The tournament began on the first day of high summer. Sunlight trickled like honey through the long windows of the Vane Hall, leaving long, glowing strips on the bonewood floor. Shadows merged in greeting, and court shoes clicked and shuffled. The hall was filling fast, and murmured voices swelled into a river of speculation: who would be the first to try for the princess’s hand, and did he have a lesser or greater chance of winning than the man who came after?
People were calling it the succession tournament, the marriage game, the princess duels. Astrid called it horrible. And she got a front-row seat.
Her stomach clenched like a fist and her nerves jumped whenever she looked over to the stage. It was a low, wooden platform, with a raised dais for the king’s throne at one end. At the other, a young man rolled his arms, breezily unconcerned. Agmund, the oldest—and largest—of the Birk family. He was one-sixteenth giant and it showed in his eight-foot frame, his colorless hair and jutting cheekbones, the hands that held a fencing sword the size of an actual fencepost. Astrid compared her missing fingers with his whole left hand and felt a pang of envy. Perhaps they shared common ancestors, but there was a man who never had to choose between selling himself and freezing to death in one of Jotunheim’s snowstorms.
King Olve beckoned his daughter to him and she reluctantly came. He clapped her on the back and whatever he said made her roll her cornflower-blue eyes and smile a grim, hard smile. The feud between King Olve and his daughter was infamous. She’d broken an engagement with the Aska family when she was twelve, and she’d refused to reconsider or take another suitor. She’d told her father in private that she wanted girls, not boys, but while the law of the land did not forbid two women to marry, Olve seemed disinclined to allow it. Heirs, he complained. Alliances. Suitable matches. Their arguments became more heated, until Nik made the challenge: anyone who could defeat her in single combat could marry her. They’d shaken hands, arranged the tournament, and now people flooded in from all areas of Jotunheim and beyond, ready to try their skill.
Astrid forced herself to stop looking at Nik and focus on the court around her. She’d been selected as a student scribe for the tournament, and she had to keep her professors impressed if she wanted to keep the assignment... and her scholarship. It was a two-tiered task: aloud, most people talked of petty nothings like the weather or the evening’s festivities, but their bodies spoke a different language. They wore flowers and colors to support their preferred candidates, and fans fluttered in argument over who had what kind of chance. Astrid’s pen flowed over her paper, documenting all she saw with broad sweeps and comforting rasps, until a short trumpet blast made her start and squiggle ink across the page. She stifled an urge to curse like Nik would have done and looked up as King Olve took his throne.
The throne was a bonewood chair carved intricately with a scene of Jotunheim’s giants of old locked in battle with a brigade of men. Olve sat just over a giant’s back in a courtly assertion of dominance. He and his daughter shared red-gold hair, copper skin, and sharp noses. But his eyes were dark and calculating, while hers had always been warm and ready to smile. And when he spoke, his voice scratched, not at all like her melodious tone.
“Anyone who knows my daughter Nikhilde has seen her strong will,” the king said. Astrid bit her lip. Strong will was an understatement. “She exercises it in all she does, and so it would be foolish to make an exception for her marriage, no?” He laughed. The court followed. In his corner, Agmund smirked, but Nik said nothing. Her fingers fluttered as though exercising an invisible flute. “And so, the game! Any man who can defeat my daughter in combat may claim the right to marry her. He need not be of royal blood or high standing, or even of the first five families. He may be as rich or as poor as any other man in the kingdom. But the losers pay—a thousand daler per match.”
Thus ensuring that nobody poor could enter, Astrid thought bitterly. Olve’s steward announced Agmund as the first challenger, and he and Nik bowed to each other. “Your weapon of choice?” the steward said, though everyone already knew the answer.
“Fencing foil.” Agmund was a celebrated champion.
Nik nodded curtly. She wouldn’t have expected anything else. She took her foil from the fencing master, and they faced off.
“First to draw blood,” the king pronounced, and brought his hand down in a decisive chop. Astrid’s own right hand clenched around her skirt.
Agmund leapt forward, all grace and speed and unbelievable reach. Nik ducked easily under his arm and slashed up in a move that made the assembly catch their collective breath. He parried, stepped within her guard, forced her back. Their foils flashed like silver whips.
Nik bared her teeth as she turned his blows aside, and Astrid could see how her arm trembled each time their foils met. He was far stronger than she. All the same, she managed to swipe at him again and he only avoided her by leaping back to the edge of the stage. He blew a kiss at her, then lunged.
He has some trick up his sleeve, Astrid thought.
But if he did, he didn’t have the chance to use it. His puckered lips widened in a snarl of pain, and Nik skipped nimbly backward, bringing her foil up. The tip glistened darkly.
Slightly disappointed applause broke out around the hall. Astrid bit her lip again to keep from smiling.
For the first time, Nik’s eyes slid to hers. The corner of her mouth twitched. See? she seemed to be saying. But when she opened her mouth, she said, “Who’s next?”
Astrid first met Nik three years prior, in the basement of the Elfin Crown. It had been a classic autumn day in Jotunheim, all howling winds and sleet that would turn the night streets to ice, and both her clothes and her research notes were soaked. Contrary to popular belief, part-giants were not immune to Jotunheim’s weather, so she set up at the circular table in the corner with a glass of wine and a couple of extra candles to try to dry everything out a little.
She was working on a paper for a student conference. From War to Seduction: the Evolution of Courtly Dance. She didn’t notice Nik until she heard a sharp, “Oh.” Nik stood in front of her, peeling off soaking layers to reveal a loose black shirt and leather trousers. Despite the gloom of the basement, her skin glowed from long hours of exercise in the sun. Her eyes were as bright as the sky, her nose crooked from some fight she lost long ago. Back then she had long hair, and it hung in a copper braid over one shoulder. She’d never been good at schooling her expression, and her full mouth was twisted in amusement or annoyance. Behind her stood her manservant, who was most definitely on the annoyance side. “We were told this table was free.”
Astrid resisted the urge to jerk her partially amputated hand under the table. “I—my apologies,” she stammered. She knew how to address the princess of Jotunheim in court—and her manservant—but the princess was clearly trying not to be recognized, and her eyes were so blue, and she looked so puzzled that Astrid didn’t know which manners were best. Her eyes lingered on the hollow at Nik’s throat.
Nik stared. Astrid stared. Behind those blue eyes, suspicion kindled. Finally Nik said, “If you pretend you don’t know me, I’ll buy you the most expensive wine you’ll ever taste in your life.”
Astrid scooted over and let Nik drop onto the bench beside her. Warmth flushed over that side, as though Nik carried a sun in her belt pouch. Nik nodded to the manservant, who shot Astrid a black look and disappeared upstairs. Astrid pretended to look through her notes, though they seemed slick and uncooperative in her hands. Nik smelled like wildflowers and sweat. And she was looking at her.
“I’ve seen you before,” Nik said.
Astrid’s tongue stuck to the top of her mouth and nothing she did could unstick it. The Princess Nikhilde had always seemed so far away at court, so bright and charming and ready to laugh with her friends and acquaintances—the sort of people Astrid could never hope to stand among as equal. And now Nik was here, turning that bright look on her, turning her mouth up like she was ready to be charmed. Her hair looked burnished in the candlelight, the sort of color Astrid longed to see on a bolt of silk. “You’ve been at court,” Nik guessed.
Astrid nodded. At court she would have curtsied and presented herself, as though she had any names or titles worth offering. But if Nik wanted to be at court, she’d be there, so Astrid said thickly, “I study. Courtly etiquette. And, um. Nonverbal court language.” Her tongue fumbled on nonverbal. Those blue eyes were wide, amused, brimming with some kind of mischief, and entirely focused on her. How was she supposed to think about anything else?
“You’re not one of the first five families?” Nik said.
Astrid was tempted to laugh, but she’d have to force it and it’d come out bitter and uncomfortable. “Just a student,” she replied.
The manservant reappeared with a black glass bottle and poured bright orange wine into two glasses. As he slid them across the table, Astrid did not miss the warning look he gave his mistress, slightly aggrieved with his head tilted toward Astrid. Nik only smiled, showing off lovely, even teeth.
“And you study... court language.”
“Nonverbal court language,” Astrid corrected before she could stop herself. Heat flushed her cheeks, but Nik didn’t seem to mind the contradiction. “Mostly fan language. And flower language.”
Nik took a sip of wine. “Fan language is mostly gossip, isn’t it?”
Astrid felt a small sting at the words. They always came with an unspoken question: why? Why study something so unabashedly feminine, so synonymous with frivolity and pointlessness? Why not study something useful, like which kingdoms went to war five hundred years ago because two kings couldn’t settle who had the larger prick in a more civilized manner?
But she wasn’t about to lecture Jotunheim’s princess on women’s standing in the world. The princess already knew. She was famous for picking up every martial art for which she could find a tutor, and she’d risen to the rank of captain in the Jotun high guard. She wore her ceremonial uniform at court and had dueled more than one nobleman over a lady’s honor. So Astrid said, “It’s quite intricate, actually.”
“Oh?” Nik raised an eyebrow.
Astrid took the invitation for what it was. “Fan language acts more like a living language than almost any other kind of nonverbal communication. It has grammar, clauses, loan phrases—” She stopped. Nik looked baffled. She tried changing tactics. “Ladies used to put bronze edges on their fans, you know? As a defense against anyone who got too intimate.”
“Ha!” Nik took a sip of wine. “I know a few ladies who could have used that.” She gave Astrid a sidelong look. “But I suppose we’re more civilized now.” She glanced at Astrid’s belongings, scattered across the table. “You don’t have a fan.”
“Do I need one?” Astrid said.
Nik smiled. “That entirely depends on your definition of too intimate.”
She should be studying. She should be finishing her paper, or sketching her dress design for court approval, or practicing a particularly complicated courante. Instead she cupped her face with one hand, writing a new paper in her mind: Courtly Flirtation Outside of the Court. She was, after all, being handed a delightful research opportunity.
Nik defeated six men on the tournament’s first day, though not every one was as quick a fight as Agmund Birk. After each one, her eyes met Astrid’s and she smiled as if to say, easy. The fan language whipped around the room, almost too fast for Astrid’s hand to copy it down. The court was divided—the five families had each put forth a contestant, to no avail. It irritated them that their power, influence, and nobility would win them nothing. On the other hand, they greatly enjoyed seeing their rivals’ sons brought low. The spectacle entertained them. And when Nik faced off against an outsider—some foreign count who came to try his luck—everyone took pride in the way she disarmed him and nicked him on his solid chin.
Olve was more pleased than any of them. He’d just seen his treasury grow by six thousand daler, and Astrid wondered whether he wanted his daughter to lose at all.
When the tournament adjourned for the day, Astrid handed her notes to the sour-faced steward and began to circulate. This was the second part of her job: observe the court, and make a further report at the end of the night. Her university scholarship required that she spend twenty hours at court per week and maintain appropriate scholarly and courtly conduct.
She’d never found it difficult to do her job before. But as she moved among the crowd, her head filled with bitterness and her heart with ache. She recorded each argument and wager and tried to push down her feelings of hopelessness. A half-wild idea had formed in her mind when Nik first announced the competition: to pick up a sword and try her own hand. But Astrid had never been one for combat, and it would be obvious if Nik threw the match. And Astrid had no money to pay the thousand-daler loser’s fee—at least, not unless she sold something. She ran her fingers over the scar on her left hand. She’d gone down that road once, and she’d vowed never again.
The musicians struck up a Parnassian courante, and her feet drew her towards the floor. Dancing had always been easy for her, and she never lacked for partners. Now she agreed to the first Aska cousin who asked.
The courante was a little like a competition itself—he tried to “capture” her by taking her hand or elbow or waist to draw her into the dance, and she tried to evade him. Her fan felt like an extension of her arm and she snapped it open just as he reached for her fingers. She twirled one direction when he swept in toward her waist from the other, used her fan as a shield and closed it in time to push his wrist up so she could turn under. The dance was fast, but Astrid didn’t falter. She knew the steps like she knew her own name.
They ended the dance pink-faced and smiling. The Aska cousin conceded with grace, and Astrid was back in the real world. Back with the fine wines and confections and endless speculation of the party.
She retreated to the back of the hall and opened the door to the library. She just needed a moment. She could collect herself, steel her heart to the endless gossip, and prepare to do her job. But as soon as she pulled the door closed, fingers wrapped around her wrist.
She recognized the suntanned hand, and she let Nik turn her gently around. “I knew you’d come in here,” Nik said. She’d lit just enough candles to see by, enough to set her hair dancing with gold. A tongue of light flicked over one cheekbone, and her blue eyes seemed like dark ocean pools.
“Maybe I came to get a quote,” Astrid said. Nik was still dressed in her tournament clothes, and the smell of her set Astrid’s head spinning. “To hear what the great princess has to say of her victories.”
“They were nothing. As long as you were sitting in the front row.” Nik cupped her cheek. Her voice was low and rich and tinged with sadness.
Their lips met gently at first, but Astrid could taste Nik’s desperation, and she had a fair share of her own. She let Nik press her against the door.
“You had the punch.” Nik smiled against her mouth.
“Two cups.” Strawberry was her favorite, though Nik hated it.
“Good.” Nik planted a string of kisses from the edge of her jaw down her neck. “I ordered it for you.”
Astrid choked on her laugh. The wife she wanted made sure Astrid got strawberry punch at her parties. “What did you drink, then?”
“Water. I can’t be hungover tomorrow.” She drew back, considering Astrid’s mouth. “It’s bad for the concentration.”
Astrid put a hand on her chest as she tried to lean in again. Nik had always been determined, single-minded, stubborn. It had been endearing when she tried to teach Astrid to fence; funny when Astrid tried to teach her to dance. Now the inch of air between them was thick with named longing and unnamed despair. Nik couldn’t stubborn her way out of this predicament, not forever. “Don’t you think we should talk?” Astrid whispered.
Nik swallowed. She looked so soft, from the down on her cheek to her wounded expression. “Come up to me. When you’re finished working. Then we’ll talk.”
They wouldn’t talk, Astrid knew that, but she said, “Okay,” against Nik’s mouth as she leaned in for one last hard kiss. She’d never been able to refuse Nik anything.
Nik’s rooms grew cold as the fire died down, and they snuggled together under her quilt. Outside, the classic Jotun winds howled, sweeping away the warmth of the day and turning dew to ice on the grass. Astrid fought off drowsiness, skimming her fingers over the crest of Nik’s bare hip and down her thigh. She wanted to bury her head in Nik’s shoulder and sleep, wake up famished in the middle of the night and let Nik order them a grand feast while she finished her notes or sewed. But tomorrow brought more competition, and if Nik lost then this was their last chance together. Astrid took a deep breath and forced her words out from around the lump in her throat. “We can’t do this once you’re married.”
“Why not?” Nik’s fingers ran gently along the seam of Astrid’s left hand, where her last three fingers had been severed by a white-hot mage knife. Nik’s voice turned bitter. “I’m sure my husband will have his share of indiscretions. Though I suppose I wouldn’t blame him.”
Astrid felt a slice through her heart. The lump in her throat grew. It was so hard to talk. “I can’t do this after you’re married.” Because the thought of dancing around some man, of being the dirty secret and never the proudly displayed wife—she’d rather cut it all short now, finish her education and get a court placement somewhere else. Nurse her broken heart and start over.
Nik stilled, and the silence was heavy and stifling and horrible. Only her fingers still moved, back and forth across the line of Astrid’s scar. “I meant what I said,” she whispered at last.
They’d fought before the contest was announced. Nik had offered to renounce everything and run away. To stop being royalty and just be Nik. She thought Astrid was worth giving it all up.
Except she didn’t know what it was like to be penniless. She’d never had hunger pangs so fierce she thought she’d vomit. She’d never gotten a meal only because her mother had given up her own. She’d never gone to the mages and asked to be tested, to see how thick her giant blood was, to see if she could sell off pieces of herself. But Astrid had. She’d watched her mother go back again and again—giving up her foot, then her shin, then her thigh. Her bones had been turned into beads and her blood lent potency to elixirs. Her muscles went to animal feed, and every time Astrid saw the ten-foot oxen or the king’s giant warhounds, she wondered. She wondered if she’d recognize her mother in the animals that ate her.
Astrid’s mother had put her little girl’s future above everything. She’d sold off almost half her body before the procedure went wrong and she died of gangrene, and she spent that money on as nice an education as she could buy—nice enough that Astrid won a scholarship to the university and a sure place at court. All Astrid had had to do was dry her tears and sell the last three fingers on her left hand to buy passage and a room. And if she ran away with Nik, it would be for nothing. Her mother’s sacrifices and her own accomplishments. Perhaps she could get a job assisting some town scribe, but without a letter of reference she’d be working for pennies, lucky to get more money than she used in a month.
“Everyone wants mercenaries,” Nik said, as if she’d read Astrid’s mind.
“And mercenaries don’t get breaks and hot baths, or fights to first blood.”
“I’d provide for you—” Nik said.
Astrid’s bitter laugh was far too loud in the silent room. “My father was a mercenary. Look how well he provided for us. Died mercenarying somewhere far away, and we never even got his last month’s wages.”
“Well, what do you want?” Nik pushed herself halfway up. Her red fringe fell over her eyes and Astrid resisted the urge to brush it back. She didn’t want to see the anger and hurt there. “I don’t want to give up on you. Is that so bad? Is that so foolish?”
Yes, Astrid wanted to cry. Because she’d known from that night in the Elfin Crown, she’d known from the moment Nik’s lips first touched hers: all this was doomed to fail. She’d never expected her warrior princess to love her. And now the invisible knife twisted in her heart whenever she thought of Nik, smelling of sweat and leather, with a crown on her head and a consort that wasn’t Astrid.
Her face was wet, and her throat was choked off. She didn’t dare breathe, because if she breathed she’d sniffle, and then Nik would know she was crying. “I didn’t bring you here to fight,” Nik said into the long silence. “I wanted...” She flopped back on the bed. “I don’t know what I wanted.”
She wanted everything to be different.
Me too, Astrid thought.
Astrid slipped out of bed as summer light threaded gold and pink across the sky. She gave a sleeping Nik one regretful kiss, then hurried back to her university rooms before anyone could catch her sneaking out in yesterday’s dress. She couldn’t do much about the puffiness under her eyes except hope that the cold morning air would reduce it a bit. All the same, she got an affronted look from the king’s steward as he greeted her and sent her to her station at the front of the temporary stage. She resisted the urge to check the front of her dress for stains as she set out her materials.
A pin fell out of her hair and into the inkwell. She’d forgotten to rebraid it. No wonder the steward had sneered. Professionals looked like their servants had spent hours on their appearance, not like they’d barely had time to wash and dress.
The second round of the tournament was announced, and the whispers began almost immediately. Six members of the five families were eager to try their hand for the kingship today. As the first candidate was announced Nik caught Astrid’s eye and twisted her mouth in derision. Don’t be cocky, Astrid pleaded silently. But she’d never known Nik to be anything else. Nik ran a hand through her hair and selected her opponent’s weapon of choice, knives.
He’d obviously hoped to catch her off guard. As soon as the match began he flung a knife with sharp precision. Nik dodged it easily and slid within his range, almost lazily slashing her own knife across his arm. He left the stage sulking.
The next, who had the paleness but not the stature of a giant, wanted to duel with quarterstaves. They sprang back and forth like dancers, staves clacking against each other in an agitated beat. Nik had more training with pointy things, as Astrid liked to call them, but her feet moved swift and sure. He gave her a good jab in the ribs that elicited gasps from the crowd and nearly stopped the match—but Nik grimaced and swept her staff around, knocking him off his feet and letting him crack his head painfully on the floor. She jabbed his nose with the end of her staff and he got up, blood trickling.
After Nik’s third victory the tournament was paused for punch and refreshments. Astrid slipped into the library and rebraided her crown, sticking in her hair pins like vengeful little swords of their own. She ran last night’s conversation through her head, over and over, trying to turn it to a different outcome.
Nik couldn’t possibly want to abandon the throne. She didn’t know what it meant. She was just making a grand gesture—and now she felt rebuffed that Astrid wouldn’t return it. Maybe she feared that Astrid only loved her because she was a princess. In which case, the best way to prove Nik wrong would be with a grand gesture of her own. But what?
Astrid winced as she stuck a pin too vigorously and too close to her scalp. Maybe she could duel Nik with hairpins. Or inkwells. If she got in a lucky shot, she could hit Nik’s beautiful nose and bloody it the way Nik had bloodied the suitor with the quarterstaff. Or maybe she could sneak red ink into the inkwell, and make it look like blood—
She sighed. Her fantasies were running away with her, and fantasies wouldn’t provide solutions. Perhaps what she should really do was appeal to Nik’s father, use the rhetoric her professors had praised to convince him to stop the tournament. He’d never let her marry Nik, but at least Nik could marry for love. But he’d never been inclined to entertain Nik’s impassioned pleas to choose a woman before. It’s a phase. You need children. Don’t be absurd. Words she’d hurled against the walls of her room while Astrid tried to comfort her.
He could be tricked, perhaps. Kings didn’t like to lose face, and if she could win the public to her side... but how? Short of drawing a sword and leaping into the ring herself, anything she did would be seen as an undermining tactic.
She thought about it as she recorded the matches and the audience, noting down who was most disappointed—and who most relieved—when a candidate traipsed off the stage, sweating and swearing under his breath. She stopped looking at Nik, even though she could feel Nik’s gaze, like a brand, every time she won a fight. I’m doing this for you. Postponing marriage because every extra night was one they could spend together. A grand gesture Astrid wanted to repay but didn’t know how.
As the five families quieted their rage, the festivities were announced and the court moved to the Merchants’ Hall, where refreshments had been laid on fine bonewood tables. Nik waited until the most eminent lords and ladies had been served, then slipped into line in front of Astrid.
“Last chance,” she murmured as she took a piece of cheese with a lump of jam on it.
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness. Last chance for what?” Astrid asked, carefully polite in case anyone was listening.
“You know what.” Nik moved away, and Astrid followed. She kept her face composed, opening her scribe’s book as though she were still working. Nik pressed gingerly on the side that had taken the quarterstaff blow. Her red-gold hair stuck sweaty to her forehead. “I can’t win forever. Every day risks... everything.” Her blue eyes filled with pain.
She wasn’t looking for a grand gesture. She was looking for a way out. A way to escape forced marriage and everything that came with it.
“I want to,” Astrid whispered, worrying her lower lip between her teeth and looking down at the scribe’s book in her hands. “I’m thinking.”
“About what?” Nik asked.
She never got her answer. The music began and Felag Eik asked Astrid for a dance. As she allowed him to lead her to the floor, she glanced back at Nik. Nik’s mouth was a thin slash, her eyes going hollow. As if her faith was being sapped from her. Perhaps it was no more than Astrid deserved. But she remembered the constant ache of hunger, and she looked at the space where her sold fingers once sat, and she tried to ignore the stab in her chest.
In addition to being piqued that he’d lost his axe-fight earlier that day, Felag Eik was utterly talentless at dancing. He had the size of Agmund Birk, but lacked the grace. He stepped on her toes with a muttered apology as the roundel started up, then turned in the wrong direction and nearly hit Lady Embla in the chest. Astrid had never been plagued by so incompetent a dance partner. Except Nik, she thought with a bitter twist of her heart. And at least she had the grace to look embarrassed—
Astrid stumbled into Felag. She knew what she wanted to do. And perhaps it would get her fined a thousand daler she didn’t have, but it was a grand enough gesture. And maybe, maybe it could get them what they wanted.
On the third day of the tournament, Astrid dressed in the best dress she owned, a wine-red thing with capped sleeves and fine lace across the bodice. Her skirt was full but fluid and her fan was of a rich, red, heavy silk, tipped with bronze. She put her hair not in the semi-practical braid crown, but piled upon her head in the tradition of grander ladies. When she looked at herself in her speckled mirror, she saw a fraud. The sort of woman who dressed wealthier than she was to catch a rich man’s eye. But isn’t that what you’re after? she thought. Minus the man, of course. Besides, if she succeeded, she’d be facing this feeling every day. She might as well get used to it.
She received a few surprised looks for her appearance, though not as many as she’d feared. Plenty of court women were dressed more opulently and no one had time to look at a scribe with no family name. The king’s steward frowned, but it was less severe than the look he’d given her yesterday. She willed the knot in her stomach to loosen as she took her place and set out her materials. She couldn’t afford to be sick all over her gown.
In the light of day this felt like a much more foolish proposition than it had last night.
She glanced at Nik, who was pulling on leather gloves, her face resolute. Nik didn’t look to her. She stifled a pang. Just don’t give up today.
Nik’s first suitor was a third or fourth Embla cousin, who’d chosen the broad sword as his weapon. His well-muscled stature caused a flurry around the room as people assessed his chances. He was surprisingly swift, too, darting forward almost before Nik got her guard up and forcing her to make an awkward pirouette to avoid getting impaled in the arm. When she tried to retaliate he batted her sword aside with lazy confidence. He was much stronger than Nik, and he knew it. Astrid smoothed one hand over her dress as she tried to keep her other from shaking against her pen. Around the room, fans slid open and shut in appreciation. He pressed his attack in a series of swings that made Nik’s arm shake and Astrid’s ears ring. Nik kept conceding ground, backing up until she reached the edge of the stage. Her teeth were bared, though in anger or in concentration Astrid couldn’t say.
Embla smiled wide. But his lazy arrogance was his undoing. Nik feinted left, right, then dodged left. His sloppy footwork caused him to stumble, and Nik’s sword flashed across his wrist. He shouted a curse and his sword fell to the ground. A few fat drops of blood spattered around it.
Nik pinned her hair out of her eyes and took her weapons master’s handkerchief. “Next?” She smiled, a sun of a smile, a smile that said no one could touch her. But she would still not look at Astrid.
Her victory seemed to dishearten the next two young men, who were nervous from the start and easily defeated. Her anger was radiant. As though she’d given up on Astrid and now all she had left to fight for was herself. She didn’t hold back as she crossed knives with the cardinal’s nephew and she kicked Lady la Yr’s third son in the stomach when he tried to seize her around the waist. And maybe, Astrid thought, it was too late to make her grand play.
After the sixth victory, Nik peeled off her gloves. “That’s it,” she said.
“There is one more name on the list...” the king’s steward said, frowning at it.
Nik turned to her father, narrowing her eyes. “We agreed six per day.” Accusation colored her voice.
Her father put up a conciliatory hand. “We did. I have condoned nothing.”
Astrid swallowed. She’d snuck to the steward’s book while he was arranging the mid-afternoon refreshments, and added her name in the standard court script.
“Who is Astrid Garwe?” the steward demanded.
Nik’s head whipped around. Astrid stood, smoothing the front of her dress. “I am she,” she said in her practiced court lilt. She tried to ignore the way the fans lashed into complicated judgments around the room. She flipped open her own fan and took a deep breath. “I am Astrid Garwe, of no family, of no land, of no tithe. I wish to compete.”
Nik’s eyes widened in panic. The steward, on the other hand, gave a short, ugly laugh. “With what weapon?”
Astrid tilted her chin. “If I win, I take the princess’s hand. If I lose, I pay the full fine of a thousand daler.” She’d have to sell the rest of her left hand to get it, but, well—grand gestures and all that. “Are we agreed?”
The steward glanced to his king.
“There is no restriction upon age or standing. Anyone who can defeat Her Highness in combat may claim the right to wed her,” Astrid pushed.
There was a rustling around the hall. The king could hardly refute her after claiming that the contest was so egalitarian.
“Any man,” the king said. He smiled tightly, but Astrid could see the anger behind that smile. Perhaps he guessed who Astrid was—or perhaps he just didn’t like the reminder that Nik didn’t want to marry a man. “I’m afraid, my dear, that any man who defeats my daughter in combat may have the right to marry her. You don’t qualify.”
Astrid straightened and took a deep breath. She wanted to be queen, and queens didn’t bow. “If I may beg clarification on a matter of law: in year thirty-four of the reign of your esteemed father, the Giant Inheritance Laws established that any individual who was, at most, one-sixteenth giant, was to be considered a man.” She folded her right hand around her left. “And as I am one thirty-second giant, am I not legally of the race of man?”
Around the room, the murmurs were more appraising than damning. It was a classic play—the humble woman of the people against her monarch. And it was support Astrid would need.
Nik’s mouth twitched. “The law is the law, Father dear.” She spoke as though she did not particularly care, but Olve narrowed his eyes, suspicious. She slid her gloves back on. “I’ll accept the challenge. Name your weapon.”
The only sign she was nervous was the slight bob in her throat. Astrid smiled and said, “I challenge you to the Parnassian courante.”
The conversation that flowed around the room was much less friendly this time. It was one thing to bend the rules, another to make up new ones.
The king snorted. “We haven’t offered anyone else art contests or poetry readings.”
“Yet many dances have come from a form of combat. Weaponless martial arts have been accepted under the terms of the contest. And the Parnassian courante is directly developed from Jotun war dances.” She fluttered her fan. “I’ll even dance you to first blood,” she offered sweetly.
They were silent for a moment. Then Nik threw back her head and laughed. It was a loud laugh, a triumphant laugh, a laugh that promised Astrid everything and set her on fire from her toes to the top of her head. “Are you sure you don’t approve, Father? She’ll make an excellent politician.” Around the room, fans swayed—many in disapproval, many in approval. Nik raised her voice. “I accept your challenge. After all, it should be my choice, shouldn’t it? And I have not yet turned a candidate away.”
“We will need music,” Astrid said, waving to the king’s chamber musicians who waited to start the evening’s music.
Astrid didn’t look to the king for permission. She kept her eyes on Nik, who was still laughing like Astrid had told a joke that had just changed her life. As the music began Astrid skipped back, forward, back again, turning into Nik’s outstretched hands as she fumbled half-forgotten steps. Her fan snapped and sliced across Nik’s arm. Nik gasped and stopped, gaping at her hand.
“Papercut?” Astrid said.
A red stain flushed the cuff of her cream shirt. Nik laughed louder than ever.
“Don’t go yet,” Nik grumbled, pulling Astrid closer. She buried her nose in Astrid’s shoulder.
“We’re getting married in five hours. I have to prepare.” Astrid tried to wiggle from beneath the coverlet, only to find Nik’s arm wrapped solidly around her waist. “I’m not even supposed to be in here,” she giggled as she kissed Nik’s forehead.
“As if you ever cared before,” Nik said.
“I’ve never gotten married before,” Astrid pointed out.
“But as soon as you go out there, you’ll be set on by everyone. I won’t have you to myself anymore.”
“Look on the bright side,” Astrid said. “Your father’s come round.” Perhaps it was because most everyone else had, or perhaps it was because she’d danced several ambassadors into a corner and pledged them to agreeable trade deals. Six months later and he even greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.
Nik only snorted at that.
Astrid cupped her cheek. “Let’s go,” she said. Warmth pulsed inside her. “Tomorrow will be even better than today.”
Nik rolled on top of her, pressing skin to skin, pinning Astrid’s wrists to the bed. “I don’t know about that,” she murmured, dipping down to brush Astrid’s lips with her own. “I intend to make today a very good day.”
And that was a challenge Astrid was willing to suffer.