything he thought he had has been torn from him, and I had a hand in it.
On the Garon balcony, people are waving banners to celebrate my victory. I have won a trial at the Royal Fives Court, in the victory games celebrating my father’s success at Maldine. I have leaped from Novice to Challenger in one trial. I worked so hard for this and dreamed of it for so long but I cannot take any pleasure in my triumph.
I turn to face the royal balcony where the king and queen are applauding politely, yet it isn’t their notice I seek. My father stands at attention, looking right at me. I tap my chest twice, for I have fulfilled my orders. Across the distance, he taps his chest in answer.
Only then do I pull off my mask.
Let them see me for who I am, daughter of a Patron captain and a Commoner woman who loved and stayed loyal to each other until one man tore them apart for his own convenience. I need not choose loyalty to one parent over the other. I love them both and no one can take that from me.
Let them see me, a child of Saro and a daughter of Efea. Let them remember my face because I am going to win again. I have walked beneath the City of the Dead and discovered a buried heart that is still beating and still powerful. My enemies have weapons and magic and riches and ships and all the might of kingdoms at their disposal. But they don’t have me.
Below, Kalliarkos goes as blank of expression as a man who has woken up to find himself in a vipers’ pit and knows he cannot make a single twitch without being stung. Without looking at me he climbs down to the undercourt and into the pitiless maw of his uncle’s ambition.
