Just One Knight

by Bridget Essex

  “I betrayed nothing and no one. And if you’re going to—” I’m angry at how the pain is so obvious in my words, but my sister’s resolve falters a little when she hears that pain, and she reaches out, touches my shoulder again, this time with gentle fingers.

  “Tal, I’m sorry. Gods…” She runs her other hand over her face, and then sighs, long and low. “I thought about what I’d say to you, the next time I saw you. I thought about it so often. But it’s all coming out wrong now.” And then her face softens. “Just…tell me. Was it worth it, Talis? Leaving?” She searches my face. “Do you at least enjoy being a knight?”

  My throat tightens as I stare at my sister. Whenever we fought as children, we faced one another head on, locked in a fisticuffs, because we were both so evenly matched. We are always evenly matched, she and I, but—for this heartbeat—she has the upper hand. I know it. Her eyes widen as she glimpses in my face a flicker of something that betrays me, something that, at the very least, indicates that I’m not as happy as I should be.

  Because of course I’m not as happy as I should be, because I’ve fought, in the years that I left, to be taken seriously as someone who should be a knight. I fought and was ignored, fought and was looked over.

  I’m still not a knight.

  I’m just wearing the stolen armor of one.

  I’m a fraud.

  All of this flashes in my heart in an instant, but Tahlia senses that something’s not right. Rather than gloat—which the Tahlia of old might have, perhaps, done—she glances at me in concern, acknowledging my pain but not using it to trump me.

  It’s…surprising.

  She keeps surprising.

  “Talis…” she murmurs, her brow furrowed, “is there something the matter? Is…is being a knight not everything you hoped it would be?”

  There’s genuine warmth in her voice, and I glance at my sister, surprised.

  It’s been three years. I guess people can change in that time. No, I know people can change in that time, because I, myself, have certainly changed.

  So why does it surprise me that my sister carries empathy in her features now, a nobility to her countenance that our years as teenaged ruffians never led me to believe she could possess?

  I stand a little straighter, and I can hear the armor clink softly as I straighten my spine. My stolen armor.

  “It’s…it’s different from how I expected being a knight would…uh…be.” I clear my throat, and then I glance at Lellie, Lellie who’s been mostly quiet during this conversation.

  All she does is raise her brows to the heavens and down another glass of ale.

  Which is very mild for Lellie. So I’ll take it.

  “You didn’t answer, Tal. Are you going to come with me? Are we going to do this?” asks Tahlia, and her smile is so bright, so mischievous…so Tahlia. It was the smile that always got us into such deep trouble.

  “Steal back the ring?” I take a deep breath, rocking back on my heels. “So…we’d need to sneak into the city undetected. Have you ever been to Bright Coast? Mount Verlit City?”

  “No, and no, and neither have you. Unless things have changed since I last saw you?” She cocks her head, her eyes flashing as wickedly as her grin, for she knows I haven’t. I sigh for a long moment.

  “It’s the capital city of the Draco. The Draco, Tahlia,” I tell her, shaking my head. “They are the fiercest, most powerful—”

  “Isn’t that what they say about the knights of Arktos City? And I’m the Fox Queen. We’re not intimidated so easily as all that.” Tahlia’s grin deepens.

  “That’s, I’m sure, what our mother said, before she fell in love with a Draco,” I groan, running the palm of my hand over my face again, and then shoving my fingers back through my shock of hair.

  “Let’s do it, Talis. Oh, let’s go. Let’s do it.” And then my sister stands straight, defiance in every line and curve of her. “Let’s do it tonight!”

  I stare at her, my mouth open.

  “Come, come…think of it. It makes the most sense, don’t you see? We’re already together, we—”

  “Tahlia.” My heart races as I try to let her down as gently as possible. “Tahlia…I mean, I know our mother wanted us to do this,” I tell her quietly, and then glance deliberately back over my shoulder at Cinda. “I know. It’s just…right now is very much not a good time.”

  Tahlia glances at Cinda, too, and then her grin deepens—something I didn’t think possible. “Ah, but you see—the lady wanted an adventure tonight, Talis. And this very much qualifies as an adventure.”

  I blink. Cinda’s smile is cheeky and bright, and when she glances at my sister, she actually nods.

  “It’s true. Tahlia’s right. I…I’ve never been outside of Arktos.” Cinda says all of this in a rush, as if she’s trying to get everything out at once. “And since this is my first time out of the city…I want an adventure. And Bright Coast? It sounds amazing. I’d love to visit!”

  “Cinda, it’s not a visit,” I tell her hastily, softly, searching her face. “We’d be going in as thieves, we’d be robbing the lead general of the Draco. We could get killed.”

  Cinda takes a deep breath, pursing her lips. “Well. I mean we must be departing this life at some point or other. True?” There’s light in her eyes. “I don’t want to go to my final sleep covered in flour and nothing else. I want the dust of the road to be on my shoes. I want…” She takes a deep breath. “This is the best night of my life, so far. I want to keep it going.”

  “This is a little more than keeping it going—” I murmur quickly, but my sister is overjoyed at this development, and now that she has Cinda on her side, she knows she’s very, very close to convincing me.

  And I know it, too.

  “Tonight is the best possible night to do this,” says Tahlia, pressing a fingertip to the table’s surface. “It’s Wild Night in Bright Coast. It’s their yearly festival of masks and mayhem, full of dances and parties…” Her voice drops to a breathless whisper. “Sister, if we go to Mount Verlit City tonight, we’ll be able to sneak through the city undetected. The entire city is one big party. We’ll never be noticed!”

  I shake my head. “It’s not exactly the city I’m worried about. What about the general?”

  My sister gives me a huge smile before downing another tankard of ale. She was always able to hold her drink well, and now—when she speaks her next words—there’s not a hint of stupor or drunkenness to her. She’s as bright as a newly-made sword.

  “Ah, but that’s the best part,” whispers my sister, raising her brows. “For the queen of Bright Coast, and most of her best champions, are in Arktos City right now.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder, the general direction of the city. “For the Hero’s Tournament. The general is there. Uro is in Arktos, everyone who’s anyone is in Arktos for the tournament, so Mount Verlit itself, the whole damn city, is practically unprotected! They’ll never notice thieves.”

  I sigh. “But they’re Draco. ‘Unprotected’ for them means that there are only several thousand of their best women within the city, ready to defend it at a moment’s notice…” I turn my hand slowly in the air, “and snap up any wrongdoers and devour them.”

  Cinda’s smile—which, up until this moment hadn’t faltered a bit—twitches a little. “Uh…wait. When…um. When you say devour them—”

  I raise a brow. “I mean devour them. As in eat them.”

  Cinda sighs. “That’s what I was afraid you meant. Carry on.”

  “No, no, there won’t be any devouring. You worry too much!” My sister pushes off from the bar and slings an arm easily around my shoulders, as if no time has passed at all. As if it was only a day ago that we were up to mischief together, plotting and planning like we are right now. “Don’t you worry, Tal. The thing is, I have a secret weapon!”

  I glance sidelong at my sister, and I’m caught off guard at how happy she looks. I catch a smile from her—her grins are infectious, after all—and I allow her t
o pull me across the tavern.

  “A secret weapon? I’m almost afraid to ask,” I mutter, “but what does that mean?”

  “Ah, well. It’s more like a ‘who’ than a ‘what.’ But before I go revealing all my secrets…” She pauses in the very center of the tavern, her arm still around my shoulder as she gives me a side eye, her mouth curling upwards at the corners. “You still haven’t answered me. Are we going to do this?”

  Lellie, my poor, amazing friend Lellie, has said and done nothing during this entire exchange, but her brows are up now, and her arms are crossed, and she’s looking at me with a very easy-to-read expression: what are you going to do? Your move. My sister is also looking at me quite expectantly, and my head is reeling as I turn from both of them and look to Cinda.

  Cinda’s not looking at me. Instead, she’s glancing around the room again with a soft, faraway expression on her face. Her head is to the side, and there’s such a dreamy softness to her in this moment. It’s hard to explain—I haven’t known her that long, it’s true, but there’s been a surety to her, up until now. As if she always gets what she needs to get done. I liked that, back at the original tavern (what seems a lifetime ago now, but it’s only an hour or two, or is it more?), but I like this, too.

  She looks hopeful. Excited. Open to whatever may arise.

  My sister kidnapping her…that was rotten. Obviously.

  But here and now, Cinda looks happy.

  And when she realizes I’m looking at her, she shakes herself from her reverie, and she glances my way.

  And her smile. Oh, that smile. I want to bask in its bright, golden rays for quite a long time.

  I take a deep breath.

  “What do you think?” I ask Cinda, spreading my hands. “Do you want to go to Bright Coast?”

  “With you?” she asks, and she’s keeping her features carefully neutral, but I can tell the smile that’s hidden beneath. Her mouth is trying to curl up at the corners, and she finally lets it when I nod.

  “Yes. With me. And her. And her,” I say, raising a brow and nodding to my sister and Lellie, both.

  “Yes,” says Cinda, all at once, pure joy radiating from her features. “Yes!” And then she wraps her arms around me and pulls me into a tight, excited embrace.

  I can’t help but smile as I embrace her back.

  “I do suppose I’ll have to go with you. To make sure you stay out of trouble,” Lellie sighs, casting her eyes skyward.

  “You know that if this goes…south…” I murmur, “you’ll be implicated, too.”

  Lellie sighs for a long moment. “Obviously. But I can’t let you go by yourself, can I? Not with this one,” she glances daggers at Tahlia, “and you’ve just started things with your lady friend, so that’s no good. She needs to be shown a good time, right?”

  “I don’t know if this is going to be a good time. This might be a dead time,” I mumble.

  “Oh, don’t worry your pretty head! We’re not going to die. Because of my secret weapon!” My sister chirps this joyfully, stepping forward and when Cinda lets me go, Tahlia wraps her arms around my neck before squeezing the breath from me. “Thanks, Tal. This is going to be great. Don’t worry about a thing—we’ll get in, get out…it’ll be just like old times.” There’s a lot packed into the words she whispers into my ears before she pushes away, giving me a sidelong grin and ruffling my hair, just like she always used to do. Once, she did it because she knew it annoyed me. My hair has always been short, always misbehaving and fluttering about and spiky and ridiculous, but sometimes I’d get it just the way I liked, before she ruffled it into terribleness again. But, over time, her ruffling my hair became a sign of affection I begrudgingly accepted.

  It’s surprising from her now. We’re falling back into the old patterns, she and I. It’s…nice. I missed her, missed her fiercely—perhaps more than I might care to admit to anyone.

  “So, that secret weapon of yours?” I ask, running my fingers back through my hair in a vain attempt to set it all aright. I’m sure it fails.

  Tahlia steps back and nods her head toward a far back booth in the tavern. “This way. Let me introduce you…”

  I follow after her, mystified, and Cinda and Lellie both take their drinks from the bar and come after the two of us.

  I follow Tahlia through the darkly lit tavern until we reach the back.

  And there, in the final booth, is the woman she wants to introduce me to. Her “secret weapon.”

  “Hullo,” says said secret weapon, hefting her pint aloft and toasting us with a wide, toothy smile.

  This woman…she’s a Draco.

  Draco aren’t always easily identifiable. A lot of them have learned how to use glamors, like the fair folk, to keep themselves from being noticed, and a lot of Draco don’t really travel out of Bright Coast, so it’s rare to see them. Maybe someone looking at a Draco might not even recognize the signs. But I do. I’ve met Draco before, Draco who have come to the Arktos City palace, Draco who needed their horses looked after in the stables. I know them on sight.

  And this Draco? She’s not doing a thing to hide what makes her…her. She wears the signs proudly.

  There’s an internal heat that radiates from a Draco. They can breathe fire, even in their human forms (they’re…uh, more than a little intimidating because of this), and the heat is stored in their bellies, and it simply permeates a room. That’s the first thing I notice when we step closer to her booth—it’s as if someone opened up an oven, the wave of heat that rolls off of her.

  And, when she looks our way, I see them.

  Eyes with a slit down the middle of the pupil. Dragon eyes, in a human face.

  She smiles again, her canines longer than a human’s might be. She nods her head in our direction, and again she raises her glass to us before downing all of the contents.

  She has shoulder-length brown hair that seems to shift color in the low light of the Nymph Tree. Draco hair is iridescent, almost seems lit from within, and it’s obvious that this woman’s hair seems to have a latent fire all its own. She’s wearing a loose black blouse, loose-fitting dancer’s pants, and leather shoes. Simple, elegant. Her fingernails, like her hair, are iridescent and shifting color in the soft light. Her face is square and angular, with a certain nobility to it. If I found her type attractive, she would be magnetic, but even without my heart or other parts of me noticing her, she gives off an air of magnetism that’s hard to ignore.

  “Fane, this is my sister, Talis. And this is Cinda and Lellie,” says Tahlia, ever smooth as she indicates the ladies in turn. “Ladies, this is Fane of the Draco. She’s going to get us into Mount Verlit City.”

  “Charmed,” murmurs Fane, suggestion to her tone as she sets her empty glass down next to a fresh, full one. There are actually about ten full glasses of ale sitting on the tabletop, and about as many empty ones.

  “Where did you find her?” I ask my sister, gripping her arm and whispering softly into her ear. “Can we trust her? Is she of any relation to Uru? What—”

  “Relax, relax,” my sister croons to me, giving me a wide smile that tells me she probably wouldn’t be able to answer any of my following questions. My sister was always like this—find someone in a tavern, charm them, get them involved in some scheme or other. My mother operated like this, too—a good thief gets close to someone, and then uses them for their gain. But it’s not a particularly nice trait.

  “Look, Tahlia,” I murmur to her, but Fane clears her throat, sitting back in her seat in the booth and placing her elbows along the seatback, one brow raised as she cocks her head at me.

  “Worried I’ll give you away?” she asks, and then she grins wider. “Your sister told me the whole story. The ring is yours. You should have it back. I’m on your side!”

  “That’s…very kind of you,” I manage, brows furrowed, “but what are you getting out of this? Why are you helping us?”

  Fane downs another glass, pushing the empty thing to the right of the table as she p
icks up another full tankard. “Your sister and I have an…understanding,” she says, lifting the glass to her lips as she winks. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  I raise a brow, and Tahlia’s grin deepens.

  An understanding.

  Ah.

  Tahlia slept with Fane.

  Well, that’s not a very good understanding. That is, in fact, historically a very bad understanding, considering that my mother’s relationship with a Draco is what got us into this mess in the first place.

  “Just trust her. I do,” says Tahlia, drawing herself up to her full height, which is just as tall as I am, but she seems to think she’s taller. And maybe she is a little in those blasted boots of hers. I sigh.

  “I don’t trust her, and I certainly don’t trust you.” I eye my sister, and she gives me another of her cheeky grins.

  “If you’re coming along with me, you’ve got to trust me at least a little,” says Tahlia with a shrug. “Hey, I’ll take what I can get. Fane, are you almost done? The night’s not getting any younger,” says Tahlia, glancing down at the unfinished ales in front of the Draco.

  “Hold your horses, madam. I’m getting there. Just give me a minute.” Fane winks as she picks up another glass and systemically drains that one, too. I bite at my lip, a thousand worries swirling through me.

  “Uh…Tahlia. How are we getting to Bright Coast? I’m assuming you have that part figured out. It’s several days’ journey by horse—” I begin, but Tahlia reaches up and presses her pointer finger to my mouth before I can continue.

  “You worry too much. Obviously, I have this covered. Fane’s going to take us!”

  “…Fane?” I step away from her shushing and glance down at the woman who’s downing yet another glass. “How, exactly?”

  “You’ll see!” And when Fane winks at me this time, there’s a fair amount of suggestion in it. She grins widely as she stands up, having just finished the last in what appears to be twenty tankards of ale. And yet, when she stands, there’s not a bit of her that wavers in her balance. She looks as if she’s been drinking water all this time. She rolls her shoulders back, rolls her neck back along her shoulders and then shakes her arms a little, as if she’s warming up for something. She fixes us to the spot with that wide grin. “And I’m ready if you are!”