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is why Nolla Verin will be queen.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    GREY
    Since we saw the soldiers at Jodi’s tavern yesterday, I’ve been tense and irritable. I keep expecting their captain to appear at Worwick’s and drag me back to Ironrose. Or worse, to drag me into the shadows behind the stadium, where they can separate my head from my body.
    These worries are irrational. So few people know who I truly am and what I know.
    The enchantress Lilith—who is dead. I cut her throat myself.
    My mother—who is not my mother at all. I walked out of her house with nothing. I left her with all the silver and coppers I had, and every warning I thought to give. Hopefully she took the money and left. But if anyone went to her seeking me, she’d have no answer to give beyond the truth: I showed up and I left.
    Karis Luran—who, if Lilith’s threats were to be believed, would use this information to destroy Rhen, if he’d believe her at all.
    My surly attitude has rubbed off on Tycho, made worse by theongoing heat wave. Today’s weather brought a thickening cloud cover that seemed to promise storms, but only delivered a cloying humidity that makes everything sticky and everyone miserable. He’s raking the space between the stadium seats and the arena, making each drag of the tool an attack on the dirt. Dust floats into the air, settling on everything, including the expensive cushioned seats that I’ve just wiped down.
    “Hey,” I snap.
    He whips around, cringing a little.
    “Put the rake up,” I say, forcing the edge out of my tone. I dip my rag in a bucket and wring it out to wipe the seats again. “It’s just making a mess.”
    He must feel bad, because when he comes back, he brings another rag to wipe down the railing. We work quietly for a while, relishing the late-afternoon silence.
    When he’s quiet like this, he reminds me of my brother Cade, who was thirteen when I was sixteen. I don’t know why, because they’re not at all alike, really. Cade would talk my ear off about nothing, while I sometimes go hours without hearing a word from Tycho. But Cade could put his head down and work when he needed to. He helped run the farm after I was gone.
    After Lilith killed them all, I did my best to banish my siblings from memory. Maybe shoving away my time as a guardsman has allowed earlier memories to fill the space between my thoughts. Maybe learning they weren’t my siblings at all has done the same.
    I’m not sure I like that. Especially since we’ve run out of chores.
    “It’s too hot to run,” I say.
    “It’s too hot to do anything.” Tycho takes a handful of water and splashes it over the back of his neck.
    “Oh,” I say. “I was going to ask if you wanted to get the practice blades.”
    “Wait. Really? Yes.” He stands up straight, the heat forgotten.
    “Go ahead, then.”
    I dump the bucket behind the storage room, then hang our rags to dry. By the time I make my way over to the armory, Tycho has a light training sword in his hands, and he’s swinging it in a practiced pattern. He’s good enough now that I’d trust him with a real blade—in another time and place. As Hawk, I don’t know any moves more advanced than simple blocks and thrusts.
    We spar in the narrow space between the armory and the stables, where Worwick stores larger equipment. The scraver’s cage is back here, too, our only audience, though its dark form is motionless. Worwick was serious about five coppers, because he tried charging it last night. He was getting it, too, until a man complained that he didn’t pay to see a half-dead pile of skin and feathers.
    Now it sleeps most of the day, cocooned in its wings.
    Tycho is tiring, so I give him an opening. He spots it immediately and lunges. I barely have time to sidestep his blade.
    He’s panting from the effort, but he grins. “I almost got you.”
    I can’t help smiling back. “Almost.” I tap his blade away with my own and push sweat-dampened hair off my face.
    “Play time is