was tall and crowned in continuous flame, and she steadied herself against it as she searched for a path through the excited crush.
“Stand back,” Ivo yelled, throwing his arms to the side. His palms were red with blood and he drew frantic shapes in the air. The flame above her whooshed and spit, sending sparks raining down in a wide arc into the crowd.
It was an impressive but meaningless bit of theater, and the crowd cheered the show, but did not move back.
Ivo tried again, calling a blast of wind that funneled down into the square and whipped the flags on the perimeter wall, but he could not maintain the gust with runes in the air, and the crowd wanted more.
The king bounded up onto the platform beside Ghisla, vying for the attention he had lost.
“This is the last day of the Tournament of the King. Today we will battle in the melee, and tonight we will feast,” he yelled. “Go. And prepare.”
The people shifted and some turned to go, but Benjie of Berne would not relent.
“The daughter has not been punished,” he yelled, insistent. “Bilge of Berne—my clansman—was skewered and hung from these gates for daring to touch her. Yet she does not suffer a single mark for her sins.”
Master Ivo shoved his way forward and took her hands in his, streaking them with his blood.
“She has been marked for the temple . . . with my blood. Now be done with this madness, Benjie of Berne.”
“It is her blood that should be spilt, Highest Keeper. Not yours,” Benjie shot back, and the dissent began again.
“She is a daughter of Saylok,” the king answered, raising his voice for dramatic effect. “And she will bear that mark . . . to remind her who she is . . . and who she represents.”
The king pulled the chain with the star of Saylok from around his neck and dangled it high, letting the flames of the Hearth of Kings lick at it. Slowly he lowered it, so the flame and the golden spires of the star seemed one. The sun had just risen above the temple, and the gold of the amulet caught its rays and reflected them back. The murmuring in the crowd turned to awe and marveling. The heavy gold amulet had been passed down from one king of Saylok to the next, and Ghisla had never seen Banruud without it. He kept the amulet dangling in the fire until the chain in his hand grew too hot to hold. He set the amulet on the ledge of stone and reached for Ghisla’s hand. She jerked it away.
The people fell silent.
“Hold out your hand, daughter,” Banruud insisted.
“I will not.”
“Hold out your hand, or I will press this amulet into your brow,” he said, his voice low but his eyes burning. “They will have their justice one way or another.”
Ghisla held out her hands. The king grasped her right wrist and turned her palm up. The lines of her rune were puckered white stripes amid her pink flesh, but if he saw her scars, it did not deter him. Using the chain, he lowered his amulet onto her palm and pressed her fingers closed around it.
She tried to scream, but images flashed behind her eyes, shifting and shivering at the speed of light, as if she held the hand of the god Saylok himself. Five hundred years of kings, embedded in the gold, spoke to the rune on her palm. And then pain raised its white-hot head, obscuring every color, every line, and she saw nothing but fire.
The king released her fingers and yanked the chain away, his amulet bounding from her burnt flesh. He raised her wrist aloft, showing the star seared on her palm to his bloodthirsty citizens. Her vision swam and her knees buckled, and for a moment she dangled from his grasp, just like Arwin. Just like the amulet.
“There it is. There’s your mark. Now let the games . . . begin,” Banruud said, and he released her into Lothgar’s arms.
17
BLOWS
Master Ivo drew runes to ease Ghisla’s pain and promote healing, but it was not the burn on her hand that made her frantic. Her palm was a deep, weeping wound, but there were other wounds he could do nothing about.
He did not seek explanation for her absence; it was as if he already knew everything. When Ghisla asked if he would look after the keeper Arwin’s welfare, he had simply nodded and promised he would.