Nowerks, do not attempt to pass this barrier. Seats are for Embers only. If a Nowerk is found beyond this line, they will be subjected to twenty lashes and expelled from the arena for all future trials.
—Sign posted on the back row of the arena
The first day of the Aktibar was upon them; the last three weeks had flown by like the arrows from Anoor’s bow.
Nar-Ruta bubbled and fizzed like its namesake river. Servants had been up before dawn sweeping away the copious remains of the dust from the tidewind the night before. It had come in thick and fast, as fevered as the nerves of the competitors.
There were two hundred competitors, all told. Most were Anoor’s age, but there were some who were nearing middling years. All looked fierce as they stood proud in the arena. The experienced competitors wore goat’s leather, clearly worn out from field practice. Others wore stiff suits with no give in the elbows, and one even wore a crushed velvet dress. But there was one thing that tied all the competitors together—their red blood.
It should have been me.
The thought struck Sylah between her eyes, and she shook it away.
No, this was Jond’s time now. She would help him achieve his goal.
Sylah spotted him in the crowd of competitors and smiled. The contours of his muscles rippled beneath his black fighting leathers.
Sylah dragged her eyes away. The arena was full, the nobility concentrated toward the front. Every important Ember throughout the empire had gotten a seat. Even the imirs from the farthest cities came for the competition. Most would stay for the whole six mooncycles, leaving their subordinates to govern their districts. Every inn on this side of the river was fully booked. Sylah even heard that some Embers were forced to rent spaces in the Duster Quarter. The horror.
The standing section was bursting with Dusters and the occasional Ghosting. Officers waved runeguns like flags, penning them in behind the iron railing. Even though they were threatened with violence, they cheered for the trial to come.
Sylah was seated a few rows in front of the standing section. As an Ember she’d been given a seat. But as a servant she’d been limited to a section at the back among a sea of shaven heads.
Anoor clung to the edge of the arena in the distance.
She had cried that morning and tried to muffle the sound in the privy lest Sylah hear her. Sylah could sense her fear from afar. It made Sylah jittery and impatient for the trial to be over. Anoor needed to get through.
Over the weeks Sylah had developed a grudging respect for the girl. She was a hard worker, and sometimes Sylah caught the spark of unwavering determination flickering like fire in her eyes. It prompted Sylah to ask why she decided to compete in the first place.
“Because no one thought I could. Because I want to prove them wrong. I want to prove her wrong.”
Her—Uka Elsari. The mother who hated her.
She looked toward the stage at the far right of the arena, where the newly appointed wardens sat.
Pura, the Warden of Truth, was talking to an Abosom priest. All of the Abosom answered to him as the holy conduit to Anyme. His white beard fell to his waist and blended in with his white robes. Anoor said his breath always smelled of whiskey.
The Warden of Knowledge, Wern, watched the proceedings with a faintly disapproving expression on her wrinkly face. Her cornrows were braided into swirls and stars on her scalp. Sylah rubbed her own hand through the prickles of her hair. It had grown slightly, Gorn made a point of telling her. She’d need to shave it again soon, but she couldn’t bear to.
Aveed, the Warden of Duty, had just taken their seat next to Uka. Their robe of rich reds and purples stood out starkly against Uka’s gray suit. Their long hair had been groomed into two plaits that hung on either side of their painted brow, the makeup fresh and precise. Anoor claimed Aveed once called Uka “a viper in the sand” during an argument that was overhead by one of her servant friends. Aveed was Uka’s biggest rival and always opposed her views. Sylah liked them marginally more than the others because of that, but her feelings were still set firmly within the realm of hatred.
The wardens’ metal thrones were so polished they gleamed in the sunlight like glass. And they seemed just as fragile.
I wonder if they’d shatter,Sylah thought. She rubbed her arms as her muscles twinged. The seizures had been lessening, but cramps and muscle tremors plagued her daily. She still craved joba seeds—the lightness, the euphoria, the blessed freedom of the drug.
She bit the side of her cheek, but the rusty burst of blood didn’t stop the need.
The light wind was flavored with salt from the Marion Sea and Sylah wondered, once again, if there was more out there. More land. More people.
She dragged her thoughts away from her useless pondering and back to the podium where the wardens were. A hush rippled through the crowd as the Warden of Strength stood. The soft gray suit she wore blurred the edges of her sharp lines, like early morning fog. The sleeves dipped below her inkwell and trailed on the ground.
“Welcome one and all to the first day of the Aktibar. We begin today with the first guild of the empire: strength,” Uka spoke into a bloodwerk sound projector, the rune Ru pushing out the sound vibrations. The Embers around her erupted in bloodthirsty cheers.
Sylah wanted to burn the arena to ashes, using the Embers’ bones as kindling.
—
The cheers rattled her bones. Anoor wanted to cry. In fact, she’d cried earlier but had managed to hide it from Sylah, who already thought of her as a sniveling mess. She looked up to the back rows and scanned them for her. Anoor knew Sylah was up there, but she couldn’t see her. The master in charge had banned anyone who wasn’t a contestant from the floor of the arena.