I’m bold.
The path opens. I run right through, the curved wood rings scraping on my feet as I propel myself to the next one and the next. Blue Boy is working the slow but sure way. He’s good but I’m better.
I’m going to reach the tower first.
So the moment I have to decide to fall feels like stabbing myself. I gauge the speed of a wheel’s turn so I can just miss getting a good brace on the rim. Pretending to slip, I sit down hard on the edge. It cuts into my rear as I slide and let myself fall until I am hanging by my hands. The grip bites into my fingers like a reminder of what I’ll never have. With a grimace, I let go.
When I hit the ground I roll to absorb the shock but pretend to sprawl, taking up precious time to allow him to get farther along.
Sand chafes my face. But it is the burn of hating myself for having to lose and look clumsy that chases me the slow way along the ground to the tower. He swarms up the ladder ahead of me, not looking back.
With my foot braced on the lowest rung and a spike of anger slashing through my chest, I watch as he snags the victor’s ribbon and pulls off his mask to the crowd’s roaring approval.
In official trials the winner has to take off the mask in front of the entire assembly.
That’s why I have to lose.
To my disgust he’s good-looking, with cropped-short, straight black hair, dark eyes, and a pale golden complexion, the very model of a lord’s son, one of the highest Patrons of all, palace-born. Most likely his household has its own Fives stable of players and a private training court.
He glances down at me. A narrow-eyed frown shades his face.
He’s not as happy about his win as he ought to be.
Shaking, I crawl down the ladder into the undercourt.
As the crowd roars, I remember Amaya. What if she couldn’t keep Father from coming back and checking on me? I’d better hurry.
I jog along a passage to the retiring hall, separate from the attiring hall so no one who has run the court can exchange information with someone yet to race. An attendant gives me my satchel and a cup of the sweet nectar that only adversaries and the royal family are allowed to drink. I knock it back in one gulp and almost choke on the syrupy flavor. The attendant says nothing—they aren’t allowed to talk to the adversaries for fear of bribes and favors trading hands—but her brow wrinkles with curiosity. I still have my mask on.
Setting down the empty cup I hurry on.
Gate-custodians allow me out the narrow exit stairs, guarded below and above.
I emerge into the nether passages. After I change in the shadowy alcove I’m just another sweaty Commoner girl in her one nice dress, except for the clamor of my thoughts.
I did it! I ran a real, official trial. I can almost call myself a real adversary now, even if I’ll never be one.
The air reverberates with the noise of spectators calling out bets and predictions as the next set of adversaries begins. Vendors shout. I didn’t notice them before but now the smell of food drenches the hot breeze: bread dipped in oil, shelled roasted nuts and salted seeds, and toasted shrimp.
I return the way I came.
To my relief the curtained retiring room is empty. As I strip off my long tunic, I try not to cry. It was everything I’d hoped: the exciting course, the crowd’s cheers, the smell of sawdust and chalk.
I rub a few tears off my face, then ladle water from a ceramic pot into the washbasin and wash the drying blood off my hand. I cherish the pain because the scrape proves I did it.
A haughty voice rises outside. “Open the curtain!”
The drapery lifts, handled by an unknown servant wearing a mask. Amaya sweeps in. While I’ve been gone she has powdered her skin so it is as golden-pale as Maraya’s.
“You almost won! I could tell you wanted to! If you had taken off your mask in front of everyone it would have humiliated Father on the very day of his great triumph.”
“Which is why I didn’t win.” The cool water soothes my exercise-flushed skin but my mind keeps seeing how I could have run right through the rings to the tower.
She shoves me onto a stool in front of a dressing mirror. With a lighter hand than her temper suggests she teases out the worst tangles in my hair with her fingers, then uses a little oil to comb the rest.
“How could you do that to me, Jes! When the green adversary slipped I thought he’d broken his neck and then I thought you would break your neck when you fell—and I screamed!”
“You screamed? You never scream.”
“I was so frightened. If you were injured everyone would have seen your face! And then when I screamed everyone looked at me, so Father wanted to bring me back to join you and I thought we would get caught for sure. I told him a bug ran over my foot.”