Authors: Cat Rambo
Teo raised his fists, resigning himself to the fight. He knew the older, bigger boy would beat the snot out of him, but at least he might be able to land a blow or two of his own. His heart hammered in his chest.
A hand landed on his shoulder from behind, even as he saw the older boy’s face fall.
His mother.
She was the first to meet his eyes, but the expression there did not reassure him. Love was there, yes, but a regret that he couldn’t understand.
“Come home, Teo,” she said. “We need to talk to you.”
With a last scowl in Biort’s direction, he followed in her wake. His heart still hammered as nervously as it had for the fight, as though sensing that what was to come would be no better.
It wasn’t.
* * *
“Why would you do this to me?” Teo demanded. He hunched on the opposite side of the table from his parents. His mother sat, palms flat on the wooden surface, brows furrowed, while his father stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. Teo wondered that they felt comfortable leaving Elya’s sickbed long enough to break this news to him. The air smelled of broth and burned roots. The Priest was staying elsewhere and they hadn’t even gotten a whiff of grouse.
“You’ve promised me into slavery! I’ll belong to the Temples for life!”
“It’s not like that,” his father said. “It’s a profession, and you can progress in it while always having food and clothing and shelter and a direction in life.”
“They’ll realize I’m a Shifter and burn me alive!”
His mother shook her head. Her eyes were red from crying, but her face was calm. “The alta says that since you have never changed, you never will. She swore it to me, beyond any question. You will be perfectly able to pass as Human.”
“So you are sacrificing me so the village can continue to pretend we are all Human?”
“I know you do not want to go, Teo, but this will be a better life for you than here.”
“Better how?” he demanded.
“You will find more reading material in Tabat, for one,” she said with a chuckle. She leaned forward. “Think of all that Tabat will offer you! You love reading the penny-wides, now you’ll be where their heroes walk and talk. What’s the name of that Gladiator you like so much?”
“Bella Kanto,” he said, swallowing tears. He stared at his father. “Do you really think I’ll do so badly in life that you had to lock me into something like this?”
“Oh, son.” His father looked pained. “It’s not like that at all. The more one sacrifices, the greater the gift. And we were at our wits’ end; we didn’t think Elya would recover any other way. So we swore that if the fever broke we would send you to the Temple.”
The hurt remained, a pain that centered in his chest like the bruise after a powerful blow. “You chose her over me.”
“Perhaps she would have recovered anyway and we made a choice we shouldn’t have,” his mother said. “Perhaps we made a mistake. Is that what you wanted to hear, that we are fallible? You are still promised to the Temples, due to be taken to Tabat by the Priest, no matter what, no matter how fallible we are. Your name is recorded in his rolls.”
He’d seen her like this before. Sorrow made her angry, made her ready to lash out. He stared at his fists. “Like a slave,” he said again.
“Not so,” said his mother. “Like someone whose family has pledged him; like someone who understands his duty.” She looked at him.
Anger wouldn’t let him stop. “The real reason is because you think I’ll be better off than in a village where I’m a failure.”
“No one thinks you’re a failure, Teo,” she said. “There have been those who could not shift before.”
“None alive except me,” he said.
His father left her and came around the table to ruffle his hair. Teo held very still under the gesture. He was still sorting out his feelings, but anger weighted the mix.
“Is it because I can’t Shift?” he asked.
His father touched his hair again. “Some think it unlucky.”
“A few? Or many?”
“Most.” His father sighed and returned to his mother’s side. Elya’s broth bubbled on the fire, setting the pot lid clinking as wafts of steam escaped.
“I will pack food and a change of clothing for you,” Teo’s mother said. “The Priest will stay a few days yet, but then you must be ready to go.”
* * *
Springtime would come soon, but not yet. Ice shielded the stream, and the thin branches of the scrub trees along its bank drooped with snow.
Teo had come to the riverbank to think. Settled on a boulder, its cold weight beneath him, he could barely hear the rush of the water beneath the ice, only the faintest whisper. He imagined it talking to him, giving him advice, telling him to give in to his parents’ plans.
But he didn’t want to be a Moon Priest. Giving his life over to serve the three moons. Giving up everything, including his name.
He had to flee.
But to where? Northward the land was more perilous, and westward, even wilder. South was the direction he wanted to avoid as well, for at the end of that road lay Tabat. No, he would have to strike eastward, make for the coast and Verranzo’s New City, where all were free. Rumors said that Beasts walked with Humans there and even held land and other properties. Like anywhere else, they didn’t tolerate Shifters, but Teo was no Shifter, was he? He’d have no worries there. The alta had told his mother he’d never shift. He must put that dream away.
Drops of water rolled down a tree branch, falling on the snow. Two squirrels chased each other, chuckling or scolding, he couldn’t tell which, through the branches overhead.
Leaving had to come soon, before the Priest decided to start off. How long did Teo have? Two days, perhaps. At most.
He needed to consider his course carefully. The Priest would make for Marten’s Ferry next. And everyone would hunt for Teo, and all of them were skilled hunters. But if he went along the creek, eventually he would find the road, and there his tracks would simply mingle with all the others.
He reached out and scooped up snow in his mittened hands, packing it into a ball. He threw it across the stream at the largest tree, and hit it squarely, with a satisfying
thunk
and a shower of dislodged snow.
He was young and strong and smart. He’d have no trouble finding work in Verranzo’s New City. Think of all the things he could do!
He might become a Merchant or a sailor or even a man of great learning. He knew how to read and write when many in the village didn’t. He had taught himself in order to decipher the penny-wides and other newspapers that traders used to wrap their goods. No, he would be fine, once he got there.
He couldn’t wait. He glanced up at the sky, clear of clouds and blue as the little flowers, primaflora, that would cover the riverbank, come full spring.
There was no time like the present. Tomorrow. He would leave tomorrow.
* * *
That night while they ate, Teo tried to provoke his father and mother to conversation. He wanted to hear them laugh and tell stories, things that he could remember later.
But his mother was sullen with lack of sleep from nursing Elya, and after a long day of fruitless hunting, his father was not inclined to light talk either.
Finally Teo stared into his bowl. He thought that he should eat all he could, for surely meals would be scarcer on the road. There wouldn’t be good hot lentils cooked the way his mother always did, with garlic and onions and a shake from the spice bag she kept near the stove, savory and redolent. The smell always reminded him of his mother, for she swore by her spice mix, said it made the food more digestible.
Maybe he’d take a pinch or two with him. He could hunt rabbits and roast them in a fire, and a little spice would not go amiss there. He forced down a few more bites and drained his cup of water.
After dinner, he sat by the fireside and carved. He wanted to leave a last gift for Elya. He chose a Shifter’s form, that of a great cat of the sort his father could become, and imagined it was his own. When he finished it, he showed it to his mother.
She turned it over in her hand and a rare smile crept over her face.
“It has your look,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She studied it. “I can’t tell where it comes from—perhaps the way you’ve shaped the eyes or the set of the ears, but it has the same look that you do when you’re asking questions.”
“Then perhaps it will help Elya remember me.” The words came out with an anger that surprised him.
She set the statue on the mantle and reached to touch his cheek. He pulled away just as her fingers were about to graze his skin. Her face fell.
“Perhaps with time, you’ll understand,” she said.
He looked her full in the eyes. “Perhaps.”
The anger lingered with him when he went to bed. Once everyone else was asleep, he slipped to the cupboard and filled a leather bag—a round of bread and curls of dried meat filched from the back of the food cupboard, and three dried plums, as hard as rocks, that had fallen behind another bag and would not be missed.
His mother was not a particularly diligent housewife of the sort given to counting her inventory, but by this time of year most of the food was gone already, so Teo didn’t dare make the inroads he wanted to.
How long would it take his mother to realize he was gone? In the morning all she would do was dip oats out to cook and think that he’d gone out hunting or scouting. Perhaps at lunch, she’d think him still afield. But by dinner, she would know. Would they send someone after him then or wait till morning? Morning, he thought, because then his tracks would be easier to see.
Once he was on the main road, though, his hunters wouldn’t know which way he’d gone. They’d think north or south, not realizing he intended to cut across it there and continue on through the pine barrens, despite their perils.
No, if she didn’t realize till dinner, that was best.
He went to the cupboard where their most precious things were stored. Sorting through it, he found what he sought towards the back: a wooden box, barely palm-sized. He took it out and opened it.
Twin to the pierced coin around his own neck. Both bore the smallest moon, Toj, now in quarter-moon on one side, the full trio of moons on the other. The coins given by the Priest when registering a birth for the Temple rolls. While the villages were converts within the last two generations, they had embraced the faith, which kept the occasional Moon Priest from suspecting they were Shifters, as well as letting them trade with Human settlements.
Teo removed his own coin from the leather thong and exchanged it for his Shadow Twin’s. They were identical, after all. No one would know he’d made the swap. And this way he would have something to remember his sister by. Supposedly the coin held his luck. Well, it’d be safer here than out in the world.
And his luck had been bad enough so far. He had no objection to leaving it behind.
His father snored and muttered something in his sleep. Teo took a last look around at his home of the last fourteen years, squared his shoulders, and moved to the door.
In the moonlight, the trees looked still and motionless, as though carved of white and black stone. He went along the river, knowing that it would lead him to the road eventually.
When morning came, he kept walking. He would not sleep till he crossed the road, not until he was safe. The footing was bad and treacherous, slick with ice. Cold crept up his legs and bit at his ears, while his nose began to run.
He could have cried for joy when he finally saw the road, a glimmer through the trees. When he got to it, it was rough and full of frozen mud. Now his new life would begin.
Then he spotted the Priest and froze.
***
Chapter Two
Introducing Bella, a Gladiator
The blade slices so close to my eyeball that my upper eyelashes brush against it. I pull back from that silver line hanging sideways in the air, roll on my heels on the gritty tiles.
The crowd is silent, watching from the vast stands. Not a full crowd, for a practice match, particularly one no one thinks Crysa can win. But the fact that the Duke is here, watching, brings a fair sized audience. Marta’s there, no doubt. Which of us is she hoping will win?
No time for that. Snap my left fist forward. Almost catch her. Almost drive the side of the little round shield into her ribs as I push towards her, but she goes left, dodges with an exhalation that hangs in the frosty air between us.
The bitch is as quick and as fast as that Champion in the Southern Isles.
Built like her too.
Not as experienced, though. She’s young. Fresh. If she wins, she wins the right to dress in Spring’s armor in a month and try to defeat Winter. Or rather defeat me, dressed in Winter’s armor.
She’s off balance from the step. Weight on that heel.
Make as though to kick forward into the other heel, sweep a foot backward, into her calf, make her falter.
When you’ve fought someone in practice hundreds of times, you know them inside out, more intimately than any lover. You know the sinews and lumps of their character, how they respond to taunt or stroke, how they move when pressed to their utmost effort, how they take losing.
So it is with this one, Crysa. I’ve fought her that often.
This isn’t a teaching match, though. She’s trying to shortcut the usual climb, challenging me directly. If she wins, she’ll be Spring’s Champion in another month.
That’s where the good ones end up. Fighting me there.
She falls back with a scrape of armored heels on the tiles, never loses balance throughout the move.
She’s in peak shape. I warmed up for this bout by fighting a Beast, a Minotaur who’d tried to kill his Master. He didn’t score a hit, and now I’m warm and limber, if breathing harder. She came into the fight fresh, so she’s holding her own.
She’s not bad, not bad at all. She shouldn’t be. I trained her myself.
This is her moment, or so she thinks.
They all do, just before I pluck it from them.
My sword comes up.
Skirl and screech, blade sliding against blade, the noises only the closest onlookers can hear, though they can see the sparks catch her in the face. I taste blood.
Touch. Wheel.
Another clash of blades.
The crowd’s impatience swells. Idlers and others with time to spare. When the actual ceremonial match comes, the seats will be packed with onlookers.
She angles sideways, trying to keep out of the reflected sun glitter on my shield.
I do the same. Bright sparkles cross her visor, light dances against her eyes.
She blinks.
Time to feint and kick, catching her calf.
She staggers.
It’s actually disappointing when they don’t last longer than this.
The crowd noise swells. They’re disappointed too. But it’s not her lack of stamina that makes them mutter.
They want to find someone who will defeat me in the ceremony and win them six extra weeks of spring.
Let them groan and whine.
If they want to change things, they can find another Champion. I’m Winter’s, as I have been for almost two decades now. As I will be again this year.
Champion of Tabat. And this year that ritual’s even more important, with all the political changes taking place. There’ll be more stress to throw the match than ever before.
But I don’t throw matches.
She’s done. I can see it in her eyes.
She must learn all the steps, even though she’s not experiencing them from the side she wanted. I step forward to put my sword to her throat. She droops in surrender; hands up her sword.
I hold it up to the crowd, into the oncoming snowflakes, thickening now.
They cheer despite the oncoming weather, swept up in the fervor.
They are Tabat.
They are mine.
In his box, Alberic, the current and last Duke of Tabat, stands. He waves his hand above his head to signal silence, and the crowd obeys.
He speaks. The Mage beside him amplifies the speech with a device that he holds near the Duke’s face, a mesh and gears cylinder.
“Citizenry of Tabat! Crysa Silverskiff has failed her challenge. She will not face Winter’s Champion.”
Downright boos this time, even though I can see the Duke’s Enforcers patrolling the packed stands. Events like this make them ineffectual. Before they can get to a booer, he or she has slipped away through the crowds, which are melting away themselves, the impatient heading out before the final words or the exhortations to pay their upcoming taxes.
It’s not as though Winter will continue forever. Only that I’ve stretched it out a red moon’s length. After all this time, you’d think they’d be used to the long Winters, to a delayed arrival of Spring. They’ll appreciate it more because of that. And the Gods have given us this ritual, to tell us what the weather will be.
Alberic begins talking about the history of Tabat’s sacred Games and I stop listening. Twenty years of this now. I’ve heard every permutation of pontification Alberic can provide.
I pat the shoulder of the girl by my side.
She thought she was skilled or lucky enough to beat me. And she
was
lucky. Sometimes they don’t survive.
“There will be other fights.”
Her downcast eyes regard the blue tiles worked with golden chains, endless lines leading the gaze towards the Duke’s box. I helped Alberic select those a few years ago. “Not like this one.”
I’d shrug, but I don’t want the crowd seeing that.
“This is how Life works. Take it on the chin, or stand aside for those who want to.”
Now she glares up at me. “You can afford to talk.”
I don’t want the crowd to see me laughing either. But it’s startled out of me. “Child, do you think this is where I’ve been all my life?”
“You’ve been there all of mine.”
I help her to her feet. She scowls at me still. This time I do allow the shrug.
“Can I change it now? Should I have cheated to let you win, student? Is that the victory you desire?”
She stalks off in silence towards the exit archway.
I roll my eyes as I sweep off my helm. Raising it, I wave once before heading toward the snowflake-carved opposite arch. Alberic’s still going on, but he’ll have to forgive me. I provide the main entertainment for the event, after all.
Snow is hurling itself down now, heavy white flakes filling the world to mark my victory. Lucya stands out of the wind, just inside the arena hallway as I enter. Although she’s my partner in owning the Brides of Steel, the premier Gladiatorial school in Tabat, she is here for Crysa’s sake rather than mine. That pains me. Lucya and I have known each other for so long, ever since I first came to the school as a student.
She addresses me.
“You’ve won again, Bella Kanto,” she says.
I shrug. Did she think, like Crysa, that I’d step aside? The Gods guide me. I fight for them and the City.
Tears blotch Crysa’s face. Lucya lays her hand on the girl’s shoulder, but keeps staring at me.
“How long will it continue, Bella?” she asks.
A breeze sweeps along the hallway, making Crysa shiver. This building is thick stone; Winter’s chill seems to linger here even at summer’s height.
“It will continue till I lose,” I say, my voice as cold as the air, and don’t look back as I continue on.
We’ve had this argument before. We will again.
* * *
Every battle in the arena is watched over by the Duke’s box. Alberic’s not always there, of course. There are battles and practices every week, and he has no interest in attending them all. But even when he’s not there, the box remains a presence, jutting out from the side of the arena, overlooking the tiled floor with its baleful stare.
Two guards flank the entrance, but nod and step aside as I approach. I am one of the few who always has access to Alberic, sometimes treated as an advisor, at other times more like a concubine.
He’s in the mood for the latter when I enter, his eyes sparking as he sees me. He likes it when I’m still sweaty with battle, knows that I’m always ready after one. He’s speaking to his Mistress of the Hunt but breaks off to nod at me, waves a hand, flapping her away. She glances at me, bobs her head once, and leaves.
He gestures at another advisor, and they scuttle out as well, leaving only the two of us there, aside from the ever-present guards and servants. But Alberic pays them no mind. To the rich, those folk are invisible, part of the furniture.
He beckons me closer and I approach.
He gestures and I begin to strip off my armor.
“Slower,” he says, his voice a growl.
I oblige, pausing as I unbuckle things, glancing up to meet his eyes as I slide leather and steel aside to reveal my flesh. A brazier in the corner keeps the box warm against Winter’s chill, too warm for me.
He says, “You left early. No one is supposed to leave until I am done addressing the crowd. Do you want me to punish you?”
“I want you to fuck me,” I say. It’s the truth. There’s something about conquering another being in the arena that leaves me hotter than any pretend play.
I take off my armor, revealing silver scars but skin still smooth, still fine, over long taut muscles, breasts ready to swing loose from the armor’s binding. I’ve begun peeling away the lower fauld, showing the first hint of the wrappings underneath, when it’s too much for him.
He pulls me to him, forces my face up and takes a long, deep kiss. His hands are busy removing the rest of the armor. I let him. He’s a man who likes to do things for himself.
With another lover, I would take the lead. I have never been one to be passive in my fucking. But never so with Alberic.
He strips away the rest of my clothes, pulls me towards the velvet surface of the couch set to one side, moves me to the position he wants, plunges himself deep within me, not worrying about whether I’m ready or not.
Such is the Ducal prerogative.
He says, as his face lowers near mine, “You’ve won again. I knew you would.”
He fucks me slowly, methodically, as though each stroke were a pen slash affirming his name, signing treaties, claiming new lands. He’s done this almost every battle since my first victory, back when we were still new to each other. Over the years we’ve been on again, off again, but we still come together after I’ve fought.
As if my thoughts prompt him, he says, “I can feel the Gods’ magic around you at these times. Do you ever wonder how you’ve done it, winning for two decades?”
“Virtuous living,” I say.
A smile tugs at his mouth, but he goes on. “You’ve become so tangled in the magic, in the yearly battle to determine Tabat’s luck in weather that you’ve become something the magic sustains. That’s how you manage, despite your age. You’ve done this twenty years now. It’s unnatural. It must be created by some twist of magic. No one wins more than once or twice. When you did it a third time—and I will admit you did that through talent not anything else—you changed the equation.”
So like an aristocrat, to try to attribute another’s achievements to an accident. We’ve discussed this before. He thinks the magic keeps me going. I say it’s more than that.
Still, sometimes I can feel it racing in me, making me more than Human. Like now. My blood feels alive, singing inside me, and my muscles are coiled as a cat’s. I am ready to fuck, but if that won’t do, I’ll fight.
I say, “I remain Champion of Tabat.”
“And you are mine.”
I don’t stiffen at the words, although I want to. Yet what I say next has a hostile edge. “And you are Duke still. For now.”
He doesn’t conceal his reaction. He hates the thought that this time next year he’ll be worrying about who will supplant him. Centuries ago when Tabat was founded, his ancestors agreed to this bargain, that on a certain day the city would begin elections, allowing the people to choose who would rule them. Both of us know that they will not choose him, even if he doesn’t want to admit that.
I’m not sure how it matters. He’ll keep his holdings, his possessions, will still live in the castle far above the city. But his word will no longer be law. And that’s what matters to him. Alberic likes to be in control.
I push even though his face has darkened. I say, “Who do you think will win those elections?”
At which he pulls away, as though his cock has softened at the thought. He growls, “What does it matter? It could be those upstarts at the Moon Temples, for all I know or care.”
This is dubious. Few people in the city follow the Moon Temples, even if their worship is spread much farther outside, in the frontiers and small villages. There is no official religion of Tabat, but the Moon Temples would like there to be. They are intolerant of other worships, in a way the rest of us are not.
Most of Tabat is easy-going. We like our Gods vague and uninvolved. Even the Merchants, with their endless pantheon of the forces watching over commerce.
I suspect it will be a Merchant house that seizes rule of the city, but I don’t tell him that.
He says, “Next year many things will be different. Perhaps there will even be a new Champion. The city will be changing. Perhaps you’ll no longer be what it wants to represent it. If our leadership structure is changing, surely our rituals will not be far behind.”
He’s trying to score points of his own, but I only smile at him.
I am Bella Kanto. I am Champion of the city and will continue to be.
* * *
Of course Marta is lingering for me in the hallway outside the box. I push my way through well-wishers and those waiting to see the Duke towards her. Her face is dark with anger and impatience. She doesn’t understand that I need to keep Alberic happy. She’s distantly related to him; you’d think she’d know his ways.
More importantly, she doesn’t understand that she is only my latest lover, one in a string of so many. They all begin to think they have some claim on me. That is when it is time to break things off. It is well past overdue with Marta, but I didn’t want to do it before I won, didn’t want the drama at a time when I wanted to focus.