Leith dela Monroe, First Crown on the Kings Ladder, should have been above skulking through seedy backwater taverns.

Yet there he was, huddled in a long black cape, stealing away from the Copper Tail like a common filcher. Of course to be a filcher he had to have stolen something, but Leith left the Copper Tail Inn empty-handed. A painted orange fish with bulbous eyes leered at his retreating back.

He strode across the rope bridge that connected the Copper Tail to the rest of the fishing village. The crusty wooden planks swayed over a muddy reef swirling with sand.

Waves charged the shore, breaking themselves through the long legs of the stilthouses built over the water. Leith moved swiftly and silently, not wanting to be a stranger caught alone in the emptied town. The old wood groaned where fishing boats strained against their ropes and seagulls tore apart scraps of fish.

Leith was a long way from home. Growing up in the countryside of Valois, he had rarely seen the coast of Valen in all his years. The water here was renowned for its agreeable temperature. He hated every passing minute.

He wasn’t in Penth for anything agreeable. He was in Penth searching for a man—a troublesome spellknife, who had traveled a long way with something that belonged to Leith and his house.

Usually spellknives were easy to identify: hard leather protection under a hooded cloak, dark colors, and a gleaming white porcelain mask. But the one Leith followed had caught on that he was being tracked and removed his mask upon entering the desert, revealing a pock-marked, aquiline face and stringy black hair. It did him little good. By then, Leith had caught his scent, had come to know what the man looked like over time.

Out on the water, a storm simmered in the distance, dark and gloomy as if a painter had laid down a swath of grey on their perfect blue canvas. Leith scanned the northern shore where, instead of long-legged huts, decorated barges and a network of bridges made up the rest of Penth. Everyone in town had gathered along the beach. Red and yellow striped canopies formed aisles just off the shore where celebrants perused the wares of camel traders.

He lingered on the edges of a crowd formed on the beach, listening to the rise and fall of their voices as they watched the spectacle taking place at the epicenter.

There were more spectators than the squat hovels of Penth promised from afar. Like Leith, many of the visitors had journeyed from nearby Thelos. But no one among them was the man he was looking for. He glanced upward to find that his raven was already on vigil, circling lazily overhead.

The deep voices of the crowd rose around him, a patriotic chant in their choppy language littered with shouts of encouragement. In the cool shade of a pavilion, Leith waited, eyes flicking from stranger to stranger. Their faces shone with pride.

From his understanding, a ward of the sands had come of age. Today was meant to be a display of their skills for the country that raised them. Leith was vaguely aware of the sound of fighting—enough to pique his curiosity, but he couldn’t afford distractions.

Especially considering the couple he knew who were attending. Beyond the crowd loomed a large viewing platform shaded by a striped red awning. The most important men and women in Kvashine presided over an arena that had been erected on the coarse beach sand; among them, the Protectorate and his partner, Lady Alenna Darnett.

Leith shaded his eyes against the sun, wondering if he could catch a glimpse of the warden pair. It would be troublesome if his pursuit of the spellknife was discovered by Berand and Alenna. He had a feeling the Order didn’t hold him in the highest regard. Not after the number of wardens he had put in the ground.

So it was imperative that Leith remained undiscovered. With his magical disguise, he was unrecognizable, his own features overwritten by another man’s. But beneath his black wide-brimmed hat and cape, he still wore his trademark red leather jacket. A small risk to take when hunting someone as skilled in magic as a spellknife.

Despite his disguise, Leith was still a stranger in a foreign land. The people milling about the pavilions eyed him warily, this odd man bundled in too many clothes to last long in the desert, but Leith remained cool with the help of his magicked jacket.

He filtered through the crowd with disinterest. He wasn’t so worried for his own well-being. Given his station, Leith could get himself out of anything. Murder even, much to the Order’s chagrin. But if he was caught, there was no doubt he would be escorted from the country empty-handed.

His sister couldn’t afford that. The thought of returning to Valeria and facing the look of disappointment on her face had Leith slinking further away from the arena.

He hadn’t seen the spellknife since entering Penth. He had relied on the raven to be his eyes on the two week journey to Penth, watching the spellknife’s every move when Leith could not.

No one seemed to notice the large raven hopping from post to post among the colorful blue and white streamers flowing in the breeze. Only Leith kept a careful eye on the black bird, trailing beneath her sporadic path from one canvas rooftop to the next.

“Slow down,” he muttered.

Leith slipped through the narrow spaces of the crowd in order to keep up with the raven as she flitted overhead. Spice and sweet incense perfumed the air, masking the musk that comes with the collective heat of sunbaked bodies.

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He ducked into some welcome shade and shouldered an unsuspecting man, who let out a startled cry and dropped his bundle of lettuce-wrapped fish to the dirt. Leith righted the scowling man. A sitar player accompanied by drummers stared, open-mouthed.

The raven let out a series of croaks from above, drawing eyes upward at her strange presence. She ruffled her feathers impatiently and Leith awarded her with a look of annoyance. Shoving his way past the musicians, tables laden with platters of grilled sandsnapper, and kegs of cactuswine stacked three barrels high, he emerged back into the open air much to his disgust.

The raven had led him straight toward the viewing platform, leaving the clusters of pavilions behind him, and Leith had no time to protest. The people around him stirred. Lavishly dressed merchants and laborers mingled together, captivated by the pageantry. Collectively, they drew a breath. Leith spared a glance at the arena.

Beneath a simmering sky, two men engaged in combat. Close quarters, lightly armored, and swords that might have been sharpened; nothing that tempted Leith into watching the spectacle. He was, however, surprised to see the Ninth Crown in the arena. An acquaintance Leith had surpassed on the Kings Ladder in the distant past.

As a Victon noble, Oliver Royce was a stuffy prig bent on propriety and honorable conduct. The man had hit his twilight and age weakened him, but his feats at the Kingsmoot tourney alone kept him in the game.

The raven crowed from above and Leith turned to follow.

A hoarse shout carried over the rising roar of the crowd.

Leith turned back to see the other man, who wasn’t a man at all, pressed to the edge of the fighting ring. She dared a harrowing move, blocking Oliver Royce’s blade with her own as he struck. Her blade clashed against his and with a jerk of her sword arm, she wrenched the man’s weapon from his grip.

It was a swift motion, hard to catch if you weren’t paying attention, but Leith had seen something like it before. And back then, the Lady Darnett had to use two hands to force the sword from him.

The fighter was a girl—though a tall one, towering over Oliver Royce, and Royce wasn’t a small man. Leith drank her in, his eyes making the long journey up her body. She was solidly built beneath a pair of tights and a gambeson. Her movements, raw and unrefined, but full of power.

A shrill croak cut through his thoughts. The raven perched on a nearby post in which a triangular banner of the Order flapped in the wind. Her beady-eyed gaze fixed on Leith as she bobbed her head up and down. His eyes traveled downwards over the heads and shoulders of the villagers to meet with the curious gaze of one spellknife.

The man Leith had been hunting turned on his heels and took off.

Leith cursed and barreled his way through the throng of spectators barring his path. Fishermen and crabbers among the crowd, built heavy by the turbulent waters of the sea, stood together in a hard labyrinth of flesh. The spellknife moved with a frantic energy to his step. He wove between the people, clearly making his way toward the red awning.

As Leith shoved his way toward the viewing platform, jostling the men and women in his way, he was close enough to see the Protectorate. The stout warden, magnificent beard and all, stood proudly on the dais as he addressed the crowd and the fighters standing in the ring.

By sheer aggression and luck, Leith’s path would cut the spellknife off right before the end of the viewing platform. He palmed his knife from its sheath. It needed to be swift and it needed to be discreet.

The crowd thinned out to reveal the stairs that led to the viewing deck. Weapon racks formed a wall, sectioning off a space filled with wooden crates and battered practice dummies. A few children loitered here waving stick swords around and Leith was surprised to see that they weren’t all Kvash. They didn’t take notice of him, observing intently the discussion that took place over the arena.

Leith scanned the crowd, gripping the end of the knife in his hand. He would throw it if he had to. And make a quick escape with only babes for witnesses.

The raven landed. He caught sight of a burgundy hood as the spellknife emerged from the crowd. A small smile crept onto Leith’s face. A sweet anticipation for blood. He could see the frown creasing the spellknife’s forehead, perspiration sliding down his temple.

A thought stayed Leith’s hand.

Leith had already searched the inn for the spellknife’s belongings. The man either stayed elsewhere or the item that incriminated Valeria was on his person. He needed the spellknife alive.

With the path to the Protectorate cut off from his quarry, Leith strode toward the man. The spellknife’s eyes twitched from the raven to Leith. Both men pivoted toward the docks. The raven cried, an unnatural urgency to its throaty voice as it hopped and flitted along above them.

The spellknife drew something from beneath his sleeve. Leith picked up his pace. He didn’t have long. He shoved a child aside, a tangle of limbs, red hair, and a whimpering yelp.

The movement was lost behind the numerous bodies between Leith and the spellknife but he knew what was coming. Leith knew the man held a slender ivory blade; imagined the tension in the air, that slicing motion spellknives utilized to snip a thread of magic, cut in twain whatever it was that connected Valeria to the raven.

Leith pushed his way through the current of people that seemed to surge against him, closer to the fighting ring, their attention rapt. He no longer cared who noticed. He risked losing the man completely. A brightly pitched male voice cleared the hush of the crowd. The wall of bodies shifted as everyone around him rose with a deafening roar.

And then he lost sight of the spellknife.

In a flurry of feathers, the raven took flight, abandoning its post. It darted erratically through the air in its confusion.

Leith fought his way toward the sea until the masses spat him out on the worn wood of the docks. The sun beat down on him as he stared out at the water, devoid of life, save for the gulls that coasted in on a hot breeze, dark clouds on their wings. He sheathed his knife, smoothing out his jacket beneath his cape. He took a deep breath of the salt air.

The spellknife was gone.

Amid cries of distress, the heat too unbearable for the hapless raven, it somehow knew to fly west toward more temperate and familiar lands.

In that moment, Leith wished that he could do the same.