by Jayne Faith
My first instinct was to go to Lord Toric for help, but I knew he’d be unwilling. He’d probably be more than unwilling. Possibly angry, considering how he’d reacted when he found out I’d spoken to Lana through a portal. And even if he wanted to help me, I doubted he would. He’d see it as breaching the division between Calisto and Earthenfell.
I stopped my pacing and pressed my fingers to my lips.
There was someone who might do something for me: Sir Jeric.
I knew it was unlikely, but I felt I had a better chance of persuading him than Lord Toric. I couldn’t send for Jeric, though. All of the guards knew he wasn’t allowed near me. Perhaps a message? But how? The guards would report to Lord Toric if I tried to send something to Jeric.
I chewed my lower lip, my mind spinning frantically, and then my eyes popped wide when I remembered that the next day I and the rest of the Obligates would be gathering in the throne room as the new ranks of favor were unveiled.
Sir Jeric would be there. I’d just have to figure out a way to signal that I needed him, but do it without drawing Lord Toric’s attention . . . or the attention of any of the other hundreds of people who would line the seats of the throne room.
I hardly slept that night. My nerves were strung tight with anticipation, and my mind was filled with worries about my family.
I fell into a shallow, fitful sleep just before dawn. When I awoke, my limbs were stiff, my eyes irritated and red, and my hair was a bird’s nest.
I gave a short, humorless laugh as a realization struck me while I tried to smooth my wild hair in front of the bathroom mirror: Lana’s letter had done me the small service of distracting me from Lord Toric. It was comforting, in a strange way, to be worrying about my family instead of the Tournament, the Calistans’ obsession with following their sacred texts and how it impacted me, and whether or not the alien Lord wanted me the most. Nothing was more important to me than Lana and Mother, not even my feelings for Lord Toric.
After breakfast, which I barely touched, Clarisse arrived. When I saw the clothes she’d brought, the same dress and heels I’d worn to Lord Toric’s bedchamber, I sputtered a humorless laugh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “I have to wear that into the throne room? The dress is beautiful but hardly more than lingerie.”
She glanced at the dress on its hanger and shrugged one shoulder. “Think of it this way. All of Calisto has already seen you in it.”
My cheeks heated and I groaned. “The broadcasts.”
“Rest assured, the footage from the challenge has been viewed by everyone, so this will not seem shocking.” She tipped her head at the dress and one corner of her mouth pulled up in a droll half-smile.
I snorted. “That doesn’t really reassure me.” I eyed the gown. “Did you see it? My broadcast?”
“Of course.” She gave me a sly arch of a brow. “You managed to shut down the broadcast very quickly.”
I pressed my palms against my cheeks, trying to cool my face and control my self-consciousness. “That was my plan. They didn’t show any of, um . . .”
“Just a bit of bare shoulder.”
I puffed out a breath. “Good. Well, I guess I’d better get into that thing.”
She took the dress off the hanger while I slipped out of my robe.
“The challenge went well?” she asked, her eyes on my gown but a clear lilt of curiosity in her voice.
“Yes, I believe so. Quite well.”
I shimmied into the silky garment and pulled the straps over my shoulders. I reached for the zipper, but Clarisse was there to do it for me.
“I’d have expected you to be a little happier about it,” she said.
My shoulders sagged, and I closed my eyes for a moment. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“Other than the Tournament? What else could be so important?”
“It’s my family. I got a letter from my sister yesterday.” I briefly explained the situation, filling in Clarisse on how Lana had lost her sight when we were children, and how I’d always covered for her so she could remain at home.
“That’s too bad,” Clarisse said, with more sympathy than I’d have guessed she was capable. “But you need to focus on your own battle. There’s nothing you can do for your sister.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, regarding her silently as I debated about whether or not to ask for her help.
“What?” she asked. “Don’t just stare at me like that. It makes you look peculiar.”
“I think there is something I can do for Lana, but I can’t do it alone,” I said.
She tilted her head and crossed her arms. “And you want my help?”
I nodded.
“Depends on what it is. Obviously there are quite a few things I can’t do.” She lifted a hand and waggled her finger at her neck, pointing at her implant. “And if it’s something that’s going to anger Akantha, Lord Toric, or anyone in the harem, I won’t even consider it.”
“I need to get a message to Sir Jeric,” I said.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You have a connection to the Lord’s brother?”
“In a way.” My eyes shifted uncomfortably. Apparently Sir Jeric’s obsession with me, which was the reason for my move to Lord Toric’s quarters, was not known among the harem women.
She narrowed her eyes. “Lord Toric put you up in his chambers and clearly favors you, but for some reason, you’re going to his brother rather than to Lord Toric for help.”
“I know it seems strange,” I said. “But please, if there’s any way you can—”
There was a knock at the front door, and we both jumped a little and glanced toward the hallway leading out of my bedroom.
“I swear I’ll do something for you in return,” I pleaded hurriedly. “Anything. If you can just get a message to Sir Jeric asking him to help my twin back on Earthenfell, to prevent her from getting moved to a facility for people with disabilities.”
My Calistan stylist entered the room.
“No promises,” Clarisse whispered. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” I exhaled a long sigh of relief.
I knew I could not make any assumptions about Clarisse, but she was probably my best hope. Considering how little freedom I had, it seemed like something. Enough to ease my panic to a manageable level so I could face the ordeal in the throne room.
Clarisse waited with me while the stylist did my hair and makeup and accompanied me on the walk to my waiting room at the back of the throne room. We did not encounter any of the other Obligates, but I heard the faint murmur of voices as we moved past the other dressing room doors.
When Clarisse and I were alone again, she turned to me with a conspiratorial grin. “I requested that you be allowed to get ready in your quarters instead of here like the other Obligates. I made the case that there were more layers of guards between the outside world and your quarters within Lord Toric’s chambers than here, making it safer to receive the delivery of your clothes and your stylist. Akantha tried to say no, but Lord Toric took my side.”
I raised my brows. “Thank you for that.”
“Oh, no need to thank me.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I just wanted to see if I could force Akantha to comply. I’m not stupid enough to truly anger her, but it’s fun to try to get her to bend a bit.”
“Well, regardless of your motives when it comes to me, the desire to stick a thorn in Akantha’s side is something you and I have in common.” I found it didn’t truly bother me that Clarisse was more interested in manipulating Akantha than ensuring my safety. My relationship with my new guide had certainly shifted for the better, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking she was truly my friend. She was just as calculating as ever, and I knew if she had the opportunity to use me for her own advantage, she’d take it.
I was curious about her relationship with Lord Toric, whether she was a frequent visitor to his bedchamber, but it seemed a terribly awkward thing to ask. And I did not ne
ed to add another mental image of him with yet one more woman to the collection in my mind.
My thoughts shifted to the other Obligate women. It had been several nights since I’d seen Lord Toric, and each of the other women had been with him in the interim.
Unable to help myself, I turned to Clarisse. “Based on what you saw of me and the others in the broadcasts, how do you think I fared in this challenge?”
She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and inhaled slowly. “As you know, the broadcasts didn’t include any of the good parts, so it’s a bit difficult to tell.”
My heart dropped. “So in every case the broadcast, um, cut out at some point?” My stomach tightened at the thought that each of the other women had disrobed in Lord Toric’s bedchamber. I knew it was extremely naïve to believe that it had gone any other way, but I could not help my reaction.
“Yes,” she said frankly. “They’re all trying just as hard to win as you are.”
I stared at the floor in silence.
“But based on what I saw, he was obviously the most interested in you,” she said.
I gave a humorless laugh. “Well, I guess that’s something.”
“You’re really in love with him, aren’t you?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head slowly. “I know it’s foolish. Stupid, really, considering my circumstances and his.”
Her short laugh echoed mine. “It is rather stupid. But . . . the ways of the heart do not adhere to the logic of the mind. The heart takes its own path and carries us along with it whether it makes any rational sense or not.”
I looked at her sharply, a bit dumbfounded by how eloquently she spoke of love. “Have you ever been in love, Clarisse?”
I expected her to brush off my question with a snort or a smart remark. Instead she nodded.
“I was in love with a boy who was selected by lottery to go to the Tournament a year before I entered the Tournament myself,” she said. “I knew it was silly to fall in love with someone. After all, I’d been training for the Tournament since I was a little girl, and I knew I would not live out my life on Earthenfell. But I didn’t expect to lose him that way. I always thought that when my Selection came, we’d say goodbye and move on. We were both prepared for that. Instead, he was chosen, and he left a year earlier than we’d planned to part.”
“And he . . .”
“He died in the second challenge.” She clipped off the words, as if she did not want to linger over them, and her face hardened. She shrugged one shoulder. “We were going to lose each other one way or another.”
“All the same, it saddens me to know it,” I said quietly. To my surprise, my throat grew thick with the threat of tears. “It saddens me very much.”
She blew out a loud, harsh breath. “No need to shed any tears over it. We weren’t going to have a happy ending, and we both knew it.”
“I know, I just . . .” I shook my head and swiped irritably at a tear that had spilled from one eye. “I guess I just hate to hear of love getting cut off. Snatched away. It’s not even that it’s your story in particular. Any love story that ends in sadness makes my heart ache a bit.” I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe how ridiculous that sounded. I never thought I was such a romantic.”
“I believe Lord Toric is a romantic. The tragic kind, like me,” she said with uncharacteristic softness.
“How do you know?”
“Maybe it’s because the only love I’ve known was doomed to tragedy from the first moment. That allows me to recognize deep tragedy it in the lives of others.”
“But I’m not the tragic kind?”
“No.” She gave me a smile that was shaded with knowing. “You’ve been hurt, but you’ve yet to experience deep tragedy. Perhaps you’ll be one of the lucky ones and escape love’s tragedy.”
A chime sounded, and we both straightened self-consciously.
Clarisse rose and rearranged the folds of her skirt. “It’s show time.”
I stood and gripped her forearm, forcing her to look at me. “You won’t forget about Sir Jeric? I know it’s a huge favor to ask, but it’s terribly important to me.”
“I won’t forget.”
Shrewdness flashed in her eyes, and I suddenly remembered my promise to do something for her in return for her help. Anything, I’d said. Not that I had much to offer. I was little more than a prisoner who occasionally was allowed out to perform for the entertainment of the Calistan overlords.
Show time, indeed.
Akantha loomed in the hallway outside the dressing rooms, her assistant lurking in the corner. With her usual pinched, haughty expression, the Mistress of Tournament watched the Obligates and guides emerge.
For a split second my eyes automatically searched for Orion, and then my chest gripped with sadness. He was gone, and only two of the male Obligates remained in the Tournament. Surely Amet would win. Orion had been his biggest competition.
The women Obligates were flicking glances at each other. I ignored all of them except Kalindi as I tried to read in her body language and expression whether she felt she had a chance of winning the challenge. With a tight jaw and rigid posture, she lacked her usual brightness and easy sensuality.
Of course I had no idea what had transpired between Lord Toric and the other women. Regardless, I knew in my heart that I’d done my best while still keeping my integrity intact. I’d gone to his bed, and I’d enjoyed every moment of it, but I was still a virgin. He hadn’t tried to push me into anything I did not want to do, and I did not force myself to act in any way that made me feel compromised. It was . . . rather empowering, actually.
The guides and Obligates silently formed a double line under Akantha’s gaze. The Mistress of Tournament shot me a narrow-eyed glare, and I returned her look with a steady gaze of my own until she averted her eyes. I knew she’d designed the seduction challenge to try to humiliate Lord Toric, and probably also to try to hurt me, but it seemed to me that it had not had quite the effect she’d intended. I would take any small victory against the hateful woman.
She turned to the guide at the head of the line. “When the doors open, file in as usual.” She looked up at the rest of us. “No speaking.”
Her assistant tried to give us all a hard, authoritative look—clearly an attempt to imitate Akantha—but it didn’t have the same effect.
Akantha had to walk down the entire line of Obligates to the back exit. I’d intended to ignore her, but when she paused next to me, my heart thumped and I couldn’t help a glance up at the tall Calistan woman.
“You’re not going to get out of this alive,” she said in a low purr. Her lips curved into a cold smile, and she continued on.
I sucked in a breath and shot a wide-eyed look at Clarisse. What new plan was Akantha hatching? I turned to look over my shoulder as she left. The sight of my two guards standing near the back of the room gave me only a tiny amount of comfort.
A couple of minutes later, the door to the throne room opened, and the Obligates and guides began to move forward.
As the guides veered off toward the rows of seats, I was keenly aware of Lord Toric up on the throne, but I turned my eyes toward the audience, searching for Sir Jeric.
He was seated with his mother and sister front and center. His face was pale, and he looked thin and sickly, but sharp attention shone in his eyes.
I caught his eye just as the line of Obligates stopped in the center of the throne room floor. I held his gaze as long as I could before turning to face the throne, and his eyes brightened.
The Priestess and Akantha stood in their usual spots at the foot of the throne dais. I lifted my chin to look up at Lord Toric. He wore a dark gray silk tunic and trousers, and the twisted metal crown rested atop his head. His blue-green eyes were like two beacons, and they bored into me.
I allowed the corners of my lips to widen slightly in a subtle greeting, but his face remained impassive. When Akantha stepped forward to begin speaking, his attention turned to her.
She greeted the audience and made a few introductory remarks about the seduction challenge and how our ranks of favor were scored. Then the tiles displaying Obligate names and faces appeared on the wall. Even though I felt confident, I still held my breath as the tiles reordered to reflect our performance in the challenge.
Mine was at the top of the women’s column.
My shoulders sagged in relief, and I exhaled slowly, trying to calm my nerves.
The tiles blinked and shifted, reordering to show the overall ranks of favor. Before, Kalindi and I had been tied for first, but winning the seduction challenge put me alone in first place.
I’d tried not to look at the other women’s tiles for the challenge’s ranks of favor, not wanting to imagine what the order signified, but I couldn’t help seeing that Kalindi had been second in the seduction challenge. My mind wanted to speculate over what she’d done to earn her spot, but I forced my attention to the present.
I was in first, and I’d done it without compromising myself. That was all that mattered.
Murmurs of voices spread through the audience as people commented to each other about the ranks.
Akantha held up one long, slim arm until the noise died down and then began addressing the room.
“This has been an unusual Tournament. We had the delay caused by the Third Sign of the Return, a most historic and momentous event. And the most recent challenge included a new innovation, the use of technology in a way that’s never been done before in a Tournament.”
She paused and smiled, and I couldn’t keep my mouth from twisting into a grimace. She was actually proud of forcing Lord Toric to receive the Obligates in his private bedchamber and wear sensors that revealed his response to each woman.
Then her face grew drawn and serious. “Now, I must ask your patience once more. I’m sorry to report that information has emerged which will cause yet another delay in this Tournament, and so I will not be announcing the next challenge at this time.”
My heart froze. A delay? Did it have something to do with her threat outside the dressing rooms? My gaze flew up to Lord Toric, but he was still looking at Akantha. Confusion flickered in his eyes. He didn’t know what she was talking about—a very bad sign.