“No other rules!” Tien shouted in reply. “No rules to hide behind! We fight until only one of us remains. To prove that the winner is the stronger and therefore the rightful ruler of Tiae. Are you unwilling to measure yourself against the old laws?”
“Sien, this guy is taking sibling rivalry to a crazy extreme,” Mari said. “He can’t be serious.”
“He is.” The princess gazed steadily at Mari. “He will hold to this. He is confident he will win, and he would rather see Tiae fall into bloody anarchy again than see anyone prevail over him. This is what must be.” She raised her voice again. “What weapons?”
Prince Tien smiled. “Saber and dagger, on foot, in the classic manner of duels.”
“You wear armor,” Sien said.
“I will remove it. We will fight on equal terms!” Tien announced with a grand flourish.
“Sien, there has to be another way,” Mari said.
The princess shook her head. “No. There is not.” Sien gazed toward one of the ruined palaces looking down on the city. “Forgive me, my mother and father, for what I must do.” She inhaled deeply, then called across to Tien. “I accept your terms.”
The sound coming from the crowd this time carried a clear note of dismay, and the pikes held by the soldiers of Tiae wobbled in unsteady hands as Princess Sien dismounted and walked with slow dignity toward the center of the courtyard left open between the opposing sides.
“Alain,” Mari begged, “can’t we do anything? Sien is being forced to fight her own brother!”
“Did you not hear what she has said to him?” Alain asked. “Sien pushed Tien to this, maneuvering him by her words so that he himself set the terms she desired for this fight.”
“She wants to fight Tien?” Mari said in disbelief.
“She wants it no more than you wanted to return to Marandur. And she does it for the same reason you did return there. Because it is needed for the sake of others.”
Prince Tien slid lightly from the saddle, raised his arms as an aide unbuckled his cuirass, then swung his arms to loosen his muscles, walking around with a pleased smile.
Mari saw Princess Sien stretching and flexing her arms and legs in a much more subtle fashion, keeping her eyes on Prince Tien the whole time.
Another aide ran up to Sien and knelt to offer her two weapons. Sien took up the saber in her left hand and the dagger in her right, making a few practice passes to assess their balance and appearing slightly awkward in holding and handling the weapons. “What of injuries?” she called to Prince Tien. “Should our duel include a means to halt the combat?”
Prince Tien took a saber and dagger as well, deliberately paused to sweep them through the air in elaborate, graceful arcs, then turned to Sien. “The duel is to the death. You agreed to that.”
“There will be no halts?” Sien said, sounding surprised and perhaps a little fearful.
“She’s good,” General Flyn murmured to Mari. “Watch what he does now.” Tien shook his head firmly. “A halt might leave the kingdom threatened. A true royal would not fear injury in the pursuit of truth. The fight will continue to the conclusion. No one will intervene or interfere.”
“Anything else would be a sign of weakness, would it not?” the princess asked, looking directly at the prince.
“Yes,” Prince Tien agreed, his voice getting tense and what seemed oddly to Mari to be almost a little eager. “No one will stop this fight before one of us is dead. That is my order.”
Alain shook his head and leaned close to Mari, his voice a murmur. “Tien means this. I had wondered if he only sought to injure Sien or frighten her enough to cause her to beg for mercy, but he intends to kill her.”
“Even though she’s his sister?” Mari whispered back, horrified.
“That means nothing to him. She is a piece on the game board whose presence creates problems for him. It is as I said of Tien. Though he freely displays emotions, each display is calculated. Like a Mage trained by the elders, he does not consider other people to be real, and he does not care what happens to them.”
Mari stared at Princess Sien. “What will Sien do?” she asked both Alain and Flyn.
“That’s clear enough,” Flyn said. “Princess Sien knew that a fight between your forces and those of Tiae would create ill-will that would never be overcome. Instead, she maneuvered Tien into challenging her one on one and pretended to be unused to sword fighting so that he would order no one to interfere. She knew that Prince Tien meant her death by one means or another, and intends killing him instead, to save the kingdom.”
“No wonder she looks like that,” Mari whispered, suppressing a shudder.
Sien walked slowly closer to Prince Tien. “You look happy, brother,” she said, her voice flat.
“I always enjoy a good fight,” Tien replied, whipping his saber through a few more swift and showy passes. “You will provide a good fight, won’t you?”
“I only fight when I have to,” Sien said, “and then I do it because I must, not because I enjoy it.” She raised her sword’s hilt to her face in the old ceremonial salute.
“You’ve missed out on a lot of fun,” the prince answered. He came to attention, used his sword to present a jaunty salute in return, then settled into fighting posture. “Too bad you’ve run out of opportunities to have a good time.”
Prince Tien advanced, the confident smile still on his face, his right hand holding the saber forward and his left hand grasping the dagger in front of his body. Mari had seen a few formal duels while she was in Palandur, between fencers advertised as the finest in the Empire. As far as she could tell, Tien’s form was flawless.
Sien held both weapons just before her at waist height, the points slightly elevated. Unlike Tien’s erect posture, standing sideways with his legs in line toward his opponent, Sien stood in a slight crouch, fully facing him, one leg slightly back and the other slightly advanced. Mari heard sniggers and derisive comments from some of Tien’s foreign supporters about the princess’s lack of form and polish. But to Mari’s eyes the stance of the prince looked stylized, something conforming to rigid formal requirements, whereas Princess Sien’s posture much more closely resembled how Mari had seen Imperial legionaries and other soldiers engage on the battlefield.
“Only one rule?” Sien said again as Tien drew close, her voice ringing through the courtyard. “To the death, the survivor to be ruler of Tiae?”
“That’s right,” Tien agreed, his smile broadening and taking on a cruel, excited aspect as he made a few feints toward her with his saber. “That is the only rule.”
Princess Sien began a long lunge toward Tien, who skipped backwards, smiling.
But Tien’s smile changed to surprise and then annoyance as Sien’s attack turned into a feint. She halted her lunge when it was barely begun, instead also falling back fast.
With the distance between them too far to allow a quick attack and Tien mentally off balance, Sien flipped her saber to her dagger hand so that the dagger’s blade slid between the saber’s guard and hilt to hold it, pulled her shirt half off, flipped both weapons to the other hand, finished tearing her shirt from her body, then rapidly spun the shirt around her lower right arm. By the time that Tien began to advance, clearly puzzled by her moves, Sien gripped the dagger in the hand of the protected arm, her saber ready in the other hand.
“Do you think to distract me with a display of flesh?” Tien asked mockingly, once again feinting attacks as Sien circled just outside the reach of his saber. “I assure you, I’ve seen better.”
“I didn’t learn how to fight in fancy fencing salons,” Sien said. “I learned on the streets and in the deep woods, where a misstep meant more than a lost point.” She advanced, her weapons held out slightly to each side.
“Maybe you should have learned to fight the correct way,” Tien said, abruptly leaping into an attack. His moves were practiced and sure, the point of the saber coming toward Sien in a thrust she could easily parry. But as she did so, Tien swept
his dagger toward her chest, trying to take advantage of Sien’s focus on the sword attack.
It could have been a lethal blow. If the princess had not been waiting for it.
Sien deflected the prince’s saber with her own, but instead of parrying the dagger strike with her own dagger, Sien caught her opponent’s blade in the folds of the shirt protecting her arm, entangling the weapon so she could yank it from Tien’s grasp.
Thrown off by a move contrary to the rules of the fencing salon, Tien was just beginning to gasp, “You can’t—" when Sien finished knocking aside his saber and swung her own sword’s guard into his jaw.
Prince Tien staggered backwards, a trickle of blood flowing from his lower lip, his expression showing disbelief and bewilderment. He parried frantically as Sien struck at him again, this time with the edge of her sword. “Regulations do not permit such moves!” he yelled.
“One rule!” Sien shouted back. “That was your word! Do you think this is a game? Do you think I must fight to suit your manners when the fate of Tiae is at stake? While you played at fighting in Syndar, the people of Tiae have suffered and fought and learned that war is not sport!” Her dagger came in fast and low, nearly cutting into Tien’s arm while he was busy beating off another saber attack.
“Witch!” Tien spat the word at her. “A king needs no lessons from a slut of the streets.” His saber wove a complex pattern of attack, forcing Sien to drop back. “I will make your death a slow one, and then have your body tossed on the garbage heaps.”
“A true king would not speak so to anyone,” Sien said, her voice controlled but furious. She used her dagger to parry another attack as her sword point dipped to the street and flicked a loose stone toward the prince’s face.
Tien, startled, brought his saber up to protect his head, leaving his body exposed.
The princess had already begun a lunge with her dagger, slicing into Tien’s side before he could evade or bring his saber back down to parry the blow. She danced backwards out of range as the prince aimed a frenzied slash at her.
“I call foul!” Tien screamed, blood spreading across the side of his shirt where Sien’s dagger had slit the fabric and the skin beneath it. “Stop her! I command it!”
Mari looked at Colonel Hasna, who gazed back at Tien, her face a mask. “You forbade anyone to intervene,” Hasna said. “I follow your command.”
Tien stole frantic glimpses to the side, where his foreign backers were now hemmed in by grim-faced soldiers of Tiae, and all around, seeking some support from the crowd or an exit from the courtyard. But every way was blocked by the silent, dour people of Tiae or by Mari’s soldiers. “Sister! This was only a test of you! There is a place for you beside me on the throne!”
“I am sister to you now?” Sien demanded, pressing her attacks so that Tien had to constantly retreat around the open area. “You chose this. You have already been tested. And found wanting.” She aimed a thrust at his throat that Tien narrowly parried in time.
The prince rallied, beating and striking with his saber in a desperate flurry of blows that Sien parried or dodged. Exhausted by the failed efforts and weakened by the flow of blood from his side, Tien dropped back a step, his sword arm shaking. “I should have killed you the moment we met. I knew you would betray me!”
“You were my brother!” Sien cried, renewing her attacks. “I will never forgive you for forcing me to do this. But the people of Tiae, my people, have suffered enough. I cannot let you destroy what they have begun to rebuild!” As Tien managed to deflect another blow from Sien’s dagger, her saber sliced across his upper arm.
“I am Tiae!” Prince Tien shrieked. Rage and fear fought for dominance in his expression as Tien raised his saber and charged at Princess Sien, swinging a wild blow at her head.
Sien ducked under the attack while she also moved forward, using her own saber to deflect Tien’s sword as their bodies came together, the shock of the collision halting both in their tracks.
Princess Sien took several steps back, lowering her sword.
Tien staggered forward slightly, then looked down at the handle of Sien’s dagger where it stood out from his chest, the blade buried in his heart. He raised his gaze back to her, suddenly perplexed. “But…no one can…”
Prince Tien of Tiae fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Princess Sien, breathing heavily, hurled her saber from her and glared around the courtyard. “I am Tiae!” she cried fiercely, her words echoing. “Does anyone deny me?”
Colonel Hasna dropped to one knee, those around her doing the same, until every citizen of Tiae was kneeling to their princess.
“Present arms!” General Flyn ordered. Mari’s soldiers brought their rifles up before them in salute.
Mari dismounted and walked out into the cleared area. Sien spun to look at her, the princess’s eyes still lit with the fire of battle, her posture that of someone ready to fight again. “Princess,” Mari said in her most formal voice, “may I assist the ruler of Tiae?”
Sien’s eyes cleared and she inhaled deeply. “I would be grateful. I am forever grateful for the support and friendship of the daughter of Jules.”
Mari helped Sien unwrap the torn shirt from about her arm and put it back on.
Princess Sien looked down at the body of her older brother, blood pooling beneath it, then slowly raised her gaze to Tien’s foreign backers, her expression as hard as stone. She brought up one arm to point at them as if aiming a weapon, each word she spoke falling with the finality of a hammer coming down. “Arrest. Those. Persons.”
Most of the foreigners were too stunned to resist. They held their open hands out in surrender, but one, bolder or simply stupider than the rest, yelled an objection. “You have no right to—"
“Silence!” Sien looked angry enough to order his execution on the spot, but after several long moments she unclenched her jaw enough to speak in a more normal voice. “The blood of my brother stains the streets of Tiaesun. I blame all of you for this! Your greed, your lies, your mindless pursuit of power no matter the cost to others! Tiae has had enough of such vultures! I have not yet decided on your fates. Do not tempt me further to crush you just as I would any parasitic vermin. Get them from my sight!” she ordered the soldiers of Tiae, who rushed to obey.
Covering her face with one hand, Sien breathed slowly several times, then lowered her hand and looked to one side. “Colonel Hasna.”
Hasna marched steadily up to Sien. “My fate lies in the hands of Tiae.”
“And yet the fate of Tiae lies in the hands of her defenders,” Sien said. “Did you defend Tiae well?”
“I would die for Tiae,” Hasna answered immediately.
“That is not what I asked. How can Tiae trust in you again?”
Hasna struggled for words. “I followed the law. I followed the orders of the one designated as our ruler by the law of Tiae.”
Sien nodded. “The fault is in that law. The fault was in granting power to someone chosen by no one. I vow that law will be changed. But Tiae must be made whole. And those who failed Tiae must be punished.”
Hasna stood rigidly at attention. “I accept the price for my failure, but beg that you take my death as the full price and spare those who in good faith followed my orders.”
Sien shook her head at the colonel. “Death? No. I will not let you off so easy. Death is a simple thing. I will demand more of you.”
Mari waited, wanting to speak to Sien, to ask for mercy, but knowing that would be wrong when Sien was in front of her subjects.
“Colonel Hasna, I sentence you to serve Tiae.” Sien paused for a moment, watching the shock that Hasna could not conceal. “I am not doing you any favors. See me. I have slain my brother this day. For Tiae. I sentence you to suffer the same fate as mine: to live and to fight and to serve, all your life, no matter the personal cost.”
Hasna’s steely resolve broke. She dropped to one knee again, her body shaking. “Forgive me, Princess. I vow to serve Tiae just
as you demand while life remains in me.”
Sien nodded. “Then here is your first command. Gather a suitable honor guard and see that the body of Prince Tien is given due honor and proper treatment for one of his rank. His body will be interred with those of my parents.”
Colonel Hasna got to her feet, saluting. “It shall be done, Princess.”
“Where is the crown?”
“In the prince’s apartments, Princess.”
“Send someone for it. Bring it here.”
Hasna hurried away, but Sien stood without moving.
“Are you all right?” Mari asked. Sien turned her eyes on Mari, causing Mari to flinch at what she saw in them. “I’m sorry. What can I do?”
“Stand beside me,” Sien said. “You and Sir Mage Alain.” The princess shuddered slightly. “I have had to do many things. This was the worst.”
“He really would have killed you.”
“I know. I could see it in him. And my death would have brought him pleasure. I do not remember what he was like before the kingdom broke. Did the life he led shape him so, or would he have grown into such a monster even if no ills had befallen this kingdom?” Sien watched, silent again, as soldiers arrived to lay out Prince Tien’s body, place it on a pallet, and carry it toward the palace.
Colonel Hasna came back, carrying a rather plain wooden box. She knelt to offer it to Sien.
The princess looked at it, then around at the crowd watching. “I nearly failed you,” she said in a voice loud enough to carry. A murmur of dismay and disagreement rose from the people but halted as Sien raised a hand for silence. “These events have made clear to me what Lady Mari has advised in the past. The Great Guilds have claimed superiority over us all because of the blood they claimed made them better. They were always wrong. No one should rule by right of blood alone. Tiae must change. The kingdom will be reborn in full, and then the people of Tiae will decide a means to choose not just their representatives but their rulers, to ensure that whoever stands as Tiae is truly one deserving of that role. I here and now vow that I will lead only if the people of Tiae wish me to be their ruler. And if the time should come when I have children, I vow that none of them will be entitled to the throne simply because I am their mother. They must earn that right, and prove their worth, and if they are lacking then will yield to someone deserving of the crown. Henceforth the line of the royal family will be joined not by blood, but by their worth to fill that role. This is my promise to you. What say you? Will you have me as queen?”