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“That true?” Jordan asked, asking as though she’d take me out behind the cacti later and hang me from an arch.
Draven lifted his chin and touched the pale white line. “A little to the right and I wouldn’t be here.”
“Vicious.” Laslo laughed. “I respect that.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” I tried to explain, but only seemed to muddle things.
“Don’t tell them that.” Draven grinned. “Violence is just the starter here.”
As their many, many weapons confirmed. Every arriving guest appeared to be carrying some kind of blade, be it dagger, sword, or axe. Even the staff carried small sheathed daggers at their hips. I was beginning to feel somewhat lacking.
“When do I get a dagger?” I joked.
“At the ceremony,” Draven said. And the others smirked, suggesting they knew more than I. “I’d best make yours blunt.”
They laughed and chatted, and more lighthearted jesting flew around me and Draven, which was apparently the custom for joining ceremonies. Huge pitchers had appeared on the long tables, and the wine had already begun to flow. The celebration would get lively soon.
The ceremony would take place in the pyramid temple, a short distance along the arched bridge, spanning the tropical gardens. If nothing else, I was eager to get inside and perhaps get all this display over with. Draven put a cup in my hand, smiling like he knew how much I’d enjoy it, and I began to feel as though I could, one day, belong among his people and his palace.
“You may have noticed Draven isn’t as well-endowed as the rest of us,” Jordan said, raising thick eyebrows.
“Clarify that statement, Jordan, before I clarify it for you.”
The group looked at Jordan, then at Draven, whom she could bend in two with one hand, and all fell about laughing. Perhaps it was the wine, but I’d rarely laughed so much as I did with them. Until a dark figure caught my eye, standing behind one of the grand sandstone pillars.
He was there and gone again in a blink.
Just a shadow… wearing a black silk frock coat.
I scanned the people nearby. Staff and guests mingled, laughing, enjoying themselves, but there was no flash of black or purple among them.
I’d imagined him.
That was all.
The wine was going to my head. I stared into the drink. Perhaps I should take it slow and not guzzle every glass Draven poured me.
“Arin?” Draven stood at my side, his hand out.
“Hm?”
“The joining-time has come. Are you ready?” He was handsome, standing there, dressed to kill and armed for it. And this was the right thing to do. The only thing.
“Yes, of course.” I set my cup down, took Draven’s hand, and cast one last glance back. Lark still wasn’t there—because he hadn’t been there to begin with. But he would be in the temple along with Razak, and the other guests. I’d have to look him in the eyes then, knowing who he was, what he’d done, and how I’d fallen for his act since the day we met.
“Are you well?” Draven muttered under his breath as he steered me toward the main doors.
“Yes, fine… I’m fine.”
We left the hall and climbed brick-laid steps, passing between banner holders, their red and black flags flapping.
A joining in the Court of Love meant music and laughter, petals raining from the sky—not hot sand, endless grating wind, and stern-faced guards all armed and ready for battle. This was the court I was about to join. I had to accept their ways, and even come to love them, I supposed.
A pair of guards fell into step behind us, and behind them trailed a procession of guests from all across the shatterlands.
We approached the bridge. At either side the steps fell away, leaving a drop of several hundred feet, with no guardrail, and the path itself was a three-person width. The wind buffeted us, trying to whip my cloak around me and tear my hair from its pins. Perhaps this was some kind of trial? Survive the deadly bridge to the temple and I’d be permitted into War’s court.
Behind us, a few voices simmered around a disturbance. I glanced back, beyond the guards, and there he was. There was no mistaking Lark breaking from the crowd.
