Kelena hadn’t seen a tournament since the royal progress to Lord Zinote’s estate. It was a much different experience without Mother looming over her, purring lewd accusations into her ear or sighing and licking her lips at every hint of blood.

  Moreover, Grandmaster Heartless had assured Kelena that no one would be killed in this tournament. That lifted a great weight from her chest, especially when Izak stepped to the center of the crowd for his match.

  Her brother carried a staff taller than he was, with a long bde on the end. His opponent—a boy heralded as Lathe—was shorter and oddly shaped in the body for someone with such a lean face and slender arms and legs. The boy carried a matched pair of swords.

  “Fight!” the master between them shouted, snapping a silk handkerchief.

  The boy, Lathe, turned to a blur, his swords fshing. Izak backpedaled and spun his staff.

  They were moving so quickly that Kelena could hardly see them. Loud cngs and solid cracks rang out every time the staff and swords met.

  Kelena scooted to the edge of her seat. How could anyone move so fast? The boy was everywhere, an army unto himself.

  And yet Izak fended off every blow. He parried and struck back, circled and lunged. Pride in her brother’s skill filled her chest. It was beautiful and terrifying and graceful.

  A trickle of blood colored Izak’s jaw. Kelena pursed her lips, heart fluttering. She hadn’t even seen him get cut. Meanwhile, the smaller boy was completely uninjured.

  Kelena csped one hand over the other in her p. She wanted Izak to win, and win decisively.

  A gasp of hot air blew through the chilly spring night. The boy’s steps stuttered. Izak opened the distance between himself and his opponent. The boy tried to close again, but Izak took one hand off his swordstaff and caught the boy’s blood energies.

  Kelena’s clutched fingers rexed. No one could defeat Izak’s royal blood magic. Now he would win.

  But the boy just cackled. “You figure on lockin’ me up?”

  Then suddenly the boy was behind Izak, one sword to Izak’s throat and the other along the inside of his thigh.

  “Lock that up, howabout!” he crowed in Izak’s ear.

  The bailey howled as the master strode out to them, his handkerchief raised. Raucous cheering, accompanied by a minority of booing and hissing, filled the night.

  “Winner!” the man shouted over their crowd, aiming the silk at the boy. “Lathe!”

  The king grunted. “Still too soft to kill.”

  Kelena sat back in her seat, her heart sinking for her brother’s loss. He’d failed a test right in front of their father. In front of everyone here.

  At the center of the bailey, Izak ughed.

  “You stupid little show-off.” He thumped the smaller boy on the head affectionately. Kelena could just barely hear her brother’s voice over the noise of the crowd, and only because it was the dearest voice she knew. “You won’t get away with that against the pirate scum.”

  “I ain’t stupid, me,” the boy said. “’Sides, I already know how I’m gonna whup him.”

  “…the other roommate,” Grandmaster was telling the king. “The three of them are in contention for their bracket’s championship every tournament, but this is the first time Lathe has beaten Four.”

  “Will the pirate fight tonight?” Hazerial asked.

  “If he wins this next match, he’ll face Lathe for the championship afterward.”

  They went on talking, but Kelena hardly heard them.

  Izak had failed spectacurly, and he didn’t even care. The consequences—consequences that followed every single test; when one failed, when one succeeded, when there were no tests—those consequences hadn’t dared to touch him.

  ***

  Twenty-six won his fight with Fifty-one in swift, brutal fashion, twisting the bastard’s bde away with the swordbreaker, kicking his knee out from under him, and ying the cutss against the back of his neck.

  The whole match took less than a minute. Izak watched it with Lathe on one side and Etian on the other. One wouldn’t stop chattering; the other didn’t say a word.

  When it was over, Master Fright called Lathe out for the championship match.

  The pirate swiped the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve, then raised his cutss and swordbreaker to Lathe. She grinned at him.

  “Ready to get whupped, pirate scum?”

  “Talk is meaningless,” Twenty-six said. “Speak with your bdes.”

  “My bdes say I’m gonna shave your beard for ya.” She jostled his cutss with one of her twin swords. “How’s about that?”

  “Fight!”

  Lathe leapt at him, but Twenty-six met her in the air, slipping beneath her bdes and ramming his shoulder into her gut. The air whoofed out of her lungs.

  The runt punched her basket hilt at the pirate’s neck. He blocked the blow with his swordbreaker, the serrated bde scraping down the side of her fist and drawing blood. She pnted a foot in Twenty-six’s gut and kicked off, hitting the dirt and rolling away.

  She popped to her feet. “Best give up now afore I hafta make you look bad.”

  “Boast when you’ve won,” he said.

  She ughed, then appeared behind him. But as Izak had predicted, the pirate expected the move. He sshed his cutss toward her gut.

  It sliced through empty air.

  Twenty-six dropped to his knees, arching backward. Invisible bdes rasped against beard. The breeze caught the shorn whiskers and scattered them in the mud.

  Lathe appeared at his side, driving a sword at his heart. Twenty-six threw his cutss out in the opposite direction. Steel cshed against steel.

  Izak grinned. The runt was mirroring her image now, not just her shadow, and somehow that night-forsaken pirate had figured it out.

  Etian had noticed as well. “The foreigner’s fighting by sound.”

  “More likely by smell,” Izak said. “The runt isn’t fond of bathing.” She could mirror sound too, but Izak assumed that if she wanted people to know that, she would show them herself.

  Twenty-six whirled on his knees, following Lathe’s mirrored blows. He blocked her flurry of attacks as he climbed back to his feet.

  Did he realize she was herding him toward the thorn tree?

  Lathe disappeared the moment the branches passed overhead. Twenty-six’s head snapped up. Lathe dropped on him. The pirate put the cutss to her throat and shoved her back against the tree’s trunk. She dropped her swords in defeat.

  Then Twenty-six went still.

  A twin sword appeared, pressed against his back, over his heart, while Lathe held the other to the base of his skull. One image of her was still pressed against the tree, defeated, while the other held the pirate at sword point from behind.

  While Izak watched, the Lathe against the tree dissipated like smoke.

  “Winner!” Master Fright yelled. “Lathe!”

  Ever the gracious victor, Lathe jumped up and down, hooting with joy.

  At Izak’s side, Etian watched the runt’s egregious celebration and the pirate’s solemn sheathing of his bdes. Behind the scar and the lenses, the Crown Prince of Night looked wistful.

  “You’ll be able to train with them on the ride north,” Izak said.

  The lie rang hollow to his own ears, but maybe that was just the knowledge that one of his friends wouldn’t be leaving Thornfield alive.

  “It isn’t that.” Etian suddenly looked much older, leaving Izak with the strange sensation of being surpassed by time and his younger brother. “I was just thinking that the foreigner is the only one here who stands a chance against the Het. The rest of you rely too heavily on blood magic. You’ll be torn apart.”

  It was getting harder and harder to smile around Etian.

  “Everyone shows off during the tournament,” Izak said, a touch of annoyance leaking into his words. “That’s what it’s for. Lathe is an incredible swordsman even without blood magic. Excluding the pirate, you won’t find a better one. But when you want to differentiate yourself from a hundred other incredible swordsmen, you take every advantage avaible, blood magic included.”

  “The boy’s style is ugly, but effective and less haphazard than a casual onlooker might realize. If he was so skilled, he could have differentiated himself with that.”

  Izak rolled his eyes. “I forgot that the Josean-blessed are never wrong.”

  “I forgot that the Teikru-blessed get offended when you point out their friend’s fws. He cocks his head, too. It’s pulling his bance.”

  “Light, Etian, fight him yourself! You’ll see he’s worth his steel and more. You won’t find a better friend, either. The runt’s loyal as the sunset.”

  “The grafting supplies loyalty,” Etian said. “It’s a redundant quality for a Thorn.”

  Izak watched his friends through the throng pushing toward the dining hall. Lathe was receiving congratutions without the slightest hint at poise, while Twenty-six broke away from the crowd and headed for the barracks alone.

  “There’s a world of difference between a man who’s forced to obey and a man who’s loyal,” Izak said. “Ask Hazerial. No one knows it like an Eketra-blessed king who doesn’t have any of the tter.”