Either he means what he says about ending the cycle of violence between us, or he’s the best liar I’ve ever met.
Either way, the trip he’s imagining won’t happen. But I don’t think about why. I refuse to disgrace this moment, this moment of compassion that I do not deserve, with thoughts about our plans.
“Maybe someday,” I say, but I know he can feel the truth.
Chapter Eighteen
During the weeks that follow, I keep a careful distance from Ronan.
The first time I see him in the courtyard of the palace after our dinner a couple of days later, he asks me to join him again that evening.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I need to focus on the tournament.”
It’s a pathetic lie, the kind that doesn’t require the magical power of empathy to detect. But I can’t tell him the real reason I choose to stay away.
I tell him no because I want to say yes. And I don’t know what to do with that feeling.
I do ask him when I see him in the dining hall a few days later if there’s been any news about our friends. He tells me Marcella has been released to a city jail to await trial, and that he gave the city watch the order to find Vesper. Although, as he suspected would be the case, they haven’t been able to turn up anything new yet.
Ronan is there at the tournament every time I compete, as he promised, though he does keep his distance as well. He watches from the royal box as I defeat a baker with a surprisingly accurate thrust, then a member of the city guard who fights as ifhe’d just woken up, and then a young cousin of House Juni, who flourishes her sword so wildly in sweeping spins and daring flips that I’m terrified of her until I realize that she actually can’t fight worth a damn. And he’s there watching as I finally fall in the fifth round to the heir of House Faber.
I give him—and the crowd—a good fight, at least. Titus, like me, was too young to fight in the war, but also like me, he clearly spent his entire life training for it. His house is renowned for their smiths, and his handling of the issued weapon is the best of anyone I’ve fought with or witnessed. It flows from his arm like it’s a part of him; he never fumbles with the balance or his grip. He dominates me in the beginning of the fight, taking a quick 4-0 lead and nearly ending it there before I make a miraculous parry that causes us to double hit each other, negating the points.
I can almost hear Ronan from across the arena repeating what he taught me weeks earlier. Everyone has a tell. If I had days to practice with Titus, maybe I could find his, but I only have one point before it’s over.
I’m not sure why I even care about winning. If I win this, I’ll have to fight Adria next, and that will be the end of it either way. And I’ll have to deal with listening to her gloat endlessly, or at least until she beats Quinn, who she’s nearly guaranteed to face in the final, just as they predicted.
Titus flicks his red hair back over his shoulder—it’s long, and for some reason, he hasn’t bothered to pull it back. And then I think back to the last point, the one I parried. He flicked his hair, and he took a high attack. It’s like he cleared the weight of it to enable his guard. It’s the kind of automatic movement I doubt he even notices himself making.
And sure enough, he attacks from a high guard so fluidly that I wouldn’t have seen it coming. Except that I do. I parry andthrow off his sword, coming in for a thrust to his neck before he can regain control.
“4-1!”
The crowd, which is much fuller at this later stage of the tournament, begins to shift to this side of the arena.
On his next attack, he doesn’t flick the hair. He’s favored a low guard that baits me to attack when he doesn’t go for the high guard, and that’s exactly what he does. I don’t fall for the bait. I keep my distance, using my point to protect me as he moves to the side, looking for an opening. He finds one, but I guess that he’s feinting, trying again to bait me again into a futile attack, and I withdraw further, nearly touching the line out of bounds.
He laughs. “Come on.”
Then he flicks the hair again.
I lunge for a low attack while he’s taking his guard, and it connects with his thigh.
“4-2!”
There are some scattered cheers from the crowd. Not many, both because I’m Nithyrian and I’m still losing, but I don’t think even the most patriotic Selaran can resist a good comeback story.
I win over more of them as I score once again, this time by landing a lucky cut that I definitely shouldn’t have gone for.
“I thought you were a better fighter than that. And you were, I guess,” he says with an appreciative nod. “Well played.”
At least he’s nice. “Thanks,” I say while gasping for air. He, on the other hand, has barely broken a sweat.
The point I land to tie the match is the one I’m most proud of. My middle guard forces an attack from him, which I bind, and I manage to win the bind despite the weaker position by sidestepping and going for a cut above his blade to his arm. It’s a risky move that leaves me open on the left, but I think about what Ronan said: this isn’t life or death; it’s a sport. The worstthat could happen is he lands a double hit, and we’re back to square one.
The best that could happen is I land a clean point, and that’s exactly what I do.
“4-4!”
