Sweep of the Heart

20

When we last left the inn, we learned that Kosandion’s former lover betrayed him. Oh Kosandion. So considerate, so handsome, so lonely. If only he had someone to comfort his troubled heart. Now Orata, his PR chief, is trying to put out that fire. But breakfasts do get cold, and even innkeepers have to eat…

The Dushegubs woke me up again around 4:00 am by trying to dig into the bottom of the Pit. Normally, I’d let them tire themselves out, but I was exhausted, so I made them a very large screen and then put the Leave It to Beavers documentary on it. It was a PBS production with a lot of footage of beaver tree-cutting and dam-building. Horrifying guests went against the innkeeper policy, but the Dushegubs were really testing my patience.

Sean woke me up at 5:00 am by getting out of bed, and when I asked him what was happening, he kissed me and told me to go back to sleep. When I finally crawled out of our bed two hours later, the bedroom was empty. I found him outside talking to Marais. Marais had discovered a couple of the Dominion paparazzi trying to film the inn at dark o’clock, apprehended them, and turned them over to Sean, who tossed them out into Baha-char while I slept. Now they were discussing what to do if more of the celebrity stalkers showed up. I left them to it and took myself to breakfast.

Most of the delegations once again opted for a private meal, so I went straight to the observer quarters. They had talked Tony into letting them eat on our back patio, and when I came out, I found Dagorkun, Karat, Tomato, Tony, and Gaston, all situated around the big outside table enjoying Orro’s version of the traditional American breakfast. If the traditional breakfast included serving sunny-side-up eggs in little baskets made of French-fried potatoes and bejeweled with beads of crystallized but delectable ketchup and maple syrup.

The moment I sat down, Droplet emerged from the kitchen, placed a plate with my own egg in a basket and a cup of coffee in front of me, and vanished back into the kitchen. The table was so full of food, it was a wonder it didn’t break. I stared at the spread for a long moment, struggling with decision paralysis, then put a couple of sausage links on my plate, added some fruit, and took a sip of my brew.

Mmm, delicious caffeine.

“I thought you preferred tea,” Tony said. His plate was the size of a Thanksgiving platter, and he was putting food away like he would never get a chance to eat again. There was a reason he was Orro's favorite visitor. Well, aside from Gaston, that is.

“I do. Tea isn’t cutting it right now.”

“Dushegubs?” he asked.

“Mhm. And paparazzi. And pirates. Which one of you let Caldenia into the otrokar quarters last night?”

Gaston raised his hand. “C’est moi, je suis coupable.”

Tony rolled his eyes.

Why was I not surprised? “You are supposed to watch her, not cater to her whims.”

“I have a dual mission, to assist you and to assist the Sovereign. George, and the Office of Arbitration, want the spousal selection to go smoothly.”

Of course, George wouldn’t let it go.

“Watching Her Grace is truly an honor and a privilege,” Gaston said. “Her plotting is sublime. When I grow up, I want to be just like her. If she was taking apprentices, I would immediately pledge myself on bended knee. Sadly, she isn’t interested at this time. I’ve asked.”

That’s just what we needed, Gaston underfoot.

“That is a spectacularly terrible, no good, awful idea,” Tony said. “That woman can dissect you with two sentences. You’ll never recover.”

“And that’s precisely why I would want to be her apprentice,” Gaston said.

“What was that language you used?” Karat asked.

“French. A version of it, my lady,” Gaston said.

Oooh, “my lady.” Someone had caught on to vampire etiquette.

Dagorkun frowned.

“Does your planet have more than one language?” Karat asked.

“It has many. I learned to speak French and English at the same time. They are both my mother tongues. Does your planet have other languages?”

She shook her head. “No, we have various dialects, but they are all distributaries of the same linguistic river. Your other language sounds interesting.”

“Would you like to hear more?” he asked.

Dagorkun’s frown deepened.

“Yes. I think I would.”

Gaston leaned forward.

“Âme sentinelle,

Murmurons l'aveu

De la nuit si nulle

Et du jour en feu.

Des humains suffrages,

Des communs élans

Là tu te dégages

Et voles selon.”

He had a really good voice, deep and resonant, and somehow French seemed to suit him.

Tony rolled his eyes again.

“What does it mean?” Karat asked.

Gaston made a small, elegant gesture with his hand. “It’s a poem by Arthur Rimbaud. It speaks of the eternity one finds in the moment the setting sun touches the ocean or two lovers make a whispered promise. It’s a quest for unlocking infinity in an instant and carrying it forever in your memory as a defense against the inevitability of torment.”

I stopped eating and looked at him.

“It’s true,” he said.

“Fascinating,” Karat said. She anchored her elbow on the table and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “Tell me more.”

The muscles on Dagorkun’s jaw stood out.

Karat turned toward me to reach for the small jar of jam and winked.

Oh. Oh! She was doing it on purpose.

“What would you like to hear?” Gaston asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Karat smeared a bit of jam on a tiny bagel shaped like House Krahr’s crest. Orro had really outdone himself. “Does the Horde have any fascinating poetry, Under-Khan?”

Dagorkun unlocked his jaws. “Yes.”

“Would you recite some for us?”

“No.”

I drank my coffee to keep from laughing.

“Aww, how disappointing.” Karat fluttered her long eyelashes.

The inn tugged on me. A communication from House Meer. I waved my hand, so nobody would be startled, and Gertrude Hunt delivered a screen showing Bestata to me. The vampire candidate wore a stripped-down version of armor, the kind knights wore during training. I pulled the practice weapons out of storage.

“I wish to speak to Lady Renadra.”

Well, since we are using the official titles instead of first names…

I looked at Karat. “Do you wish to speak to Lady Emindra?”

“Yes.”

I moved the screen to her.

The racks of practice weapons rose through the turf of the lawn. They were the exact size and weight of the standard vampire weapons but made from a different material and their edges were dull. Being hit with one of those still hurt.

“Do you fancy a brief exertion this morning?” Bestata asked.

Karat’s eyes flashed. “Always.”

“I suppose someone will come to escort me to your location?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Excellent. I look forward to a bit of exercise.”

The screen went blank. Karat rose. “I’ll be right back.”

I turned to Gaston. “Would you mind fetching Bestata?”

He gave me a shallow bow. “It’s my pleasure.”

“Thank you.”

Gaston left the table.

“How did you know she would say yes?” Tomato asked. “You brought the weapons before they even agreed to fight.”

Orro had served him small cubes of raw steak. Tomato pierced them with his claws, dipped them into a saucer of spiced honey, and gently popped them into his mouth one by one, taking a long time to chew each piece.

“I recognized the training armor she wore. Every time Bestata appears in public, she is in full formal mode. There was only one reason she would call while wearing practice armor. She wanted to spar, and there was only one person among us she would challenge.”

“But how did you know Karat would accept?” Tomato asked.

“A vampire knight of Karat’s standing never backs down from a challenge by a rival house. This is Bestata’s chance to get a feel for Karat’s skills. Karat knows it and is happy to demonstrate she isn’t worried about House Meer’s intelligence gathering. Also, Karat is just like my sister. She can’t resist the sword. If there is one in the vicinity, her hand starts twitching toward it.”

Dagorkun drank his tea. He was clearly brooding.

“Why didn’t you recite By the Light of the Moon, by the Trail of Blood?” Tony asked.

He waved it off. “It didn’t occur to me at the time.”

“Can you explain Surkar to me?” I asked. “You are here to observe him. Why is he here?”

Dagorkun sighed. “When the Horde claims a planet or builds a space station, the settlers are chosen through a complex algorithm. It takes into account seniority, achievements, needs of the colony, and individual preferences. It also ensures that the population of the colony is diverse and equally represented. No one clan can claim a numbers or specialist majority. The colony’s survival requires cooperation; everyone must set aside their ancestral differences and blood feuds and work together to thrive. In a few decades, as the newer generations rise, they begin to think of themselves as being from that colony rather than being from the Tribe of the Northern Wind or the Tribe of the Southern Gusts, and if any troublemakers pop up, they usually enlist and are shipped off into the Horde bootcamps, where they learn unity or die. That’s how the Horde remains cohesive.”

It made sense. If the Horde was a garment, it would be Joseph’s coat of many colors, sewn together from thousands of scraps. Each color was a tribe. Each tribe had a long and bloody history. If all of Earth’s ethnic groups came together, we would barely account for a single sleeve of it.

Keeping this multitude from fracturing had to be a monumental task.

Tony pretended to be absorbed in his food, but I could tell he was listening to every word. This is exactly the kind of knowledge the innkeepers went bonkers over. His father would want a full report.

“This system has worked in 11 colonies so far over eight planetary systems,” Dagorkun said. “And then we have Harra, which is where Surkar is from. Somehow when this little planet was settled, 80% of the settlers came from the South. 48% of those came from the Tribe of the Gar, which happens to be Surkar’s tribe.”

“Someone tampered with the algorithm,” Sean said, emerging from the kitchen.

Marais walked in behind him. He looked haggard.

Sean pulled a chair out for him. Marais sat. Sean poured him some coffee and put a plate in front of him.

“Yes,” Dagorkun said. “We don’t know how they did it, and we didn’t catch it for five years. The few Northerners that ended up on Harra kept having bad luck. Surprise mud slides. Power grid failures. Stray meteorites hitting their vital installations. That sort of thing.”

“Nothing you can prove,” Sean said.

“No,” Dagorkun said. “What we can prove is increased emigration. Northern veterans who have bled and earned their land are cashing out and getting off planet. And now Surkar and the gang are here. Every delegation gets main and minor asks. I need to know what their asks are.”

Marais looked like he was falling asleep.

“Hector, go home,” I murmured.

He shook his head. “I just need a minute.”

Next time we hired him to do anything, I would write his work hours and mandatory downtime into a contract and make him sign it.

Karat walked out onto the porch wearing practice armor, strode to the practice rack on the grass, chose a sword, and tossed it six feet up. It spun, and she snatched it out of the air.

Dagorkun blinked.

“If Surkar is chosen as the spouse, and they ask for a military alliance between Harra and the Dominion, would the Horde go to war?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dagorkun and Sean said at the same time.

A war between the Horde and the Dominion would be catastrophic. The Office of Arbitration would want to prevent it at any cost, as much as they would want to protect the stability of the Dominion itself.

I could almost see a translucent specter of George looming over us. He must’ve wanted so much to be here, nudging things on the right track with a gentle hand, but he couldn’t.

Bestata and Gaston emerged from the kitchen. Bestata ignored the existence of our table, making sure that all of us registered that we were beneath her notice. It bordered on insulting.

Gaston invited Bestata to the grass with a flourish. The tall blonde knight strode to the practice rack.

“How old is this thing?” Karat asked, examining the sword in her hand. “They don’t make guards like this anymore.”

“Old,” I told her. “It was gifted to the innkeepers by a descendant of the Holy Anocracy’s great hero many years ago.”

Originally, I thought these weapons were a couple of centuries old, but then Maud asked me about them after she sparred with Arland. She thought the weapon set was a lot older, so when things calmed down, I dug through the Gertrude Hunt archives until I finally found a mention of it. The set was brought to Gertrude Hunt by one of my predecessors, who inherited it from a much older, now destroyed inn.

Once I figured out where the weapons came from, I immediately took the set of practice daggers from the rack and put them into a special box for my niece. Helen would flip.

Bestata condescended to look at me. “Which hero?”

I’d dealt with many vampires over my life, but none of them had sneered at me as much as Bestata had. I wasn’t sure if it was just her default expression, but there was a limit to my patience.

“Press the black dagger-shaped switch on the side,” I told her.

She examined the weapon rack. Her fingers found the switch.

A hologram of a giant dark-skinned vampire woman tore out of the rack. She wore ancient armor with ornate metal pauldrons and a cuirass sitting over the syn-armor, a style that came from a time when vampires didn’t fully trust the new technology and stubbornly held on to their metal for a century too long. A scar crossed her face, ripping through her lip. Her eyes blazed.

The vampire raised a huge axe to the sky and roared, displaying frightening fangs. Bestata and Karat shied back on pure instinct. Marais jerked awake and jumped to his feet.

“I, Sileta of House Korsa, Daughter of Lorsan and Delendine, Granddaughter of Olasard the Ripper of Souls, gift these weapons to this inn,” the vampire declared. “May the descendants of our great nation use them to better themselves during their travels. Let their weapons strike true, and let their will never falter. Let them bring death to all Mukama across stars and time!”

I sipped my coffee.

The recording vanished.

Sean looked at me.

That’s right. You thought you knew all my secrets. You haven’t even scratched the surface, buddy.

I smiled and gave him a little salute with my coffee cup.

“This is a holy relic,” Bestata hissed.

“No, it’s just a practice weapon rack with a long history,” I said. “Does Lady Emindra feel unequal to the challenge?”

Bestata glared at me. “My skills are beyond contestation.”

Karat chuckled.

“Splendid,” I said. “All of us look forward to witnessing you honor your ancestors. The spirit of Olasard’s granddaughter is watching. No pressure.”

Kosandion decided to hold the elimination in the arena.

Outside of the inn, a bright sunny day was in full swing. Inside, a late evening painted the sky above the arena with blues and purples, and in the west, a splash of brilliant pink diluted with gold gently smoldered into night. I had recorded a spectacular Texas sunset and was now projecting it on the ceiling. The air was pleasantly warm. A simulated evening breeze fanned the delegates in their seating sections.

At the south side of the arena, an enormous stone doorway opened to a short passage leading to the portal glowing with pale green light. I stood just inside of it, out of view. Gaston waited next to me. He’d chosen another space musketeer outfit, this one a deep hunter green, and he topped it off with a brimmed hat with a ridiculously fluffy black feather.

At the north end, directly opposite the doorway, a stone crag thrust from the bottom of the arena. It had two small seating sections on each side and a stone staircase that led all the way to the top, crowned with a stone throne. Behind the throne, eleven enormous banners, each representing the remaining delegations, hung from seemingly empty air, stirring gently in the breeze. There was a spot for the twelfth banner, between the second and third banners from the right, but it was obviously missing.

Between the throne and the doorway, in the center of the arena, the raised stage waited. I had lifted it a bit higher and added some fog for atmosphere. Dark mist swirled along the bottom of the arena, sliding around the stone stage, lapping at the walls of the delegations’ sections, and flowing to the throne crag and back, like a turbulent sea. Occasionally tiny motes of golden light emerged from the mist and floated up slowly until they melted into the evening air.

It was as if the throne crag and the stage had risen from a bottomless chasm shrouded with mist. But the mist was barely three feet deep. I had bought it from Cookie, and he gave me a slight discount, which made his followers clutch their metaphorical pearls. It was still not cheap, but worth it. Orata had asked for "maximum drama." No innkeeper would shy away from that challenge. We lived for this stuff.

The arena hummed. The last delegation had been seated fifteen minutes ago, and they were getting antsy.

There was some minor commotion in the observers’ section. I pulled a screen up to take a closer look. Two of Cookie’s helpers dashed about, pretending to spar with two long daggers. Dagorkun looked like someone stomped on his foot, but he had to endure it, so he just let all the pain go to his face. Next to him Karat smiled and clapped her hands.

The smaller of the lees leaped into the air, bringing his dagger down in a sweeping cut. Oh! They were reenacting Karat and Bestata’s bout this morning. They must’ve seen the footage.

I knew Bestata was in trouble when Karat asked me to record their sparring session, because she wanted “an instructional video for Lady Helen.” All vampire houses prided themselves on their melee skills, but House Krahr had taken personal combat to new heights.

Like all vampires, House Krahr treasured their children. They knew for decades that they would have to send them to battle on Nexus, where anomalies made aerial warfare impossible, and so they turned Arland and Karat’s generation into expert ground fighters. My sister described her future husband as “a killing machine” and meant it, which Arland would’ve taken as a huge compliment.

This expertise came with a hefty price tag. Concentrating on ground combat meant less time for education in other aspects of warfare. For example, Sean warned me that if Arland ever had to fight a space battle without an admiral to guide him, he would lose. But it did make for remarkable duels.

I split the screen and checked Lady Bestata. The red streak across her face was barely visible now. I had convinced her to spend a couple of hours in the medward, because having a spectacular bruise across one’s face highlighted on the Dominion’s screens would’ve been a bad look. The welt on Bestata’s face could be healed, but the wound to her pride was permanent. Karat had killed her three times during that duel.

“A remarkable woman,” Gaston observed over my shoulder.

“Which one?”

“Both of them. Although Lady Karat is much more engaging.”

Aha. Engaging.

The inn chimed in my head. It was time. I dismissed the screens and grasped the arena with my power. This would require careful timing.

“Go,” I murmured to Gaston.

He touched the brim of his spectacular hat, flashed me a serrated-tooth smile, and marched through the doorway.

I flicked the lights on. Twelve clusters of flood lights, positioned at the ends of 100-foot poles along the perimeter of the arena, came on and tilted down, illuminating Gaston in the passage. We had gone full Monday Night Football.

The solid ground ended at the doorway’s threshold, but Gaston didn’t slow down. For a moment his foot in a dark brown boot hovered over the empty air, and then the first section of a stone bridge rose out of the mist to meet it. He took a firm step onto the stone. A row of small round lamps ignited in the rail of the bridge like runway lights guiding a plane to safe landing.

A hush fell onto the arena. Gaston kept walking. The light chased him, as if trying to catch up, all the way across the bridge and onto the central platform, where it dashed along the round stone rail, forming a complete circle. Gaston greeted the delegates with an elegant bow and a hand swish that had likely required ballet training in childhood.

The arena erupted in stomps, hoots, and applause. Gaston welcomed it all with another bow.

The noise swelled, then began to ebb. Gaston raised his arms and the commotion died. He smiled, the huge screens by each section zooming in on his face, and called out, “Let us begin!”

A massive bell rang through the arena.

At the base of the stone crag, Kosandion emerged from under the floor. He wore a brilliant white robe trimmed with deep blue. A long indigo cloak hung off his left shoulder. He looked majestic.

The light in the stone rail in front of Kosandion ignited, and the glow dashed all the way up to the throne. Kosandion started up the stairs. I added a bit of wind, and his cloak flared as he climbed.

The floor of the side sections parted. Nobody paid it any mind, because Kosandion was still ascending, and the entire arena missed Miralitt, Resven, and Orata emerging on the left and the Holy Ecclesiarch and two of his acolytes on the right. Orata looked in my direction and grinned. Apparently, the level of drama was sufficient.

Kosandion sat on his throne. A hundred feet above him, a constellation of the Dominion star systems sparked into light, suspended in midair. The silver radiance spilled over him. He looked like a glowing god ready to sit in judgement of mere mortals.

A hush fell.

Sean stepped out from behind the throne like a shadow in a dark gray robe. It was his turn to babysit.

Gaston turned to Kosandion and waited. The Sovereign moved his hand. Gaston bowed and turned back to the arena. His voice boomed.

“Twelve candidates journeyed here for the Final Selection. One, brought here against her will, bravely reclaimed her freedom.” He pointed to the missing banner. “Eleven candidates remain. Today we must say goodbye to two more. It is heart-wrenching to part with them, but the Dominion has voted. Their voices guide us tonight.”

Gaston paused, solemn.

“The first delegation to leave us is…”

The arena held its breath.

For a man who grew up without commercial breaks, he definitely had a thing for dramatic pauses.

“The Children of the Silver Star,” Gaston announced.

I highlighted the Donkamin section and extended a ramp from their section to the center of the raised area below. The twenty-one Donkamkins rose and moved in an orderly line to join Gaston, the ramp folding behind them.

It was hardly a surprise. They had been notified this morning that they had garnered the least amount of votes from the Dominion. They had time to pack and prepare. There was always a chance that they would do something rash as a parting shot; however, it went against the way the Donkamins had conducted themselves so far.

The Donkamins faced the throne.

“Children of the Silver Star,” Kosandion said, his voice clear and strong. “You have honored us with your presence. We are grateful for the precious gift of your time and effort and for a chance to meet your civilization. What do you ask of the Dominion?”

Ah. The minor ask.

One of the Donkamins spoke. “The Silver Star wishes to exchange knowledge with the Dominion. We ask for the establishment of a scientific embassy on Teplaym.”

Teplaym was the Dominion’s most scientifically advanced planet.

“Granted,” the Sovereign said. “May the sharing of knowledge and exchange of ideas benefit both of our societies for centuries to come.”

He rose and bowed to the Donkamins. The Donkamins swiveled back. Their feet remained planted, but their heads, necks, and other parts twisted in weird directions. It was a display of respect that no Earthborn person could watch without flinching. I fought a shudder.

“A round of applause for our departing friends,” Gaston requested, and the arena obliged.

Twenty-one Donkamins turned, swiveled at everyone for the last time, and finally started across the bridge toward the portal.

Once this was over, I would expand the Donkamin entry in my innkeeper files. I had learned a lot about them, and any additional information about the guests benefited the inns. I had already started, and my contribution so far amounted to a single line in all caps: “DO NOT LIKE TO BE TOUCHED.”

The Donkamin delegation reached the doorway. The leading Donkamin’s neck spiraled out and paused six inches in front of me.

“Thank you for your hospitality, innkeeper. Be well.”

“Gertrude Hunt is honored by your presence. It was my privilege to host you.”

The Donkamins walked into the portal. As the last of them exited, I held the portal open, and a new group of visitors arrived—Vercia Denoma, flanked by four Capital Guards. She shot me an ugly look.

“And now for our final elimination of the day.” Gaston turned to the stone crag and held his hand out.

Orata rose and stepped forward. I lit the platform perimeter, and the massive screens zoomed in on the PR chief.

“My name is Orata Tavan. I serve the Dominion as the Sovereign’s Liaison. My left hand touches the Sovereign, my right touches the Dominion’s people, and it is my sacred duty to bring them together.”

Nicely put.

“When my office vetted the candidates for the selection, we discovered a terrible crime. One of the candidates was not who they claimed to be.”

The arena had gone completely quiet.

“Every delegation brought the best of the best, the exceptional, the honorable, the worthy. But this candidate was the worst of the worst. Dominion, what I’m about to show you is horrific. But you must see it for yourself, so you can do your civic duties and render your judgement.”

On the screens, Pivor of the Murder Beaks beheaded a child with a swing of his sword. His skin was a deep lavender, and his hair was long, straight, and dark, but it was unmistakably him. The smile was a dead giveaway.

“Behold, Cumbr Adgi ar’Muterzen,” Orata announced. “The third son of Gar Por ar’Muterzen, and fourth in line to lead the Vagabond pirate fleet. We know him as Pivor.”

In the Murder Beak section, Pivor tried to rise, but the floor swallowed his feet. I pulled the floor directly under him up, and his chair carried him fifty feet into the air, above the seats, leaving him trapped on top of a stone pillar. He gripped the armrest, trying to pull his feet free, but the inn held him tight.

The screens flashed with strategically selected shots, a gallery of Pivor’s atrocities.

The Murder Beaks screeched. I had interacted enough with them over the years to recognize the specific tone of their shrieks. It wasn’t a protest, it was surprise and outrage. They hadn’t known.

The morbid gallery kept rolling. Orata had removed the sound from the footage, and watching it in silence made it more horrifying somehow.

“When this vile deception was discovered, we faced the question of how to proceed. It would be a simple matter to reject his candidacy and expel the delegation sponsoring him.”

Technically nothing she said was a lie so far. She just didn’t specify when exactly the deception had been discovered.

Vercia was frowning. Yes, I had no idea where Orata was going with this either, but apparently this was a cue because the guards started marching down the bridge to the central section, Vercia between them.

“However, one courageous member of our team, the one who was responsible for vetting his candidacy, made the decision to permit him to continue. She felt she had a duty to take this chance to expose his atrocities to the entire galaxy at just the right time, when everyone’s attention would be on the event, so all would be aware of exactly what he has done.”

Again, not a lie.

“Dominion, that public servant is Vercia Denoma. She is our hero.”

I directed the nearest spotlight onto the platform. It caught Vercia in its radiance. I zoomed the screens on her face. She was doing a stunning impression of a deer in headlights. The guards around her snapped to attention. I had seen them do this exact move in Kosandion’s presence. They were her “honor guard.”

“It is thanks to her tireless efforts that we can now stand here, see these crimes for ourselves, and witness justice being done. I brought this to you today to remind you to be vigilant. Evil is insidious. It can worm its way into your inner circle and stab you in the back.”

Oh wow.

“If it wasn’t for Vercia’s efforts, we might have been unaware of the evil that is Cumbr Adgi. She is the reason he has reached this moment and the reason I can now expose him to all of you. Everything that follows is thanks to her. Today we honor you, Vercia Denoma. The Dominion owes you a great debt.”

Orata bowed. Behind her Resven and Miralitt bowed as well.

Pivor’s father indulged his children. He spoiled them, and he was in the business where a terrible reputation was an asset. He couldn’t afford to look weak or suffer disrespect. If anything happened to his offspring, he would retaliate. It was simply good business, and Orata had just told him exactly who was responsible for his son’s downfall. Orata hadn’t just thrown Vercia under the bus. She’d picked the bus up and dropped it on Vercia’s head.

The fear in Vercia’s wide-open eyes told me that she understood exactly what had happened.

Kosandion’s voice echoed through the arena. “Cumbr Adgi ar’Muterzen.”

I spun the stone pillar, so Pivor faced the throne.

“Do you have anything to say?” Kosandion asked.

Pivor grinned and this time it looked psychotic. “Fuck off, you dumb prick. You want a piece of me, be a man and get it yourself.”

Kosandion’s face was glacial, as if carved out of an iceberg. “Cumbr Adgi ar’Muterzen, you are hereby expelled from the selection. Your sponsor is disqualified. Their asks will not be honored.”

“I have something to say,” the largest Murder Beak shrieked.

Kosandion nodded.

I moved the lights onto the Murder Beak section and slid Pivor’s pillar toward it, far enough to stay out of reach. The largest bird rose. She was huge with rust and crimson plumage. Her enormous beak could crack a cow’s femur in half. I had seen it happen, because Orro served them bovine bones when they felt peckish and wanted a fun snack.

The leader of the Murder Beaks took a step forward and stepped onto the rail bordering their section. The wicked spurs on her legs were sheathed in razor-sharp metal, and they glinted in the light of the arena. Her talons gripped the stone and squeezed, chipping it. She glared at Pivor with the unblinking focus of a predator.

“Go back to your father, pirate. Give him my message. Your skulls are soft. Your brains are delicious. We are coming.”

She opened her beak and let out a deafening shriek. Every feather on her body stood erect. Pivor was thirty feet away from her, but he jerked back in his seat.

“The Dominion acknowledges the vow of vengeance,” Kosandion said. “We do not bear the Murder Beaks any ill will and hold them blameless in this affair.”

“Fight me, you fucking asshole!” Pivor howled, twisting in his seat. “Fight me.”

“Sadly, someone else has a prior claim,” Kosandion said. “Innkeeper, we are finished.”

Sean raised his hand and his voice whispered through the arena, quiet but heard by every creature there.

“Your welcome is withdrawn.”

The architecture of the inn folded above the doorway, spinning, collapsing, and a door rushed at us and flung itself wide open, revealing Baha-char’s sunshine. The roots of the inn spilled from the ceiling, yanked Pivor off his chair, and hurled him through the door. It slammed shut.

The feed on the screen showed Pivor landing on the big stone tiles paving the alley. He rolled, stopped, spat into the dirt, and got up, his chin jutting into the air. He adjusted his clothes…

A familiar woman dropped from the upper balcony, wrapped in a shawl.

He squinted at her.

She pulled her shawl back, revealing the faint outline of scales on her face.

“Do you remember me, Cumbr Adgi?”

He laughed.

“You beheaded my father.” Long orange blades slipped into her hand from within the shawl’s folds.

“You starved my mother to death.”

She started toward him.

“You butchered my sister.”

He kept laughing.

“You violated my body.”

“And enjoyed it,” he said.

“Today is the day I cleanse my soul of this blood debt.”

“Bring it on!”

She charged him. He danced out of the way, impossibly quick for a human, and swung at her. She dodged. Pivor’s fist connected with the wall of a building, cracking the stone. That explained why he wanted to fight Kosandion.

He shook the dust off his hand and grinned. “Come on! I’m waiting! Come on, come—”

She slipped close to him with deadly grace and spun her sword over his left forearm. Pivor didn’t even register it until his fist slid off his arm and fell to the ground. He bellowed and charged at her.

It took almost two minutes for him to die. She painted the alley with his blood, carving pieces off of him bit by bit, and when everything was done, she gouged out his eyes with her bare hands, cut off his head, pulled her shawl over her face, and walked away, melting into the current of shoppers on the busy street at the mouth of the alley.

Vercia’s honor guard turned as one and exited the stage, heading down the bridge, past me, toward the portal. She looked after them, looked at Kosandion, then back at the screen where pieces of Pivor littered the alley. Desperation twisted her face. She marched to the bridge at a near run. Nobody except me paid her any mind. There was no need to arrest her or charge her with anything. She was a dead woman walking.

Vercia saw me and swallowed. “I want a room.”

“We have no vacancy.”

She spun around and waved at the arena, incredulous.

“We are full, Lady Denoma.” I pointed to the portal. “Please, return to the Dominion.”

She clenched her hands and fled to the portal. The green glow swallowed her.

Good riddance.

I took a moment to savor the cleaner air and turned to the arena. We needed to wish the Murder Beaks goodbye, put everyone else back into their quarters, and prepare for Kosandion’s date this afternoon. He would be having a one-on-one with Cyanide, and I had no idea how it would go.