The Right to Die | ✓ Amby Winner 2023

29. Down With the Powerful

Oluto, the Tsaright's champion, looked around confused. His gold-threaded tunic shimmered over his LMS suit, and his sword hung limp, shifting uneasily between his round fingers. "Aren't we supposed to be fighting?"

"No," M'yu said, sitting cross-legged. The back of his exposed neck itched, but he kept his voice even, his posture easy. "No one has to fight today. No one has to die."

"What is this?" the Tsaright bellowed from his throne.

"The Right to Sheath, sir," M'yu called back. "It's our right to put our weapons away."

Over the muttering crowd, the Tsaright's voice boomed. "The Washfall Trial is a sacred tradition. It will not be held hostage like this!"

"But it isn't being held hostage!" Sviya leapt to her feet, and M'yu's eyes danced over the uneasy shifting of the other champions. The girls around her weren't threats; half of them had slid their weapons into the no-man's land between the Housed and Houseless rings. It was the Housless boys M'yu was worried about. Several of them tensed, watching Sviya with a fighter's eye. M'yu watched them the same way, ready to intervene if one of them got spooked and went after her. "This is the original purpose of the Washfall law."

The confusion from the crowd intensified, but the Tsaright chuckled, a nasty, condescending thing that only paraded as humor. "You want to educate us on the original intent of the law, child?" His smile turned on the rest of the room. "Isn't it encouraging to see such enthusiasm in our upcoming generation of lawyers?"

The nobles chuckled and breathed a sigh of relief with him, ready to put the strangeness behind them. The champions shifted, some of them looking to the crowd, where families sat with stiff backs and painted smiles. You've had your fun, the smiles said. Now put away your little rebellion and get back to life as normal.

"Not upcoming," M'yu called out, voice carrying far beyond his seat. "Sviya Tam has passed the Right to Speak and has already been hired on by the Gold House. She is a lawyer in every right." Sviya glanced back at him, and their eyes met. "She's my lawyer."

"As touching as that is," Xten said, "I fail to see what that has to do with the Washfall Trial." He smiled down at the champions. "It is good to see camaraderie in our next generation of Knights. But, let us move on past this gesture. If you all will rise now, we can overlook any disqualifying discretions."

"Disqualifying?" The word hummed from one champion's mouth to another. "Can he really do that?" someone whispered, and someone else whispered back, "He is the Tsaright."

"But he's not the Tsar," M'yu called, and the restlessness stilled some. "The Tsar wrote the laws, and Tsaright Xten is vying for his position just as much as anyone. He serves at the pleasure of Peitros's AI."

Xten's scepter banged on the balcony. "That is quite enough!" 

He stood, his black Capital Knight cloak swirling out behind him. "The Trial will commence now! Those who wish to yield may exit the field and be forgotten." 

He paused as the champion's worried eyes found each other. 

"But if you wish to fight, to honor our ancestors and most ancient of traditions—" Xten scanned over all the champions but lingered on one Houseless child in particular: a dark-haired, wiry boy who was rubbing his dagger hilt. The boy's gaze dropped from the balcony to the ring of the Tsaright's House. There, Oluto shifted from foot to foot like a confused toddler. 

"If you do what you came here to," Xten said, his voice like a blade in the dark, "then you will be remembered well."

For the first time in a decade, thunder cracked in the rainstorm outside. For a moment, time stretched. The surprised cries of the nobles rang like songs; the champion's startled turns slipped so long and smooth as to be a dance. But the thunder held no horror or art to M'yu, because in the Houseless ring, the dark-haired boy leapt to his feet, and M'yu leapt with him.