❖ QUEENKILLER, KINGMAKER Book 2 ❖
A year has passed since Isla rescued Tam Mai from the dungeons, but her sister's mind is still trapped and broken. There is only one person Isla knows can help her.
Meanwhile across the sea, a prince seeks justice f...
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The last of the therapeucy was finally clearing from his head, and it could have chosen not a worse time to do so. The thrill and confidence leaked out of him like water from holes in a bucket, leaving only its vessel behind; hollow, light-headed, slightly dazed. This is why no competent man would ever accept a therapeut's administrations between duels. Gods damned Akai, who had convinced him to allow his wounds be treated in the first place. They were shallow cuts! Topical salves and a good dressing would have sufficed.
Oh, gods.
Images of the past few hours returned to him through a haze. Kiet leaned forwards on the bench to bury his head in his hands. What had he done? What had he said? And up in the battlements, too, where any patrolling soldier could have seen—
'They are calling for you, maharaj.' Akai's boots crunched up the pit and stopped before him. 'You've drawn against your nephew.'
He needed not ask which.
Between him, Khaisan, and the High Khan's two remaining contesting sons, they had eliminated all but each other. Now Khaisan had defeated High Prince Bara Qwa, and whoever won the next round was to meet Amargai for the grand prize.
Kiet groaned to his feet. 'Let us be done with this, then.'
He skimmed the platform above as he strode down the walkway, and sure enough was she there, sitting with Chei, though she turned away from his gaze.
Nothing else matters. Her words rang in his ears, and suddenly the blood pounded back to his head with a vengeance. Luckily had he the perfect outlet for it.
The crowd went wild when he stepped on stage to join his nephew. Their roars overwhelmed whatever it was the tournament master said, but Khaisan bowed, and then Kiet bowed, and then they drew their swords.
'Just as when we were children, uncle!' said Khaisan, barely audible over the cries above and around them. He carried his favoured dha—a gently curved, single-edged blade he called Silverspine for its crossguard winged up and around like the feathered caudal fins of its eponymous fish.
Khaisan was yet complacent from his victory against Bara Qwa. But the Napoan High Prince had spent not the greater half of his first two decades sparring against Khaisan; learning his tells, the vague patterns in his movements, his stronger strikes and weaker guards.
As predicted, his nephew begun with his signature eight-winds stance: sword raised high and upright before him, curve of his blade angled to fall faintly over his shoulder. An offensive stance meant to both push Kiet into a higher guard and to bait him into Khaisan's open quadrants.
None of his own favoured stances helped much against Khaisan. His nephew knew already the length of his kalis, which took away half the advantages of the silent stance, and Kiet's longer blade would only cripple him in a resting serpent.
Besides which, Khaisan would be expecting—and prepared for—both. But there was one thing he'd not anticipate.
