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  But the healers wouldn’t. Most of the spells that dealt with vision had been developed before the rebellion for the sole purpose of solving the albino emperor’s weak eyesight. The spellwork had been ruthlessly tested on thousands of helpless slaves, most of whom were blinded and then destroyed. After the Rebellion, all such spells carried a death sentence for anyone that dared to cast them. Only in the last thousand years had the ban been lifted—mostly from the efforts of Little Horse’s grandfather—but no one dared to attempt them. The healers were afraid of people like Little Horse’s father.

  It left Little Horse nothing to say in reply.

  Clove gave a slight laugh as he tucked away his spectacles. “Ah, with my luck, I probably would grow a third eye, right in the middle of my forehead, and start seeing imaginary creatures.”

  The apothecary’s sense of humor was one of the reasons Little Horse liked the male. Clove was also the closest person to his age, although at a hundred and forty, he was twice Little Horse’s years.

  The bridge had crossed them over to the Stone Quarters. They stopped at a cart selling cold sweet pickled cucumbers on a stick. Mistaking Little Horse for a child of her own clan, the vendor glared at Clove, who was clearly Wind Clan.

  “Cause any trouble and I’ll call for the Wyverns,” she warned.

  Clove glanced behind him, put his hand to face to push up the spectacles that were now safe in his pocket, and turned back to blink at her with confusion. “Pardon?”

  “I am sekasha.” Little Horse had learned that it was useless to explain he was actually Wind Clan. His hair and eyes were Stone Clan brown, seemingly giving lie to his words. No one ever questioned his claim to his caste. Apparently no one would dare lie about that.

  Clove blinked at him, clearly not following the conversation.

  The pickle seller’s eyes went wide and she carefully handed over the correct change.

  The exchange proved that Little Horse been right to tag along with the apothecary to the spice market. Clove was from a small hold, the isolation making him often seem younger than Little Horse, and half-blind without his spectacles. Clove could get into serious trouble by himself while Little Horse had the protection of his caste.

  The cucumber was crisp, sweet and cold. After the first bite, though, Little Horse focused on the crowd moving around them. Excitement shimmered inside him. This was what he spent his entire life training for: to protect a clan member against attack. He realized that he should have his hands free. He finished the cucumber in three large bites and tucked the wooden skewer away.

  There was so much to keep in mind. Where was Clove? Was anyone looking their direction for more than a moment’s glance? Any change of body language that warned of attack? What was the nearest point of escape?

  The crowd was loud jostling confusion. Over the roar of conversation was the barking of the vendors, hawking their wares. The smell of the multitude of spices was overwhelming; every stall flooded thick scent into the market square. Cinnamon. Ginger. Nutmeg. Cumin.

  He was having trouble remembering everything he was supposed to be doing and still walk without stumbling. His parents made it look so effortless. He knew he shouldn’t be daunted; they had a thousand years of practice to his handful of decades. Without the protective spells tattooed on his arms, the wyvern scale armor, and the distinctive magically sharp ejae that his caste alone could carry, no one recognized him as sekasha and stepped out of his way like they would for his parents. Nor did it help that he still hadn’t hit his growth spurt and was still a head shorter than most of the adults about them.

  Clove made him jump by tapping him on the shoulder. “Little Horse, I never did finish my question.”

  “What question?”

  “How is Wolf Who Rules your brother if not through blood? Did your mother nurse him?”

  “No!” Pony laughed. “Because of his name, it was decided that he be trained as a warrior. My mother was the one entrusted to teach him how to fight. She taught him how to tumble shortly after he could walk and almost everything I was taught as a sekasha. Domi taught him all that he would need at Court and how to protect his Beholden, but my mother taught him everything of the blade.”

  “Because of his name?”

  “Wolf is a warrior’s name. It means he will see great battles. It’s why the Fire Clan asked that he be raised at Court, close to his cousins.” Little Horse realized he was saying too much. “Everyone expects great things of him.”

  The same could be said of Little Horse. Stormhorse was the mythical beast that the goddess of war rode. Because of his name, given by Pure Radiance herself, everyone expected great things of him.

  “What is he like? Wolf Who Rules?”

  “He’s—he’s—” Little Horse stopped the first thing that wanted to spill out of his mouth. Wolf had always acted as Little Horse’s older brother, making time to play even as he tried to live up to his name. “Fun” was true but not the thing to say to this near-stranger. “Playful” made Wolf sound like a dog. “Great” seemed to be lacking another word like “brother” or “friend.” “Awesome” bordered on overblown.

  Little Horse took a deep breath and committed to something. “He’s a good leader.” That seemed too faint of praise. “He protects his people and always makes sure they’re well taken care of.”

  “Ah.” Clove seemed satisfied with the description.

  * * *

  Little Horse sensed a change in the crowd before he saw the source of the disturbance. He noticed that the market quieted with a spreading wave of silence coming from the east. His hand went automatically to his hip before he remembered he was virtually unarmed. His parents allowed him to wear a practice sword within the Wind Clan palace. It wasn’t the magically sharp ejae; it was only meant to accustom him to the weight and length of an ejae riding on his hip. He’d left the practice sword at home, bringing only daggers to deal with anyone outside his caste that started trouble.

  Goosebumps rose on his arms as he caught sight of black chest armor: a Stone Clan sekasha. The male swaggered through the thick crowd, clearly not bothering to check his stride for the conditions. It bespoke of boorish arrogance. Most of the people within the square were Stone Clan. They still scattered before the holy warrior like frightened chickens.

  Knives would be useless against a sekasha.

  He’d been taught that his caste was perfection in birth. It was their training that gave them the right to be considered holy. Only by blood and by sword did they earn their right to stand outside the law and to judge all those who crossed their path. As the son of Wind Clan’s First, though, he also knew that not all of his caste were as perfect as others. He was flawed by inexperience. Older warriors had become too rigid in mindset based on their experiences. Others allowed the desire to excel to become justification for base ambition.

  Some thought that perfection meant they could do no wrong.

  A wise warrior did not engage an opponent that he could not defeat. The best way to protect Clove was to retreat.

  Little Horse started to turn, intending to pull Clove to a nearby alleyway. The apothecary wasn’t behind him. He’d been so focused on the sekasha that he lost track of the male. Little Horse frantically scanned the crowd, jumping to see over the taller adults, trying to spot Clove.

  The young apothecary was easy to spot; he was the only one not scuttling out of the path of the oncoming sekasha. While the Stone Clan merchants and clan members carefully kept their gaze averted as they hurried in any direction but toward the holy warrior, Clove stood still, brow creased as he squinted at the dissipating crowd.

  “Little Horse?” Clove called, his voice loud against the sudden hush.

  With a snarl of anger, the sekasha unsheathed his ejae and stalked toward Clove. “Arrogant Wind Clan mudsucker!”

  Little Horse clenched down on a shout of warning. Surprise would be his only advantage. He lunged through the now-running crowd. It felt like he was swimming upstream. The sekasha thea
trically flourished his sword, swinging it high for a beheading stroke. Blind to the danger, Clove raised his hand to his face to fumble for his missing glasses.

  Little Horse slammed into the sekasha, caught hold of the warrior’s dominant hand and used his momentum to slash the blade down faster than the sekasha planned. The magically sharp edge missed Clove by a hair. The point sliced through the cobblestone, burying the tip inches into the granite. Keeping hold of the warrior’s wrist, Little Horse swept his legs out from under him. They went down hard.

  He nearly let go in surprise. He hadn’t expected it to work. It wouldn’t have worked on his mother.

  The warrior let go of the ejae as he fell, leaving it upright in the stone. He used his height and weight to take control of their roll and pin Little Horse to the ground. “Going to gut you, little runt! You don’t raise your hand to the holy!”

  “You don’t kill the innocent!” Little Horse wrenched hard and flipped them. “By the blood, I have the right to stop you!”

  “Insolent hairless cur!” He tried to break Little Horse’s hold and failed. “Catamite! Whoreson!”

  Little Horse pressed the male’s mouth down into the mud. “I strongly suggest you never say that in my mother’s hearing.”

  He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t going to be able to keep the male pinned indefinitely. He couldn’t even change his hold. If he let go to draw his daggers, the male would regain his sword. The sekasha’s chest armor protected him from most instant kill hits except those on the head, and those would be difficult to make if the warrior had his ejae in hand.

  A flash of red out the corner of his eyes warned him that the warrior had just become the least of his problems. He risked a glance toward the far corner of the market squares.

  The Wyverns had just arrived in force.

  And while sekasha were above the law, the Wyverns had made it clear that they’d execute any of their caste fighting in the streets.

  * * *

  Never let your enemy know what you are thinking.

  Little Horse had the lesson beat into him almost every day of his life, so he knelt on the muddy cobblestones with his face carefully locked to neutral. Inside, though, he was grinning. His first real fight and he’d won. His win wasn’t completely decisive—the Wyverns arrived to put a stop to it before blood was spilt—but he wasn’t the one pinned to the ground getting mud in his mouth.

  The Stone Clan sekasha had been named Feral Pig-Sticker of Stone who seemed determined to live up to his crude name. Pig-Sticker hadn’t realized yet the seriousness of their position. Nor did he seem to recognize the Wyvern standing in front of them.

  Not that Sword Strike of Fire carried any badge of his office; he could be a brother to any one of the twenty-one Wyverns in the market square. Truthfully if Little Horse hadn’t grown up at Court, he might not be able to tell the tall, red-haired sekasha apart. Anyone that could read body language, though, should realize that all the Wyverns within sight were waiting on Sword Strike’s command.

  And Sword Strike had the right to execute them for fighting in a public place.

  “This is not a matter for the Fire Clan.” Pig-Sticker was old enough to have the protective spells of their caste tattooed down his arms in black and carry the magically sharp ejae that sekasha won only after they reached their majority of a hundred years old. He was throwing a snit, though, worthy of a child of only twenty.

  “This is Stone Clan business and you have no right to intrude.” The male wiped at the dirt on his face, showing his contempt with the narrowing of his eyes and the sneer in his voice. He was from some backwater province by his accent and the fact that he didn’t realize that the Wyverns oversaw every aspect of peace at Summer Court.

  “Be quiet,” Sword Strike said with ice-cold calmness. “It is not your turn to speak.”

  “Stone Clan settles its own matters…”

  “I am Sword Strike, the queen’s First,” the Wyvern identified himself. He did not add that it made him First for all sekasha, Stone Clan included. If he needed to, there was no hope for Feral Pig-Sticker. “I will hear your grievance after Galloping Storm Horse on Wind tells me his side of this.”

  Little Horse’s heart leapt slightly at the knowledge that Sword Strike recognized him. Technically they’d never met, but Sword Strike was the queen’s First; their paths had crossed and re-crossed Little Horse’s entire life.

  The warrior jerked in surprise and then stared at Little Horse hard. “He’s not Stone Clan?”

  “He was born to Wind. So far, he has not chosen otherwise.”

  Pig-Sticker blew out his breath in disgust and murmured, “Mutt.”

  Not the thing to say to a male whose only child was mixed caste.

  “Stormhorse will speak first.” Sword Strike’s voice was ice cold.

  Pig-Sticker ignored the tone. “He had first blow.”

  Sword Strike glanced to Little Horse to confirm this.

  Little Horse carefully explained. “He drew his sword first; I landed first blow.”

  Sword Strike glanced for an ejae sheath on Little Horse and then scanned the marketplace. A few minutes earlier it had been crowded with lesser caste. The large square was now empty except for the sekasha. Sword Strike spotted the Stone Clan’s ejae planted like a flag in muddy cobblestones near a bin of garlic. “You are unarmed?”

  “I have knives but I did not draw them.” Because they would have been useless against the longer sword. His only hope had been to grapple.

  “See, he struck…” The Stone Clan warrior started.

  “You will wait your turn.” Sword Strike pointed at the male and then shifted attention back to Little Horse. “What happened?”

  “I was accompanying my lord Longwind’s apothecary to market.” Little Horse did not add it was because he expected Clove to find trouble. “He did nothing to warrant attack. This one drew his sword without provocation on an unarmed member of my household. I judged his actions to be unjust and I prevented him from killing the apothecary.”

  “You took no effort to verbally challenge him?” Sword Strike asked.

  “I do not have shields or a sword and he had already drawn his weapon. I judged that giving him verbal warning would eliminate the only advantage that I had; namely, surprise. I did not strike with a blade but grappled him.”

  It apparently was starting to dawn on Pig-Sticker the danger that they were in; he got his face under control.

  “Why did you draw your weapon?” Sword Strike asked, with a long, cold stare.

  “The Wind Clan scum did not drop his gaze.” Pig-Sticker stated as if it explained everything.

  Sword Strike’s eyes narrowed slightly but he gave no other indication of his thoughts. “You drew your weapon because he did not cower in fear?”

  “His eyes are weak; he is nearly blind.” Little Horse blushed as he realized that he shouldn’t have interrupted. “Forgiveness.”

  Sword Strike studied Little Horse, face blank. “What is this male’s name?”

  “Clove Scented Smoke on Wind.” Little Horse realized he’d lost track of Clove during the fight. Hopefully the male hadn’t found more trouble.

  There was a delay as Clove was found and brought forward. The apothecary didn’t understand protocol; he tucked himself up against Little Horse instead of staying back.

  “Tell me what happened,” Sword Strike commanded.

  “I’m…not…sure.” Clove took out his glasses, fumbled with them a moment and then perched them on his nose. “They’re a human invention; not many of our people have my weakness. These let me see clearly but they tend to fall off. I normally only wear them when I’m sitting down. Without them, everything is a blur. I didn’t have them on. I did not see the fight start. Once I realized what was happening, I didn’t know what to do. I know nothing about combat. I thought if I could find someone…” And he started to cry, which required the glasses to come back off. “Please. This is all my fault. If someone is to be punished, let
it be me!”

  Did Sword Strike sigh? Little Horse wasn’t sure; the Wyvern had perfected his neutral façade.

  Pig-Sticker reacted as if Sword Strike had patted the little apothecary on the head. “He is not a child to toddle blindly about the streets. He is an adult; he should learn to be more careful.”

  “Learn to be more careful,” Sword Strike echoed. “Yes. I think that will be the solution here.”

  “Holy one?” Clove whimpered.

  Little Horse went cold inside. If for some insane reason the Wyvern decided to punish the apothecary, there was nothing he could do.

  “Feral Pig-Sticker of Stone,” Sword Strike said. “Obviously you need more training if you can be bested by an unarmed double. Please go to Cold Mountain Temple. Tell the Stone Clan holy ones there, in detail, about your defeat so they know what you need to learn.”

  Little Horse could not keep his eyes from widening. His grandfather, Tempered Steel, commanded Cold Mountain Temple. Despite the fact that his daughter chose her mother’s clan over his, he was fiercely protective of her. Should Little Horse warn Pig-Sticker not to repeat the “whoreson” insult?

  Sword Strike caught the change of Little Horse’s expression. He gave a slight shake of his head. No. The Wyvern wanted Feral Pig-Sticker to confess to all his faults. If he survived telling the tale, the training would be quite intensive.

  “I just arrived in Summer Court!” Pig-Sticker cried. “I’ve traveled all the way from Copper Palms. It took months for me to come all this distance.”

  The island was the southernmost point of the Stone Clan territory. It was nearly half the world away. Worse, to travel to Cold Mountain Temple, the warrior would retrace his steps for thousands of miles.

  Sword Strike waved away the protest. “I will arrange for you to travel on a royal packet ship.

  “There are two domana of my clan reaching their doubles this year. They are coming to Summer Court to be acknowledged by the Clan Head and given an introduction to the queen. They’ll be taking their first Hand.

  “Once it is known that you were pinned by an unarmed double, it is unlikely that you could beat out the other contenders. Those who are trained at Cold Mountain are highly respected. You would be top candidate when the next domana comes of age in a decade or two.”