53. Cursor

cursor ~ōris, m.

1. a runner

2. a courier, messenger

Mirelle Ashadi-Hauteclare stares up at the swaying Lithroi rabbit banner and decides she just won’t do it. She refuses to stand among these frothing commoners and noble sycophants cheering for a rabid murderer.

At the beginning, the traitor was doing Mirelle favors—pruning weak, indolent links that could bring future shame to the House. But Grandmother was different, a whip-smart, clear-cut woman Mirelle looked up to…suddenly killing herself. The House coffers tanked overnight at the news, even worse than the Gentech slip—every business deal and contract drying up.

Mirelle clutches the letter fastened with the wax seal of a hawk. It’s all too convenient; the murderer keeps winning, and her family keeps dying no matter how much security they buy, no matter how much they hunker down in their private safety rooms. Yet this will not last much longer. As the first daughter of the third Lord-inheritors, Mirelle has little political power.

But on the tilt, she is a god.

She’s been honing her lance against every opponent, imagining Synali von Hauteclare’s helmet on it. And now Rax wants Mirelle to deliver a message to her? Mirelle is his fiancée, not his courier. She still remembers the way they looked at each other in Atteint’s hallway, the way he picked her up and put her in the carriage like the tenderest thing—

Some careless noble in the crowd elbows her in a fit of excitement, and Mirelle hurls a snarl. Wide eyes take in her clothes, gold and white, and they proffer an apology bow.

“Forget it,” she huffs.

“Th-Thank you, Lady Mirelle! I’m so sorry, again.”

They’re sorry, but they’re not sorry enough to stop cheering or craning their necks over the crowd to catch the first glimpse of the rider in blue and silver. What rankles Mirelle most isn’t the way Rax looked at the murderer on the curb—it was the pathetic pleading in Rax’s voice when he showed up at Mirelle’s door that morning, platinum hair wildly askew.

“I’m serious, Mir. This isn’t some dramatic joke or a power ploy—just, please. She’s in danger.”

“Vis her, then,” she’d sniffed over her tea, quietly disgusted—the strongest rider of the century, the only one truly capable of giving her a challenge on the tilt, reduced to begging. Where did his self-respect vanish to?

“I’ve tried,” Rax insisted, leg jangling. “But I keep getting bounced—like someone’s blocking it.”

“Or she blocked you herself after you tore into her yesterday.”

The lights of her room flickered then, but it couldn’t hide his flinch. “Just—can you get this to her? Before she goes into decon? It’s really important.”

“Deliver it yourself.”

He motioned frustratedly at the raised wrist skin of his vis. “I would, but Pops has me on a fucking tracker. I step anywhere near the tourney hall and I get detained by private security. Your House’s private security, actually.”

Mirelle blinked. “Why would Father-in-law bother with all these preventative measures? It seems excessive.”

Rax’s expression—all the proud planes and lines of him she’d come to admire since their first night together six months ago—crumpled to dust then. “They’re going to kill her, Mir.”

The human in her instantly spat, “Good.”

The rider in her instantly spat, Not until we cross lances.