Gently, her mother pointed out, “You need to take quarters of your own if you do this. The shame of it will cause troubles for your brother, so we need to appear as if you’ve been cast out of the house.”
Mutely, Aya nodded. She stood, kissed her mother’s cheek, and left. Her family wouldn’t abandon her, not completely, but they weren’t going to be a party to her scandalous behavior either. It wasn’t an unexpected reaction.
But it still hurts.
SHE WAS IN HER quarters gathering the things that she could take with her to her new apartment, when Belias came to stand in the doorway.
“So that’s it? You walk away from the marriage that we’ve both been expecting since you were born?”
“Yes,” she said as steadily as she could.
“And I don’t even get the courtesy of a conversation?” Belias’ hands were talon-tipped now. He rarely lost control of his shape, but his anger was clearly consuming him. His hands curled, and the end of each finger extended in a glinting talon.
“There are rules, Belias. I filed the forms, told my mother, and it was left to you to determine if you still spoke to me after the dissolution.” Aya’s gaze dropped to his talons, and she wondered if he’d strike her in anger. He’d never done so before, but she’d never rejected him before either.
“Undo it.” He took three steps into her room, nowhere near within touching distance, but at least he’d moved away from the doorway finally.
She didn’t step back. “No.”
He watched her from unreadable eyes, and not for the first time, she realized that the daimon before her would be as much a force within their world as his father had been. Belias was meant for power, had always been, and if she were able to hide the secret of her heritage, he’d be the perfect mate.
“I will enter the competition; I won’t be ordered to obey.” Her own hands were now tipped with the same sharp talons he had.
“Are you going to fight me, little bird?” The shock in his voice hurt. They’d never fought with talons.
“If I must,” she whispered. If he did fight her this way, she’d lose. This, too, would have to change. She needed to be able to fight against claws and talons in the competition—and for potential black mask jobs. She needed to be able to stand in such fights if she was to survive the competition.
“If I agreed to you entering the competition, would you—”
“Don’t.” Aya stalked toward him. “Don’t try to lie or trick me, Bel. Once I became your wife, you’d make the decision for me. I know it, and you know it. Don’t insult me by pretending any differently.” Tears trailed down her face. “Let me keep the trust we’ve shared.”
Belias laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “You severed our engagement without a word to me. I’m not sure how much trust is left.”
Then he was gone, and she was alone in her childhood room packing her most essential possessions. She was unwed, without family, without everything that she’d thought would be hers—all because she was the spawn of a witch.
ALTHOUGH SEVERAL DAYS PASSED, Aya felt like it was but a moment before she stood in the center of the carnival. She’d settled into a tiny apartment in the part of The City where ruling-caste men kept their preferred mistresses. The looks that were sent her way were filled with knowing that was unjustified. Belias hadn’t come to her, even after she’d sent a note to his home with her address. She trained in different fight centers, and she studied the most lethal of the daimons who moved through the carnival. No mask work had come her way, but she would be ready when it did. She’d be ready to fight in the competition too. For the past several days, she’d enjoyed a strange freedom she’d never known. That would change after the fighters were all entered into the competition, but she had both the blue masks of customers and her black mask if she needed anonymity to watch the goings-on of others. She’d already begun to hire street scabs to fetch small details about those likely to enter the competition—not all of them, of course, only the ones who were worthy fighters.
As she walked toward the meeting place for contestants, the matchboard loomed large in front of her, and the desire to see her name in one of the coveted top six spots blossomed in Aya. She looked around at the rest of the competitors. Some had the soft look that told her that they’d not make it past the first few rounds. A few fighters—mostly curs—looked like they were willing to eat everyone else alive just for the shock of it. One, Kaleb, was a black mask of a not insignificant reputation. She’d already started gathering information on him. He flashed teeth at her in a smile of sorts as their gazes connected. He was surveying the competition as she was.
They were all here for the same thing, but most of them would die over the next year. Some would forfeit mid-fight, but not all fighters accepted a forfeit—and some fighters would sooner die in a sure loss than consider offering forfeiture. There were a few women, but no other ruling-caste woman. There never had been. A few ruling-caste men were here. She looked over them, noting the ones she recognized and a few she’d seen in fight clubs. Then, she stopped. Her gaze caught on the one person she’d never wanted to see in this crowd.
“Belias,” she whispered.
He stared only at her. The arrogance in his posture, a well-deserved arrogance at that, said that he needn’t bother studying the other fighters. He was better than them, stronger and faster. Few daimons would dispute that. Fewer still would live if they did dispute it.
She eased through the crowd until she was at his side. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a low voice.
“Thinning the herd.” He looked around him. “You’re mine, Aya, and I’m a better fighter than most of them.” He didn’t bother lowering his voice. “Anyone that faces you needs to know that I’ll kill them if they walk out of the ring and you don’t.”
Voices blurred together, a buzz of sounds as his statement was repeated.
“Stop this,” she hissed at him.
“Withdraw.”
Aya grabbed his forearm and tugged him toward the edge of the crowd. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t hurry either. To anyone watching, he’d still appear indifferent to the entire situation.
Once they were farther away from the other fighters, not outside the crowd but on the very edge of it, she released him. She pursed her lips and glared at him. There wasn’t a single sentence she could think of that would resolve this to her satisfaction. She had to fight—and win—in Marchosias’ Competition. If she didn’t, her secret would be revealed, and she’d lose everything. If she won, she’d have a chance of survival.
Belias reached out and trailed his thumb down her jawline. “Withdraw, and we’ll leave.”
“I told you: I can’t.” Aya let herself lean into his caress. This, too, would end. Until then, she’d treasure these few remaining touches while he still thought he could convince her to change her mind.
“You don’t need to prove your strength to anyone, little bird,” he said in a low voice. “You’re strong and fierce. No one doubts that.”
“It’s not that simple.” She turned her attention to the center of the carnival where their ruler was stepping up to a raised platform. Marchosias was a fearsome daimon, a daunting leader whose scarred skin and corded muscles were almost enough to convince others to forget that he was as canny as he was deadly.
“Tomorrow marks the beginning of the competition,” Marchosias called to the assembled crowd.
They cheered in a roar of voices and stomping feet.
“No one has to enter the carnival,” he added, as if there were any among them who didn’t know the rules of this competition, as if there could be anyone in The City who hadn’t grown up with the tales of legendary fights and bloody victories.
“Please, Aya,” Belias urged. He held out his hand to her. “Don’t do this.”
Marchosias’ gaze swept the crowd before he added, “But if you enter, know that you will kill or be killed.” His attention stilled on her. “You can forfeit mid-fight or before a fi
ght, but no one has to grant mercy.”
Aya smiled at him, the lion who’d once routed most of the witches from The City, the despot who held their lives all in his grasp, the daimon whose very word was life or death. She took one step forward.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Belias lower his hand to his side.
“If you’re here to fight, step up to the witch and be entered.” Marchosias grinned at her, a challenge if ever there was one. “Ladies first?”
With her head held high, Aya walked toward him. Once she reached the white-masked witch standing on the ground near Marchosias, she stopped. The witch met her eyes, and the sorrow there made Aya want to cry out. Instead she pulled her gaze away from the blue-and-gold witch eyes as if the enslavement of the witches wasn’t sickening. She smiled up at Marchosias and said, “I believe I’m the first ruling-caste woman to ever enter.”
“Where is your betrothed? Or husband? Or father?” he asked, casting his gaze around the crowd.
“I have none of those. I speak for myself,” she said with a slight catch in her voice.
As Belias walked up to stand at her side, Marchosias’ grin grew wider, but he said nothing. Belias’ father had been a trusted general and confidante. Marchosias nodded once at Belias.
“Once I win, I’ll serve our city well,” she swore to Marchosias, to all of those nearby, and to herself.
Marchosias laughed. “You’re going to make someone a fine wife once you forfeit and give him strong sons.” He turned to look at Belias. “If you can’t leash her, boy, I’ll find her another spouse.”
“I know,” Belias said calmly.
Even now, she was as property, discussed as if she weren’t doing something on her own. No other ruling-caste woman had ever entered Marchosias’ Competition, yet here he stood, not looking at her with respect but discussing her with as little regard as her parents once had when they promised her to Belias at her birth. He’d been a child then, but she’d grown up aware that he was her future master.
Aya’s expression didn’t falter, but her gaze dropped and she held her hands out toward the witch. She couldn’t turn back. Circumstances far beyond her control had eliminated most of her choices; she’d die in Marchosias’ Competition before she’d sentence a child of her blood to the fate she now faced.
“I won’t forfeit. Ever.” She lifted her eyes to look at Belias. “My blood will coat the ground before I become anyone’s wife.”
And then the masked witch bound her to the competition. In a brief instant, it was over. Her future was determined, and the line of other daimons moved forward to be likewise bound. Belias was second in line, but as he was entered into the rosters, a cheer went up. A ruling-caste son, the heir to one of Marchosias’ great generals, and a man willing to kill for the betrothed who had rejected him—even now, he was the hero they rallied behind, and she was the peculiar creature they didn’t understand.
Mutely, Belias took her hand, and they walked away from the throng of fighters. Neither spoke as they wound their way through the carnival and toward her apartment. It was a small victory, his coming to her new home, and she felt her love swell.
“I won’t kill you,” he said once they were inside. “And I’ll make clear that I meant my threat.”
“Bel—”
“You want to prove you’re capable of fighting as a man? Fine.” Belias locked the door. “Bloody your hands and your blades. See what it’s like. I won’t let your pride kill either one of us. There’s no one in the competition I can’t best, so we’ll do this until you come to your senses.”
Aya stared at him. She wanted to argue, to explain that it wasn’t that simple, to tell him the secret that drove her, but he’d hate her once he knew who her real mother had been. I’ll bribe them to keep us from being matched. She could kill, and she would die if she had to, but she wasn’t sure she’d recover if she had to kill him.
“I do love you,” she whispered. “I won’t walk away from the competition, but I want you to try to remember that.” She took his hand. “Stay here tonight?”
Belias laughed quietly. “That’s the most reasonable thing you’ve said in days.”
As she had so many times before, Aya helped him undress. Their knives and short swords clattered to the table she’d had delivered earlier that week. Wrist guards, tunics, and boots were shed as they moved toward the bed she’d brought from her home.
It wasn’t the new home she’d once expected to share with him, but as they sank down onto the bed, she was grateful for that. If she’d been his wife, gone to his family home as a new bride able to bear young, he’d discover that her mother was a witch. Their child would be the thing he hated. The love she still saw in his eyes as he looked at her would vanish.
Better to lie through silence; better to kill in the competition.
She closed her eyes and whispered a quiet spell to strengthen the disguise that kept her telltale blue-and-gold eyes hidden from him.
He lifted his head to look at her, and he asked, “Did you say something?”
“Nothing important,” she lied.
He looked expectantly at her.
“A sigh or maybe thinking aloud,” she lied again.
“Thinking what?”
“Don’t stop.” She stroked her hand over his arm, enjoying both the feel of him and the relief of telling the truth now. She admitted, “I wish you were always with me.”
The love in his eyes was matched by the arrogance in his expression, and she knew that he truly believed that they’d have forever. They didn’t, but they had today. She pulled him to her and kissed him until she was breathless with wanting. Killing and secrets would wait a little longer.
The End
EXCERPT FROM CARNIVAL OF SECRETS
NOW THAT YOU HAVE THE KEY TO THE CITY,
STEP INSIDE THE DECADENCE AND
DANGER THAT IS THE . . .
MORNING HAD COME, BUT only just barely. The sky was still a mix of the gray and plum streaks that heralded a new day in The City, and as she had on so many other days the past year, Aya was readying herself for another fight. She wondered briefly what life would have been like by now if she hadn’t entered the competition. She didn’t like killing, but the thought of the life she was escaping reminded her that this was the right path. Every ruling-caste woman was required to reproduce. She’d avoided that for now by ending her engagement, but that only delayed the inevitable. Eventually, if she didn’t choose a mate on her own, she would be given to someone by their ruler. Better to die in the fights than in captivity. At least within Marchosias’ Competition, she had a chance of freedom. The rules didn’t specify that the winner had to be male, only that the winner had to survive. If she survived, she’d be able to do what no other woman had—rule in The City’s government. That chance was reason enough for what she’d do in a few short hours. It had to be.
A thrum in her skin let her know she had a visitor. It was light enough out that she was cautious as she went into the main room and opened the shades. A street scab stood on the fire ladder. After families were burned alive in the war with the witches long before her birth, the ruler of The City, Marchosias, had ordered ladders installed on the outside of every apartment building in the living sections of The City. Over time, the ladders had become the visiting routes for those not caste-equal. Security kept the windows impermeable, but the ladders enabled the lower castes a route through which to speak to the resident of a home.
The scab’s black eyes darted left and right, assessing everything he could see inside her home. Scabs were the bottom of the lowest caste, daimons who lacked trade, pack, or family. They were also the ears and eyes on the streets within The City.
She slid open the glass pane. “No one else is here.”
The scab nodded. “Verie’s death is all they talk about in the Night Market.”
“All?”
The scab shrugged. “All that’s new.”
Aya pulled a coin from the jar she kept by the
window for just this sort of visit. She handed it out the window. “Anything else?”
“Word is that one of the fighters killed him.” The scab leaned into the edge of Aya’s house wards, stopping just before the wards would fling him into the street, unconscious. In The City, hers were the best wards that could be used without attracting unpleasant attention.
She turned her back as if she didn’t notice the disrespect of testing her wards. Noticing meant she should rebuke him. It was a foolish game of trust the scabs often played: see if the high-caste girl is truer to her caste or to her fight reputation. Aya didn’t like games.
“Which fighter?” she asked evenly.
“Depends on who’s talking.”
Aya glanced over her shoulder at him. “Including?”
The scab held out his hand.
Silently, she turned and gave him two more coins and repeated, “Including?”
The coins disappeared into one of the pouches that were sewn on the inside of the scab’s shirt. “You, Sol, and Belias.”
The only three highborn fighters left in the competition.
“Safe money’s on you,” he added, and then before she could reply, he kicked his feet backward, slid midway down the ladder, and dropped into the crowds on the street.
Aya leaned out the window for a moment and looked for him. She’d found increasingly reliable scabs over the past two years, but the last year—the fight year—had proven remarkable in that way. The longer she’d lasted in the fights, the more appealing working for her became. She’d proven herself to be ruthless and thorough, but she’d also been judicious. That sort of behavior earned her the grudging approval of a number of the trades-caste residents, as well as members of the lower castes.