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With luck, I will be alive long enough to learn Reyne’s answer. And perhaps even long enough to know if the decision I just made was the correct one.

19

Reyne

I watch with horror as the two sides prepare to cut down, kidnap, and otherwise decimate the men across the field from them. My father, leader of Team Azure, is positioned at the edge of the field with a Highland lord I do not recognize, who, judging by his green surcoat, is marshal and leader of Team Vert. Their mounts dance under them.

I can easily spot Erik among them, riding side by side with my brother. I assume the man riding the black destrier on Erik’s other side is Gille. The crowd around me is cheering wildly, but by the time the horn sounds, I am torn between closing my eyes and running down to the field for a better view.

As the men charge toward one another, I squeeze my eyes shut.

“’Tis a horrific sight, is it not?”

When I open them again, the woman next to me points to the painted white lines now visible on the field.

“If they are able to push men from the opposing side across that line, they are well and truly captured.”

The woman smiles. She is not much older than me, dressed in a simple but well-made kirtle. Her hair is loose, long, and brown, and her eyes are warm and bright. Like sunshine beams out from within her.

“Lady Arabelle,” she says, “pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I am Lady Reyne, daughter of Lord Moray. And very pleased to make yours.”

I’ve lost Erik and my brother in the chaos. Some of the men have already lost their mounts in the melee. Squires lead horses to the side of the field as the echoes of swordplay reach us, even from this far away.

“’Tis brutal,” I say.

“Meant to prepare them for real battle. Aye.”

Warin explained the modifications to their weapons. The lances are all blunted, making the fight as safe as possible, but it looks very real from this vantage point.

“Do you cheer for Vert or Azure?” I ask Lady Arabelle.

“Vert,” she says, “though I mostly cheer for my husband not to be injured. Did you know a man died three years ago at this tourney?”

“Aye,” I say, wincing as one rider’s horse topples with him on it.

“In that very way,” she says, “crushed by the weight of his horse.”

Thankfully, it seems that sad incident will not be repeated this day. Or at least not yet. Both horse and rider are righted but also captured and brought across the white line to Azure.

“So you are from the North?” I ask.

The two sides that fight in the melee are almost always split by region, and this year it is north versus south. Our castle sits closer to the capital, but not so far south we could ever be mistaken as anything other than Highlanders. My homeland, surrounded by mountains on every side, is as wild as it is beautiful.

“Aye,” she says, “though I am not a Highlander born. I was raised just south of Galmouth Bay.”

My attention is torn from the field.

“Where Meria was to attack?”

She nods. “Aye.”

If the Oryan had not sunk, they say it would have landed in Galmouth Bay, its soldiers heading northwest to the border from there.

I shudder, wondering so many things as we watch the false battle play out before us, men kidnapping and injuring each other in a much tamer version of what could very well unfold if Erik is unsuccessful in averting war.

I cannot watch any longer.