A lemon would shudder at the sour pucker on Rory’s face. “Why would you go with Sylvia? There are plenty of small urchins gathering at the matches.”
Fairel lowered her eyes. “Sylvia is my only friend, and I want to watch them with her.”
Rory and I glanced at each other, sharing in the unease of me being anyone’s only friend. He waved a hand. “Off with you, go.”
I gritted my teeth before taking Fairel’s small hand and weaving through the crowd. I had on loose white pants that rose high on my abdomen and cinched at my ankles. Two slits cut into the sides of my tunic allowed me to knot it just above the band of my pants. Though gowns were the standard fare for a festival, I had dressed in case of a sudden need to flee.
Each person on the platform dedicated their fight to Kapastra. No Omalian Champion had triumphed in the Alcalah for over ten years, but reality did not prevent excitement from buzzing around the villagers. Even if their Champion lost, the Nizahl Heir was choosing his Champion from Omal. An Omalian had twice the chance of winning the Alcalah, even if they did so in Nizahl’s name.
The crowd undulated, crowing as a short woman with shaved hair knocked Yuli’s son to the leathers. Odette, the butcher’s daughter and the waleema’s reigning fighter.
“Why don’t you fight?” Fairel asked. “You’re strong. I helped you clean Yuli’s stables one summer, remember? You carried the heaviest crates and controlled the biggest horses.”
I glanced at Fairel, surprised. I took care not to reveal my strength; she must have snuck up on me.
I was at a loss. Why didn’t I fight? The Nizahl Heir was already in Mahair. He knew me as a swindler, an orphan, a liar. Discovery arrived in my village despite my best behavior—recent murder of a Nizahl soldier aside. Why not join the challengers? My magic certainly wouldn’t react one way or the other.
I shook away the petulant musings. I planned to save self-pity for my deathbed, and not a minute before.
“It wouldn’t be kind to the others,” I said.
Fairel speared me with a glance entirely too mature for her age. “Since when are you kind?”
My mouth opened. Fairel said it matter-of-factly, without skipping a beat. “I like it about you. Sometimes, I do not want to be kind, but Raya says we must treat others better than they treat us.” She scrunched her face to mimic Raya’s characteristic scowl. “We must value our differences and lead with a welcoming hand. If someone slaps my welcoming hand, why shouldn’t I slap them back?”
I laughed so hard I snorted, startling the couple ahead of us. I caught my breath, nearly descending into a new fit of giggles at Fairel’s braided horns.
“Oh, I need to check on the chairs!” Fairel yelped, dashing away before I could stop her. Wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, I debated whether to follow Fairel or hunt down the girl selling basboosa studded with roasted almonds and drenched with so much sharbat I’d smelled it from three stalls away.
My neck tingled. I brushed my fingers over my braid.
Someone was watching me.
I scanned the crush of revelers moving through the main road. I would bet my right elbow the Nizahl Heir had joined the waleema. He was here somewhere.
If my suspicions about Marek and Sefa were true, Sefa might have information about the Nizahl Heir. I needed to understand how exactly he possessed an ability to sense magic. Did it require his hands, or was it any skin-to-skin contact? Was he immune to magic?
I tracked down Marek, cheerfully bruised after his beating from Odette. “Where is Sefa?”
He sobered instantly. “Why? What’s the matter?”
I suppressed a groan. Were it not so infernally annoying, I might find his constant protectiveness over Sefa sweet. “I ask your leave to speak to her, oh wise Marek.”
Marek rolled his eyes. “I saw her with Raya. A patron is trying to halve the price of a gown with ‘wobbly stitching.’ She would probably appreciate a rescue.”
I swiped my basket from under the booth and edged around the crowd, straining to find Sefa’s head. But Sefa was not the person I saw approaching me, a gray hood pulled over his telltale silver hair.
As it had by the river, the rest of the world bled its colors, turning gray to outline the Nizahl Heir in sharp relief. He glided through the throng. The cacophony of the waleema faded as my senses narrowed on the threat.
His guards wore similarly bland clothes. The disguises would crumble under any scrutiny, but people were moving around the Nizahl brigade without a second glance.
“Your Highness.” I bowed my head. “An honor to see you taking part in our humble waleema.”
“The honor is mine alone, Sylvia.”
He said my name with subtle contempt. A five-letter accusation. An acknowledgment of my most successful lie.
Arin’s attention slid to my basket. “Quite the bundle of sesame-seed candies you’ve acquired.”
I eyed him. A predilection for tooth-rotting sweets was hardly unique to Jasadis.
“I seem to have come upon my own sample of the candy.” He reached into his pocket and I tensed. Surely he would not try to injure me at a crowded waleema?
The Nizahl Heir pulled out a sesame-seed candy. Its distorted pink wrapping plucked at my memory. Unless requested, these candies weren’t typically sold with individual paper wrapping. The wrapping protected the hardened sugar from melting, but the onerous task of folding the paper dissuaded most merchants.
“I believe it belongs to you.”
At my bewilderment, Arin flipped the candy onto his gloved palm. “I found it floating in a puddle two miles past the raven-marked trees. Strange, is it not? How might such a candy have fallen so far into Essam?”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Sour fear surged into my throat. I had dropped a sesame-seed candy the night I crossed the raven-marked trees. I’d hesitated to fish it from the pungent puddle. Seconds later, the Nizahl soldier had confronted me. I never retrieved it.
His expression was a study in civility. He might have been inviting me to tea instead of accusing me of trespassing. Where the Supreme manipulated with charm and grand speeches, his son could be chiseled from pure ice.
Everything inside me screamed at me to act. Shove my blade into his chest, hurl coins into his eyes and run, something. We’d taken the soldier’s body not too many miles from where the candy fell. All I could do was hope Hirun had done its job and carried the corpse to a different part of the river. Without a body, this piece of candy alone couldn’t link me to the soldier’s disappearance.
Adopting a guileless, unaffected tone, I said, “Am I the only person in Mahair who enjoys sweets? Perhaps one of your soldiers had a craving.”
The scar cutting across his jaw caught the lantern light when he tilted his head. A wound made doubly disturbing by the fact that it was meant to kill. And by appearance alone, it should have succeeded.
“Try again,” he said.
“What?”
“Think of a better lie. You’re capable of it.”