After a night of watching random people beat each other up, performances by dancers, jugglers, tumblers, and magic and music clashing in the air, Ceilsea slept until midmorning. When she got to the breakfast room it was completely empty, which was not abnormal. She headed to the kitchen and picked up some of the scraps from breakfast. The servants there had already eaten most of the remains, so she picked the stale bits of whatever was left.
She didn’t have to hunt Vonae down to know he had still risen at the crack of dawn. He was probably training Yippinee. Ceilsea suspected Vonae would push Yippinee twice as hard as usual, since he didn’t have Miennere to train. Her parents were probably helping at the tournament grounds again, so she didn’t have to greet anyone. That meant it was time to sculpt.
Clepta, the palace’s housemistress, seemed annoyed when Ceilsea asked her for a spare key to her courtyard. She informed Ceilsea that she would be telling the king. Ceilsea replied that she would mention it to him as well. Ceilsea wanted the woman to know she was not trying to keep it a secret.
Having unlocked the courtyard she heard a clank and a rustle of cloth, and Ceilsea was face to face with someone she did want kept secret. Shae sat in the open. There was a sword lying on a cloth in front of them as well as a strange shaped flute and the xylophone she had seen the first day they met. On their lap was a gorgeous pearl inlaid violin. Gauging from the cloth in their hand, they had been cleaning their instruments and weapons.
“I told you to stay out of sight,” Ceilsea said, closing the door behind her.
“I thought after a few hours being paranoid in the bushes I was probably safe. I have to prepare my equipment. Does anyone even come here but you?” they asked, flipping the violin into a leather case beside them. Ceilsea smiled to herself, imagining Shae hunkered down in the bushes.
“The king, and my family, but only if I’m here,” she told him. She picked up one of her chisels and hammers from their places on the wall.
“Should I leave now before someone else comes in? Your…?” Shae struggled but was clearly referring to Vonae.
“My brother. He shouldn’t come today. Or anyone else for that matter, with the tournament going on later they are all busy.”
Shae looked down at the sword in front of them.
“Are you nervous?” Ceilsea asked them, trying to coax them into talking. To make them less self-conscious, she surveyed her sculpture, deciding what to work on next.
“Not nervous, just anxious. I really need to win. I’ve been on the run… for a while,” Shae said. They continued placing their instruments back in their bag.
“You must be pretty confident. Let me tell you, the competition is pretty steep.” She said despite having no idea if it was true. It seemed like it should be.
“Maybe in the later rounds, but I can manage most of the earlier competitors,” they assured her.
That seemed overly confident to her. Wayzards usually paired with a warrior so they could focus on dispelling magic rather than fighting. As the tournament was all duels, they wouldn’t have that advantage of a warrior partner. Shaelis would have to juggle music and martial arts. When she looked over again, she saw that Shae had put their fingers into the loops in the flute.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Shae stiffened. They probably thought she wasn’t watching.
“It’s a knuckle ocarina. I came prepared with combat instruments,” they explained, taking the ocarina off and placing it into a pouch. “It’s not what I originally trained in, but the alterations aren’t too different from the standards.”
“Most of these people have been training their styles for years.” Ceilsea was thinking of her sister and Jala.
“I’m a quick learner. Plus, I have an advantage, remember?”
Ceilsea had certainly not forgotten, but sitting alone in a courtyard with another non-magic person, it didn’t seem so important. It was relaxing for Ceilsea to be out of magical company. The feeling of being on edge because someone might summon a breeze to cool themselves was gone. She could exist in the world without the creeping feeling of magic all around her. That was why she preferred her own company. It was why she had thrown herself into sculpting in the first place.
“I suppose being able to feel your opponent’s attacks before they happen would be helpful,” Ceilsea mused.
Shae’s choice to take up music was a more active approach to fighting the uncomfortable nature of silent song than hers. But they said she would be better off staying away from the melodic opposite to magic. She wondered why.
“Something like that. Fighting between magic and music is something I’ve been honing for years. It’s not common knowledge that some of us can feel magic and I’m not going to tell them,” Shae admitted.
“So your real advantage is the element of surprise.”
“Yes. I plan to take it as far as I can,” Shae finally stood flipping their bag onto their back.
“You’ll be back here tonight?”
“Does it matter to you?”
“Since it’s my space, yes.”
“I have the key, so probably.”
“Then, I suppose we will see each other again.”
“Perfect,” Shae muttered sarcastically, and Ceilsea smiled.
For someone who wanted to surprise their opponents, Shae didn’t seem to like attention. When people were surprised, all their focus turned to the unexpected. She should know; she was trying to avoid that with her escape. Her disappearance would be the talk of the city for months, and she knew she couldn’t be discovered anywhere else too quickly. Otherwise, all of the attention would find her there. Shae would make their own splash if their secret was discovered.
Ceilsea didn’t look back. She knew Shae was gone when the door clattered closed behind them. Ceilsea settled on working on the griffin’s head. Even if it was difficult, she had to press forward. Like Shae, she had to hide the surprise until the very last moment.
The day swam incoherently around her as she sculpted. She thought about the hawk she had seen the day before. She had dragged Vonae closer to the performer and asked to touch the bird but was denied because it was dangerous. She had stared at the hawk until the image of it was burned into her brain. She imagined what the bird would have felt like and tried to create that sensation in her sculpture. As she carved, she had to step back over and over again to make sure the light was reflecting off the stone in the correct way. Her art was to recreate reality in stone, but when she carved, she usually lost track of reality.
“Ceilsea...Ceilsea.”
It took a moment for her name to register as something other than background noise. Vonae sat on the steps behind her. He lay back, resting his weight on his elbows.
“The first fights are going to start soon. I’d prefer not to miss it. The king would prefer you not miss it either.”
“Understood,” she said, feeling guilty that he had been sent to fetch her. She wiped her dusty hands on her pants and returned their tools to their place. The only reason her brother didn’t clean her magically was that she had on work clothes and needed to redress.
When she got back to her room, there was a bowl of fresh water waiting for her. She wiped off the dust and grime as best she could and found new clothes. Today she selected a mixed outfit with a yellow and orange layer covered with a kaftan of black and white. Hiding her bright colors beneath a colorless exterior seemed fitting for an event she had no real reason to be at. She didn’t have time to think too much about how people might actually read her outfit before she rushed out to meet her brother.
They exited a side door of the palace and were joined by a pair of guards. Ceilsea was skeptical of the need for the guards until they reached the amphitheater. It was packed full of people anticipating the beginning of the tournament. The guards led them to the King’s viewing box. Ceilsea felt everyone watching as she walked.
The box had been built on the edge of the arenas but high enough that it offered the best view. The rest of the audience had to choose whether to see one or two fights close-up from the lower levels or try to see all of them from afar from the upper levels. Ceilsea was sure some of them were just there for the experience and didn’t care what they saw.
Ducking under the curtain, the noise of the crowd was suddenly dampened. Replacing it was the whispering of nobles who filled the box. Some of the nobles had found their own seating in the vast amphitheater, but at least five or six families had secured invitations to sit with the king. Throughout the tournament, nobles would cycle in and out, ensuring that everyone his majesty favored got a chance to sit in the box.
King Mileubramn himself sat in the center in the largest, most elaborate seat. He also wore the most elaborate clothing, with four layers of visible solid and patterned brocade covered by a ceremonial kaftan lined with fur. Same as the night before, Aamard was to his left and the High Wayzard beside him. The Admiral wore his uniforms for the first day, meaning like many he didn’t have to think about his clothing. Iscano looked invisible next to both of them, but Ceilsea assumed that was on purpose. There was an open seat to the king’s right, for whomever the king wished, probably Ceilsea at some point.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ceilsea noticed a small hand waving frantically in the lowest right corner of the box. Ceilsea and Vonae’s mother tugged at Yippinee to stop, but the boy who had no one to entertain him was eager to get his siblings’ attention. Moving around the back of the box, then down a few steps of the sides, the Brijas siblings met their parents and brother.
“We thought you weren’t going to make it in time,” Yippinee informed them. Obviously ‘we’ meant their parents. In the eleven-year-old's lap was a small book. He gripped it tightly. Yippinee loved reading much more than he loved social events. Their parents had probably allowed him to bring the book to keep him still if he got bored. Ceilsea was jealous that she had not been granted a coddling distraction.
“Trust me if I could have been late, I would have,” Ceilsea whispered into her little brother’s ear. Yippinee smiled. Vonae snorted. Hopefully, they had been the only people who heard that.
Across the box, she met the king’s gaze, and he gave her a nod.
“I wouldn’t miss a second of this if I were you. It only happens once every ten years after all,” Vonae said more publicly.
Their father sighed, “If it happened any more often, it would definitely kill someone… probably someone who wasn’t in the tournament.”
Their mother patted him on the arm. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t kill anyone in the tournament either.”
There were strict rules about opponents hurting each other in this year’s tournament. This was to curb the most dangerous magic attacks and to prevent the loss or maiming of a warrior who could be vital to protecting the kingdom. Tournaments had not always had these rules, but along with the king being decided by election rather than succession, changes like this were for the betterment of the kingdom. The new rules stipulated contestants would spar against each opponent with blunted weapons until one of them reached three victories. A spar’s victory would be decided by who first dealt a ‘death blow’, if the weapons had a sharp edge.
Suddenly a servant walked up and whispered to the king. He stood and walked to a small balcony at the front of the box. The tournament officials had lined up along with the first batch of fighters. The group included Miennere, but Ceilsea did not see Shaelis or Jala. They must be in another batch. The king waved his arm to commence the tournament, and the box vibrated with the enormous cheer that erupted from the audience.
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