I wished her a silent thanks as the sun inched downward in the western sky. The village was still miles ahead. Xavier wasn’t going to be pleased that I was covered in muck, and even less pleased at me being late.
I ran and ran. The whole time the scar on my arm tingled still, a reminder of what I had left behind. I would never see the creature again. She was headed to the Walled City, a place no one could enter, not without permission from the king.
Two
Griffin
Griffin had never been so nervous in his life. He pulled on the too-tight collar of the shirt Jori insisted he wear as he padded through the short corridor he thought led to the king’s private chambers. He smoothed his unruly hair, then yanked on his vest, flattening any last wrinkles.
“It’s just one dinner. To greet Laird Egrid when he arrives from the North,” the prince had said. “My father asked for you specifically.”
An honor, to be sure, for there were many other knights he could’ve asked. Knights of noble birth, from families at the Top of the Walled City. Griffin was a nobody from nowhere—a boy who’d snuck past the guards and into the city through a pipe like a rat. He had no breeding. No etiquette. Slaying draignochs, that he could do. Eating a meal without spilling food down his new shirt was something else altogether. He was going to make a fool of himself and never hear the end of it.
After two wrong turns, Griffin found he was back where he’d started. Having only moved into the sprawling castle last year, getting lost had become a way of life. “Hello?”
He groaned at the lack of response. A lack of guards meant he was most definitely in the wrong place.
“Sir Griffin!”
Griffin looked back, finding Bradyn running at a frenzied pace up the hallway. “Wait! Wait for me! I’m . . . escorting you.” He wheezed, catching his breath when he reached him.
Barely twelve, Bradyn only came up to Griffin’s elbows. What he lacked in height he more than made up for in smarts—an attribute Griffin appreciated, especially at court. If there was one thing Griffin found intolerable, it was stupid people, and there were many of those wandering the halls of King Umbert’s home.
All of Bradyn’s family worked in positions in the castle. His father ran the kitchens. His cousins served the king in his personal chambers. His mother worked in the infirmary. Bradyn’s job in the castle was to do whatever his father told him to do. For the past twelve months, that had included serving Griffin. He knew where every passage went, both the known and secret ones, something Griffin had used to his advantage when the palace became too confining.
Griffin swatted him on the back. “Piss-poor job of escorting you’ve done so far, Bradyn. I mean, you have gotten us well and truly lost.”
“You’re blaming me for your pitiful sense of direction?”
“I am indeed. As I will blame you if we’re late to the king’s chambers.”
“It’s your fault. Not mine. Thoma and Dres were at the guard gate, causing a stink.”
Griffin rolled his eyes. Thoma and Dres were Griffin’s best mates, but he rarely saw them all year, a point they brought up whenever the opportunity presented itself. Lately, they would turn up without invitation, drunk, harassing the guards. “Did you tell them I had dinner with the king?”
“I did. Dres hurled his drink at the gate.” Bradyn shook his head and started walking quickly the same way Griffin had gone. “Guards didn’t take very kindly to that. Thoma dragged him off before he ended up pummeled and in chains again.”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“Oh no. You have more important things you should be worried about. Tournament starts in three days!”
“Really? Hadn’t heard,” Griffin said with sarcasm.
Bradyn shook his head. He turned left, pushed through a door to a stairwell. He climbed two steps at a time.
“I hope the king understands that you need your sleep. But if not, my cousin Halig knows to remind him. And I asked my father to bring you another supper tonight just in case you don’t feel like eating. Lady Esmera is joining her father tonight. I know what she can do to a person’s appetite.” Bradyn shivered in disgust.
Griffin hissed a laugh, remembering Jori’s betrothed’s visit last year for the tournament. Esmera had no use for Griffin. And yet, there he had sat at Jori’s insistence, eating from the same platter of mutton she had—as he would tonight.
Her words had a peculiar effect on Jori. After her visit, the prince had refused to go anywhere without Griffin. And after he won the championship over Esmera’s brother Malcolm, Jori asked King Umbert to move Griffin into the fortress, to a room not far from Jori’s. He called Griffin “his protection.”
Sadly, for Jori, after the nuptials, there would be nothing to protect him from his bride again.
“As I recall, she told Jori my scarred face was painful to look at. Let’s be sure she sits across from me, Bradyn, and then this whole ordeal will end, maybe before it begins.”
Bradyn laughed, coming out of the stairwell, starting down another hallway. “Did you see me at your practice today? I was there, getting ready for the melee.”
“I didn’t. Sorry. You nervous? First time I entered, I nearly pissed myself.”
“You did not. You won your first time.”
Bradyn eyed him with the same heroic worship many did, a look Griffin never felt he deserved. He fought to live, nothing more.
Griffin nudged him. “You’ll be fine so long as you don’t let the crowd spook you.”
“Thanks.” The smile returned to Bradyn’s face. “I’ll remember that. I saw you on the field. How many barrel lifts did you do? I lost count.”
“Too many.” Griffin winced, rolling his sore shoulders.
“Silas says you have to be fast when fighting the draignochs. But then I see you always train hard with heavy stones? Is that something Sir Raleigh taught you?”
“When I was your age, he told me that beating a draignoch requires two things: precision and strength. Sage advice I took to heart. Get in close, and make it count.” Griffin lunged at him.
Bradyn laughed. “No one ever beat a draignoch running away from them.”
Griffin tapped his head.
“You will be champion again. I’ve bet my life savings on it. My whole family is pulling for you.”
Griffin frowned. Bradyn’s family weren’t the only ones pulling for him. Every man, woman, and child from the Bottom, it seemed, had pinned their hopes on him. He was their stand-in. Their avatar. Proof that their lives had worth when every day they were ground down under the heel of the rich and influential.
Since Griffin won the championship last year, the people of the Walled City, especially those in the Bottom, were counting on him to repeat his performance. But as champion, he was also the one to beat. Raleigh reminded him of that every time they trained, and Raleigh would know. He had held the title since the tournaments began more than a decade ago . . . until Griffin beat him last year in a scandalous upset.
Back then he had nothing to lose.
The residents of the Upper City were incensed. He could feel the weight of their stares grow as the date of the tournament approached. His spectacular defeat was not just anticipated; it was required to restore balance and order as they knew it. His reign as champion must be proven a lark.