She makes a thoughtful noise. “Of course I am. No one else can fix your wounds on the course. My father taught me. You should be pleased to know I inherited his steady hands.”
The daughter of champions. I’ve always thought of her father and mother as former winners of the Races, not as parents who taught their daughter useful skills. Of course they did.
“Knowledge that you’re now using to help a sworn enemy. I thought this kind of work was beneath someone like you.”
The next stab is just a touch sharper. It’s quiet for long enough that I open my eyes, expecting her to be glaring at me. Instead, she’s focused on her work. Steady hands and a focused expression. I watch as she draws the thread up into the air.
“You have misinterpreted this gesture.”
I almost laugh. “Is that so?”
“This is an ancient tradition.” She pulls the thread again. “In the Old Games, victors would often tend the wounds of the person they defeated. It was an intimate moment shared between them. A reminder from the victor. These wounds? I gave them to you. I defeated you once, and every one of these scars will be a reminder that I can beat you again.”
She finishes her final stitch before looking up at me, one hand still resting on my arm. Her expression isn’t guarded. This is not the carefully groomed champion everyone sees on the Chats. There’s fire in her eyes. Heat pulses in the air and this time I can’t tell if it’s something in her or something between us. My body feels like it’s charged with the same heat and lightning.
And the moment ends. We both look away.
She hands me the extra bandages before returning to her side of the carriage. The retreating heat produces a chill, and I do my best not to shiver as she speaks.
“The other wounds require an actual doctor. I’m sorry I was the cause.”
Back to neutral, guarded. We are competitors again.
I frown. “Are you really?”
She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t answer.
“What was it?” I ask, remembering the ghostly face. I can’t get that flash of blue out of my head. “Revel had one, too. I saw the thing jump from your horse. I saw its face.”
“Quinn,” she says. “Her name was Quinn.”
That has me grinning, which hurts like hell. “You gave it a name?”
“She already had a name. But she’s gone now. Back to the underworld.”
There’s no one present to hear that admission but me. The Ashlord gods supposedly live in the underworld. Anything that comes into our world does so with their permission. That can mean only one thing: She cheated. “You know I had you. I’ll definitely tip my hat to that bit of riding you did when Bravos slammed you. Never seen anything like that. Your whip strike? It was gorgeous. But at the end, I had you.”
That brings a little of the fire back to the surface. Pippa raises her chin and her eyes look like a pair of burning coals. “I would have won either way.”
“Hard to tell with the gods tipping the scales.”
Annoyance flashes over her face. I’m surprised how quickly it bleeds into outright anger.
“You think it’s unfair? That the gods favor us? You know nothing, Longhand. You forget that the Dividian came here to make us bow. You forget that we were loyal worshippers to the gods that your people abandoned. We bowed to them so we would never have to bow to either of you. There’s a price in ruling this world. Always there has been a cost. We rule with iron and fire because it’s the only thing someone like you will respect. So tell me. Is it our fault you’re too afraid to dance with the gods?”
She doesn’t look very satisfied with her own answer, but she turns her eyes back to the window. I can tell she wants the conversation to end. She’s not wrong, but she’s not right, either. Our past is complicated. Our history is bloody. This land was shaped as much by the dying as it is now by the living. I think about why Daddy sent me in the first place. His own son. He sent me into a den of snakes to start a war, one that might avenge his beloved wife.
And then there’s the lesson I learned from Capri. The only way to beat them is to become them. We have to be as bloody, as cruel. We might even need some of their gods to pull it off.
“It never ends,” I say quietly. “You’ll hate me. And my children will hate your children. Your gods must be excited. Things are about to get bloody. Just the way they like it, right?”
I’m expecting her to bite back. Instead, Pippa turns to look at me. Her glare burns across the carriage and I can tell for the first time she has a sense of what is coming. This was more than just a race. Our world is about to burn.
And the two of us are the ones who will set it on fire.
The door of our carriage opens. Officials stand beneath the stars.
“Adrian. Come with us.”
Pippa watches with curious suspicion. All my fears return. They’ve stopped on the road in the middle of the night. What will they do with me, out here in the desert?
An official sets a hand on my shoulder as I exit. He leads me forward without violence, but it waits like a promise in his open palm. If I resist or flee, he won’t hesitate to punish me. A second flanks my opposite side. It’s never a fair fight with the Ashlords.
Other officials wait in the distance. The riders watch from their carriage windows, some curious and others simply bored. A new carriage sits in the road ahead. I note the three men standing in front of the unwelcome carriage. Their uniforms mark them well.
The Quespo.
Ashlord society has employed the question-police ever since the war. They’re the subtle threat that lurks in every tavern, a network of spies. As the officials lead me over, I note the insignias on each breast. Two of them are interrogators in the Ashlord army. One’s a police general. None of them are good news.
My eyes search the night. I wonder how far I could get before they caught me. One of the Quespo steps forward and speaks. It’s the only thing that stops me from breaking the hand on my back. It’s a voice that I know, because Antonio made me memorize it. The man’s uniform has changed, but he looks exactly as he did in the wine cellar. An Ashlord who styles his hair in a faux-hawk and looks far too old to wear it well. His dark eyes weigh me.
One of the ten faces I need.
His name is Atl. His favorite food is goose liver.
“Adrian Ford. You are to be arrested for the death of Capri. His family and the Empire Racing Board are invoking the third amendment of the contract you signed, which expressly forbids that you, under any circumstances, kill another contestant during the Races. Accused of this crime, we cannot allow you to appear in the ceremonies to come. You will come with us.”