Untamed City: Carnival of Secrets

Although all of the judges claimed that they were judicious in awarding points, only a fool would believe that there was no corruption in the process. Corruption was as common as violence in The City, and as a girl fighting against a ruling-class boy, especially one who outranked her in the fights, she wasn’t going to get any help from the judges. Aya wasn’t supposed to win. It wasn’t a woman’s place to be an equal.

Murmurs increased as she made her way through the carnival, and her mind went back to the rumors about Verie’s death. No one approached her, but they watched her as openly now as they would when she was in the match. She was a spectacle, their entertainment as surely as the dancers or tale-tellers working in the stalls throughout the carnival. The fights were a chance to watch a display of the strengths that had protected The City, and Aya suspected that the fights were, in some way, Marchosias’ method of encouraging his people to keep in top shape for any altercations that could come in the future. They stayed strong to enter the competition, but that also meant that he had ready fighters he could utilize if he needed to swell the ranks of his troops.

When Aya reached the entrance gates for the fight yard where she’d stand against Belias, she stopped to look at the line snaking past the pleasure stalls. It was probably meant to be an insult—or extra titillation—to set her fight here at the pleasure field, where coin typically only bought chemical or physical decadence, but perhaps it was a gift of sorts. She’d fought here once already, so she had field familiarity that Belias wouldn’t have. She smiled at the customers lined up waiting to get into the pit seats, and she walked to the front of the line.

“I’m here to kill Belias,” she told the gatekeeper.

Gasps and barks of laughter erupted down the line as her words were repeated and passed around.

“Smart money’s on the boy,” the gatekeeper said in a loud voice.

“Belias will lose—or if it’s before fifth blood, he can forfeit.” Aya turned to face the line. “Tell him for me: I’ll accept his forfeit if it’s before fifth blood.”

Nervous laughter and bloodthirsty cheers mixed in the growing cacophony.

“Tell Belias,” she repeated, louder this time, and then she turned away.

The gatekeeper lifted the bar for her to pass. “Someone ought to put you back in your place.”

She stared only at him, ignoring the line now. No one would dare speak so to a proper upper-caste woman, but she didn’t behave as women of her stature should. However, she couldn’t pretend that she was anything other than upper caste, not if she intended to rule. “I know my place: I was born to the highest caste in The City. I was born to make The City safer and stronger.”

“Women have no business ruling anything but the home,” someone yelled from the line.

She looked steadfastly at the gatekeeper, but spoke loudly so as to be heard by those in line. “Unlike most every remaining contestant, I am already ruling class. They all fight for what Sol, Belias, and I were given by birth.”

She knew the crowd watched her attentively now. She glanced at them and reminded them, “We fight to prove our worthiness to have what is our birthright already.”

“Women don’t rule. They are too soft,” someone called.

“Tell that to the fighters I’ve defeated.” Aya turned back to the gatekeeper who had started this argument. “I outrank you without winning, and even if Belias or someone else gets lucky and kills me, I will still outrank you.”

The gatekeeper bowed his head.

Quietly, she suggested, “Take a piss.”

He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes.

“Now.” She pointed at the dirt.

Eyes downcast, he obeyed. The alternative was calling for judgment, but he had insulted a ruling-class woman in front of several hundred witnesses—many of whom had heard every word. Some of those witnesses would speak, and so any judge at the carnival would rule against him. The right of class allowed her to offer immediate punishment.

“Kneel,” she ordered.

Just as the gatekeeper dropped to the ground, Aya saw Belias walking toward her. He raised his brows in silent question, but he knew not to vocalize that question in public—not that he had to ask. People in line were filling him in on the events that had just transpired.

Aya told the gatekeeper, “If I order you to drink from the ground, you will do so or face judgment. If I order you to ask for seconds, you will do so.”

The gatekeeper looked up at her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Ask me for mercy.” Aya glanced at Belias. “I have very few options, but if you ask me for mercy, this will go easier.”

The smile on Belias’ lips said that he understood that her words were for him too. He shook his head once; he would not ask for mercy. It wasn’t as if he thought he needed it, but she’d thrown the offer to him so that he could speak the word midfight.

The gatekeeper, on the other hand, said, “Mercy.”

“The difference isn’t in how cruel women can be.” Aya spoke louder now so that the line of people could hear her again. “If by action you tried to ‘remind me’ of what place some think a woman deserves, I would break you, but I won’t kill you for ignorant words. I can be a lady and still rule. One does not negate the other.”

A few people in the crowd jeered. Others cheered.

“The ground seems wet,” Aya said mildly, as if the urine-wet mud were a surprise. “I’d hate to soil my boots.” She looked down at the kneeling gatekeeper. “Do you have something I could step on so I can cross?”

“I . . . I have no coat, but”—the guard started to pull his shirt off—“I can offer you this.”

“That’s not good enough,” Belias said as he walked behind the gatekeeper, put a foot on the man’s back, and pushed him flat to the ground. Then, he turned to Aya and bowed. “Please.”

When she didn’t reply, he held out a hand to help her over the fleshly bridge that now spanned the puddle of mud and urine. “Your servant,” he murmured.

Aya ignored the proffered hand and stepped on the gatekeeper.

“I believe we need another gatekeeper,” Belias called. “This one is otherwise occupied.”

As Aya walked toward the ring, Belias assumed control of the crowd with practiced ease. She could hear him appointing a replacement and assisting girl after girl over the prone gatekeeper’s body. He had co-opted her example and neatly established his own dominance. Worse yet, he had done so with the same charm that had once made her grateful that he’d been chosen as her betrothed when she was born, the charm that made her fall in love with him, the charm that made her heart break when she refused their wedding ceremony. Aya pressed her lips together tightly to keep words better not said from boiling over. She’d entered this competition to change her future, to attain the power she needed to improve The City, and she was going to do just that.

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THE MEN NODDED AT Belias as he helped the girls and women over the back of the gatekeeper. They gave him the attention befitting his caste and his fight standing, and he accepted it without drawing attention to it. Not everything has to be a show. Belias couldn’t get Aya to understand that. He could accept her need to make her way in the world, respected it even, but she seemed determined to choose the hardest possible path to do that. Highborn girls didn’t brawl in the street, and they surely didn’t enter death matches. If her father had survived a few years longer or if her brother were older, she wouldn’t have been able to risk herself so foolishly, but the way things had unfurled, Aya had achieved her majority—eighteen—and with no one to stop her, she’d refused their wedding and entered the competition. Once entered, there was no way out save forfeiture or death.

“I hope you kill her,” a girl murmured as she stepped gingerly on the gatekeeper’s back.

Belias remained silent. He’d entered the competition to prevent Aya from dying. If she weren’t so obstinate, he’d have teamed with her publicly. It wasn’t the way the contest was structured, but he was ruling class, and with or without these wins, he’d be a general in Marchosias’ government. It was what he had been raised to do. His father had died in the service of their ruler, killed by a supposedly tamed witch’s treachery, and Belias had been raised to know that he had two functions in his life: to fight as bravely and ably as his father had and to have sons to carry on their family line. Preferably with Aya by my side. She’d been chosen for him, selected for her lineage, and she’d been trained to fight in order to be strong enough to help protect his future children.

Unfortunately, his chosen mate had decided she’d rather kill him and a slew of other people than be by his side. A growl of frustration slipped from between his lips and caused an older scab to tremble as he took her hand. Belias offered her his most comforting smile.

She squeezed his hand. “Don’t go too hard on Aya. She’s doing what many of us wish we could. Things need shaking up.”

Belias nodded.

Too hard?

He wasn’t sure he could strike her with intent to kill. Of course if he didn’t, she’d be even more aggressive. There was no way to win this fight that wasn’t also a loss—unless Aya forfeited.

Once the last of the females crossed the gatekeeper, Belias turned to face the remaining line, bowed once, and then walked into the fight zone. The space for their match was clearly marked by a fresh chalk-and-salt circle. The wooden seats that spanned the fight grounds were almost filled, and the stink of too many bodies in the heat mixed with other equally unpalatable stenches.

“Forfeit, please,” Belias murmured as he came to stand beside Aya.

She ignored him as she slipped her arms out of her jacket, stretched, and checked her cache of weapons again. She removed a cloth-wrapped blade from her bag. Two knives were sheathed at her hips, and the hilts of two smaller knives protruded from her boots. Her left boot had a razor edge at the toe, and her left glove had jaw-busters built in.

He held her gaze as he peeled off his shirt.