Etian swept through the first night of the tournament with little trouble and, as promised, without causing any House Skalia casualties. There were casualties—a lower-ranked knight took a broken lance through the weakened gorget during the jousting displays and hemorrhaged on the field; another fighter was hit on the temple and expired quietly while the healers worked on what they believed were more urgent injuries—but Etian hadn’t been involved in either death.
Pasiona watched from beneath the fluttering canopy of the royal stand, a frozen observer, as Etian dispassionately ripped away swords, kicked feet out from under, and generally took apart her father’s best combatants.
He had wondered whether Lord Zinote would order his men to lose in order to please the king. That had happened in a tournament when Etian was young. It had infuriated him so much that he’d flooded the field with his opponents’ blood until it became obvious that if anyone wanted to survive against the child terror, they would have to fight for real. That was when they began speaking of him as the second coming of Josean.
Zinote’s tournament held no hint of similar playacting. His men were well-trained and powerful, some of the best Etian had fought, excluding the Royal Thorns. Of course, as his father’s Thorns could only defeat Etian when they worked in pairs nowadays, and Zinote wouldn’t allow his shabby middle-aged Thorns to compete, the local soldiers stood no chance against Etian.
On the second night of the tournament, in the final sword match, Etian met the boyfriend, Darios of Thivera.
Darios was uglier up close. After his name, the herald read out a host of triumphs from the previous year on the northern front. In another life, Etian would have learned from the battle-hardened warrior, but before the match even began, he could see that nothing short of the crown prince’s death would salve Darios’s fury enough to make him an ally.
Pasiona ignored both fighters equally when they saluted the king and lord. Her ice-blue eyes skimmed the crowd as if she were bored with the proceedings.
Etian couldn’t blame her. He already knew how the match with Darios would go.
The flag dropped. The mad-eyed brute charged. Reckless, unthinking. All his battle prowess swept away by the surge of emotion. A fight that could have been incredible, absolutely wasted.
Etian ducked under the wild swing of the greatsword and hooked Darios’s foot out from beneath him. Darios hit the trampled, muddy grass on his face. Etian placed the point of his sword against the back of the man’s neck.
Matches were decided by the deathblow, but tournament rules left it up to the fighters whether that deathblow was a literal one or an agreed-upon simulacrum. Darios couldn’t continue fighting from this position, which was why Etian had chosen to drop him forward rather than onto his back. It bettered the chance that he could keep his promise not to kill anyone.
“Prince Etianiel!” the herald cried in triumph.
Polite cheers from the crowd. A one-sided match didn’t provide much excitement. Maybe the next pairing would be better.
Etian saluted the king and made to leave the field.
A wounded animal roared behind him. Running boots thumped and squelched on muddy ground. The wind whistled around the raised greatsword.
Etian spun and slapped the blade aside with his bare hand, then cracked Darios in the jaw with the cage hilt of his falchion. Flecks of spittle and blood speckled his lenses.
The blow startled the rampaging bull, but didn’t stop him. With a battle cry, Darios arched his huge blade upward at Etian’s thigh. Etian met steel with steel, redirecting the attack harmlessly.
Darios hacked and slashed and roared like a cornered bear, tears pouring down his stubbled cheeks. He either didn’t care or was glad to know that he was attempting murder and suicide at the same time.
Etian parried until he saw an opening, then sheathed his sword. In one swift move, he snatched the wounded bear’s closest arm and, with a sharp twist of his upper body, snapped the elbow backward with a meaty crunch.
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Darios swung the greatsword one-handed; the pain had yet to catch hold of the brute. Etian ducked inside the swing, caught Darios’s other arm, and repeated the destruction. Then he kicked the weeping warrior to his knees and stepped away.
“Pasiona,” Darios whimpered to the trampled, muddy grass. “My heart and soul, my everything.”
Royal Thorns flooded in to take control of the incapacitated fighter.
All around the field, the spectators burst out in shouting and applause. The royal stands were in chaos. Jadarah cackled while Kelena looked on, white-faced and trembling, and Lady Zinote cowered away from the mad queen. Lord Zinote roared orders to his men and assurances to his king that this was an outrage he never expected. A common lout of a soldier fixated on his daughter! She certainly would never have encouraged such lowborn attentions! And to attack the crown prince while his back was turned! Well, this disgusting behavior would be rectified, oh yes…
Through the blood on his lenses, Etian watched Pasiona. In the moonlit afterglow of battle, she was gorgeous, an unfeeling alabaster statue. As her lover was being dragged off the field, not a flicker of emotion crossed her face.
Etian wondered if it was possible that he could love after all.
***
With the tournament over, the mood in the hall was festive to the point of raucousness, the drinking and music lasting late into the afternoon.
“Where is your trophy?” Pasiona asked Etian during the feast.
After the disastrous championship match, Zinote’s wife had presented him with the tournament’s swordplay cup. He had no idea where that useless bit of metal had gone.
“An attendant or thief somewhere has it. Your boyfriend didn’t listen when you told him to stay down.”
“I didn’t tell him to stay down, I told him if he was going to keep fighting to make certain he died in the attempt.” Pasiona fidgeted some roast capon around her plate. “You didn’t kill him.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t.”
She paused. “He wanted me to run away with him.”
“You chose not to endanger your family.” Etian caught her slash and redirected it. “Did you want to say yes?”
“Who cares for wants?”
His next move was a wild gamble, but instinct told him it was the right one, and since gambles should be undertaken without hesitation to have any chance of success, he lunged without second guessing.
“Usually I don’t,” he admitted. “I never thought I would live a life where mine would matter.”
Pasiona laughed icily. “I know mine won’t, and I’ve never been stupid enough to wish otherwise.”
Except while you were in his arms?
“I’ve had half a hundred noble daughters throwing themselves at me since I was made heir to the throne,” Etian said. “If I’d been forced to marry one of those idiotic peahens, I wouldn’t have been very happy about it either. I know I wasn’t your first choice, but you are mine. If you ever want something, as long as it doesn’t interfere with or harm the kingdom, I’ll get it for you.”
“That’s a fool’s offer.” She looked at the empty seat down amongst her father’s fighting men. When she went on, every word was drenched in irony bitter enough to taste. “Can you bring a brute commoner back from the dead?”
“He’s not dead. At least, he shouldn’t be.” They could likely step outside and hear his screams. “Your father commanded them not to kill him.”
To assure he wouldn’t fall out of Hazerial’s favor, Lord Zinote had ordered Darios of Thivera be made a cautionary tale for any man entertaining the idea of falling in love with a lord’s daughter under royal marriage negotiation. When the priests were finished with him, whatever was left would be a living horror.
“Then kill him,” Pasiona said.
Etian waited for her to make out as if she were joking. She didn’t.
“That’s what you want?”
She sipped her wine. “It’s what he’s begging for by now, wouldn’t you say?”
If Darios of Thivera could still beg.
“What he wants and what you want may not be the same thing. I meant it when I said I would grant whatever you wanted.”
“He won’t—” The ice in her voice cracked. She fussed with her shimmering dress, pretending to find crumbs to sweep away. When she spoke again, she had herself back under steely control and had unknowingly won the crown prince’s complete and utter devotion. “What he wants and what I want are the same in this case. No warrior soul can abide living forever disgraced and maimed, he told me once.”
At the next available opportunity, Etian excused himself from the feast. Pasiona stayed until the bloodslave nearest her ran out of wine.
***
As long as Etian had his lenses on, he was a fair shot with a longbow, and his aim was in top form after the days and nights hunting with woodsmen on the road.
On the lonely tournament field, an impromptu altar had been erected, a stake at its center. The ghost city hanging above the lord’s manor was nearly invisible in the daytime sky, but the strong gods did not discriminate between day and night. Blood was blood.
The priests’ motions formed a simple enough pattern, diving into their carrion for minutes at a time, then swooping away again all at once, like a murder of excitable crows.
A clear shot to the target opened. A bowstring twanged from deep in the cover of the lord’s forest some two hundred yards away.
Etian put an arrow through Darios of Thivera’s broken heart, pinning him to the blood-soaked stake.
***
The royal wedding was set to take place in the City of Blood that coming spring, ostensibly to give the bride time to plan a grand spectacle, but in truth to make certain no child was born to the future queen dubiously early.