The Joust

The Joust
Amval

My heart hammers. The sun beats down on me, drenching my brow in sweat. People are everywhere, dressed in finery and uniforms alike. I have to find her. I can’t be too late.

I spent half of last night awake, trying to figure out how to convince Ingrid I believed her without abandoning my belief in my sister. When Tek woke me early with news of the joust, I barely understood him. All I knew was that we needed to get an early start because there was extra work to do.

By the time it dawned on me exactly what happened, exactly what Ingrid had agreed to, it was too late. I couldn’t abandon my friends to do my work for me.

Which is why I am now fighting my way through the frankly enormous crowd, considering how quickly this event came together, trying to reach the track to warn Ingrid.

She told me, one night, about one of her latest interests: jousting. I was excited to be able to relate to her over something. I don’t particularly enjoy the sport, but Seksim is well-suited for it, so I’ve ridden in a few jousts.

Then, she told me that in Dun’s Crossing—perhaps in most of the world—they joust as wolves.

Something—likely the sweet curve of her smiling mouth—distracted me before I could tell her just how different things are here.

I try to shoulder through a knot of people to no avail. Perhaps I could say I have some sort of urgent business with the horses, but Lord Corwyn certainly recognized me enough to be able to name the only groom wearing a starlight’s veil, and I’m not sure how many members of Astralis dot this crowd. Nothing has happened because of his disappearance yet, but a knife could find me so easily in this crowd. I might not survive the kind of attention that would garner.

I try to dart around the knot instead.

“Sash.” Abruptly, Mesut blocks my path.

“What?” I snap.

He eyes me. “A buckle, but…what is wrong?”

The crowd yawns before me, a sea I have to swim through while the current pushes against me. Mother and Father always said crowds were the best places to get spotted. No matter how well you thought you were blending in, trouble still might find you. There are simply too many eyes. So I have no idea how to maneuver this crush of bodies.

I look up at the stocky man I’ve worked alongside for months now, pray to the Goddess that the friendship I’ve earned is true, and inhale slowly through my nose.

“My girl?” I say.

He nods.

“She’s jousting Luna Kaloni, but she doesn’t know that it’s on horseback. I have to warn her.”

Mesut’s eyes widen at the implication. A groom and a princess? One who barely even rides? For a heartbeat, I’m sure I’ve made a mistake. Loyalty may be strong, but gossip tends to be stronger.

Then, his expression shutters. “We are all here. We will get you to the rail.”

I release my breath in a gust and grin at him. “You may well save a life today.”

“Are they not using blunted lances?”

“I can only hope they are.” Icy fear spiders out from my mark.

Mesut’s eyes go distant as mind-links fly in all directions—all avoiding the key piece of information, that I am in love with Ingrid. Grooms answer from what feels like every corner of the crowd, and the sour fear clouding my mind starts to lift.

I have a chance. We have a chance.

“Thank you,” I say to all of them.

Most of them don’t bother replying because they are too busy coming up with a plan, but Mesut claps me on the arm, just once.

“Shoulders narrow,” Mesut says. “Head down. There will be space cleared at the front, perhaps throughout, but for now, you are a rat.”

Memories of nights spent trying to patch holes in walls and floors as the vermin tried to squirm through flood my mind. I grimace, but I understand what he’s saying.

I maneuver through the smallest gaps my body can fit through, and I can’t stop moving until I’m through. I tuck myself smaller and dive into the crowd.

His advice works. I go from slamming into brick walls to worming through the cracks, slicing through the distance between Ingrid and I like a sharp knife. Here and there, one of the other grooms calls out to me through the mind-link, and I find a pocket of empty ground I can dart through while breathing something other than body odor and fear.

My fear. The crowd is all excitement. This is Kaloni’s first joust as Luna, and it’s against a foreign princess. Vendors hawk snacks and drinks; people chatter and place bets.

And that is what makes my blood run cold. Why I have to reach her, have to warn her.

Kaloni is viciously competitive, always has been, and I know she can’t resist a wager.

Just as well as I know how furious Ingrid was with me when she left.

There is no reason for the two of them to be doing this, especially not today, unless there’s something on the line.

Kaloni wouldn’t normally kill Ingrid. I mostly doubt that Ingrid would kill Kaloni, at least without some more proof than what we have. But they could have bet humiliation, leaving this place, any of a thousand dangerous possibilities.

I don’t intend to lose either of them to the other’s foolishness.

Which means I need to find Ingrid and convince her to abandon this plan before she discovers that she can’t possibly win. As much as I love Kaloni, she is competitive enough not to have warned Ingrid of the differences, especially if Ingrid suggested the joust. My sister will take the advantages people give.

I always thought that made her so clever. Father did, too.

“Sash!” Nur appears out of the crowd and grabs my arm. “Tek said you ran off somewhere. I need to speak with you urgently.”

A horn bellows—an announcement. The riders are coming out.

I’m running out of time.

If I don’t have Ingrid, this whole masquerade is worthless.

I rip my arm out of her grasp. “Not now.”

The stable master gapes after me as I sprint away, diving and weaving through the crowd. Later, I will face the consequences for that. But if it means saving Ingrid, reaching her in time, I’m glad to.

I can see the break in the crowd ahead, hear the rumble of mind-links from the few grooms holding people back from the railing for me. But I can’t smell her yet. If I could just smell her, I think I could get my mark to stop bellowing like someone sank a knife into it and keeps pushing deeper. My vision swims slightly with the pain.

“Come on,” Tek calls through the mind-link. “I’ve got one of the horses, and they’re telling me it’s time. Where are you?”

“I’m coming,” I reply. “Buy me a moment.”

A dizzy thought drifts through my mind—I’ve already risked so much. If I’m too late, I could just whip off my veil and risk it all.

In my mind’s eye, an arrow sinks into my throat before I finish the first word, stopping the duel. Astralis wants Kaloni on the throne—surely, if they thought they could control me, they wouldn’t have bothered killing me as well. They must be here to protect her position.

I burst through the final row of the crowd. Ingrid stands there, riding leathers roughly emblazoned with the crest of Dun’s Crossing silhouetted in the late-morning sunshine. A few tendrils of golden hair work loose from her braid and fly around her face.

And I can already see the wrinkle of a frown between her eyebrows. She’s smart. She must have realized something was off when they gave her the leathers. So why is she still here?

I reach the wooden railing—and the horns blare again. Tek walks out, leading a brown-speckled warmblood beside another senior groom, who has Seksim.

She looks at me and then back at the horse.

“You can still call this off.” Splinters dig into my palm when I grab the rail.

Ingrid looks down the lane at Kaloni, who mounts Seksim with effortless grace. Nothing escapes the tight knot of her hair. Backlit as she is, she almost looks like the ghost of Mother, riding again. As Tek reaches us, she looks at the massive crowd I just battled my way through.

And I know what she’s going to do. She doesn’t have to say a word.

Ingrid claims not to care about the political games I was raised to know like the back of my hand, but she cares deeply about her pride. So deeply she doesn’t even realize that is what all the rest of us are playing to protect.

I am too late.

“She is called Beri,” I murmur, “and she lists to the right.”

Silently, Ingrid fits a foot into the stirrup, and I murmur a prayer that she knows how to ride. No, not just ride. She needs to ride spectacularly to beat Kaloni. They no longer have jousts during the Festival of First Wind because there was no point, with Kaloni there. And my sister was always there, even when Father asked her to simply rest on her laurels and let others enjoy victory.

When Tek needs to help Ingrid into the saddle, and Beri huffs her irritation, my stomach sinks. Past my toes, through the very ground.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Kaloni calls, her voice amplified on the dancing wind. “Princess Ingrid told me she had never jousted the way we do before, and I was thrilled to offer this exhibition bout to show her. Please, everyone, support her as if she were one of our own.” She smiles. “As far as I am concerned, she is.”

Kaloni is…lying? A bout against her isn’t an exhibition; it’s a slaughter. Even she knows that. How much of a hand does Astralis truly have here?

I squint against the sun, trying to see if her lance truly is blunted.

The one Tek hands Ingrid certainly is—but Astralis’s modus operandi has been brutal “accidents” where everyone can see.

I clutch the railing until hot blood pools under my palms. Tek leads Ingrid into position. As the horns trumpet the countdown, he comes to stand next to me.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” he says.

There is no time to answer. The final, mocking, triumphant note sails through the air, and both horses explode off their marks.

I watch Ingrid, hair streaming, charging toward a future I cannot save her from while my mark screams.