Poisoned Blade Read online

  “Defy Uncle Gar all you wish, Kal. It’s sweet, even if it’s pointless.”

  She licks a smear of wine off a finger and sashays away around the pavilion with her tangle of hair raised high. With a glance over her shoulder she flings a last retort like a final arrow shot in battle.

  “You couldn’t have won your Fives trial anyway. You’re not good enough to beat her.”

  I wince.

  He wrenches away from the lovely night vista over the garden and stalks back through the open doors into a lamplit chamber. I dash from tree to balcony. Grabbing the edge, swinging up, and climbing over the railing takes but a moment. I drop into a crouch in the shadows and peer into a room decorated with masterfully painted murals of war. In one scene, spears pinion three soldiers. Each wears the badge of one of the three kingdoms of old Saro, the remnants of an empire: a kestrel for West Saro, a hawk for East Saro, and a peacock for Saro-Urok. Their dying bodies arch over a cluster of flowers whose white petals are turning red as blood waters them.

  Kalliarkos gives his empty wine cup to an elderly servant, who hands it to a younger servant, who sets it down on a side table inlaid with ivory and gold. In the elaborate court clothes worn only by palace men, Kal looks handsome, but then again he looked handsome in simple adversary’s gear. His coarse black hair is cut so short it stands straight up. His lean body has the confident posture of a person sure of his footing on a Fives court, but his eyes narrow as he clenches his hands.

  I did this to him. I ruined his life.

  “My lord,” says the elderly servant, walking toward the balcony, “I will just close the doors now that you are returning to the festival pavilion.”

  I scramble to the back corner of the balcony, leap to grab hold of the overhanging roof, pull to get my upper body onto the gentle slope, then swing my legs up so I lie right along the edge.

  The servant’s footfalls pause. “Did you hear something, my lord?”

  “Just the wind. Keep the doors open.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not going back to the festival pavilion.”

  “But my lord, your sister said—”

  “Leave me.”

  The door opens and shuts. Lord Kalliarkos walks out onto the balcony and looks to each direction, then out over the path, and last of all glances up to the roof.

  “I thought it might be you,” he says without a hint of welcome, staring at me with hard, hopeless eyes. “What can you possibly want? You and I pledged we would stand by each other, and then you cut my throat.”

  2

  I drop to land beside him, and he immediately steps away from me.

  “Kal, I just came to explain what happened.”

  “I think it’s pretty clear what happened. You knew that if I lost I would be forced to join the army and become a pawn in my uncle’s plot to put my sister and me on the throne. Which is the very last thing I want. So either you’ve been conniving with my uncle all along or you just couldn’t stand losing, even knowing what would happen to me. Is there something I’m missing? Oh, yes. Lord Kalliarkos or my lord is the proper address.”

  The clipped arrogance of his tone infuriates me, especially after we once whispered secrets to each other. “I thought you would understand, but I guess I was mistaken. You can’t possibly believe I’ve been conniving with your uncle. He’s the one who threatened to send me to the mines.”

  “And you’re the one who said it was time for me to act as the prince that I am. You should have known that if I’d won I would have been able to stay in the palace and protect you. I would never let my uncle condemn you to the mines. But apparently for all your fine talk you never actually believed I am strong enough to stand up to him.”

  I blink about five times. The accusation stings because I’m afraid it’s true.

  “I really thought you believed in me,” he adds.

  “It’s not that simple.” This isn’t going at all as I had planned—I would explain and he would be understanding. Navigating a Fives court seems far easier than trying to negotiate his bitter anger. “Surely you understand that your position as a Patron lord makes you far more secure than I can ever hope to be. Because I have a Patron father and Commoner mother I have no legal standing. Garon Palace basically owns me.”

  “I’m aware of who you are.” His gaze flicks up and down my body as if he is remembering the kisses we shared, but instead of softening, he tenses and looks sharply away, like he’s mad at himself for thinking of me in that way. “Or at least I thought I knew your heart.”

  If I can just reach past his anger, I can make him listen. I’m sure of it.

  “What happened on the Fives court was a choice I made for my family. You know how close my mother and sisters came to death, how unsafe they still are because your uncle will kill them if he finds out they are alive. And I don’t even know where Bettany is!”

  My voice breaks as a rush of emotion overwhelms me. I’ve held off truly thinking about her, holding my fear in a corner of my mind where it can’t distract me, but now it thrashes out like a monster going for my throat.

  His tone softens just a little. “Who is Bettany? Ah, I remember. Your twin sister, the missing one.”

  I rub at my eyes. “She and Mother’s household servants were taken away by Garon stewards when I was brought to the stable.”

  “Yes, and if I wasn’t being forced to leave I could help you find them. Did that ever occur to you? Because I know you, Jes. You may say it’s all about your family, but once you get it in your head that you have to win, you can’t see any other alternative. You won’t see it. You just go for the victory tower no matter what it means to the people around you.” His voice grates.

  “Gargaron ordered me to win. He would have had me sent to the mines otherwise, and my mother and sisters can’t survive without someone providing for them. I defeated you to protect them in the only way I knew how. You have no idea how vulnerable we are because you’ll never be that vulnerable.”

  I realize I’ve raised my voice just as if I have the right to yell at him, so I add, stiffly, “My lord.” It comes out mocking, even though I don’t mean it to.

  He strides over to the side table with its cup and bottle. Picking up the cup, he weighs it in his hand, and for an instant I think he is going to throw it at me, so I brace myself to dodge. The Kalliarkos I used to know preferred smiles to frowns, joking words and friendly pleasantries to surly glowers. That Kalliarkos has vanished, leaving this one with his rigid posture and pinched mouth. He is still the handsome lord everyone must notice, but I desperately miss the staggering sweetness of the smile he once turned on me.

  He doesn’t speak, so I hastily go on. “I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I was hoping for. What’s done is done. I’m just sorry it ended this way.”

  He turns the cup in his fingers, glaring at the delicate flowers painted on white glaze. “I do not regret breaking them out of the oracle’s tomb, if that’s what you’re worried about. What was done to them was blasphemous. But you used me to rescue them, and in exchange you did not help me when I most needed you. The worst of it is that I was so sure we were in this together.” He looks at me, gaze searing. “I trusted you, Jes! And then you did this to me.”

  “But I didn’t expect to be running against you at the victory games. You have more experience and should have gone in a later trial. I didn’t have time to prepare or think about us running against each other until I was out on the Fives court.”

  His brow wrinkles as he contemplates my words. The straightforward way he addresses me hits me all over again just like the first time this handsome Patron lord spoke to a girl like me as if we were equals.

  “You’re right. My uncle must have bribed the officials.”

  His considering tone melts my caution.

  “Exactly! How can either you or I protect ourselves against a man who can bribe Fives officials and holy priests, when such bribery is against the law? Besides, I couldn’t lose to you a se
cond time. Everyone would have known I threw the trial to let you win.”

  With a snap he sets down the cup and our brief harmony winks out as quickly as a candle flame drenched in water.

  “You’ve never thought I was good enough, have you, Jes? Even when you were encouraging me.”

  “You’re a good adversary,” I say stumblingly.

  “But never as good as you, the one they are grooming to become a champion. I know what everyone thinks of me, why they’ll never give me a true chance to show what I can do. I’m nothing more than a pleasant but overly friendly featherweight who can’t be anything more than my uncle’s puppet!”

  A man clears his throat. “My lord, what you make of yourself is up to you,” says a familiar voice.

  Absorbed by our argument, neither of us has noticed a person enter from the front porch. The man wears a general’s cape and carries a general’s baton, but it is his air of command that compels the eye.

  “F-Father?” I stammer, utterly taken aback by his arrival.

  Kalliarkos is no better. Despite his being a prince and my father having started life as a baker’s son from a provincial hill town in the kingdom of Saro-Urok, Kal flushes exactly as might an overawed fledgling just beginning his training for the Fives and suddenly being introduced to a famous and admired Illustrious, the champions of the game.

  “General Esladas. I did not expect you to come to my pavilion.”

  “Lady Menoë asked me to personally request that you return to the festivities.”

  “And you obey my exalted sister as might an obedient dog, General?” Kalliarkos snaps.

  I grimace, expecting a harsh reply, but Father shows no change of expression. His tone is remarkably mild. “My lord, you will become what others expect of you if that is what you believe of yourself.” Father certainly has a gift for talking to angry young men that I utterly lack. “Or you may determine your own fate through your decisions and actions. As it seems my daughter has.”

  I stand to attention because I am a soldier’s daughter and I have been caught out in a place my father told me never, ever to go. He walks over to me and rests a hand on my shoulder. When he brushes his fingers along the damp coils of my hair, he notices how bits of my headscarf are wet and the rest is dry.

  His eyes narrow. He has figured out how I got in.

  “Lord Kalliarkos, if you wish to make an issue of your attendance at the festivities, then by all means refuse to return there. But if to be gossiped about is not what you seek, then I might humbly advise that you return, make an entrance with Lady Menoë, and walk one circuit of the pavilion.”

  The mention of Menoë reminds me of her meeting with her secret lover. “Father, I saw—”

  “Silence, Jessamy. I’m not finished.” Again he turns back to Kalliarkos. “Greet the guests and well-wishers who have come tonight to congratulate Garon Stable on its strong showing in the victory games and to celebrate your departure for the Eastern Reach and the war. Greet Prince Nikonos in the manner appropriate to two royal cousins meeting at a festive gathering. Afterward you can safely retire, having done your duty, and be left alone until morning. We sail at dawn.”

  Finally Father’s gaze flashes to me. I have his eyes but otherwise few people would guess we are related. He is Saroese, a short, compactly built man with light golden-brown skin and straight black hair. I look more Efean, like my tall, beautiful mother with her tightly coiled black hair and dark brown skin.

  “Meanwhile, with your permission, my lord, it is long past time for my daughter to leave Garon Palace and return to Garon Stable, where she belongs,” he finishes.

  For the first time since I have known him, Kalliarkos’s lips curl in an imitation of a thin smile that reminds me of his uncle. “Do you not trust her with me, General?”

  A tic disturbs Father’s right eye, the signal that he is suppressing annoyance. “I would never doubt your honor, my lord. But you and I are expected elsewhere. War is a fickle business, and this may be my last chance to bid her farewell and offer some words of necessary fatherly advice. May I have a moment alone with Jessamy?”

  As much as I love my father, I do not look forward to the scalding lecture he is about to give me the moment we are alone, but I will stand straight and take it, as a soldier does.

  Kalliarkos’s gaze flicks from me to my father’s stern expression.

  “No, I believe you may not speak to her privately, General. You and I will return to the victory party immediately. As for you, Spider”—Kalliarkos brusquely calls me by my Fives name—“you can wait out of sight until we are gone. Return to the stable as soon as no servants are about to see you. If they spot you they’ll carry the tale to my uncle, and none of us want that.”

  He opens a double door that leads into a sparsely furnished bedchamber strung with netting so night-biting insects do not bother the one who sleeps within. My skin flushes as I look at the bed. Kalliarkos pauses. Our gazes meet.

  We made promises to each other. I see them in the blush shading his face, in the way his lips part as if he means to whisper that he still cares for me. Did he refuse my father permission to speak with me privately in order to spare me the scolding? Is he trying to help me?

  My breathing quickens. My cheeks could not possibly burn any hotter.

  Father clears his throat.

  Kalliarkos hastily shuts the door, crosses to the other side of the room, and opens a door into an office with a desk and a shelf of scrolls. As soon as I step into the office, he shuts the door, closing me away from them. In darkness I breathe the air of a room where Kalliarkos has lived.

  War is a fickle business, my father said. I may never see Kal again, and things are so broken and unresolved between us. A tear seeps from my eye and trickles down my cheek, but I scrub it ruthlessly away. Crying won’t change anything. I have to stay focused, keep my head in the game.

  The door to the entry opens and closes as they depart for the nearby festival pavilion. Even inside with the doors closed I hear the muted babble of a hundred merry voices filled to the brim with satisfaction and triumph. I will never belong in a gathering like theirs. I’m a Commoner, an outsider, someone who will always be excluded from the most exalted ranks.

  I know what Father was going to say: He’s not meant for you, Jessamy. No prince of Saroese ancestry was ever meant for a girl like you.

  Maybe Kal and I were both foolish when we thought we could be together. Maybe we should never have kissed. But any way I turn it, I can’t see that it was wrong except by the way other people measure what is right.

  And isn’t that exactly what Father said to Kal?

  You may determine your own fate through your decisions and actions.

  The memory of Father’s voice jolts me into recalling that I never had the chance to tell him about Menoë. My father is smart enough to have heard the rumors about her first husband’s death and to realize that his new wife cherishes no affection for him, but he can have no idea she is betraying him with another man. Her behavior dishonors their marriage and humiliates him. I could never forgive myself if something terrible happens to him on account of her backstabbing and treachery when I might have warned him.

  I know I am supposed to leave the palace right now, that I can’t get caught here. But Father and Kalliarkos sail at dawn. This is the last chance I’ll have to alert Father to what is going on behind his back. And even though things are over between us, even though I know better, it’s also my last chance to see Kalliarkos. Maybe he was trying to protect me from Father’s anger.

  There is one dangerous way I might enter the pavilion, if I dare to take the risk.

  And I always dare.

  3

  In the dark room I straighten my formal parade clothing and check my hair to make sure nothing is out of place, everything neat and tidy, as an adversary training in a palace stable must be at all times. I am no longer a lowly Novice. Successful adversaries can walk anywhere in Efea and be greeted as victors, because if Patro
ns love anything, they love a winner. The crowd has cheered my name at the Royal Fives Court during the victory games; the king and queen themselves watched the new Challenger Spider defeat Lord Kalliarkos and two other experienced Novices.

  That makes me someone. I just need a plausible excuse.

  I open the door and walk into the chamber as the startled servants gape at seeing a person like me in a place like this.

  “Escort me to the festival pavilion, if you please. Is it not the usual custom to celebrate an adversary’s victory with a public display of the winnings I earned for the palace today?”

  By walking right past them I make it out the door onto the entry porch before they shake out of their shock. I pretend not to hear them call after me as I clatter noisily down the steps, making no effort at stealth now that I am charging into a party I am forbidden to attend.

  The festival pavilion has no walls, only carved pillars that support the roof and eaves, painted with the horned and winged fire dog that is the emblem of Garon Palace. A rousing rush of chatter teases my ear, and the bright clothing of beautifully dressed highborn Patrons catches my eye as I approach down a side path between shrubs of white jasmine and stalks of purple betony. The women wear long sheath gowns glittering with embroidery of silver and gold thread. The braids and loops of their long black hair have been built up into fashionable tiers from which dangle strings of pearls and glass beads. The men wear the long formal wrap skirt, and formal vests of fine silk.

  The noisy rumble of talk stills. People turn toward the shadows where I approach. But they aren’t looking at me.

  Wearing a sullen frown that seems wrong on his once always-smiling face, Kalliarkos steps into the light beside his sister. She has repaired her hair to display a cascade of silver ribbons and changed her gown to an undyed silk so simple in its line, and so ostentatiously unadorned with embroidery, that she makes all the other women look pretentious. My father stands near them, hands clasped behind his back, his expression as blank as if he has no thoughts at all.