The firebird can fly vast distances, subsisting only on air and courage. It can mate with any flying creature, for its substance is not flesh but ambition.
They were right for each other but Lord Gargaron tore them apart.
He made an illegal and blasphemous arrangement with the priests in order to do so.
“First trial! Beacon, Garon Stable!”
Looking startled and angry, Kalliarkos bounces into the ready cage as if he is about to jump out of his skin. He fixes the green belt for Trees over his gold silk tunic. His fancy gold mask blazes like lightning. The spray of sunlight from the grille above makes him all gold except for his black hair and dark eyes. There is a lift to his chin and a squareness to his shoulders that he didn’t have before we rescued my family. Confidence limns him. He might be a legend walked out of the past, noble and handsome and upright in all manner of conduct as men of old Saro are said to have been, adhering to the code given to them by the gods in the most ancient times. He is a beacon, in truth.
Then it hits: I am running against Kalliarkos.
Has Princess Berenise paid off someone so her grandson can run in an easier trial?
I meet his gaze. I nod, adversary to adversary, and he nods back as with a message in his eyes but I am too stunned to know what to say or do.
We hear the cheering of the crowd as the first trial is announced. We hear our names spoken but no one chants them as they will chant Thynos’s Fives name when he is announced. You can take a name with you onto the court, but the crowd has to approve and anoint you. Most hopeful adversaries run trials without ever getting the crowd to sing out their names.
“Come with me,” says my custodian, startling me.
With a glance toward Kalliarkos’s retreating back as he goes his way, I follow my custodian up a ladder and down a tunnel to the small chamber where a gate-custodian awaits. I dust my hands with chalk and take my place at the foot of the ladder.
The ugly truth sinks in: This isn’t Princess Berenise’s doing. This is what Lord Gargaron meant when he said I had to pass muster. He didn’t mean the first day at the stable. He wasn’t watching then because it didn’t make any difference how well the girl who let his nephew win performed in practice.
This is the only trial that matters.
Horns blare. The crowd quiets to a low rumble.
Deep in the undercourt the start bell rings.
The hatch opens.
35
As I reach the top of the ladder I scan the stands because I may never again see the Royal Court from the inside. The tiers of seating are splendidly caparisoned with so many ribbons flowing in the wind that they are a restless ocean of constant change. From this angle I can’t get a good look at the royal balcony, but the Garon Palace balcony with its horned and winged fire dog banner lies off to my right. Lord Gargaron is watching me.
Pillars begins with a gate flanked by two large stone pillars. Here on the Royal Court each one is carved with a face, on the left the stern gaze of Kliatemnos the First and on the right the benevolent smile of Serenissima the First.
Serenissima the Murderer.
I ring the obstacle bell to mark that I’m going in. A set of rope stairs leads up into a maze whose path must be traced not by walking along the solid ground but by balancing above the ground on a series of narrow beams. A seed of suspicion blooms: What if a man who is head of a powerful princely household has bribed the officials to set up the court in a configuration that favors my strengths of balance and agility?
No point in wondering. Although I hit two dead ends, I reorient myself and recover quickly. When I climb out of Pillars onto my first rest platform, the girl wearing the blue belt is already clambering down from Rivers and heading for Trees. I hear a bell ring as one adversary starts on his second obstacle. I am pretty sure the sound comes from Rivers, which means Kalliarkos has gotten through Trees and chosen to move north around the court.
Do I want to run into him? I do not.
A bell rings from Trees as Firecat gets going, although I cannot see her, since only the tallest poles jut up above the walls that separate the obstacles.
I am not going to let Firecat or Sandstorm beat me. Dropping down, I head south.
The moment I enter Traps I see in its multilayered architecture all my favorite elements: bars to swing from, slack ropes, stairstep beams, bridges with traps triggered if you put your weight on the wrong place. Right smack in the center Sandstorm is splayed awkwardly like an outstretched frog. He has slipped while crossing a rope bridge whose skewed balance keeps tipping him sideways.
Traps always has two possible routes, one long and laborious and low to the ground, and one short and glorious with a lot of flying and balancing at dangerous heights. Kalliarkos and Firecat are already in their second obstacles, so I leap up to grasp a horizontal bar, use the momentum of my swing to catch the next higher bar with my knees, and swing up backward to yet a higher bar that skips me over a beam and up to the highest and most dangerous and thus shortest path.