Benches had been installed for the height of the tournament, rimming three sides of a provisional stage in ever-elevating rows until it filled the entire breadth of the royal training fields. The castle parapet wall closed the western front of the stage, and even this had been restructured to now accommodate Surikh highborns and their esteemed guests. Eaves of bamboo and woven coconut leaves had been fixed some half-way down the wall, sheltering a long platform that stretched across the length of the stage. Upon it the highborns sat, gathered around small tables and plush cushions, fanned and fed by palace servants that came and went through the door in the curtain wall, already high enough that it now stood at level with the platform.

The grounds looked foreign to Isla, so changed that it was. She sat with the rajini that day, dressed in her colours and emblem, close to the edge of the platform that she had an unimpeded view of the stage below them, but also close to the Rama where he was joined by the maharaji Persi and Andhika.

'The Rani isn't present today,' she whispered to her grandmother.

'Maha Rani Andayu's health fails more each day.' There was genuine sorrow in her voice. Huu purred from the edge of the table, and the rajini stroke him absently below his beak. 'Another reason the Rama insists on so prompt a wedding. Andayu does love a good wedding.'

'I did not think he would care so much what she loved. Someone told me it was not love that united them in the first place.'

'Not in the beginning, perhaps. But they always respected each other, and that is vital. I think they grew on one another.'

Would Kiet and his hanjou grow on one another? It was likely. She sat at his table with his sisters, though he himself was not present. She made good company for them, giggling with the Mahasuri Jyesta. What did princesses talk about, anyway? Isla would not even have the first clue.

Rajini Chei caught her looking and only sighed. 'It is time you put any foolish fancies out of your head.'

The beating of drums interrupted Isla's protests, drowning out the sound of the crowd, and once the noise subsided, the tournament master stepped on stage to announce the first of the day's challengers. Raj fought against raj—their names and emblems meaningless to Isla. Every man fought with a weapon of his choice. The rules were simple; the first to push his opponent off stage was declared winner, or the first to win three points—whichever occurred earliest—with every successful shed of blood considered a point.

'Has anyone ever died from such a tournament?'

'Of course.' Rajini Chei frowned at her. 'Duelling tourneys are used all the time as an opportunity to sate unanswered rivalries. That is why the realm does not oft hold them.'

Great. Isla knew already Maharaj Khaisan would be entering the tournament, and it was no secret what unanswered rivalries he might wish to sate. 'Then it is foolish to allow any heirs compete.'

'Forbidding them would be to admit weakness in the monarchy.'

The first of the match ended just as the rajini finished, with one of the contestants kicking the other so hard, he flew off and landed in the walkway between the stage and the first row of benches.

Rajini Chei turned again to Isla as the next pair took the stage. 'Don't fret so much for your maharaj. Have you never seen him wield his sword?'

No, actually, I have not.

The two new contestants bowed at each other and their duel began. They started slow and cautious, circling one another as they waited for their opponent to make the first move. At last one started with a missed slash, and all pretence of patience was gone.

'A hundred chrana on the Napoan prince.' The surrounding highborn were already talking bets, dropping coins into a basket passed from table to table while a cheerful, plump gentleman took down names and numbers. 'Two hundred on Raj Sautama!'

Isla leaned forward for better look at the stage. 'That is the Napoan High Prince?'

'One of them.' Rajini Chei waved the gentleman and his basket away. 'High Prince Amargai. The High Khan's second son and first heir.'

If his sister was gold, then he was bronze. He was a tall man and toned—taller even than Kiet—with high cheekbones and long hair in braids save for where they were shaved around his temples. His beard was thick and full under a crooked nose, and he moved like a sand leopard: watchful, calculated, precise.

Raj Sautama fought well, but in the end stood no match. Even with a longer blade, it proved a challenge to so much as cut the edge off a single one of the prince's many braids. Again and again the Napoan prince came down upon him, catching him in the counter, each time harder than before.

'Maharaj Khaisan won't stand a chance.' Would Kiet?

'You underestimate our Rama-in-Waiting.'

'Look at him! He would be a kitten standing before a lion!'

Another slash of the prince's blade, and this one ran just above the leather of Raj Sautama's boots. He fell upon his knee with a cry, and the third point was declared against him. He threw down his sword, pushed away the attending therapeut, and disappeared down the walkway without another look at the Napoan prince.

Cheers erupted from the crowd, but it was the whistle that drew everyone's attention: loud and high-pitched and coming from the opposite end of the platform. Isla looked to find High Princess Jihan, weaving between the tables to meet her brother.

'Raj Sautama secured a point against him,' said Rajini Chei as the prince stalked across the duelling stage. 'And as much as I admire House Dyaspar, Khaisan is three times the swordsman.'

Isla sniffed. 'He doesn't look like it.'

'That is part of the deception, child.'

High Prince Amargai was before them, now; his sister leaning down the platform to wipe the fresh cut from his cheek. He looked much younger from up close, and his voice was not so coarse as Isla imagined. He spoke to his sister in their own tongue as she attended him; a language astonishingly calm and fluid coming from so physically a daunting man.

The next match was much quicker—two minor lords from the south-eastern plains of Surikhand making a personal affair of the duel. One wielded a pair of daggers, the other a double-bladed sickle of some kind. Their blades whined back and forth, striking leather, slicing air. Isla did not know their quarrel, only that it must have gone for years before it brought them to the duelling stage, ending once and for all with the sickle hooked through the younger lord's neck.

Gasps rippled over the crowd like a wave, a woman screamed and cried and flung herself onto the stage, her hands and syarong turning red as she tried in vain to obstruct his bleeding. She called for the therapeut, but even Isla knew there was little that could be done.

'Alas, such a tragedy.' The Rama huffed from his table, frowning over the scene as servants came forth to drag the body and wash and dry its blood from the stage.

A tragedy. Isla's heart pounded even after the body was gone. The woman's screams drifted ever further but echoed still in her ears. Would he be so indifferent if it was his heir's body they dragged away?

'I wouldn't get my hopes up,' Rajini Chei whispered in her ear. 'Even if he could, no man would dare fell Khaisan and leave his mantle free for your maharaj to take. His slayer wouldn't live for much longer to enjoy his prize.'

'I'd never wish for the maharam's death.' It was no lie, even if the rajini looked askance at her, dubious. Above all, she knew Kiet would never wish for his nephew's death. But what, then, was to become of him?

The pit in her stomach welled with the roar of the crowd. So quickly they forgot the man with the sickle through his neck. Maharaj Khaisan came on stage and waved at the benches, face full of smiles.

She did not wish him dead, but would there be another end for him?

His first opponent was a young boy, his leather dyed an ashen white but for the spruce tree stamped in blue on his back; its needles wide at the bottom and curling at the top into the silhouette of a teardrop. The tournament master announced him as Raj Abhu Tsafir. He looked anxious even from the exchange of bows. His first attacks glanced off the edge of Maharaj Khaisan's steel, and it was a nervous lurch that finally caught him at disadvantage. His strike was clumsy, and before it landed, the maharaj had already cut him below the shoulder.

His blade came back dripping red.

'Point!' called the tournament master, while on the stage Raj Abhu cried through clenched teeth.

The raj refused the therapeut but accepted a piece of cloth to bind his wound. The crowd cheered when he came back around to face the maharaj once again, but he never recovered his lost point. Two more strikes, and Maharaj Khaisan was declared winner. Raj Abhu's armour was no longer white when he stepped down the stage, but at least his cuts were superficial.

Three more matches passed, and by then the bell tower was ringing its midday toll. The next straws were drawn, and by the time the last peal faded in the distance, Kiet's name was called out to the crowd. His opponent's name was drowned beneath roars and thundering of boots upon benches.

Isla peered down at the walkway. 'What? Who did he draw against?'

'High Prince Temchin.' Rajini Chei smiled back at her. 'The High Khan's youngest son.'

☆ this chapter is dedicated to _Boku-Wa-Tobi_ ☆

Video: Michael Ghelfi Studios
Image: Top left image—© West Studio at ArtStation; remaining images—original artists unknown

Yikes, good luck, Kiet. Who's betting on the High Prince to win? The highborns aren't the only one taking bets—who do you think is going to be grand champion of the duelling tournament?