Teldris lowered her sword from the unguarded chest of Oliver Royce, Ninth Crown on the Kings Ladder.

Penth roared around her, through the people that shouted her name and through the massive waves that hit the shore. While Royce stood before her, moustache bristling on a face of surprise, Teldris turned slowly to take it all in.

It felt like a dream, standing in the center of the arena. To the east, the sea stretched out so far that it seemed to rise over the heads of the crowd until it was capped by large mounds of dark grey clouds. The sky over Penth was a deep blue that rivaled the water. Hot and cold air came on the breeze, her name drifting in and out on a hundred different voices.

A viewing deck towered above her, its bright red awning protecting those within from the sun. A balcony jutted from the platform to overlook the ring, and long garlands of sunglow hung from its banisters like strands of orange pearls. Fluttering flags planted at each end cast snaking shadows across the arena.

The balcony remained empty.

“Daughter of the Sands,” the people chanted. Like devotions to a deity, Teldris thought in a daze, like how Malhayar must have felt listening to the prayers of her people. Their words felt like power.

Thunder rumbled in the distance as her father, the Protectorate, finally rose. He left the shade of the awning, sunlight washing over dark brown hair and olive skin. His deep voice carried over the arena, “Let it be known that Teldris—ward of the sands, daughter of Berand Darnett, of the Ashen Oasis—has defeated Oliver Royce, Ninth Crown of the Kings Ladder.”

Relief began in her toes and rose to her chest like stepping out of the heat and into Tualakh Bay. She had done it. She was the victor.

Oliver Royce cleared his throat and Teldris gazed down at his dark expectant eyes. From her vantage point, she could make out the grey hairs erupting from the crown of his head. She turned to pick up his discarded weapon, an ornate sword decorated with small emeralds and gold filigree.

Teldris offered the weapon with both hands to Royce. “Thank you,” she said, “for allowing me the opportunity, Sir Royce.”

Royce stiffly retrieved his weapon from Teldris. “It is a pleasure to still be of service,” he said, taking the time to wipe his sword with an embroidered handkerchief. His movements were stilted, distressed. He avoided meeting her eyes all the while. “Even with the changing times.” As she bowed, he returned her gesture with a curt nod before turning to leave the ring.

Teldris frowned. His swift exit didn’t seem as chivalrous as the stories had portrayed the Ninth Crown. She recalled how else the biographies described Oliver Royce—a man of tradition and honor. But nothing seemed honorable about the graceless way he accepted his defeat.

She watched his retreating form, finding it difficult to believe that the man before her was the same man that single handedly broke a command of twenty in Lechester Hall.

Teldris took a breath to keep her wild beating heart hidden behind a face of serenity. Her people expected poise from her.

Her brother had shown no such control when he won against the Ninth Crown. He wore his heart outwardly, shouting and jumping for joy like the rest of them. And they loved him all the same.

Even now, where he stood at the edge of the ring, surrounded by friends that had once been hers, Matthias watched her with brightly shining eyes that were so earnest, so written over with admiration, despite Teldris' frosty demeanor, that it made her stomach turn. She looked away.

Her sisters were nearby too. They were bright spots among the spectators with their red hair tumbling out from beneath matching green and gold embroidered scarves. Anariel leaned forward eagerly, one hand tugging at the narrow braid that hung from behind her ear. Hania, who perched on one of the lower rungs of the wood fence, pumped her tiny fists into the air and joined in with her shrill voice.

A surly man with mussed hair and a pointed beard who looked like he could have been their natural father, loomed over her sisters. Weaver Callam scowled and picked Hania up by the excess of her headwrap to deposit her back on the ground.

Teldris cracked a smile and her sisters grinned back.

“You did it!” they shouted over the festive sounds of the crowd, hopping up and down in excitement as Teldris ran to their side of the ring.

“It was my favor!” Anariel clapped her hands and kept them clasped before her. “I told you. It was good luck!”

Teldris glanced down at the red sash tied at her waist. It was meant to be a scarf but she couldn’t have it fluttering wildly around her head as she fought, so she wore it as a belt instead. Stitched at one of the ends were four misshapen circles and stick bodies. The presence of the fourth with its tangle of yellow thread—the only one with hair—irritated her.

“The Daughter of the Sands, our victor!” a voice cried. Teldris turned to face the viewing deck where Exarch Rolan had taken her father’s place on the balcony. He commanded the crowd with animated hands, his gentle face beaming as bright as the Kvashine sun. She bowed as Rolan spoke her praises, hiding the flush in her cheeks. Her heart swelled. “And what better way to end the day than to see our eldest wards test their mettle against one another?”

Her head snapped up. Had she heard that right?

Rolan raised his hands to settle the people before him, and something about Rolan’s subtle smile suggested that she had heard right. “Unconventional, yes,” he continued. “But aren’t we all curious to see who is better suited as Berand’s successor? The boy chosen by the Protectorate himself…”—he paused to allow the noise of the crowd to die out—“... or our very own Daughter of the Sands? Raised by her people as a beacon of virtue!” The Exarch clenched his slender fist. His voice echoed strangely over the hush of the enraptured audience. “Who wields the might to restore order to this restless land? To return Kvashine to her former glory and appease the will of her goddess?”

Everyone on the viewing deck stirred as Matron Alenna rose to her feet. Teldris could just barely make out the bright copper of her hair as the woman sprung upward from the group of white-cowled exarchs like a blooming poppy. She approached Rolan on the balcony. A frown creased her round face as she spoke heatedly to him, her voice stern and blustery over the whispering of the crowd. Berand shortly joined her.

The two made an intimidating pair, though they stood a full head shorter than Rolan. Even as the other exarchs left their seats, hands raised to placate the two of them, Alenna’s glower kept them at bay.

Teldris was alone in the ring. The hushed debate took place mutedly on the balcony. She became conscious of the eyes trained on her. The world around her grew restless, thunder rumbling from over the sea. The tide scraped over the shore, a whisper of sand on sand that hung in the air.

Taking quick stock of herself, she rotated her aching right shoulder and flexed her fingers. Royce had struck her several times throughout their bout, scoring hits against her arm in an attempt to disarm her. She was bruised and tender but not so much that she couldn’t endure another match.

“I’ll fight him,” Teldris said loudly, though she had intended it more for herself than she did anyone else on the beach. She looked up at her father to see if he had heard.

He turned to stare balefully down at her. She took a step toward the center of the ring only to find that Anariel had reached out to grip her hand.

“Be kind to Matt,” Anariel whispered. Her sister’s eyes were wide and imploring. “Your favor is stronger than his. Let him win if you must.”

Teldris couldn’t help but feel the slight twinge of betrayal in her belly. That Anariel would ask her to throw the challenge baffled her. She strode on, letting Anariel’s delicate fingers slip from hers. She felt the full weight of a hundred pair of eyes when she spoke again, her voice sailing smoothly across the sea of silence. “I’ll fight Matthias.”

Her father stood a monolith among the Exarchs, broad shoulders gleaming in ceremonial dress. His white cloak fluttered behind him, a snapping spirit in the wind. A neatly groomed beard hid any sort of expression her father might have had, but Teldris knew he was displeased.

The excited murmur of the crowd died down to match the Protectorate’s silence. The sun beat down on her. A bead of sweat trickled down the nape of her neck and the frothy-mouthed sea receded from shore, offering no reprieve from the summer heat. The Protectorate was a man on whom time and tide waited. The world was waiting just as Teldris waited, her squinting at him where the sun gilded his father’s brown hair in gold.

Teldris waited for him to speak.

She waited to breathe.

“Wardens of the Order—” her father finally said, a booming voice that roused the crowd, “—do not fight their own.”

The cheering devolved into a disappointed jeer. Teldris observed the stony face of her father and the Exarch who stood calmly beside him. Exarch Rolan made a gentle figure, slight compared to her father’s broad stature. His hair was long and flaxen, flowing from beneath a gold-trimmed cowl that was as stark white as her father’s cape. Hands clasped before him, they were hidden beneath voluminous sleeves.

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His warm eyes met her own.

Rolan raised a hand. His voice carried on a strong gust of wind. “Then it is fortunate that young Teldris and Matthias are not yet wardens, but still wards of the sands. Still young and eager to prove themselves. Isn’t that right, brave Matthias?”

Josan, standing guard at one of the stairs that flanked the viewing deck, led his men in their patriotic chant. The rest of Penth joined in. Teldris didn’t know if it counted, having grown up alongside Josan before he had joined the Lancers, but she felt better knowing that at least Josan and the Exarch were on her side.

Her father gripped the bannister with his gloved hands, his face blackened by a fierce glower.

The people surged forward, arrested by the Exarch’s soft words, awaiting her brother’s response. She could make out Old Nan with her flour-stained apron, standing squarely at the front with her hands on her hips. Isaak stood apart from the rest of the youths. His brows beetled above the wide bridge of his nose, the ghost of a scowl on his thin lips.

And in the shade of the balcony, Matthias hovered at the edge of the ringed fence, watching her. The gambeson he wore bulked up his boyish shoulders. They hunched inward as he shoved his hands in his pockets. Rosalie, the dockmaster’s daughter, clung to Matthias’ arm as if she anchored him from shriveling out of existence. She stared at Teldris dubiously .

Teldris shrugged in return.

In truth, her heart pounded against her chest. Her grip tightened around the handle of her sword. Teldris wanted to fight Matthias. She ached for it, and that ache traveled up her throat to build behind her lips. She wanted to shout—she would fight Matthias. She would win.

To her surprise, Matthias climbed over the fence and dropped into the ring. He strode toward her, each step steadier than the last, crunching over sand as the banners snapped harshly in the wind. Matthias finally stood before her, his shoulders squared and his chest puffed. They stared at each other, Matthias a whole head shorter than Teldris. Wispy blond curls picked up in the wind to flutter softly around his head. The sky rumbled in the distance. It was as if a young prince had stepped out of the pages of a storybook and she was an awaiting antlion from the Sahran. She was Kraksuura in his pit.

Teldris cocked her head at him, her brows pinched into a frown. How could he believe that he could stand up to her? She had been a ward since she was a babe—training since she could walk. He had been nothing but a shepherd boy up until two years ago.

As if he heard her thoughts, Matthias touched the badges pinned to his chest over the thick gambeson. His achievements that day mirrored hers though she had yet to receive her valor from the Ninth Crown.

It must have given him the courage he needed, for when the sky briefly flashed white, Matthias spoke again, more clearly this time. “I’ll fight.”

The crowd roared, crashing over the two of them like a charging tidal wave. Both Protectorate and Exarch shouted. One sounded more pleased than the other. But Teldris only heard the rush in her head and the thunder that cracked the air around them, raising the hairs on her arms. She forced herself to relax. She hadn’t realized that she had been grinding her teeth.

A thin rectangular plate, thrown from the viewing deck, hit the sand for the eleventh time that day, this time landing between her and Matthias; a gleaming serpentine dragon winked in the waning light of the sun.

Teldris waited for Matthias to produce a weapon. He patted his unequipped waist, face colouring as he realized his mistake. He gave an exaggerated shrug with his hands, eliciting groans and nervous laughter from around the ring. One of his friends threw him a sheathed sword and he deftly caught it with a nod of thanks.

Matthias drew the sword, tossing the scabbard aside. The shining blade caught what sunlight it could before a powerful breeze ushered in a darkened sky. The two of them readied their guard.

He moved first, quickly closing the distance between them. Without the presence of his friends, Matthias seemed dwarfed by the yellow sprawl of the arena, the people a drab-grey blur. It was easy for her to imagine him as a wisp of an ant tumbling down a funnel of sand at her.

Teldris batted Matthias’ blade away, twisting to his vulnerable side to seek out an opening with her own weapon. Her heart fluttered, her sword swinging downward where his padded shoulder and neck met.

It could have ended so swiftly.

In that moment, everyone around the ring drew back as if lightning would strike that small space between her and Matthias—his sword whipped around, narrowly catching her blade against the hilt. His eyes shone brightly from behind his raised arm where Rosalie’s favor had been tied into a neat, flat bow.

She wasted no time.

Pressing her brother with a series of quick attacks, Teldris fell into a steady cadence where muscle memory and instinct took over her sword arm. Matthias’ eyes, narrow and darting, traced every line of movement she made. He was as relentless and untiring as she was; the both of them too stubborn to yield.

Cold air brushed across the fine hairs on her neck, cooling the sweat that collected above her collar. Matthias wasn’t completely defensive. Each of his parries returned a strike of his own. The tip of his sword stabbed into the space beside her cheek and she felt its absence when it withdrew.

While her fight with Oliver Royce had been a frantic struggle to stay in the match—to survive, this fight with Matthias was more evenly matched. Instead of a chaotic cacophony of steel on steel, her sword clashed against his in rhythmic bursts—Clack-clack-clack. Draw. Clack-clack-clack. Draw—they had sparred so many times that it might as well have been rehearsed. Where pure instinct had won her match against Oliver Royce, Teldris found herself measuring every cut and parry she made against Matthias.

Teldris launched herself forward, her sword leading in high. Matthias narrowly blocked it with his own. He reared beneath the strength of her blow and instead of scuttling away, he pushed forward, keeping their blades locked.

“This was supposed to be for fun, ezza,” Matthias said with a grimace, calling her sister in that ridiculous northern dialect of his, accented and pretentious. Teldris glared at him from behind the edge of her sword. The boys around the ring parroted the word at the two of them. “You take things too seriously.”

“And you not seriously enough,” Teldris snapped. “Is it all just fun and games for you, Matt?” She yanked her sword back, shuffling out of the reach of his swordpoint.

Teldris took a deep breath. Matthias wiped sweat from his hands onto his dusty gambeson. She waited. She would prove nothing by striking him down now. Only that she was an opportunist without honor or respect for her opponent.

“No,” Matthias said. He tested the waters with a few strikes that she batted aside. “This is just some grudge you have against me.”

“Not a grudge,” Teldris muttered. She struggled to remain focused as Matthias’ attacks came swift and unrelenting. “I just don’t trust you.”

His final lunge aimed at what he thought was an opening—her shoulder. His golden demeanor gave way to a growl of frustration. “Why?”

She slapped away his sword with a snarl. “Because you don’t belong here!”

Teldris had swung with such force that it threw his sword arm wide and she leaped in.

Matthias sidestepped her attack. His pommel slammed into the back of her shoulder. He brought his sword around to swing at her midsection.

It was desperation that drove Teldris to go against her training. And it was desperation that was her undoing. She stepped in with a vertical parry, knowing now that it came down to brute force. With a great shove against his hilt, she threw his blade wide again, surprised to see Matthias let his weapon go flying this time.

He launched himself toward her, grabbing hold of her wrist. His fingers dug beyond her cloth protection and into tender flesh and she bit back the pain.

Her free fist came down on his face. Blood blossomed from his nose. Shouts came from beyond the ring—and Rosalie’s shrill scream—and the pleading cries of her sisters—and her father bellowing.

Teldris brought her knee up next just as Matthias doubled over and shoved her in her midsection. They tumbled to the arena floor, rousing sand and grit around them.

Pinned on her side, Teldris strained for her sword where it lay just beyond her reach. Matthias sat on her, blood dribbling down his chin as he wrenched her right arm behind her and over his raised knee. She cried out hoarsely; any further and he would snap her arm at the elbow. She bucked against his weight and though he might have been of slighter build, Matthias was still strong enough. He held her down firmly.

Teldris twisted beneath him. She managed to lever a leg between the two of them and shoved him off. He yielded, easing his weight off of her. Teldris brought her arm to her chest, sore and aching, as she caught her breath. Too easily he left, she thought. She didn’t have much time.

Teldris scrambled through the sand for her weapon. She felt his light steps, saw his shadow approaching on the arena floor as he closed the gap between them. Matthias was upon her when she grasped the handle of her sword.

She spun around. Her blade followed, tip slicing and dragging over the ground. Sand flew into the air.

Fabric split beneath the edge of her sword, and something softer. She caught Matthias’ wild eyes before lightning cracked the sky and she was blinded. Her mouth opened in a wordless cry, horrified as her blade had opened him from thigh to hip.

They collided briefly—stealing her breath—before they fell apart. A jolt of pain wracked her body, spreading a numbness from her very core to the tips of her fingers.

Matthias staggered away with a wheeze. Teldris stumbled. She found herself on her back, dark clouds roiling above her.

For a moment, silence lay thickly on the beach like fog before dawn.

Teldris struggled to catch her breath. With shaking fingers, she tore at the fastenings of her armor, and even though she loosened the trappings across her breasts, she still couldn’t catch her breath. She rolled over gasping, and rose unsteadily, sand crunching beneath her hands and feet. She bent over, forced to brace herself on her knees, unable to find the strength to remain upright. Her chest burned beneath her clothes.

She forced herself to lift her head. Across the ring, Matthias stayed low to the ground, huddled over himself. Blood ran down his leg to soak the sand beneath him.

First, lightning split the sky in quick flashes, bathing everything in white. Her sword lay between her and her brother. Its blade gleamed like ruby in the light of the crackling torches.

Then thunder rumbled and broke the silence only for it to be drowned out by the triumphant roar of the crowd. Teldris didn’t know who they were cheering for. She didn’t know who had won.

Her father’s harsh commands cut through the cascade of voices—of Penth, of Exarch Rolan, of the Matron.

She wavered on unsteady feet, tripping over herself as she sought her father out in a ring of unfamiliar faces. She couldn’t find him. Pain and anger surged through her. Her hand came away from her chest, wet and glistening red. Where was he? She was—

The sky soared away from Teldris.

“They’re hurt,” someone cried both near and distantly.

Then the rains came.