Soulwinder

By Travis Daniel Bow

Three strangers.
Two plots.
One champion.

In the crater of a volcanic island, musical magic and enchanted swordplay rule society. Every seven years a champion from each caste climbs the tournament ladder for a chance at a new life. This year three apparent strangers—a sabotaged craftsman trying to save his mentally disabled father, a legendary duelist resisting the machinations of her master, and a janitor fighting an empathy-sapping magical talent—are desperate to reach the final battle. But a web of strange coincidence connects them, the city is on the brink of collapse, and nothing is as it seems. 

 

Everyone's a puppet… but who holds the strings? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mask and Mallet Publishing
• Release date: Nov 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201816698

Travis Daniel Bow

Travis grew up in Reno (where he raised pigs for FFA), went to Oklahoma Christian University (where he broke his collarbone in a misguided Parkour attempt) and Stanford (where he and his bike were hit by a car), and earned 6 patents in the Bay Area before returning home. He now designs medical robots and does CrossFit by day, works on an MBA and plays board games with his wife and three kids by night, and writes fiction by very-early-morning.

Book preview

PART ONE

SHUFFLING FATES

Chapter 1

Tel

I want to get some things down now, while the memory’s still fresh. So you’ll never forget the man your father was.

Tel had been waiting for twenty excruciating minutes. Never a good sign. He could feel his breaths getting shallower, his pulse ratcheting up. Calm, he told himself. As if thinking the word harder might help. As if a little self-talk could quell the growing certainty that this venture would be the last in a series of increasingly desperate dead-ends.

The bookmaker’s shopfront was tiny. An elbow-high counter and a high stool took up three quarters of the room. There were no lamps. Dim light filtered through the barred window above the door. It was weak and tired, dimmed by the slightly overcast sky and baffled by the narrow stairway and alley above. The interior door leading from shopfront to workshop—the door the assistant had disappeared through almost twenty minutes ago—was still closed.

There was a single bookcase behind the counter, locked with a wrought-iron grate and half empty. Some of the books inside had bindings of cloth, while others—the ones that interested Tel—had plain, dark-dyed leather covers. Every one was single-weight sharkskin dyed black and smelling of sturdy quality and practical serviceability. Probably account ledgers for counting houses or bound copies of official documents, all of them waiting to be picked up by those who had commissioned them.

Tel couldn’t criticize plain craftmanship tailored to Merks on the Second Octave. It was obviously working well enough for the bookmaker. But breaking into the market of nobles and mages on the First Octave was something every craftsman dreamed about. For that, the bookmaker needed something special. Something Tel could help him with.

That was the pitch, anyway. Tel took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and reached up for the little bell hanging above the door. If the bookmaker and his assistant had truly forgotten him, the sound of a customer entering would pull them from their distraction. If they were waiting for him to leave, the bell might convince them that he had.

Tel hesitated for a moment, his fingers inches from the dusty brass, and felt an all-too-familiar wave of despair tugging at his ankles. Who was he kidding? The bookmaker obviously wasn’t interested. Or, if he was, he was playing power games. Keeping Tel waiting, trying to set the stage for a better deal, showing how little he needed whatever Tel was selling.

Maybe he should just give up. Go home. It would be dark in an hour, and Dad didn’t like the dark. Besides, Tel hated bargaining and begging. Especially with someone who couldn’t be bothered to show his fellow craftspeople a modicum of respect.

But no. This wasn’t about what Tel liked. Do the hard thing, he reminded himself. Dad was depending on him.

Bracing himself, Tel flicked the bell.

His touch was too soft. The bell barely tinkled. Frustrated by his own timidity, Tel gave the bell a firm slap. This time the bell jangled loudly, bounced sideways, and nearly swung off its hook.

The silence after the brassy clatter was brittle. Dust dislodged by Tel’s blow drifted in the still air. Tel took another slow breath and pasted a patient, expectant smile on his face. The time for waiting was over. When the assistant came out, Tel was going in.

The handle on the inner door turned. The door swung open. Tel turned his patient smile into a grin.

Confidence. Self-assurance.

Thank you, sir, Tel said. He strode forward, as if the boy was holding the door open for him rather than standing directly in the path that led to the small hallway and the workshop beyond. The boy automatically sidestepped to avoid a collision. Tel pivoted neatly around him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, but Tel kept talking.

Thank you so much for granting me a moment of your time. I know you’re both very busy. He was past the boy now, walking backwards, bowing again. I think your master will be very pleased with my master’s proposal.

And then he was past the boy, down the hall, and into the workshop, which was many times larger than the storefront and lit brightly by whale-oil lamps. The bookmaker himself, leaning over a desk in the corner, glanced up at the sound of Tel’s voice. He raised his eyebrows and gave a wan smile.

Ah, the saddler’s apprentice. Wait a moment. I’ll be just a few minutes more.

The bookmaker’s resonant baritone surprised Tel. The man’s narrow frame and wispy beard would have paired better with a tremulous whisper.

Certainly, sir. Tel ducked his head to hide his annoyance. He felt suddenly certain that the long wait had indeed been intentional, a calculated move, a flexing of the bookmaker’s sense of self-importance.

I’ll just lay out some things over here while I wait, he said. I know you’re a busy man, and my master is expecting me back soon. I won’t waste anyone’s time.

That was good. Polite, but not obsequious. Carefully—but not too carefully—Tel placed his folio on a low table covered with small vials of glue and skeins of thread. He began to deliberately scoot tools and sheaves of paper. The bookmaker was a craftsman. He would not be able to smugly work while someone moved around his things and upset the delicate balance of his workshop.

I think that should do it, the bookmaker said, sliding a flat, dull blade of bone across a stack of pages and almost knocking over his stool in his haste to join Tel at the table. Tel hid a smile as the bookmaker reached around him and took a small bottle from his hand.

Allow me.

Of course. Tel stepped back and began undoing the binding on his leather folio. The assistant was standing in the hallway with a slightly sour look on his face. The bookmaker dismissed him with a wave, and he stalked back towards the shopfront.

Tel finished unwinding the leather thong on his folio, then laid it carefully on the table, pausing just long enough to let the bookmaker catch a glimpse of the fine tooling on the cover. Then he flipped the folio open as if the work on its front was of no interest compared to what lay within.

In truth, the folio cover was one of the last pieces he and Dad still had in their possession. Once there had been dozens of samples: tooled and dyed leather with floral designs, geometric patterns, and stylized renderings of birds in flight or leaping fish. Once, long ago, Dad himself would have presented the packed folio and pointed proudly at the work he could do.

Now Dad didn’t go anywhere. All the samples were gone, sold as novelties to pay for sacks of cheap rice and loaves of plain bread.

But Tel had made rubbings of each sample before he sold it, carefully using the side of a charcoal stick to transfer the designs onto sheaves of sturdy paper. The paper itself had cost him dearly, but the cost had been necessary. Without samples of some kind, his hope of getting more work for Dad would have gone from slim to nonexistent.

So here he was, showing rubbings instead of tooled leather. He had grown good at covering his shame with an air of brusque competence. Sometimes he apologized for the rubbings, explaining that his father had needed the real samples for another presentation. But that lie always stuck in his throat a little. It made him think of Before.

I was able to study your work in the front room, Tel said, leafing slowly through the pages of rubbings, giving the bookmaker time to see the variety of Dad’s work while he spoke. I am no expert, but to me the volumes appeared very fine. I surmised that you are a man who takes pride in his work, and I knew I had come to the right place.

My assistant said you had a proposal, the bookmaker said. If you could make it soon, I would very much like to return to my work.

Tel decided to ignore this comment. The bookmaker was still feigning disinterest, but Tel could sense the man’s fascination. He continued his pitch as if there had been no interruption.

My father takes a similar pride in his work, he said. But precision was not what allowed him to begin selling saddles on the First Octave. He has always said that success is eight tenths hard work and one tenth ingenuity. I am here to speak to you about the latter.

At least, that was what Dad had used to say. It had been almost ten years now since he had said anything at all.

And the other tenth? the bookmaker said, raising an eyebrow. Tel couldn’t tell whether the expression was contempt for Tel’s mathematical error or shrewd recognition of deliberate bait. Either way, he was willing to play along. That seemed like a good sign.

Tel grinned. The other tenth is luck.

Ah. Of course.

But luck is fickle, as you know. In these times, it is better to meet her halfway. Which brings me to my proposal.

Tel stopped absently on a page that showed some of Dad’s most intricate tooling. It was a pattern of intertwining leaves and vines that wove small knots as they wound across the page. The patterns were interesting to look at, but not especially impressive. Until, that was, one realized that the twisting leaves and trailing vines formed the running rivulets and swirling eddies of a waterfall. It usually took ten or fifteen seconds for someone to notice.

My father is a saddler, Tel said, turning his back to the folio and leaning against the table. The bookmaker was still looking at the page. Perfect. In the past, he confined himself to saddles, but in recent times we have begun to diversify. We would like to work with you on our first foray into books.

Books. The bookmaker furrowed his brow, still studying the rubbing in the folio.

Books. I notice that you bind many of your volumes in single-weight sharkskin, mainly dyed black. An elegant choice, to be sure, but not one that draws attention. As you know, it is becoming more important than ever to make one’s work stand out.

The bookmaker’s eyes widened—he had seen the waterfall—and Tel suppressed a grin. Looking back over his shoulder at the folio, he pretended to realize what the bookmaker had seen.

Ah, he said. Yes. His work often rewards a closer inspection. I wish you could have seen the original. A rubbing is a poor substitute.

The bookmaker nodded slowly, then narrowed his eyes and looked up at Tel.

Your proposal?

Of course. Tel turned back to the folio and quickly flipped to the back, where he had drawn a sketch for this pitch.

"The problem with single-weight leather is, of course, that it takes very little in the way of tooling and embossment. It makes for a serviceable ledger or ship captain’s logbook, but based on my father’s experience with Venerati in the realm of saddle work, we suspect that the average mage or noble looking for a new volume in his collection wants to see something... special. His friends will not come battering down your door to get their own serviceable ledger. But for something unusual, something extraordinary, they might. Do I miss my guess?"

The bookmaker shrugged. Tel continued.

What I’ve drawn here is a concept. We are proposing a collaboration. My father and I know leather. We know where to source it, how it must be stored and maintained, how it can be manipulated and shaped and conditioned to last longer than the pages it contains. And we know how to tool it, to give it depth, to make it seem alive.

Tel turned the folio over briefly, tracing the deep patterns Dad had carved into the thick eight-weight porpoise skin of the cover.

You know the art of making books. From what I hear, you know it better than most. Tel had heard no such thing, but a little flattery never hurt. Think, for a moment, of a book of sheet magic commissioned by a master in the Magistry, bound with the finest paper and most skilled illuminations. The spine itself might be of supple single-weight leather like you are accustomed to working with, to maintain flexibility. But that spine could blend almost seamlessly into front and back covers of thick leather, tooled by one of the finest saddlers in the city with a beautiful pattern of flowers, or waves, or racing birds, or whatever exotic theme captures your client’s fancy.

Tel flipped through the pages of the folio again. Was he overdoing it? Some people appreciated a little drama. Others found it off-putting. Too late to change now.

Think of leather dyed and finished to your specifications, he said. Of the extra weight and depth of the cover, conveying superior quality and longevity...

Yes, the bookmaker said.

Tel paused.

I beg your pardon?

Yes, the bookmaker repeated. I have just such a project. This collaboration sounds like an excellent idea.

Well. Tel quickly gathered himself and tried to remember the terms he had begun to hash out in what had seemed, at the time, like a daydream. Well. Excellent. Let’s talk details. What is the size of your project? Who is it for?

For ten minutes Tel and the bookmaker discussed specifications, types of leather, the size of the text block, the extra material that must be added to the spine for optimum folding, the lack of finish on the flesh side of the leather to allow better bonding with the adhesives the bookmaker used.

And the design? Tel asked. You said the volume is for a mage. Might I see some of the pages, to advise my father on an appropriate theme?

A student in the Magistry, the bookmaker said, and no. It is to be a journal. The pages will be blank.

Ah. Then you must be my judge of the client. Would he or she prefer intricacy, perhaps a floral pattern? Or something bolder and more geometric? Or perhaps figures of some favorite...

I think, the bookmaker said, that my client prefers to leave art to the artist. If the design is as beautiful as the waterfall of vines—and if I can say that it is a unique, original piece—that will be sufficient.

Say no more. Tel bowed to hide his excitement. Such pieces are more difficult and time consuming, but they are my master’s specialty.

He checked once more over the notes he had scribbled in tiny print on the corner of the sketch page.

Well, he said, I think we have discussed everything except terms.

Payment, said the bookmaker. I will give you one silver gate for the cover, upon delivery.

Tel pursed his lips and tried to contain himself. He was not excited beyond all reason at the prospect of an entire silver gate. He was regretful. Slightly affronted, even.

Sir, he said. A single gate will hardly cover material costs. The labor involved in this project is significant. My father would be furious if I took less than three silver gates, and that only if it were paid up front.

Out of the question, the bookmaker said. Payment after delivery. It is the way I receive my pay, and it is the only way I will do business.

Tel blinked, then frowned in earnest. He hadn’t expected to get the entire commission up front, but he had been expecting at least a small portion. Even a quarter of the silver gate would be enough to scrape by on for another month, pay off the guild-taxes, and replenish their materials.

But the bookmaker had only balked at the timing of the payment, not at the exorbitant three silver gates Tel had proposed. Interesting.

We must have enough to cover the costs of materials, Tel said. Plus losses from the delays your strict timeline will cause to our other clients. One gate up front would be the minimum...

No gates up front, said the bookmaker. Not a single tid. I am not haggling. I am stating fact. I will not pay until I have received the work. And you want gold for this? Three silver gates is ridiculous. I will pay two, and that is the most I will offer.

Three silver gates was equal to one gold gate, and it was ridiculous. Two was also ridiculous, but the bookmaker seemed willing to pay it. The thought of that much money made Tel almost giddy.

Still, delaying the payment until after the work made Tel uneasy. He allowed his frown to deepen and stood silent. For some people, the uncomfortableness of a long silence was enough to make them break, or explain, or give some opening.

The bookmaker was not one of those people.

At last Tel sighed. My master will be furious, he repeated, but I truly believe in this project, and in the mutually beneficial relationship it will lead to. We will accept two silver gates, and we will bear the initial costs on this first venture. But I will need to draw up an agreement, with your seal. A formality, of course, but one I cannot do without in this case.

The bookmaker did not look pleased, but he waited while Tel withdrew another precious piece of paper from his folio. In a moment he had written the terms and timeline in a smooth hand. The cover was due only a week from today. He had pretended to see the tight schedule as a burden, but in truth it was for the best. They wouldn’t last much longer than a week without some kind of income.

Tel stepped aside so that the bookmaker could read the terms while the ink dried. The wiry man leaned forward, scowling, and then held out his hand for Tel’s pen. Tel cocked an eyebrow, but he handed over the chisel-tipped bamboo and leaned over the old man’s shoulder to see what he had missed.

The bookmaker was adding a line to the end of the agreement, just after the amount to be paid in full upon delivery. He finished quickly—his handwriting was much more beautiful than Tel’s, if a little harder to read—and stepped aside to let Tel see.

Tel read out loud. Payment will be tendered if the work is deemed to be of satisfactory quality and craftsmanship, at the payer’s full discretion.

He pursed his lips again and stared at the line. He did not like it. It gave the bookmaker full rights to abandon the deal and refuse payment altogether, which meant that Tel would have to use the last of their material on a project they might never be paid for. He did not want to think about what they would do with no money, no work, and no leather.

But what choice did he have? If he refused this deal, he might be selling the leather back to the tanner anyway. No one had ever complained about the quality of Dad’s work. The bookmaker, though wary, seemed almost as excited about the project as Tel was. Surely the risk was minimal.

Very well, Tel said.

The bookmaker went to get his seal. Tel sprinkled sand on the page, corked his ink bottle, and packed up his writing kit. A moment later the agreement was tucked carefully in Tel’s folio and he was bowing his way out. His mind buzzed so loudly with mingled excitement and trepidation that he didn’t notice the darkness until he had ascended the stairs to the street level.

There, in the alley, he froze for a moment, trying to calculate how long he had been with the bookmaker. Then he walked quickly to the alley’s edge where he could get a view west.

The arms of the island cradled the Second Octave in shadow. The sun had sunk behind the rice terraces. The colors of sunset were glowing behind the cliff edges. By the time Tel got home, it would be full dark.

Clutching the folio tight and bracing his writing kit against his hip, Tel abandoned dignity and began to run.

Chapter 2

Kadana

He was smart, your father. The smartest man I ever knew. Not sums and figures. Not a fast-talking counting-house clerk. More of an artist. Someone who sees things other people don’t.

It was hotter than dog breath, even in the shade. The tunnel under the arena stank of sweat, leather and nervous energy. The corners of Kadana’s fighting jerkin were curling.

All of the contestants were young and athletic, straddling either side of adulthood and in the peak of physical condition. Some were quiet, staring with unfocused eyes at the wall opposite. Others were doing stretches, cracking knuckles, speaking in hushed tones. Slivers of sunlight forced their way through the edges of the double doors. Swirling patterns of dust rose from forty pairs of nervous, shuffling feet.

A man in his late twenties sat at a small table. He had the fastidious air of a clerk or scrivener, but the Clefs on his forehead and the size of his muscled frame marked him as a member of the First Octave. Probably someone who had done well enough at a past tournament to earn a place teaching the sword, but not well enough to escape administrative duties. He was looking at Kadana with the patient incredulity normally reserved for small children asking silly questions.

Kadana looked pointedly at the slate ledger and neatly sharpened chalk pencil placed in the exact center of the table. The man did not pick them up. His eyebrows climbed higher. He obviously didn’t recognize her.

Can I help you? he said.

Yes, Kadana replied. I’m entering the tournament.

She should have just given her name and title, but this whole charade annoyed her. She had her own tutors, selected by her father, four-time winner of the Eyn and First Lord of Anselin for the last twenty-seven years. She had been groomed to defend his reign since she had been old enough to grip a practice sword. She didn’t need to be here.

But her father had decided that she should practice with the best. The other forty contestants had fought in the dueling school since childhood. Their parents paid good money so they could face tests and tournaments and selections, jockeying for rank and position to reach the highest tiers of training. Today was their final trial. Only five would make it to the last year of training, and one of those five would likely give Kadana the most trouble at the Eyn.

Chords, she hated the Eyn. For sixteen years she had been shaped and sculpted for it, defined by it, her purpose for living made clear in a dozen not-so-subtle ways. Conversations about her always resembled critiques of a fine racing bird. Was she as good as her father had been? What was she doing to train? Was she really as fast as they say? My, how her height and reach are progressing. Good bone structure. Excellent balance. What do you feed her?

Enter the sorting tournament? You’re much too late. The man at the desk glanced over his shoulder. Someone was already pulling open the doors. Brilliant arena light was spilling into the tunnel, accompanied by cheers and drumbeats and a blast of fresh air. The clerk looked back at Kadana and shrugged. His smile was helpless, apologetic, and smug.

Right. Like the opening of a door made it impossible for him to pick up his neatly sharpened chalk pencil. Like there was some mysterious deadline she had missed. Kadana hated the Eyn, but she had resigned herself to it. She had not resigned herself to sweating in her fighting leathers while being condescended to by a failed duelist at a tournament she didn’t care about.

She walked closer to the table, wringing her hands and feigning a look of puppy-dog disappointment. Too late? she exclaimed. Oh, no! Whatever will I do?

The clerk stopped smiling. Kadana glanced behind him, as if noticing something. His head swiveled. Kadana struck.

Her tutors’ compliments were many and varied, but most of them mentioned her speed. Galto said her musculature was different from that of the average Venero. He and her father loved to congratulate themselves on how it would make her unstoppable at the Eyn.

Right now it made her unstoppable at the sorting tournament enrollment table.

The clerk snapped his head back just as Kadana snatched both ledger and pencil from the table. His sudden outrage was surprising in its ferocity, and he came halfway over the table in an attempt to grab the ledger back. Kadana danced away easily. She glanced over the list of names while he recovered, barked his shin on the table leg, and came striding purposefully towards her.

The names were ordered by a column of numbers that could only denote rank. The handwriting was perfect. The point on the chalk pencil was sharp. The punctilious book-sniffer had prepared his list lovingly. No wonder he didn’t want it meddled with.

Kadana dodged, spinning away from the clerk’s ill-considered grab. Then she vaulted lightly over the table and took his seat. She looked at the ledger again, spinning the pencil against the corner of her mouth, pretending to consider. Then she lowered the pencil and began to scrawl her name in overlarge letters at the bottom of the list.

Lay a hand on me, she said. I dare you.

The clerk was standing behind her now. Kadana had monitored his progress from the corner of her eye. Both of his hands were raised, as if he were about to pin her down by the shoulders. Her tone had given him pause. He hesitated long enough to read the name she had written at the bottom of the list.

Kadana considered what to put in the rank column. Then she shook her head and simply wrote a zero.

Lady, the clerk said, his tone transformed from arrogant outrage to an obsequious whisper. The name of the First Daughter of Anselin did that to people. Her father was not known for suffering disrespect to his house. I did not know. I...

Kadana raised the ledger above her head and wiggled it. The clerk took it. Tossing the pencil onto the table, Kadana stood up and sauntered after the now-moving line of contestants and into the brilliant sunlight of the arena.

***

The next half hour was tedious in the extreme. Kadana and the other contestants stood on the burning white sand, dripping like plucked pigeons on a slow-turning spit. A crier with a piercing voice shouted at the crowd above them. Flags dyed in expensive colors hung limp at the upper edges of the arena. A breeze that did not reach the arena floor occasionally moved the canopy of trees on the crater’s distant rim.

Squinting up at the stands, Kadana picked out the awning she had used at last week’s tournament. She had been a spectator, drinking chilled tea and exchanging witticisms with her friends. She looked for the boy who had gotten under her skin that day, but he wasn’t lingering by the same awning today. Of course he wasn’t. Besides, it would be almost impossible to recognize him in today’s crowd. There were many more people packing the seats. Last week’s tournament had been a minor one, a sort of graduation ceremony for one of the lower levels in the dueling school. Today’s tournament was second only to the Eyn itself.

The Eyn was everything to some people. To most people. Instituted four centuries ago, when the caste-dividing Chords had been newly spun and their makers had ruled the city, the Eyn shuffled fates. Every seven years half the city packed into the great arena on the lowest tip of the island. Contestants sacrificed their most treasured possessions for the right to pick up an enchanted sword and prove themselves worthy of elevation. It was a spectacle, but it was also a symbol. A beacon of hope to the lower Octaves. Stone walls and the mind-flaying power of the Chords might keep the lower castes at bay, but the door was always open to those who worked hard and proved themselves. The best rose to the top. The worthy could change their fates.

That was the story, at least. In reality, the Chords rarely saw fit to actually shuffle anyone. The best had risen long ago, apparently. Those on top stayed on top. The lower Octaves had to balance practicing the sword with doing actual work, while the Venerati on the First Octave poured their resources into training their children as duelists. Winning the Eyn had always meant wealth and privilege, but when the noble houses began using the tournament to decide on the city’s next ruler, learning the sword had changed from a fascination to an obsession.

Minutes passed. Kadana sweated. Grandstanding and crowd-pandering was followed by the drum-punctuated announcement of each and every contestant’s name and house. When the crier received his updated list from a runner and announced that the First Daughter herself would be competing today, his enthusiasm was enough to draw a buzz from the listless crowd. Men leaned over to whisper in their wives’ ears. Spectators sat up straighter in their seats. Sunlight glinted as money changed hands.

The crier began to shout out the rules of the tournament. Kadana’s irritation rose from a simmer to a low boil. Those who cared about point systems and ranking minutiae had no need of a crier to remind them. Glancing at the line of contestants to her right, Kadana guessed that most of them had memorized the rules for this tournament before they had hit puberty. They knew exactly who they would be matched against and how much their chances of reaching the top five would be affected by the results of each bout. Many of them were sneaking glances at her, recalculating their odds, knitting their brows together as they tried to determine how having an unranked First Daughter in the lineup would change things.

Well, she didn’t need to understand all the intricacies. She knew she needed to win. That was what it came down to, wasn’t it? She only had to worry about points and pairings if she lost a single match.

Finally the speaking was over. The audience stood to applaud as officiants and clerks and equipment carriers bustled into the arena. Kadana found herself herded to the front of a line of competitors at one of five dueling rings. Someone wearing a pair of glowing blue servant’s Clefs handed her a sword. It was similar to the ones she practiced with, constructed of split bamboo staves bound together at the tip. Heavy enough to hurt, but with enough flex to prevent injuries. It was fitted with small bronze weights just above the grip to mimic the heft and inertia of the enchanted swords they would use at the Eyn.

Kadana spun the sword in an arc, feeling its weight and grip, and raised her head to glance at the line of competitors opposite her. When she saw her first opponent, she nearly dropped her sword.

It was the boy, from last week. The one she had tried to humiliate. The one with the eyes that seemed to peel back all her false confidence and gaze—with mild disgust—at the shallowness beneath.

Kadana looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen him. Her heart was suddenly pounding. She had spent far too many of the past week’s idle hours imagining how their first meeting might have gone differently. How she might have won him over rather than alienating him. How cleverly they could have cast their scorn together on all the meaninglessness and corruption of the First Octave.

Instead she had looked into his eyes, seen a reflection of her own self-disgust, and shown the same hauteur and strutting bravado that she despised in her father and his friends. Proved that she was the very embodiment of all that was wrong with Anselin.

Oh yes, Kadana, he secretly shares all your vague opinions and insecurities. He’s just waiting to help you, if only you could make him see how different you are.

Sure he was. And she knew all this based on a few words and glances from a stranger who just happened to be good-looking and male and approximately her own age.

Kadana continued swinging her sword in little arcs, stretching her wrists, trying to act casual. What should she say? Should she apologize for how she’d treated him? Bare her soul? Tell him that she had acted like the very thing she hated, that he had to believe her, that she hadn’t been herself?

But she had been herself. That was what it came down to. She liked to pretend that her own displays of pampered entitlement were the exception rather than the rule, but that was nonsense, wasn’t it? That was what every despicable person told herself. There were always extenuating circumstances. Someone else was always the problem.

But she had to be honest. Her behavior with the boy last week—and with the swordsman-turned-clerk in the tunnel only minutes before—was her default. When someone slighted her, or annoyed her, or inconvenienced her, she was indistinguishable from any other arrogant Venero on the First Octave. She just had the might of her father’s station to back up her bullying.

One of the officiants waved his hand in front of her face. Kadana realized that she had been stretching her neck and staring into the distance while he tried to get her attention. Hurriedly she entered the ring, mind still racing while the officiant explained the rules of combat. No blows to the head. No body contact with the intention to cause injury. The dueling specimens had to be preserved until the Eyn. Then they could hack and stab at one another with impunity.

Kadana’s eyes met the boy’s. She tried to portray a face of long-suffering, to show with her gaze that this whole display bored her, that it was all pointless posturing and jockeying for power while the city crumbled around them. She raised her eyebrows, giving a tiny shrug and a mirthless smirk.

The boy did not shrug back or roll his eyes in agreement. He looked confused. Maybe even offended. As if he didn’t understand how someone could sneer at something he took so seriously.

Unranked First Daughter Kadana is matched with first-ranked Natal in the third ring, the crier shouted.

Natal. That was the boy’s name. It wasn’t one of the names she had imagined for him, but it fit.

But first-ranked. That required the utmost dedication to the sword. Had she misread him completely? Maybe he was just another Venero hungry for her father’s Scepter. A game-player among game-players. Maybe the look in his eyes last week had been simple envy of her shaded awning, or annoyance at the tone of her voice, or the outpouring of some petty grievance between her house and his.

When I lower my hand, you may begin. The officiant looked at Kadana, waiting for her nod. She shook herself, trying to come back to the present, and he interpreted her movement as assent. Stepping back, he looked once more between her and Natal, then lowered his hand.

Natal held his sword up in a traditional salute before assuming a generic short guard, hands low and close to the waist, sword-point up. It was the technique they taught beginners. ‘Weaver’s Guard,’ so named for the balance of attack and defense and the methodical weave of the fighting style that went with it.