The confused furrow in her brow smoothens. Her eyelids droop with sudden exhaustion as her recent memories are wiped clean, and she slumps over.
I catch her before she falls. Sef and I brace our hands under her arms and guide her to lean against the wall. Dizziness is a common side effect of this brand of memory magic, but most only fall over if the memories affected are longer than a few minutes.
Esi will be fine, but by then, I’ll be gone, and she’ll have no recollection of being chosen to serve in the Praeceptor’s army for the first trial of the Tournament.
I tug on my gloves and mask, obscuring my face as I head off to find Luc. He and Kaidren have fifteen minutes beforethe event to meet and strategize with their teams. If Luc is following my instructions, his first move was to ask each member of his team about their source, and by now, he’s moved on to recounting the details of the rest of my strategy.
We have ten soldiers at our disposal, and Kaidren has eleven. We need to split ours up to be as efficient as possible. Six soldiers on the front lines, forming a wall of protection. Two will hover back, myself and another. We’ll serve as Luc’s personal guards. If anyone manages to get past the screen of soldiers, we’re at his side to keep them from getting Luc into a death position. The final two soldiers are attackers. Their job is to fight on the front lines when necessary, and to search for a breach in enemy lines to reach and defeat Kaidren.
Luc and the rest of the team are in one of the larger private rooms at the base of the stands. His foot is tapping again. There’s a table scattered with weapons, some crafted from tshira, some stone. Luc’s soldiers surround the table, picking through the weapons.
I sidle to my brother’s side. “What’s going on?” I ask lowly. If I can avoid it, I want to keep the other soldiers from hearing my voice, just in case any of them know Esi well enough to recognize the differences in the way we speak.
Luc brightens when he sees me. “Mira—I mean—” He darts a glance around, ensuring no one heard his blunder. “Esi.”
Stars in hell, he’s awful at this. “What did I miss?”
“We were given a choice between tshira and stone weapons. We chose tshira.”
Each soldier is allowed one weapon for the game. Luc’s team is arming themselves with tshira-hilted swords and daggers and weapons with blades crafted from the dark, banded material.
My pulse gathers speed. “You chose wrong.” I hold in a curse of frustration. If I’d known this was coming, I’d have prepared him for it.
“What do you mean? Tshira weapons are sharper, lighter, and easier to wield. They survive better in the cold, and they’re best for aikkari.”
He sounds like he’s reciting words from a damned course book. My eyes are hidden by my mask, so I let them roll. “Yes, but every single person on the other team is aikkari. If we use tshira, they’ll be able to manipulate all of our weapons. It’ll give them an advantage over us.”
Tshira weapons are great for enemies outside of Virdei. Petruvia’s military is twice our size, but every member of our army has magic, while only a fraction of theirs does. What we don’t have in numbers, we make up for in magic. Using tshira weapons with enemy kingdoms gives us an advantage. In this arena, however, Kaidren’s team has just as much magic as we do. Tshira weapons areawfulfor dealing with other aikkari.
Luc’s foot taps faster. “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive. Kaidren’s going to select tshira for his team. Right as the game starts, we can disarm as many of his soldiers as possible. He has an extra team member; we need every bit of leverage we can get.”
Luc can’t see my face, but I read the uncertainty in his. We’re running out of time. He needs to make a decisionnow. I nudge my shoulder against him. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“With every lie I’ll ever tell.” Luc still doubts this will work—I can see it in his brow—but his faith in me outweighs his misgivings. He raises his voice to address the rest of the team. “Change of plans. We’re using the stone, not the tshira.”
I catch a few confused glances exchanged between soldiers, but they don’t argue. This challenge isn’t about aikkarithinking for themselves. It’s about which candidate has the winning strategy.
Five minutes later, there’s a rap on the door. The time for strategizing is over. The trial is starting.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AT ALL COSTS
Fear stews me alive. I’m drenched in sweat from my frazzled nerves, and the heat of it all is ensnared by the fur and leather of my armor.
We eleven soldiers stand in a row on one side of the arena.
Well—nine soldiers, one Praeceptor, and one fraud.
Kaidren’s team stands at the opposite end. There are twelve of them. Eleven soldiers with Kaidren proudly in the middle. He’s the only one not wearing a mask.
Terror’s hooks dig so deeply into me, I don’t even feel a rush of vindication at the sight of Kaidren’s team clutching tshira weapons, exactly as I predicted.
Flynn begins the countdown. “Four . . . three . . .”
The energy in the arena somehow doubles. They pick up the chant with him. “Two . . . one!”
