Surprised gasps and murmurs raced through the crowd.
Carys glanced at her brother far on the other platform. The nobility around him looked shocked at the idea of anyone from noble blood being treated as though they were the same as a commoner.
But that wasn’t all. “And since Prince Andreus or Princess Carys will soon be required to pass judgment on everyone in the kingdom, we in the Council of Elders feel it is only right that the winner of each of these first three contests be determined by all of you. Prince Andreus sits under the yellow banner. Princess Carys is blue. Once a competition is over we ask that you show the colors of the competitor you feel triumphed over the challenges they faced and best embodied the virtues our kingdom holds dear.”
Elder Cestrum glanced her way and smiled. Had she wanted to win it wouldn’t have mattered; the crowd voting ensured that she would lose these events. Andreus was the one who saved them from darkness and the Xhelozi that could have attacked. He was the one who helped the boy who had been dying in the street. Her brother was clearly the choice of the Council to win this competition. Perhaps they were hoping they could divide her and Andreus with this obvious show of favor for her twin? If so, they were about to be disappointed.
Carys smiled back at Elder Cestrum and resisted the urge to wave.
The Elder turned back to the crowd and announced, “The first trial will be held at the archery field. Prince Andreus and Princess Carys will get one attempt at each of the three targets to show whether they have developed the skills that every child in the kingdom is asked to learn. When Prince Andreus and Princess Carys arrive at the archery field, we can begin.”
“It seems I came to your kingdom at an interesting time, Your Highness,” Lord Errik said quietly beside her. “Elder Cestrum doesn’t appear to like you.”
The understatement made her laugh. “I did warn you that you were choosing the wrong side,” she said, walking toward the steps to the tournament grounds below.
“Wrong is subjective, Your Highness,” he called to her.
She didn’t look back at him, but she did smile as she walked slowly down the stairs to where two pages in black holding several bows and a quiver of arrows waited to escort her past the lists and the dueling pits to the archery station at the far end of the field. The only way she could lose today was if she won or if Andreus faltered.
Carys didn’t acknowledge the crowd as she reached the roped-off area. Large wooden targets with white circles painted in the center had been set up at three different distances. The first was only twenty paces away. The next was perhaps thirty and the last was at least twice as far. Many in the guard accurately hit targets in tournaments at least three or four times that distance. Carys wasn’t as skilled as they were, but her work with Andreus meant she could hit these with ease—if she planned on hitting them at all.
“Well, this should be entertaining,” Andreus said as he appeared with two pages trailing behind him. “Would you like to go first or shall I?”
“Why don’t you go,” she said, wishing he didn’t seem so pleased at the way the trial was clearly structured to favor him. If Andreus missed badly, she had to make sure she missed even worse.
“Very well,” Andreus said, selecting a longbow from one of his pages and taking an arrow from the quiver before setting himself at the line of the closest target.
Trumpets sounded. Elder Cestrum stood at the edge of the middle viewing platform. The rest of the Elders were behind him as he announced, “One arrow at each of the three targets. When the trial is completed, we will ask you all to signal which of our successors won this round and will be awarded a point on the scoring board on the castle wall. Now let the Trials of Virtuous Succession begin.”
The trumpets blared. People all around shouted and stomped their feet. They waved banners of mostly yellow. Andreus took his place in front of the shortest distance and raised his bow.
The arrow flew true and thunked into the center of the target, making the audience cheer. Carys picked out a bow of her own and set herself in front of the target. Her accuracy was greater than her brother’s. This was a fact generally acknowledged by both of them and proven by their hours together in practice. She would normally hit dead center. Instead, she took a deep breath, held it, and let the arrow fly so that it thudded into the knot she spied in the wood on the left side of the target.
Andreus looked at her with a frown as the crowd applauded her effort.
Did he want her to look a fool and not hit the target at all?
He turned his back on her, walked to the next target, notched the arrow and let it fly. Center again.
The cheers were louder. She heard her brother’s name shouted as she stood at the marker, drew her own weapon, this time picking a spot at the very top of the target to hit.
The arrow stuck exactly where she’d intended. More polite applause for her attempt as her brother stepped to the final distance. His arrow flew through the air and landed several inches to the left of the center circle he’d aimed for.
“Miss,” he said under his breath as he stalked by her with his bow and she took her place at the line.
Drawing the bow, Carys eyed her brother’s arrow sticking out of the target, then the center circle.
She sighted her target and let the arrow fly.
Thunk. It skewered the small yellow flower that sat at the bottom of the left leg of the stand. She turned and met Andreus’s eyes to let him know that she had hit exactly what she’d aimed for.
“What are you doing?” Andreus asked.
Handing her bow to the page, Carys looked toward the center platform where the trumpeters were again playing. “Only what’s needed,” she answered.
Elder Cestrum waited until the crowd was quiet then asked, “Who among you awards the point for the effort in archery to Princess Carys?”
More cheered than Carys had expected, but it was nothing compared to the thunder of approval and waving yellow banners that followed the announcement of her brother’s name.
Andreus beamed and executed a flourished bow to the crowd, causing them to cheer anew.
When the audience quieted, Elder Cestrum announced, “And the winner of the first point of the Trials is Prince Andreus. For the second event of this tournament, Prince Andreus and Princess Carys will receive quarterstaffs and assume their places in the fighting pits.”
“What? He can’t be serious,” Andreus said, quiet enough that only Carys could hear.
They had passed the fighting pits on their way to the archery field: a fenced-in section that had been wetted down so the dirt was now thick and sticky. In the center of the mud, standing four feet high, were two square platforms big enough for a person to take a small step forward or to the side. Anything more would send the person stumbling to the wet dirt below. Which was the idea. The platforms were close enough for the fighters to wage combat. For the novice fighters, the first to be knocked off his platform was the loser. The more experienced fighters often continued fighting if the fallen didn’t yield. Those fights typically ended in death.
The crowd murmured in confusion. Did the Council truly mean for the royal family to be seen . . . striking each other? It was unprecedented. Elder Cestrum held up his iron hand for silence. “The competition will end when only one competitor remains on his or her platform.”
So it was true. They were to physically spar with one another. Andreus looked ill. As well he should. No one would look with approval on a man who willingly knocked a lady down for sport.
Carys smiled. She had to hand it to the Council for creating a trial that would cause both her and Andreus to lose favor with the crowd. They’d succeed in that aim, unless Carys did something to change things.
“Excuse me, Elder Cestrum,” Carys yelled and everything went silent.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Are you and the Council of Elders requesting that I strike my brother?”
Elder Cestrum frowned at her choice of words. “Do yo
u wish to refuse the task, Princess?”
“I’m just wondering why no one allowed me to do this before,” she said with a smile. “It would have simplified my childhood.”
The crowd nearest to her laughed.
Elder Cestrum glared. Feeling a burst of satisfaction, Carys took the offered quarterstaff from a page and without waiting for her brother strode toward the fences that marked the boundaries of the fighting pit.
Andreus stepped beside her holding a long, thin wooden staff like the one clutched in her hand. The quarterstaff was something Andreus had never needed to work with in his required guard training, so it was a weapon neither of them had attempted before.
Carys removed her cloak and handed the heavy fabric to one of the pages, then walked to the entrance of the fighting pit. She could feel every eye on her. Everything inside her jumped and itched and yearned for a drink of the Tears that would replace the churning feeling inside her with a warm calm. As her feet sank into the muck, she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in nothingness. But she climbed the planks nailed to the side of the dirty platform and stood atop it with her shoulders straight. The crowd quieted.
Dreus took his place and the trumpets sounded.
Elder Cestrum’s voice boomed, “Let the second contest of the Trials of Virtuous Succession begin.”
Andreus looked at her with concern as he bent his knees and turned the long stick in his hands. Carys didn’t give herself or her brother time to think. She flipped the stick so she was holding it parallel to the ground and lunged at her brother. He deflected the blow, hopped backward and almost took a dive into the mud. She poked the quarterstaff at him again. This time he smacked his own stick against it with more force than she’d expected, which made it easy to make it look as though it was the blow that made her stumble to the side and fall off the platform. Her boots squished into the mud. She tried to grab onto the platform to keep herself upright but the quarterstaff she’d kept hold of sent her off balance and she went down to her knees.
The mud was cold and clammy and oozed around her legs, encasing them in muck. She waited for her brother to jump off the platform and help her up, but the crowd was stomping their feet and shouting his name. Carys had struck first. Andreus had no choice but to strike back, which meant the people could still cheer for their hero.
Really, it was almost too easy.
Plunging the end of the quarterstaff into the mud, Carys pushed to her feet. The bottom of her dress was heavy with muck, but she pretended it didn’t matter as she slogged out of the pen and handed the quarterstaff to the page, who gave her a look filled with pity. Was he sorry for her because of the mud or because she was going to lose again? She wasn’t sure it mattered. Pity was the last thing she cared about.
The trumpets sounded as Elder Cestrum called for another demonstration of support to determine the winner. Carys steeled herself for silence when her name was called out, but this time there were more shouts in her favor than before. And she saw several blue banners wave in the crowd, but the yellow overwhelmed them in numbers and, again, Andreus was declared the winner. Now he was two points ahead. She wasn’t sure how many were required to get across the scoring board in the Council’s twisted little game, but Andreus would reach that goal soon.
Elder Cestrum wasted no time in moving on, announcing, “The final contest in this first trial of humility will be an obstacle footrace. Prince Andreus and Princess Carys will run alongside six of the victors of contests held earlier today. A sack of gold will be presented to any competitor who reaches the finish line first, and the Council will ask for the final show of support for Prince Andreus or Princess Carys to award one last point for this first trial.”
The six other runners in this race were waiting for Carys and her brother when they arrived on the other side of the tournament grounds. The obstacle footraces often were run by men and women both, so Carys wasn’t surprised to see that two of the people chosen to run were young girls, streaked with dirt and sweat from their earlier competitions. They were wearing dresses that fell just above the ankle, which gave them better mobility. Smart. Carys itched to cut the muddy bottom half off her own gown, but it wasn’t her goal to win or to scandalize everyone watching.
The other four competitors ranged from young boys to muscular men who were twice her age. All but one of them looked at the ground or out at the crowd—anywhere but at Carys and Andreus. Clearly, this race with the royal family made all but the man with several missing teeth and a scar down the side of his face uncomfortable.
The blare of the trumpets meant it would all be over soon.
Carys caught her brother’s eye as they walked to the starting point and tilted her head to the side in a silent question that he answered with a smile. He was feeling fine. No tight breathing. No tingling in his arms. No curse, which was a relief. If they could get through this footrace without his heart seizing, they’d be able to get through anything the Council threw at them.
Carys took her place at the starting point, next to her brother and a boy of maybe thirteen, for the race that took up almost half of the tournament grounds. The obstacle footraces were always one of the most popular events since a person didn’t need to bring a weapon or have any specific skill in order to compete. And the obstacles meant being the faster runner didn’t necessarily make you the winner. It was often the fastest who raced headlong into obstructions without studying them first. Depending on the nature of each one, the result could be life-threatening.
Careful and clever often won over brute strength and fast feet. Carys had always enjoyed the obstacle races more than watching armored guardsmen smack each other with lances at the lists. Of course, that was when she didn’t have to worry about her brother running across the tournament grounds toward near-certain, impulsive doom.
“Let the third event of this trial being,” Elder Cestrum called, and the heralds blasted their horns again.
“Be careful,” she yelled to Andreus. Too late. He bolted with the others down the path marked with bales of hay and fences.
Carys raced behind her brother, who had pulled ahead of all but one of the other competitors. While she intended to lose, she had to stay close enough to Andreus to intervene in case he grew weak or, more likely, he misjudged the challenge set before him. She picked up her heavy, mud-caked skirts and awkwardly leaped over a log, then steadied herself before climbing over several more piled across the length of the path a few feet away. Andreus and the two young boys were disappearing over a shoulder-high stack of rocks when she heard a shout from farther up the trail. She cursed at her unwieldy dress as she searched for footholds and pulled herself up atop the wall of logs. On the ground to the left side she spotted the man who had cried out trying to escape from a spike that had impaled his foot when he landed on it from above.
“Watch out for spikes,” she yelled to the two girls and one of the men who were coming behind. From their slow pace, she doubted they were interested in risking the wrath of a future ruler by winning this competition, which meant they would probably be fine.
Wiping her forehead, Carys hurried past the injured man and headed down the path toward the water pit her brother was jumping over. Andreus landed with a splash near enough to the other side that he didn’t get very wet, with a boy and the man with the missing teeth hot on his heels. The boy yelped as he crashed down in the water a foot from the edge and scrambled to the dirt beyond. When Carys reached the water she saw the long, thin undulating black streaks in the water and the scaled head that rose above the water and then plunged back in.
Water serpents. A bite from them caused numbness that would fade after several days. Anything more would cause far worse damage.
Carys lifted her skirts and raced to the edge of the pond where the distance from one side of the water to the other was only three feet and leaped across. Distantly she heard the crowd cheering and wondered what was happening up ahead. Worried that she could no longer see her brother, she pushed hers
elf to go faster.
Her feet pounded the path as she hurried around a pile of hay bales, passed the boy who had been ahead of her, and spotted why the crowd had been cheering. Andreus had leaped over a flaming pile of coals and was now streaking toward a line of flags three hundred lengths in the distance that signaled the end of the race.
The man with the missing teeth jumped over the pile of hot coals, and was now running twenty yards behind Andreus. He was fast and looked as if he was trying to win the Council’s promised prize, but her brother was faster. She pushed herself harder and was about to jump over the coals when she saw it.
A knife. The man with the missing teeth had pulled a knife out of his pocket and was taking aim at her brother’s back.
“Andreus!”
The crowd. The distance. He couldn’t hear.
Carys dashed over the hot coals. She tripped over her hem as she fumbled for her pockets. Larkin’s design was true. The long, sharp knives came from their hiding places. The man slowed his pace and lifted his arm to throw as Carys used the motion she’d practiced so often in the underground passages and let the stilettos fly.
Andreus crossed the finish line and the first stiletto bit into the base of the man’s neck. The second sank into his back just before he fell to the ground.
12
The cheers.
The excitement.
And it was for him.
Sweating and panting hard, but refusing to slow down, Andreus had crossed the finish line. He held up his arms to acknowledge the spectators when he heard the first scream. In the crowd beyond the field, he saw people pointing. Everything around him went silent and he looked back to see what the problem was.
Carys was standing just past the fiery coals obstacle. He felt a spurt of relief when he realized she hadn’t fallen into one of the traps. Although smoke was billowing up from the bottom of her dress. Was that what the people were shouting about?
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