Carnival of Lies (3 page)

“Tomorrow marks the beginning of the competition,” Marchosias called to the assembled crowd.

They cheered in a roar of voices and stomping feet.

“No one has to enter the carnival,” he added, as if there were any among them who didn't know the rules of this competition, as if there could be anyone in The City who hadn't grown up with the tales of legendary fights and bloody victories.

“Please, Aya,” Belias urged. He held out his hand to her. “Don't do this.”

Marchosias' gaze swept the crowd before he added, “But if you enter, know that you will kill or be killed.” His attention stilled on her. “You can forfeit mid-fight or before a fight, but no one
has
to grant mercy.”

Aya smiled at him, the lion who'd once routed most of the witches from The City, the despot who held their lives all in his grasp, the daimon whose very word was life or death. She took one step forward.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Belias lower his hand to his side.

“If you're here to fight, step up to the witch and be entered.” Marchosias grinned at her, a challenge if ever there was one. “Ladies first?”

With her head held high, Aya walked toward him. Once she reached the white-masked witch standing on the ground near Marchosias, she stopped. The witch met her eyes, and the sorrow there made Aya want to cry out. Instead she pulled her gaze away from the blue-and-gold witch eyes as if the enslavement of the witches wasn't sickening. She smiled up at Marchosias and said, “I believe I'm the first ruling-caste woman to ever enter.”

“Where is your betrothed? Or husband? Or father?” he asked, casting his gaze around the crowd.

“I have none of those. I speak for myself,” she said with a slight catch in her voice.

As Belias walked up to stand at her side, Marchosias' grin grew wider, but he said nothing. Belias' father had been a trusted general and confidante. Marchosias nodded once at Belias.

“Once I win, I'll serve our city well,” she swore to Marchosias, to all of those nearby, and to herself.

Marchosias laughed. “You're going to make someone a fine wife once you forfeit and give him strong sons.” He turned to look at Belias. “If you can't leash her, boy, I'll find her another spouse.”

“I know,” Belias said calmly.

Even now, she was as property, discussed as if she weren't doing something on her own. No other ruling-caste woman had ever entered Marchosias' Competition, yet here he stood, not looking at her with respect but discussing her with as little regard as her parents once had when they promised her to Belias at her birth. He'd been a child then, but she'd grown up aware that he was her future master.

Aya's expression didn't falter, but her gaze dropped and she held her hands out toward the witch. She couldn't turn back. Circumstances far beyond her control had eliminated most of her choices; she'd die in Marchosias' Competition before she'd sentence a child of her blood to the fate she now faced.

“I won't forfeit. Ever.” She lifted her eyes to look at Belias. “My blood will coat the ground before I become anyone's wife.”

And then the masked witch bound her to the competition. In a brief instant, it was over. Her future was determined, and the line of other daimons moved forward to be likewise bound. Belias was second in line, but as he was entered into the rosters, a cheer went up. A ruling-caste son, the heir to one of Marchosias' great generals, and a man willing to kill for the betrothed who had rejected him—even now, he was the hero they rallied behind, and she was the peculiar creature they didn't understand.

Mutely, Belias took her hand, and they walked away from the throng of fighters. Neither spoke as they wound their way through the carnival and toward her apartment. It was a small victory, his coming to her new home, and she felt her love swell.

“I won't kill you,” he said once they were inside. “And I'll make clear that I meant my threat.”

“Bel—”

“You want to prove you're capable of fighting as a man? Fine.” Belias locked the door. “Bloody your hands and your blades. See what it's like. I won't let your pride kill either one of us. There's no one in the competition I can't best, so we'll do this until you come to your senses.”

Aya stared at him. She wanted to argue, to explain that it wasn't that simple, to tell him the secret that drove her, but he'd hate her once he knew who her real mother had been.
I'll bribe them to keep us from being matched.
She could kill, and she would die if she had to, but she wasn't sure she'd recover if she had to kill him.

“I do love you,” she whispered. “I won't walk away from the competition, but I want you to try to remember that.” She took his hand. “Stay here tonight?”

Belias laughed quietly. “That's the most reasonable thing you've said in days.”

As she had so many times before, Aya helped him undress. Their knives and short swords clattered to the table she'd had delivered earlier that week. Wrist guards, tunics, and boots were shed as they moved toward the bed she'd brought from her home.

It wasn't the new home she'd once expected to share with him, but as they sank down onto the bed, she was grateful for that. If she'd been his wife, gone to his family home as a new bride able to bear young, he'd discover that her mother was a witch. Their child would be the thing he hated. The love she still saw in his eyes as he looked at her would vanish.

Better to lie through silence; better to kill in the competition.

She closed her eyes and whispered a quiet spell to strengthen the disguise that kept her telltale blue-and-gold eyes hidden from him.

He lifted his head to look at her, and he asked, “Did you say something?”

“Nothing important,” she lied.

He looked expectantly at her.

“A sigh or maybe thinking aloud,” she lied again.

“Thinking what?”

“Don't stop.” She stroked her hand over his arm, enjoying both the feel of him and the relief of telling the truth now. She admitted, “I wish you were always with me.”

The love in his eyes was matched by the arrogance in his expression, and she knew that he truly believed that they'd have forever. They didn't, but they had today. She pulled him to her and kissed him until she was breathless with wanting. Killing and secrets would wait a little longer.

The End

NOW THAT YOU HAVE THE KEY TO THE CITY,
STEP INSIDE THE DECADENCE AND
DANGER THAT IS THE
. . .

M
ORNING HAD COME, BUT
only just barely. The sky was still a mix of the gray and plum streaks that heralded a new day in The City, and as she had on so many other days the past year, Aya was readying herself for another fight. She wondered briefly what life would have been like by now if she hadn't entered the competition. She didn't like killing, but the thought of the life she was escaping reminded her that this was the right path. Every ruling-caste woman was required to reproduce. She'd avoided that for now by ending her engagement, but that only delayed the inevitable. Eventually, if she didn't choose a mate on her own, she would be given to someone by their ruler. Better to die in the fights than in captivity. At least within Marchosias' Competition, she had a chance of freedom. The rules didn't specify that the winner
had to be male, only that the winner had to survive. If she survived, she'd be able to do what no other woman had—rule in The City's government. That chance was reason enough for what she'd do in a few short hours. It had to be.

A thrum in her skin let her know she had a visitor. It was light enough out that she was cautious as she went into the main room and opened the shades. A street scab stood on the fire ladder. After families were burned alive in the war with the witches long before her birth, the ruler of The City, Marchosias, had ordered ladders installed on the outside of every apartment building in the living sections of The City. Over time, the ladders had become the visiting routes for those not caste-equal. Security kept the windows impermeable, but the ladders enabled the lower castes a route through which to speak to the resident of a home.

The scab's black eyes darted left and right, assessing everything he could see inside her home. Scabs were the bottom of the lowest caste, daimons who lacked trade, pack, or family. They were also the ears and eyes on the streets within The City.

She slid open the glass pane. “No one else is here.”

The scab nodded. “Verie's death is all they talk about in the Night Market.”

“All?”

The scab shrugged. “All that's new.”

Aya pulled a coin from the jar she kept by the window for just this sort of visit. She handed it out the window. “Anything else?”

“Word is that one of the fighters killed him.” The scab leaned into the edge of Aya's house wards, stopping just before the wards would fling him into the street, unconscious. In The City, hers were the best wards that could be used without attracting unpleasant attention.

She turned her back as if she didn't notice the disrespect of testing her wards. Noticing meant she should rebuke him. It was a foolish game of trust the scabs often played: see if the high-caste girl is truer to her caste or to her fight reputation. Aya didn't like games.

“Which fighter?” she asked evenly.

“Depends on who's talking.”

Aya glanced over her shoulder at him. “Including?”

The scab held out his hand.

Silently, she turned and gave him two more coins and repeated,
“Including?”

The coins disappeared into one of the pouches that were sewn on the inside of the scab's shirt. “You, Sol, and Belias.”

The only three highborn fighters left in the competition.

“Safe money's on you,” he added, and then before she could reply, he kicked his feet backward, slid midway down the ladder, and dropped into the crowds on the street.

Aya leaned out the window for a moment and looked for him. She'd found increasingly reliable scabs over the past two years, but the last year—the fight year—had proven remarkable in that way. The longer she'd lasted in the fights, the more appealing working for her became. She'd proven herself to be
ruthless and thorough, but she'd also been judicious. That sort of behavior earned her the grudging approval of a number of the trades-caste residents, as well as members of the lower castes.

Even before the competition, she'd never struck a scab. Sometimes, though, she wasn't sure if it would matter to the scabs themselves. Her willingness to pay for good information was all they heard, and her probable future was one of power and money—or death. After the competition, she'd either be in a position of use or in the ground. Either way, working for her now held no long-term risk for them.

She closed the window. Now was not the time to think about death. Today's bout was with Belias, and he wasn't a fighter to approach lightly. Her odds of winning against him were not high. The matchboard had him favored to win so strongly that the return on bets was fourteen to one.

As she padded into the front room of her apartment, her gaze fell to the knives that had been soaking overnight. She had already gathered her other weapons. The knives were the final items she needed for the fight, but taking them made her cringe. It wasn't a noble move by any stretch. Sol probably wouldn't do it; Belias wouldn't even think of it. The toxins on the blades would stop any daimon's heart. If Belias knew, he'd be disgusted with her, but she'd fought against him often enough in her life that she didn't see any other option. She didn't have the skill to beat him. He'd taught her a lot of the skills she did have, and he knew which tactics she favored. A fair fight wasn't possible between them.

And the judges knew that when they matched us.

Aya withdrew the knives and slid them into the sheaths that hung from her belt. She was so far from class-appropriate behavior by now that one more stain wasn't worth the guilt that threatened. It was bad enough that she lived alone, that she wore her hair in a short, nonornamented style more suitable for a soldier in Marchosias' army than for an eligible ruling-caste girl. Her behavior in the fights was an embarrassment to any ruling-caste family: noble women didn't engage in fights outside of sanctioned clubs, and they certainly didn't kill for sport or gain.

Resolutely, she pulled the door closed behind her and descended the stairs that led to the crush of people in the street. After almost a year of fights, of blood on her hands, of lives spilling into the dirt under her blades, she was one of the final standing contestants. The fights only happened once a generation, so the sheer number of entrants was daunting. Many fighters made a point of doing all they could to announce their participation in the competition, but the rarity of women entering meant that the female fighters garnered extra attention from the start. For her, that attention was multiplied: the unheard-of act of an upper-caste woman entering was more shocking than the violence of the matches themselves.