“The council has verified the precedent,” my master said quickly.
Kane waved a dismissive hand. “So I have heard. But then, it is not the Council who has the final say in this matter, is it?” He bowed. “I wish you and Eon good fortune.” He continued into the armory.
As Baret passed me, I heard him whisper, “You don’t have a chance, Eon-jah. You are as weak as a girl.”
He was inside the armory before I made sense of his words. There was no true knowledge in the jeer, but it hit home, splitting my tight kernel of control.
Van came hurrying toward us. He said something, but I heard no meaning in the sounds. I stared over at the row of kneeling boys. They were the real candidates; I was a girl, a cripple, an abomination. What was I doing? What madness was in my master? How could he think we would succeed? He was wrong—I could not do it. We had to stop. We had to get away. Before we were discovered. Before we were killed.
I grasped at his robes, my sword tips tangling in the silk.
“Master, we must—”
His hand closed on my shoulder. Bone and sinew ground together, radiating agony.
“I will say good-bye now, Eon,” my master said, his voice an order. His thumb dug into the soft hollow of my shoulder, squeezing away breath and movement. “Our fortunes lie with you now.” He shook me slightly, his eyes locked on mine. “Do you understand?”
I nodded. The edges of the room faded into a gray haze.
“Get in line.”
He pushed me away, the sudden release making me stagger. There was no choice. No going back.
I made my way around the row of kneeling candidates, all of them with their eyes closed, praying to serve the Rat Dragon. I would pray for something different: a chance to escape. I placed my swords on the stone floor in front of my position. Number four: the number of death. Clumsily, I settled onto my knees. The hard edge of the hidden coin dug into the back of my thigh, the pain joining the hot pulsing in my hip and shoulder. I felt my master’s gaze still on me, but I did not look up. There was nothing in his face that I wanted to see.
CHAPTER FOUR
WE KNELT ON the floor for two hours. For the first hour, I carefully tensed and relaxed my muscles from toes to scalp, a method my master had taught me to keep my body warm and flexible. By the second hour, the cold was overcoming my efforts, locking my joints. I made tight fists and released them, welcoming the sting of warmer blood.
To my right, Quon was shifting against his haunches, his face twisted into a grimace. On the other side, Lanell was working his hands like creeping caterpillars up and down the front of his thighs, bunching the silk.
Suddenly, at the top of the ramp, a ball of excited voices unraveled into a single, harsh shout.
“Get out of my way.”
A group of officials burst out of the rampway and clustered into a gray barricade, halting the progress of a tall, solidly built man. An older official stepped forward, his large ruby pin of rank catching the light. He bowed low.
“Lord Ido, no further! Please.”
What was Lord Ido doing here? It was against tradition for the ascending Dragoneye to have contact with the candidates. I had only ever seen him from afar playing his part in official ceremonies, his features smudged by distance. Now he was just lengths away. Along the row, the other candidates stirred at the disturbance.
I squinted, trying to distinguish more detail against the bright glare of the ramp opening. He wore his oiled black hair in the double queue of the Dragoneye, looped high into a knot at the crown of his head. I caught the planes of his face as he moved, broad strokes painted by light and shadow: a high scholar’s brow, a long nose like the foreign devils the emperor had allowed into the city, and a jutting dark beard. But it was the menacing power in his body that made the officials scatter before him. Lord Ido did not move like a Dragoneye. He moved like a warrior.
He swept through the officials, using his forearm to knock the slighter men aside. Every move was decisive, with none of the careful conservation of energy that marked the other Dragoneyes. Although he wore the traditional robes of the Ascendant, they did not obscure the line of his body: the cutaway coat of deep blue silk—the costly fabric barely discernible beneath heavy gold embroidery—showed the breadth of his shoulder and chest, and the pale blue trousers cross-bound from ankle to knee accentuated the muscular shape of his legs. I dropped my gaze to the ground.
“Move,” he ordered. “I will see the candidates.”
I straightened and knew that, all along the row, every candidate filled his chest and lengthened his spine as Lord Ido approached.
The old official scurried ahead of him. “Lord Ido,” he announced to us, trying to wrest back some protocol.
Beside me, Quon hurriedly dropped into a deep bow. I followed, holding myself a finger’s length above my swords, wide eyes reflected in one polished blade, bloodless lips in the other.
“Greetings, Lord Ido,” we chanted.
“Sit back,” he said. “Show me your faces.”
Obediently, we all rose from our bows, eyes properly lowered.
His feet, in gold-painted shoes, passed by me. I chanced a quick look up at him, expecting to see his back. Instead, our gazes met, and I saw the strange pale amber of his eyes.
“Who are you, boy?”
“Eon, Lord.”
He studied me for a moment. It was like being staked out, naked and helpless, under the burn of the sun.
“Brannon’s cripple,” he finally said. “Be ashamed. You rob an able-bodied boy of his chance.”