Gavin turned to me, frowning. “What?”
I clenched my fist, pulling until the chain around my neck snapped. I held my ambric Relic up. It spun ruddy sunlight through the crowd; a helix of light, a kaleidoscope of brilliance. For a moment, it shone even brighter than Gavin.
“I, Sylvie Sabourin, dauphine of the Amber Empire, challenge you, Gavin d’Ars, to the Ordeals of the Sun Heir!”
For a long, excruciating moment, Gavin genuinely seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. Then his face gathered lines, stringing sharp between spikes of memory—realization, regret, trepidation, resolve. He crossed the distance between us in three long strides, and caught my hand with his, grinding my palm hard against the ambric Relic. Glimmers of amber streamed between the cracks in our fingers, and I bled my tainted power into those bars of light until a scarlet halo crowned us both.
“Have you gone mad?” The red light clashed upon his golden face. “Don’t do this.”
“Two heirs,” I whispered back. “Two Relics. Has not this ever been the way of our family?”
“How do you even know—?” He slashed his free hand between us. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’reasking.We can still do this the easy way.”
“None of this has ever beeneasy.”
I broke away from Gavin and stepped closer to the crowd, who were rabid with confusion and curiosity. Again I lofted my Relic, and sent light laddering toward the sky. Brilliance struck the gold off the pavilion and shattered diamonds across the crowd. Gavin shook his head, mute. I fought a burst of resentment. I didn’t know what trickery he’d used to make himself look like a Sun Heir. But I was the fantast—illusion was in my blood. I could give them a better show than he ever could.
“For a thousand tides, your rulers have kept a secret from you!” My voice tolled like a bell down the boulevard. “The lineage of the Sabourin crown is decided by neither primogeniture nor merit, but by conflict! In the dubious tradition of our founding father, Meridian himself, once a generation the Sun Heir of the Sabourin dynasty is chosen from among four contenders. I hold in my hand a Relic of the Scion himself—the ancient god-king whose light shines upon us all—one of a quartet that decides your ruler, and therefore, your fate.”
But as I looked out across the crowd, my gaze latched onto a splinter of stillness—Sunder. He stared back at me from the crowd, and his eyes snapped with frost and unexpected hurt. My heart backflipped in my chest and my Relic gave a responding pulse.
In all the mayhem and confusion of the last few days, I had completely forgotten to tell Sunder about what Oleander, Lullaby, and I had found in the Oubliettes. He didn’t know about the Ordeals. I looked away before his condemnation paralyzed me.
“I know you have never seen me as your Sun Heir!” I shouted. “And I don’t blame you—I came out of the dusk and snatched power before you had a chance to see the face behind the shadows. But my blood is true—as is my claim to the Amber Throne.”
Waves of encouragement crashed against waves of outrage.
“But neither would I deny the claim of my cousin, Gavin d’Ars. Though he is half Aifiri—” I waited for the jolt of noise to settle. Gavin’s eyes flashed molten across the pavilion. “Though he is half Aifiri, Sabourin blood flows in his veins as it does in mine. So let this conflict be decided the old way—by the Relics, gifted to us by Meridian himself and passed king to queen, empress to emperor, for as long as the daylight world can remember.”
Cheers rang in my ears.
“I would drag what has been hidden—the dirt beneath marble, the secret behind the throne—out into the light of the Scion! If I am to face my cousin on equal footing in the Ordeals of the Sun Heir, I would not hide it from you, the people who will someday pay our taxes, serve in our armies, and obey our laws! I would have you be witness to what should always have been partially yours—the decision about who would rule you.”
Eagerness touched their faces, like foam on a cresting wave, and I knew I had them.
“Gavin?” I held out a hand. Reluctantly, he stepped forward and slapped his palm against mine. An unpleasant shiver stung my fingers where they gripped the ambric Relic, shuddered through my chest, and traveled down my arm toward our shared hands. Gavin winced at the tremor, and put an involuntary hand to the sparking hilt of his sword.
“Let the true Sun Heir win!” I cried, and raised our joined hands. I sent an illusion of light sparking from our fingertips—brilliance lanced away toward the dusk.
Spectacle.
The crowd went wild. And as Gavin reluctantly repeated my words, I heard them echo along the Concordat, like sunlight piercing through dusk. But as we turned away, Gavin’s hand tightened, until his nails bit into my palm and his fingers crushed mine.
“Mark my words, Mirage,” he growled, his voice more menacing than I’d ever heard it before. “Today you have cursed us both. You have brought to the light what should have stayed in shadows. And we will both pay.”
My Congrès was chaos. Everyone kept asking questions and jumping on to new questions before hearing the answers, if there were any. And anyone who did have salient information was promptly ignored in favor of wild speculation and stressful arguments.
I put a palm to my throbbing head and tried to ignore the glaring eyes staring accusingly at me from around the room.
“That’s enough!” Dowser slammed a hand on the table, his usually quiet bass resounding. He rose up to his full height, and his deceptive bulk had its intended effect—strangers and friends shied away or sat, unused to my advisor’s rarely deployed physicality. “The dauphine has surprised some of you—I understand. That does not give you the right to behave like ignorant savages. We will go about this discourse like the educated lords and ladies we are!”
My council subsided, but if anything, I caught more accusing eyes staring at me. I quelled the urge to glare back.
“Better.” Quickly and succinctly, he summarized everything I’d discovered over the past week or so—my discovery of Severine’s diary (which he referred to as apreviously unknown primary source), the lost myth regarding Meridian and his children, and my exploration of the Oubliettes. His explanation finished, he stared over the tops of his spectacles at me and cleared his throat. “None of which explains, I might point out, how you intend to go forward with the Ordeals when there are only two heirs and two Relics.”
I squirmed uncomfortably. I hadn’t given the matter much thought before challenging Gavin.
“Two is enough,” said an unfamiliar voice from the corner, “although if the Relics have imprinted upon their heirs, it will likely end in a tie.”
