Page 76 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“First blood wins.”

They walked to separate ends of the courtyard to collect their swords. Gazes locked, blades unsheathed, they walked toward each other.

She would show him what village chaff could do.

Their bows were small and stiff. Tané gripped her sword with both hands. All she could see was Turosa, his hair dripping, nostrils flared.

The Sea General called out, and Tané ran at Turosa. Sword clashed on sword. Turosa shoved his face so close to hers that she could feel his breath and smell the tang of sweat on his tunic.

“When I command the riders,” he hissed, “I will see to it that no peasant ever rides a dragon again.” A clangor of blades. “Soon you will be back in that hovel they pulled you from.”

Tané thrust at him. He stopped her blade just shy of his waist.

“Remind me,” he said, so only she could hear, “where it was you came from?” He shoved her sword away. “Do they even give names to shit-heap villages?”

If he thought to provoke her by insulting the family she had never known, he would be waiting a thousand years.

He swung at her. Tané parried, and the duel began in earnest.

This was no dance with wooden swords. There was no lesson to be learned here, no skill to be refined. In the end, her confrontation with her rival was as quick and ruthless as having a tooth pulled.

Her world was a torrent of rain and metal. Turosa sprang high. Tané sliced up, deflecting his downcut, and he landed in a crouch. He was on her again before she could breathe, sword flashing like a fish through water. She matched every blow until he feinted and punched her in the chin. A brutal kick to the stomach sent her sprawling.

She should have seen that feint from leagues away. Her exhaustion had been her undoing. Through the droplets on her lashes, she glimpsed the Sea General, observing them without expression.

“That’s right, villager,” Turosa sneered. “Stay on the ground. Just where chaff belongs.”

Like a prisoner awaiting execution, Tané lowered her head. Turosa looked her over, as if to decide where it would hurt most to cut her. Another step brought him within reach.

That was when her head snapped up, and she swung her legs toward Turosa, forcing him into a leap to avoid them. She impelled her body away from the ground and whirled like a windstorm back to her feet. Turosa repulsed her first blow, but she had caught him off his guard. She saw it in his eyes. His footwork turned clumsy on the wet stone, and when her blade thrummed toward him again, his arm came up too slowly to block it.

It shaved his jaw, soft as a blade of grass.

A heartbeat later, his sword gashed open her shoulder. She gasped as he jerked away from her, teeth bared and slick with spittle.

The other sea guardians were straining to see. Tané watched her opponent, breathing hard.

If she had not broken the skin, this fight was lost.

Slowly, rubies welled from the line she had drawn. Trembling and drenched, Turosa touched one finger to his jaw and found a smear, bright as a quince blossom.

First blood.

“The honorable Tané of the South House,” the Sea General announced, and he was smiling, “victory is yours.”

No words had ever sounded sweeter.

When she bowed to Turosa, blood oozed like molten copper from her shoulder. His face wheeled from the shallows to the depths of anger. He had fallen for the trick—a trick that should have fooled no one—because he had expected weakness. As he looked her in the face, Tané knew, at last, that he would never call her village chaff again. To call her that would prove that chaff could grow taller than grass.

The only way to save face was to treat her as his equal.

Under the cracked-open sky, the descendant of riders bowed to her, lower than he ever had.

17

West

Having been declared free of plague, Loth and Kit were admitted into the presence of the Donmata Marosa several days after their arrival. During those days, they had kept to their rooms, unable to leave with guards keeping watch in the gallery. Loth still shuddered at the memory of the Royal Physician, who had placed leeches where leeches should never be placed.

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