True. Safi’s magic trills in her ribs even as cold sweeps down her body. This dress is much, much too thin. Her hand curls against Henrick’s arm.
Then she realizes all eyes are on her. They are waiting for her to say the same, waiting for the ceremony to complete. But for some reason, when she tries to lift her voice and say the words she has practiced, nothing will come.
Eyes blink—so many eyes—and people shift. They shimmy. They share glances of confusion, and Safi can practically hear them thinking, Why does she not speak?
But she can’t. All she can do is smile, and even that is growing strained. Once she says these words she will be married. What is hers will be the Emperor’s. Her body, her being. Until our days are done and our bodies dust, we are bound.
She had never thought she would marry, yet suddenly it is all she wants. But to marry for love, for friendship, for Thread-family. Not for business, as is the Cartorran way. Not to trick an emperor into handing over her uncle …
Safi’s eyes find Iseult’s in the crowd. Her Threadsister has pulled back her scarf. Her golden eyes gleam, her black hair shines. There is iron in that gaze. And a certainty that, no matter what Safi does next, Iseult will be beside her. Initiate, complete until their days are done and their bodies are dust.
And Safi’s smile relaxes at that thought. For of course she can do this. It is part of the plan, and by the Twelve, she will follow it.
“I, Safiya, Domna of Hasstrel, take you, Henrick fon Cartorra, as my spouse.” She raises her face, draws back her shoulders. “By law and by land, we are tied. What I possess, you receive. What you possess, I claim. Until our days are done and our bodies are dust, we are bound.”
The room looses a collective exhale. Even Henrick’s chest shrinks. Then, just as the room of common folk from all those years ago had done, the doms and domnas declare, “By law and by land, you are tied. We witness, we abide.”
The words rumble in the stones. Quiver in Safi’s bones, and she smiles even wider, her eyes still on Iseult—who is nodding her approval. Who is drawing up her scarf once more.
The next step in their plan is complete. Now it is on to the final one.
TWENTY-THREE
The Hammer came for Stix at midday. She wasn’t expecting him at their inn—wasn’t even sure how he’d found them, but when he told her it was time to fight again, she was all too happy to obey. Maybe this time, she’d get the vision she needed. Maybe this time, the voices would finally finish speaking and go away.
A fine carriage drove them to the Ring, and despite Ryber’s best efforts to chat with the Hammer, all he did was glower and grunt at each of her questions. He clearly saw Stix as competition; he clearly thought she’d come to replace him.
The stink of sulfur pitched higher as they ambled over swamplands toward the Ring, while the voices pitched lower. Come this way, keep coming. Once Stix was inside the Ring and once more facing the wooden entry stall, they silenced completely. She felt like she could breathe, could think, could be.
And in that blessed quiet, her magic notched to saturation. Somehow, a lake’s worth of water waited for her inside the arena. Ryber took Stix’s spectacles, and the world returned to the blurry-edged smear it had always been. If there was that much water near, then they would only be in the way.
A bell rang. The crowds outside screamed—a sound that sent Stix’s heart soaring. Winning nights at the Cleaved Man had been fun; winning the Slaughter Ring was, she couldn’t deny, exhilarating.
The door to the Ring swung outward, and thick, brown water spanned the length of the arena. Afternoon sun glinted off its still surface.
“Get to the other side!” A boot hit Stix’s spine. She fell headfirst into the enormous pool, and water crashed over her. Her breath pushed from her lungs and nose, and she let herself fall for several eternal moments. Her power lanced out—a vast sweep of sensory awareness to gain her bearings. Reaching, connecting, controlling.
The water was deep, as if they’d removed not only the dirt that used to be here, but several stories’ worth of it. It was also filthy, brackish, muddy, and pumped in straight from the marsh.
Most important of all, the water was not empty. Three massive creatures tangled and writhed on the silty substrate floor, each trying to move fastest. Each trying to get ahead and swim toward Stix with their lithe, serpentine bodies covered in silvery fur.
Sea foxes.
Stix summoned a wave to launch her upward, and the water complied. She broke the surface, flying high, water shaking off her.
Ice. She froze the water’s surface, and her body slammed onto it. The bellowing crowd thrummed through her. It seemed to swell and boom in time to her heart, in time to her magic.
She gathered her feet, eyes squinting for the door she had to reach in order to end this round in the Ring. Not that she was ready to leave just yet. “I’m here,” she called, opening her arms to the stone ruins. “Show me what you want me to see.”
The voices got no chance to answer before the ice vanished beneath her. Stix dumped back into the water and teeth zoomed in.
Fine, she thought as she sank fast. If ice wasn’t allowed, then she would attack instead.
She blasted out her waters, slamming away the nearest fox before its teeth could connect. A second blast, a third before she twisted like a diver and aimed herself straight down. Her ears swelled against her skull. She felt the substrate approaching, a stretch of flat nothing that she could not control, but that water had seeped into.
Above her, the sea foxes were changing course. They’d be circling back soon.
Stix’s hands touched silt. Her eyes shuttered. Back, she commanded the water. Away. Then she repeated, Back away.
It took the water longer than usual to obey her—not because it did not want to, but because it was so vast. So many minuscule droplets that had to separate from their siblings. Back away. They pulled, they stretched, they disconnected one by one, starting at the pool’s surface and spiraling down.
A whirlpool formed, spinning faster as each moment passed. Spinning closer to Stix too. Back away. Back away. The first kicks of air reached Stix. Her body flipped and spun, and she squeezed her eyes even tighter. Back away, back away.
Then it was done. She was fully exposed; the water had parted; a column of air surrounded Stix.
She opened her eyes. Gray light beamed in, and with it came the crowd’s roars—the foxes’ too. They had been thwarted. Two howled from within the water, a piercing yip that shivered through the sand beneath her feet.
The third thrust its head into the empty column and bayed. A tragic, ferocious sound.
Stix grinned at it. Her chest heaved. She was soaked through, salt coated her tongue, and her muscles quivered with power. She couldn’t hold this column forever, but Noden, it felt good. No one was as powerful as she. And now, to reach the other side of the Ring, all she had to do was walk.
“Water Brawler, Water Brawler!”
She lifted her foot. Then her other. Right, left, right, left, a muddy slog that tried to hold her down. “I’m here,” she told the voices. “I came this way and kept coming.” She lost track of the foxes, circling around the column with predatory rage. She lost track of the crowd, screeching and stamping and clapping their glee.
“Where are you?” she asked again and again. “Talk to me, please. Show me why the hell-waters I’m here.” But the memories never came, and when Stix was halfway across the Ring, the first body fell into the pool.