Raleigh explained that each section of the city had its own entrance, which became visible when we reached the end of the quartz-paved road in Top and stepped on a gilded bridge made of steel. The stone rail had many posts, all topped with carvings: a clawed foot, a wing, a serpent’s tail, parts of the draignochs, a foreshadowing of the butchery we would witness. My stomach turned.
I looked down.
It was a long way between Top, Middle, and Bottom. But the divides were much greater than just the bridges taken.
Those around us, coming from the Top, were much fewer in number. There was ample space between families on the road, the way there was between their homes. The Toppers, as Sybil clarified for me, wore fine linens in colors I’d never seen before. Dark purples, burnt oranges, brilliant reds. With groomed ruddy and black fox furs, livery collars of silver and gold, and jewels galore, I had never seen so much wealth in one place. The steel bridge beneath us in the Middle had no decorations. It was crowded, but still many fewer than the droves taking the road from the Bottom. Middlefolk donned smoothed leather and pressed linens and wools, and carried baskets and waterskins as if they were attending a party.
The Bottom was so far away it was impossible to see anything except the crowns of their heads, of which there were so many the sea of people moved at a turtle’s clip. Thousands stacked to pass through a single entrance like sheep waiting to be penned.
Halfway across the bridge, cheering broke the awed silence. Names I’d never heard of volleyed back and forth, growing in volume and frequency the closer we came to the arena. Sir Griffin’s name heralded the loudest of all, echoing off the wall from the Top to the Bottom. The devotion was almost majestic. The people of the Walled City worshipped him. Fools, the lot of them.
Sir Raleigh corralled us to one side, moving away from the Toppers and into a separate, well-guarded tunnel, at the end of which was a large wooden lift that I suspected was used to lower competitors to the arena floor. Five men stood against the wall. And yet, looking closer at them, only three of them could grow proper whiskers. The other two’s cheeks still puffed with baby fat.
Griffin stood closest to the arena entrance. In a smoothed red tunic, he looked every bit the picture of one of Umbert’s soldiers. Wealthy too, by the look of his clothing. And yet his face told another story. The fresh wound, but also a deep older scar across his forehead, and another from his ear that ran down his neck and disappeared beneath his tunic. Those kinds of scars were the marks of a survivor.
A boy handed him his spear, but his eyes were suddenly on me. He looked away, checking the spear’s weight, then the sharpness.
I recognized another from the royal table last night too. In all black, he had red hair like Sybil.
“You missed the theatrics,” he said, smirking.
“Theatrics?” I asked.
“A long arduous play commemorating how the king became king, as if the people didn’t already know,” a blond burly man said. “Sir Silas.” He tilted his head in greeting.
“Hello.” I smiled.
“Hello. I’m Oak,” a plump boy with a ponytail perched on his crown said from the far end of the tunnel. He blushed three shades of red.
“Hello, Oak.” I waved back. They all seemed friendly enough.
“Happens every day of the tournament this year. Thus, why we took our time,” Sybil said with a wink. She turned back to a handsome red-haired man. “Malcolm, this is Maggie. Maggie, this is my eldest brother, Malcolm.”
He tilted his head in greeting, then set his spear down and stretched his arms over his head.
“Maggie?” Griffin fumbled his spear, wincing.
I caught it before it hit the ground.
Griffin gripped the shaft beneath my fingers. It was the briefest of brushes, the pass-off. But I could still feel it lingering afterward.
“I thought you said Griffin was a champion, Lady Sybil. But it seems he can’t even carry the weight of his own weapon.”
Sybil took my arm. “I believe he’s stupefied by your transformation, Maggie.”
“It’s simply . . .” He paused, trying to find words. I expected a snide comment, but instead he said, “I didn’t recognize you.”
“This is not my spear!” A fair-haired boy at the other end tossed his weapon on the ground as if it were worth nothing. I’d seen men kill each other for less steel than was in the tip.
Groaning, Sybil let go of my arm and padded to him. She picked up the spear, turned it over, and showed him the bottom. “This is our seal, Cornwall. And it’s too short for Malcolm, so it must be yours.”
Cornwall snatched it from her. “It’s heavier than it should be. Someone’s tampered with it.”
“Then maybe you should step out of the competition,” Malcolm said.
“Oh, you’d like that, brother, wouldn’t you?” Cornwall lifted the spear and aimed it, not at Malcolm but at Griffin. “I’m coming for you.”
Griffin laughed at him, flexing the fingers on his gloved right hand. “Odds feel in my favor if you can’t recognize your own weapon.”
Cornwall took a menacing step toward him, but Sybil pushed him back, shaking her head.
Griffin turned away from him. I leaned over and caught another wince, more subtle this time as he clenched his fist. A bandage poked out the end of the glove. Cornwall was embarrassingly full of bluster, but there was a reason for his boast. The champion was worried. It must be his throwing hand. And Cornwall knew it.
Knock him off his dais, young Northman. Griffin deserved heaping buckets of humiliation after what he did to us last night.
“Maggie, shall we go up?” Sybil asked.
Raleigh yanked open a door I hadn’t noticed before. Beyond it was a staircase leading up, every step saddled with a guard at attention.
Griffin set his spear down and met us on the first step. “I’m sorry to keep you. I just wanted to say—”
“What? After last night, what more can there be for you to say?” I asked.
“Sir Griffin! Time to lead!” a man called from the lift.
“I’ll go.” Cornwall made only a step before Griffin slammed him into the wall so hard Cornwall’s eyes bulged from losing his breath.
“No. You won’t.” His arm still on Cornwall’s chest, Griffin snatched his spear, then marched down the tunnel and onto the lift. As it lowered, Griffin’s stern frown remained fixed on me.
The private staircase filled with the arena’s blistering reverie, which rose to full heart-pounding volume when we reached the covered balcony, a constant chorus of one word: “Grif-fin! Grif-fin! Grif-fin!” I rolled my eyes, wanting to join in with a very unladylike addition to the chant, but refrained.
Over and above it, though, I suddenly heard her. The draignoch.
Her resonant whimper, repeating. It was coming from beyond the other side of the arena. Was that where they kept the draignochs? It would make sense. If draignochs were all as large as she was, they were far too big to be moved vast distances without worrying about the damage they would do to the city.
The others on the balcony paid no attention. No one else seemed to hear her. Not Xavier seated next to the king, waving like a fool at the competitors and attendees. He was already well into his cups. Not any of these others: Esmera, the prince, who ate and drank on the opposite end of the balcony. Not Sybil, who went to help an old man with crutches, her father I presumed, lower to his chair. And not the few gray-smocked servants who fussed refilling empty plates and glasses, or many guards posted.