❖ QUEENKILLER, KINGMAKER Book 2 ❖
A year has passed since Isla rescued Tam Mai from the dungeons, but her sister's mind is still trapped and broken. There is only one person Isla knows can help her.
Meanwhile across the sea, a prince seeks justice f...
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Benches had been installed for the height of the tournament, rimming three sides of a provisional stage in ever-elevating rows until it filled the entire breadth of the royal training fields. The castle parapet wall closed the western front of the stage, and even this had been restructured to now accommodate Surikh highborns and their esteemed guests. Eaves of bamboo and woven coconut leaves had been fixed some half-way down the wall, sheltering a long platform that stretched across the length of the stage. Upon it the highborns sat, gathered around small tables and plush cushions, fanned and fed by palace servants that came and went through the door in the curtain wall, already high enough that it now stood at level with the platform.
The grounds looked foreign to Isla, so changed that it was. She sat with the rajini that day, dressed in her colours and emblem, close to the edge of the platform that she had an unimpeded view of the stage below them, but also close to the Rama where he was joined by the maharaji Persi and Andhika.
'The Rani isn't present today,' she whispered to her grandmother.
'Maha Rani Andayu's health fails more each day.' There was genuine sorrow in her voice. Huu purred from the edge of the table, and the rajini stroke him absently below his beak. 'Another reason the Rama insists on so prompt a wedding. Andayu does love a good wedding.'
'I did not think he would care so much what she loved. Someone told me it was not love that united them in the first place.'
'Not in the beginning, perhaps. But they always respected each other, and that is vital. I think they grew on one another.'
Would Kiet and his hanjou grow on one another? It was likely. She sat at his table with his sisters, though he himself was not present. She made good company for them, giggling with the Mahasuri Jyesta. What did princesses talk about, anyway? Isla would not even have the first clue.
Rajini Chei caught her looking and only sighed. 'It is time you put any foolish fancies out of your head.'
The beating of drums interrupted Isla's protests, drowning out the sound of the crowd, and once the noise subsided, the tournament master stepped on stage to announce the first of the day's challengers. Raj fought against raj—their names and emblems meaningless to Isla. Every man fought with a weapon of his choice. The rules were simple; the first to push his opponent off stage was declared winner, or the first to win three points—whichever occurred earliest—with every successful shed of blood considered a point.
'Has anyone ever died from such a tournament?'
'Of course.' Rajini Chei frowned at her. 'Duelling tourneys are used all the time as an opportunity to sate unanswered rivalries. That is why the realm does not oft hold them.'
Great. Isla knew already Maharaj Khaisan would be entering the tournament, and it was no secret what unanswered rivalries he might wish to sate. 'Then it is foolish to allow any heirs compete.'
