Book 5: A Telling Dinner

Amval

I stay at the racetrack until every single joust—each of them less and less well-attended after Ingrid and Kaloni leave—are done. Mostly, I stare blindly at the dirt, replaying the moment of Ingrid’s impact in my mind.

Everyone in the crowd knew that was a hard fall. She clearly didn’t know how to land it well, her spine hitting the dirt a heartbeat before her skull. In the moment after, when she just lay there perfectly still, all I could see was Mother and Father’s carriage flipping.

Another body I would have to bury. Another life I didn’t save.

Finally, though, the last bout ends, and the final dregs of the crowd drift away. Mesut and Tek wander over to me.

“I am sorry,” Mesut says.

I shake my head. “No apologies needed. You did everything you could.”

We were all just too late.

Tek claps me on the shoulder. “Well, she survived. I heard from a friend in the palace that there’s some fancy dinner to celebrate ton