Felix drained the contents of the chalice and smacked his lips together. “I think mounting your head in my private garden will be the best part of the year.”
My hand fluttered to my heart. Enraging the Omal Heir while the amnesty laws forbade him from laying a single finger on me was entirely too diverting.
“Oh, how sad. I hope the next year is more rewarding for you.”
Sorn motioned Felix over. The Omal Heir’s hate singed the night air, and too many teeth gleamed in his smile. “I hope you last the first trial. I cannot wait to host you and your village rats in the Omal palace.” Ominous promise delivered, he threw the chalice at a servant’s feet and joined Sorn on the other side.
The courtyard danced with song and light. The musician strummed his lute, the sweet sounds drifting in the nighttime breeze. A gorgeous woman sprawled in Sorn’s lap, pressing his chalice to his lips and giggling.
“Courtesans,” a voice said near my shoulder. Diya watched Mehti lounge in the grass, balancing a bowl of grapes and strawberries on his chest. “Do you know what they call a whorehouse in Lukub?”
The Orban Champion didn’t pause for my reply. “A house.”
I eyed her. “They have different customs. We should withhold judgment.”
Diya snickered. She represented Orban’s colors in her simple calf-length moss-green gown, belted at her waist by a brown leather buckskin. Dania’s battle bracelets jangled around Diya’s bronze wrists. “How diplomatic.”
Arin would want me to politely engage with her, gather what I could on the mysterious Champion. “Orban has its fair share of odd traditions.”
Information gathering could wait. Felix left me in the mood to incite.
She lifted her chin. “We are an honor culture founded on long-held traditions. Lukub is the place disobedient adolescents run off to for a taste of debauchery. Don’t seek to compare the two.”
Sorn’s girl appeared to be excavating his mouth with her tongue while another pressed kisses along his shoulder. I wanted to ask whether she considered exhibitionism particularly honorable. On her Heir, she’d likely celebrate it as a display of virility.
“Your Heir is not immune,” Diya said.
Arin and Vaida shared a bench, heads bent together. A clearly private conversation, and the way Vaida leaned toward him signaled intimacy. I knew Vaida wanted to destroy his kingdom, as surely as I knew Arin would snap her neck without a thought. And yet, a lump formed in my throat.
I tried to quell the unfamiliar anger brewing in my gut. “How did you come to be chosen as Champion?”
A servant extended a tray of diamond-shaped makroudh toward us. I lifted one of the date-filled sweets and nodded my thanks to him. Diya waved the tray away. Happiness bloomed on my tongue at the first buttery bite. After nearly two months of Nizahlan meals, I was ready to bury myself in good food.
“I stabbed my mother and father forty-three times each,” Diya said conversationally. I choked on the second bite, sending crumbs flying. She continued, “His Highness Sorn saved me from hanging. I possessed a quality he wanted in Orban’s Champion. There is date paste on your dress.”
I patted my dress, assessing the diminutive Champion anew. “Eighty-six stabbings, and not a single wrist cramp? The Alcalah will be no trouble for you.”
Diya sniffed, and her haughty aloofness reminded me strongly of Rory. “It was not a heavy knife.”
Before I could fathom a response to such a statement, Timur loped over, blowing on the steaming surface of his mint tea. “This seems like the best corner of the Banquet,” he said. “Mainly because it’s missing Mehti.”
The Omal Champion delighted a few courtesans by demonstrating how quickly he could crawl backward on his elbows.
“Crawling on one’s elbows is a critical skill for a Champion,” I said. “As well as a crab.”
Diya seemingly reached her capacity for companionship. She darted to the swan pond without a goodbye. Timur leaned on the wall next to me, dipping the mint leaf in and out of his tea. “Did she tell you how she was chosen? You have the same expression I did when I found out.”
“Should I be alarmed that I’m more intrigued than anything else?”
I popped the rest of the makroudh into my mouth. Conversation with Timur came too easily. Marek and Sefa would probably like the Lukub Champion.
“Absolutely.”
“Damn.” I clapped the traces of the dessert from my gown, slackening my muscles in fake disinterest. “How about yourself, Timur? Why did Sultana Vaida choose a lower villager as her Champion?”