I smiled brightly at Supreme Rawain. “I climbed it the same way I would have without poisoned sap, just with more screaming. Sire.”
Ah, I had missed Vaun’s furious glare. His reliably terrible presence undid some of the damage I had wrought unto myself after Rawain’s visit.
Rawain laughed, causing Arin and Vaun’s heads to whip toward him. “My apologies for a silly question.” He unrolled a grape leaf, evaluating the seasoned rice inside. He tried to rewrap it. “You were in a distressing state when you reached us. My son reduced several medics to tears.”
“His Highness has been diligent in preparing me for the Alcalah.” I could play at pleasant if it would prove Vaun a liar. “I would have hated to waste his efforts in the very first trial.”
“Yes, he is quite particular about such matters. Too particular, sometimes. But I could not have hoped for a more accomplished Commander.”
Arin inclined his head in acknowledgment. His unease was obvious, at least to me—he’d carved the tip of the miswak into a point.
“How did the sap adhere to you?” Vaun said. “I expressly recall His Highness cautioning you against leaning on the trees.”
I lifted a shoulder. Vaun wanted some incriminating answer he could pounce on.
“Fear renders memory obsolete. I reacted on instinct and suffered for the error.”
“You were the last Champion to emerge, a full hour after the Omal Champion. How is it the air did not send you to sleep?” Vaun pressed.
Arin slowly turned his head to stare at his guard. Vaun quailed, shrinking in his seat like a reprimanded child.
“I tied a cloth around my mouth and nose to slow its progress. I am a chemist’s apprentice,” I informed Rawain. “I recognized the odor.”
“Absolutely astonishing.” Rawain leaned back in his seat. He cupped the scepter, running his thumb over the delicate glass orb at the center. “It reminds me of the Alcalah twelve years ago. The Jasad Champion bewitched the rope into lifting him over the bluff. The other Champions were furious at the injustice, of course. The Alcalah has been vastly more interesting with four competitors, since strength decides the Victor instead of happenstance of birth.”
My cuffs became vises the moment “Jasad” left his lips. I clenched my teeth, barricading against the excess magic.
“I would have shared in the other Champions’ fury,” I said. “The honor of the Alcalah is not found in shortcuts.”
“Precisely,” Rawain said. “There is only treachery in magic.”
If we pulled at this thread for much longer, my leashed magic would surge past the cuffs and send the table careening into Rawain. His scepter shimmered under the candlelight, diamonds of white sparking from the glass orb.
“The glass is impervious to breakage,” Rawain said, following my gaze. “It cannot crack or splinter. It was a gift from my darling late wife after Arin’s birth.”
Pain pricked my head, and the memory bloomed like a drop of crimson blood. Isra of Nizahl seated beside Rawain at the Blood Summit, her hands knotted together on her lap. She had had the look of a woman always braced for the worst, and I’d met her gaze only briefly before she fixed it on some distant point. Nizahlan women are so shy, I’d thought, and preoccupied myself with the tassels on Teta Palia’s sleeve.
She knew what was coming. She knew he was going to kill her along with everyone else, Hanim said.
“It is lovely.” The scepter exuded malice. Steel claws closed around the glass orb, and a violet raven glared from the iron helm. Why my ten-year-old self had wanted to touch it was beyond me.
Every minute of the meal stretched into a millennium, and by the time the servants cleared away the dessert platters, I felt strung tighter than a lute string. Rawain’s interrogation tactics varied in almost every way from Arin’s. Rawain masked his careful maneuvering with good humor and charm.
At the meal’s conclusion, Supreme Rawain approached me. My fingers twitched, longing for the dagger in my cloak’s pocket. My cuffs were heated rings around my wrists, and if I released my hold on my boiling magic, I could drive Rawain’s scepter into his throat without budging from my spot.
“I look forward to your success in the second trial, Sylvia,” he said. I went stock still as he gripped my chin, pressing a light kiss to my forehead. “I have a sense you will be a merit to Nizahl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In the five years I spent in Omal, I never once ventured into the palace town. Omal’s palace was built in the center of the kingdom, a solid presence around which the coursing life in Omal flowed. Sefa and I craned our necks from the carriage window, ignoring Marek’s teasing. Painted in the light blue of a spring sky, the palace dazzled at the heart of the upper town. Gates constructed from white agate circled the palace, opaque in the sunlight. The gates swung open for our procession. Compared to the khawaga and their mutts, the Omalian patrol was a welcome sight.