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  The Dhukari youth didn’t share her reservations. He hacked at her with all the strength in his arms, which were heavy with lean, corded muscle honed over his years at the Academy of the Silver Sword. His bare, sweat-covered chest gleamed a golden bronze in the sunlight, his muscles rippling as he tried to kill her.

  Issa would be damned if she fell now, so close to her goal. The moment she saw the Mahjuri girl’s feet touch the Keeper’s Steps, she disengaged with a quick swipe of her two-handed blade. The attack forced the Dhukari youth to leap back for fear of a debilitating leg wound. Issa felt a momentary satisfaction as he almost stepped off the ledge, his heels dangling on empty air. She didn’t wait to see if he regained his balance or fell to his death but turned and scrambled up the nearest wooden platform.

  The platforms were arranged like an uneven staircase that rose in unpredictable, erratic patterns. She couldn’t just climb straight to the top, but had to leap between platforms and scramble up the wooden walls using the gaps between the planks as finger and footholds.

  All this while dodging her opponents. Thirty had dropped to twenty-five that she could see, including the three nearly at the top of the Keeper’s Steps. She’d climbed higher than most of the rest, but they would catch up to her. She couldn’t let herself be caught hanging on to a ledge or pulling herself up. Her opponents wouldn’t hesitate to put an end to her—anything to get those blades. Everything changed the moment the sword was drawn from its sheath.

  Issa growled as a sharp, stinging line of pain opened along the back of her leg. She scrambled up just in time to avoid another blow, this one from the short, thin-bladed sword—called an estoc, a weapon favored by the Institute of the Seven Faces for its light weight and ease of use—wielded by the Mahjuri girl. Fierce determination shone in the girl’s dark eyes as she swiped at Issa again.

  Not bothering to block, Issa scooted away from the ledge and leapt to her feet. She had seconds before the girl caught up, so she had to open a gap between them. Her two-handed sword gave her the advantage in proper combat, but the platforms were too narrow for her to swing freely. She didn’t want to find out if the Mahjuri girl was good enough to defeat her.

  A loud bark of laughter sounded from above and ahead of her. Issa’s heart stopped as she looked up. Somehow, the arrogant Dhukari youth had managed to gain the lead, and he was halfway between her and the uppermost platform. He’d get to those blades before her, or wait until she caught up then take her down.

  With a growl, Issa pushed the worry from her mind and focused on her immediate surroundings. Another Dhukari youth was on the platform next to her, his back turned. She leapt onto the platform and drove the pommel of her sword into the base of his skull. He collapsed into a boneless heap at her feet with a loud thump.

  Issa jumped across a broad gap onto a higher platform and scrambled up a plank ladder. Instinct warned her of danger as her head reached the level of the next platform, and she ducked in time to avoid a wild swing of a two-handed sword.

  “No you don’t, lowborn!” The handsome, arrogant face of the Dhukari youth sneered down at her. He held his sword poised to drive into her face, throat, or chest if she attempted to climb. “The blades will go to those worthy, not a filthy mud-eater like yooOAAAH!”

  His words cut off in a growl tinged with pain. Issa was surprised to see the Mahjuri girl pulling her slim sword free of the young man’s back. The wound wasn’t fatal, but it would hurt enough to slow down the arrogant youth.

  The Mahjuri girl ducked his wild backhand swing and snapped off a low-kick aimed at his knee. A dirty street fighting tactic taught in the Institute of the Seven Faces, something the fine blademasters of the Academies would never countenance. The kick caught the young man on the side of the knee and his leg crumpled beneath him. He cried out and sagged to the wooden platform.

  Issa seized the opportunity to scramble onto the level, kicked the sword from his hand, then raced on to catch up to the Mahjuri girl. The uppermost platform stood just ten feet above her, with only five levels between her and her destination.

  But at the top of the Keeper’s Steps, the combatants were packed closer together. Ten young men and women had reached the platform ahead of her. Two had managed to draw the two-handed blades, and the battle was over for them.

  The other eight, however, seemed determined not to let their failure allow someone else to succeed. They might not have drawn the blades, but they turned to face outward to cut down any of their opponents that hadn’t yet reached the pinnacle.

  “Hey!” Issa called to the Mahjuri girl. She didn’t know the girl’s name, but right now that didn’t matter. “Hey!”

  The girl turned to look, and she crouched in anticipation of an attack as Issa bounded onto the platform beside her.

  But Issa made no move to strike. Instead, she pointed at the uppermost platforms. “We need to work together if we’re going to get to those blades.”

  “Work together?” The Mahjuri girl narrowed her eyes. “We are enemies.”

  “We were,” Issa said, “but right now, our only chance of getting through to the final platform is if we help each other.” She grinned. “There are five blades and only two of us. Seems the odds are in our favor, don’t you think?”

  Suspicion filled the girl’s piercing gaze. It was to be expected. The Mahjuri lived a hard life, reviled and mistreated by all of the castes above them. Even the Kabili, the slave caste, often fared better than the Mahjuri. Yet the girl had seen Issa’s Earaqi headband that marked her as a member of the laborer’s caste, barely one step above the Mahjuri, the closest to equals the girl would ever find.

  “So be it,” she said with a nod. “Together.”

  “Good.” Issa tightened her grip on the two-handed sword. “I’ll go first, cut a way through for you, then you bring them down from behind. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Grim resolve filled the girl’s voice.

  “I’m Issa, by the way.”

  “Etai,” the girl responded.

  “Well, Etai, let’s do this.”

  Issa sucked in a deep breath and leapt onto the next platform. Two young men stood waiting for her, their long hand-and-a-half swords held in the close-guarded stance of the Academy of the Darting Arrow. Issa knew one would attack in a flurry of quick thrusts intended to keep her sword occupied while the other waited for a chance to strike.

  She didn’t intend to give them that chance.

  The moment she found her balance, she planted her feet and brought the sword across in a two-handed blow like a woodsman felling a tree. Her sword crashed into their blades and knocked them wide, the force throwing them off-kilter. The momentum of her swing carried her sword across and too wide to recover as well. Had she fought alone, she might have died then and there.

  Etai seized the opening, darted around the youth on the right, and drove the tip of her slim-bladed estoc into his back. The youth cried out and crumpled, blood spilling from a wound Issa guessed had hit a vital organ. When the second boy tried to attack Etai, Issa smashed the flat of her blade into the side of his head. The impact knocked the boy off the platform and he landed with a loud crunch on the level below.

  Issa leapt onto the next platform in time to save Etai from being impaled by a blow from another Silver Sword student, then brought her knee up between the young man’s legs. When her opponent crumbled, Etai cut him down with a savage chop to his sword arm. Issa lifted the wailing youth’s slim body from the ground and, with the strength in her forge-hardened muscles, hurled him into the trio that stood waiting on the platform above them.

  “Why thank you!” called a familiar arrogant, mocking voice. Issa’s gut clenched as she saw the Dhukari boy leap onto the uppermost platform and reach for the hilt of one of the three blades still in their sheaths. He sneered at her and heaved at the blade. With a whisper of steel on stone, the huge flame-bladed sword slipped free of its sheath.

  “Yes!” the youth cried, triumph in his voice. He lofted the blade high
, where it glinted in the bright sunlight.

  Issa’s gut clenched. Two blades left.

  Even as she thought it, five more figures broke through the youths guarding the platform. Issa wanted to scream in anger and frustration as they fought for the blades. So close, just ten feet away, only to fail!

  Yet nothing happened. Try as they might, the five could not pull the swords free. The triumph in their expressions turned to panic, then horror, then devastation as they realized the truth. They had reached the blades but the Long Keeper hadn’t found them worthy.

  Issa was moving before she realized it. Her long legs carried her up to the last platform, cleared of all opponents. A cry from behind her stopped her in the instant her foot touched the level that held the blades.

  Etai was on the ground, clutching a wound in her leg. Behind her, a young man held his short sword raised to strike.

  Issa had a moment to act. She was within reach of her goal, the thing that would change her family’s life forever. Yet what would Savta and Saba say if they knew she’d abandoned a companion—a friend made in the heat of battle?

  With a growl, she whipped around and hurled the two-handed sword at the youth standing over Etai. She didn’t bother with technique or precision—Killian would murder her for such a foolish use of her weapon—but instead hurled it with all her force. The heavy blade turned lazily in the air and crashed into the boy’s chest. The spinning blade cleaved through the side of his neck and he fell back, blood misting in the air.

  Issa raced the three steps toward Etai, scooped up the fallen girl, and raced back toward the platform with the blades. To her horror, she found the Dhukari youth standing in her path. His flame-bladed sword, made of the finest, deep black Shalandran steel, was poised to drive into her chest.

  Issa’s blood turned to ice. He claimed the blade. He should be out of the fight!

  Yet one look in the young man’s eyes made it clear he had no intention of stepping aside. The contemptuous sneer on his face told her precisely what he thought of the two lowborns.

  But Issa hadn’t come this far to let some arrogant Dhukari boy stop her. Right arm clenched around Etai’s waist, she could only strike out with her left hand. Her palm slapped the curving, flame-shaped steel blade away from her chest and she barreled straight into the young man.

  They went down in a heap of flesh, steel, and clothing, but Issa regained enough control to drive the tip of her elbow into the boy’s face. Another dirty trick courtesy of her education at the Institute of the Seven Faces, one they didn’t teach at the Academy of the Silver Sword.

  “Go!” she shouted, and shoved Etai to her feet. The Mahjuri girl took one hopping step then sagged on her wounded leg. Her hands reached out to close around the hilt of one of the remaining blades and, with a cry of mingled pain and determination, she ripped the blade free.

  Etai stared wide-eyed at the sword in her hand, tears springing to her eyes, and her triumphant laughter echoed across the Crucible.

  Issa was a step behind Etai, her hand reaching for the final sword. Another boy, one of the Alqati, reached for the blade at the same time. Her fingers closed around the hilt an instant before the boy’s did.

  A sharp pain drove into her palm and, for a moment, it seemed nothing was happening. Yet, when Issa hauled on the blade, something inside the stone sheath gave way and the sword pulled free with a hiss of steel on stone.

  Issa stood, stunned, filled with triumph as she stared down at the huge flame-bladed sword in her hands. She didn’t care about the blood staining her palm or the torn, ripped condition of her simple tunic.

  The clarion sound of the trumpet proclaimed the truth for all in the stadium to hear. She had defeated her opponents. She had claimed the sword. Her life, and her grandparents’ with her, would never be the same after today.

  She lofted the sword high, and the crowd cheered louder.

  I will be one of the Keeper’s Blades.

  Chapter Two

  More than anything else in the world, Evren hated temples. Lofty, massive structures erected in honor of the thirteen gods responsible for the creation of Einan. Buildings adorned with ornate trappings, luxuries, and comforts far beyond those enjoyed by the common people that flowed through their halls.

  Then there were the priests. Men and women revered for devotion to their gods, looked upon as wise elders to be trusted at all costs.

  In Evren’s experience, the lavish decorations of temples screamed of abused wealth. The priests he’d been cursed to encounter were little more than men as enslaved to their own greed, lusts, and passions as the congregations they tended to.

  Though he had to admit the House of Need in Voramis appeared to stand as a definite exception.

  Unlike the grand constructions that surrounded the Fountain of Piety in Divinity Square, the temple to the Beggar God appeared to be one strong gust of wind away from collapsing. Time and the elements had worn away the façade, leaving featureless and crumbling stone. The crooked wooden roof looked to be the most solid part of the temple, and Evren wouldn’t trust it with a feather’s weight. He cast a nervous glance at the brick-and-mortar doorframe, but thankfully it didn’t collapse on him.

  He took a deep breath to calm the racing beat of his heart, despite the instincts screaming at him to flee. The last time he’d been in a temple, a priest had died at his hands, and he’d very nearly killed a fellow apprentice. Even now, just the thought of putting himself in the hands of priests—priests like those that had abused him and forced him to fight to survive—sent a shudder of fear down his spine.

  Swallowing the surge of acid in his throat, he entered the temple. The interior was clean, at least. Scuffed and faded wooden pews faced the altar to the Beggar God at the far end of the main room. A statue of the Beggar—a hunched, twisted figure wearing ragged clothing and stretching out a pleading hand—stood in silent vigil over the chamber.

  Evren hurried past those watching eyes and down the plain stone corridor that led away from the temple’s main room of worship. Few people outside of the Beggar Priests and their Beggared children ever saw this section of the House of Need. Though not fancy, it at least appeared able to withstand harsh weather. The low ceiling and stone floors were as plain as the walls, and the doors looked solid enough to stay closed.

  Definitely a far cry from the Master’s Temple in Vothmot. He’d served as an apprentice to the Lecterns, priests to Kiro the Master, and their temple had reeked of opulence and wasteful luxury. All the gorgeous trappings had concealed the true horrors of the temple from the outside world.

  Evren couldn’t help a nervous clenching in his gut, an instinctive tightening of his fists, as he strode through the unadorned halls. He had no idea what Father Reverentus, head priest of the Beggar God in Voramis and leader of the Cambionari, wanted with him. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  He brightened as a gaggle of Beggared children ran past, laughing, shouting, and jostling each other. The Beggar Priests accepted orphans and raised them in the House of Need. That alone had earned a measure of Evren’s trust—it was a far cry from his experience in the Master’s Temple in Vothmot, his home city far to the north of Voramis.

  His eyes scanned the crowd of children for Hailen but caught no sign of the young boy. He must be at his morning lessons with one of the priests, he thought.

  “You are Evren?”

  The question from behind Evren caught him off-guard. He whirled, fists coming up to defend himself, teeth bared in a snarl of defiance. He’d be damned if he let these priests—

  “Oh, dearie me!” The pudgy, middle-aged priest behind him flinched, ruddy cheeks going pale in surprise. “A-Are you…?” He swallowed and struggled to regain his composure.

  Evren recovered first. “Yes, I am.” He let out a silent breath and lowered his fists. On streets of Vothmot, either you were always on your guard or you were dead. “I was told Father Reverentus is expecting me.”

  “H-He is.” Slowly, the colo
r returned to his cheeks and, with a jerky nod, swept a hand down a hallway. “This way, young master.”

  Evren hid a grin as he fell in step behind the priest. Young master. I like that.

  As the priest led him through the plain stone corridors, Evren couldn’t help smirking at the way the lantern light played tricks with the contours of the man’s wax-shined bald head. This nervous-looking man was a far cry from the cold, dead-eyed Lectern Uman and the others he’d fought to escape in Vothmot.

  Finally, the priest stopped at a door as unadorned as the rest around him, raised a hand, and rapped on the wood.

  “Enter,” came the voice from within. An aged voice, yet a strong one.

  Pushing open the door, the priest gestured for Evren to enter.

  Evren swallowed a flutter of nerves as he saw Father Reverentus sitting in a stuffed armchair. Father Reverentus had a lined, weathered face with a sharp nose, strong chin, and liver spots dotting his scalp and the skin of his arthritis-twisted hands. He sat with a pronounced stoop to his shoulders, but there was nothing ancient about the sharp intelligence that gleamed in his piercing blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Brother Mendicatus.” The old priest nodded his bald head. “That will be all.”

  “Of course, Father.” With a bow, the portly Mendicatus retreated and shut the door behind him.

  Father Reverentus sat in silence for long moments, his eyes fixed on Evren’s face. He might have looked like a kindly grandfather, but the burning intensity of his scrutiny belied his appearance. Life on the streets had taught Evren to size people up in an instant, and everything about Father Reverentus told Evren that this priest was far more than he appeared.

  “The Hunter has told me of you,” Father Reverentus said. “Of your history with the Lecterns and your escape to freedom.”

  Evren tried to hide the sudden tension in his shoulders and spine. Only the Hunter and Kiara knew the full truth of Evren’s past; he hadn’t told Hailen, for the boy was far too young to hear such terrible stories. Now, it seemed, Father Reverentus had learned of it as well. Evren trusted the Hunter had a good reason to relay that information to the old Beggar Priest, but he’d reserve judgement until he found out why he’d been summoned here so early in the morning.