"A knife," said Emma. "Pure and clean."
"Bars," Julian said quietly. "The bars of a prison cell."
The King's expression didn't change. The murmurs of the Court around them seemed confused rather than angry or intrigued. The King reached out a long white taloned hand.
"You there, girl with the bright hair," he said. "You will be the champion of your people."
Relief speared through Emma. It would be her; the others would not be risked. She felt lighter, as if she could breathe again.
Cristina turned her face toward Emma, looking stricken; Mark seemed to be holding himself in with main force. Julian caught Emma's arm, moving to whisper in her ear, urgency in every line of his body.
She stood still, her eyes fixed on his face, letting the chaos of the Court flow around her. The coldness of battle was already beginning to descend on her: the chill that dampened emotions, letting everything but the fight fall away.
Julian was part of that, the beginning of battle and the cold of the middle of it and the fierceness of the fighting. There was nothing she wanted to look at more in the moments before a battle than his face. Nothing that made her feel more fully at home in herself, more like a Shadowhunter.
"Remember," Julian whispered into Emma's ear. "You've spilled faerie blood before, in Idris. They would have killed you, killed us all. This is a battle too. Show no mercy, Emma."
"Jules." She didn't know if he heard her say his name. Knights surrounded them suddenly, separating her from the others. Her arm slipped away from Julian's grip. She looked one last time at the three of them before being guided roughly forward. A space was being cleared just in front of the pavilion.
A horn blew, the sharp sound parting the night like a knife. One of the princes strode out from behind the pavilion beside a masked knight. The knight wore thick gray armor like an animal's hide. His helmet covered his face. A crude drawing was painted onto the front of the helmet: wide eyes, a mouth stretched in a grin. Someone had touched the helmet with paint-wet hands, and there were red streaks along the sides that lent an ominous air to what might otherwise have been clownish.
The prince guided the masked knight to his side of the cleared space and left him there, facing Emma. He was armed with a longsword of faerie workmanship, its blade silver traced with gold, its hilt studded with gems. The edges gleamed sharp as razor blades.
A strong sword, but nothing could break Cortana. Emma's weapon would not fail her. She could only fail herself.
"You know the rules," said the King in a bored tone. "Once the battle commences, neither warrior can be helped by a friend. The fight is to the death. The victor is he or she who survives."
Emma drew Cortana. It flashed like the setting sun, just before it drowned in the sea.
There was no reaction from the knight with the painted helmet. Emma focused on his stance. He was taller than her, had greater reach. His feet were carefully planted. Despite the ridiculous helmet, he was clearly a serious fighter.
She moved her own feet into position: left foot forward, right foot back, arcing the dominant side of her body toward her opponent.
"Let it begin," said the King.
Like a racehorse bursting out of the box, the knight rushed toward Emma, sword leaping forward. Caught off guard by his speed, Emma spun out of the way of the blade. But it was a late start. She should have raised Cortana earlier. She'd been counting on the swiftness of her Sure-Strike rune, but it was no longer working. A sharp terror she hadn't known in a long time went through her as she felt the whisper of the tip of the knight's sword gliding inches from her side.
Emma remembered her father's words when she'd first been learning. Strike at your enemy, not his weapon. Most fighters went for your blade. A good fighter went for your body.
This was a good fighter. But had she expected anything else? The King had chosen him, after all. Now she just had to hope that the King had underestimated her.
Two quick turns brought her to a slightly raised hillock of grass. Maybe she could even their height difference. The grass rustled. Emma didn't need to look to know that the knight was plunging toward her again. She whirled, bringing Cortana around in a slicing arc.
He barely moved backward. The sword cut along the material of his thick leather armor, opening a wide slit. He didn't flinch, though, or seem hurt. He certainly wasn't slowed down. He lunged for Emma, and she slid into a crouch, his blade whistling over her head. He lunged again and she sprang back.
She could hear her own breath, ragged in the cool air of the forest. The faerie knight was good, and she didn't have the benefit of runes, of seraph blades--any of the armaments of a Shadowhunter. And what if she was tiring earlier? What if this dark land was sucking out even the power in her blood?
She parried a blow, leaped back, and remembered, oddly, Zara's sneering voice, Faeries fight dirty. And Mark, Faeries don't fight dirty, actually. They fight remarkably cleanly. They have a strict code of honor.
She was already bending, striking at the other knight's ankles--he leaped upward, nearly levitating, and brought his own sword down, just as she seized a handful of leaves and dirt and rose, hurling them at the gaps in the faerie warrior's mask.
He choked and stumbled back. It was only a second, but it was enough; Emma slashed at his legs, one-two, and then his torso. Blood soaked his armored chest; his legs went out from under him, and he hit the ground on his back with a crash like a felled tree.
Emma slammed her foot down on his blade, as the crowd roared. She could hear Cristina calling her name, and Julian and Mark. Heart pounding, she stood over the motionless knight. Even now, sprawled in the grass, blackened around him by his own blood, he didn't make a sound.
"Remove his helmet and end it," said the King. "That is our tradition."
Emma took a deep breath. Everything that was Shadowhunter in her revolted against this, against taking the life of someone lying weaponless at her feet.
She thought of what Julian had said to her just before the combat. Show no mercy.
The tip of Cortana clanged against the rim of the helmet. She wedged it beneath the edge and pushed.
The helmet fell away. The man lying in the grass beneath Emma was human, not faerie. His eyes were blue, his hair blond streaked with gray. His face was more familiar to Emma than her own.
Her hand fell to her side, Cortana dangling from nerveless fingers.
It was her father.
11
ON A BLACK THRONE
Kit sat on the steps of the Institute, looking out at the water.
It had been a long and uncomfortable day. Things were tenser than ever between the Centurions and the inhabitants of the Institute, though at least the Centurions didn't know why.
Diana had made a heroic effort to teach lessons, as if everything were normal. No one could concentrate--for once Kit, despite being completely at sea regarding the comparisons of various seraphic alphabets, wasn't the most distracted person in the room. But the point of the lessons was to keep up appearances in front of the Centurions, so they slogged on.
Things didn't get much better at dinner. After a long, wet day during which they hadn't found anything, the Centurions were testy. It didn't help that Jon Cartwright had apparently had some kind of temper tantrum and stalked off, hi
s whereabouts unknown. Judging by Zara's thinly compressed lips, he'd had an argument with her, though about what, Kit could only wonder. The morality of locking warlocks up in camps or escorting faeries to torture chambers, he guessed.
Diego and Rayan did their best to make cheerful conversation, but it failed. Livvy stared at Diego for most of the meal, probably thinking about their plan to use him to stop Zara, but it was clearly making Diego nervous, since he tried twice to cut his steak with a spoon. To make it worse, Dru and Tavvy seemed to pick up on the prickly vibes in the room and spent dinner peppering Diana with questions about when Julian and the others would be back from their "mission."
When it was all over, Kit thankfully slipped away, avoiding the washing-up after dinner, and found himself a quiet spot under the front portico of the house. The air blowing off the desert was cool and spiced, and the ocean gleamed under the stars, a sheet of deep black that ended in a series of unfurling white waves.
For the thousandth time, Kit asked himself what was keeping him here. While it seemed silly to disappear because of awkward dinner conversation, he'd been reminded sharply in the past day that the Blackthorns' problems weren't his, and probably never should be. It was one thing to be Johnny Rook's son.
It was another thing completely to be a Herondale.
He touched the silver of the ring on his finger, cool against his skin.
"I didn't know you were out here." It was Ty's voice; Kit knew it before he looked up. The other boy had come around the side of the house and was looking up at him curiously.
There was something around Ty's neck, but it wasn't his usual earphones. As he came up the stairs, a slim shadow in dark jeans and sweater, Kit realized it had eyes.
He pressed his back against the wall. "Is that a ferret?"
"It's wild," said Ty, leaning against the railing around the porch. "Ferrets are domesticated. So technically, it's a weasel, though if it was domesticated, it would be a ferret."
Kit stared at the animal. It blinked its eyes at him and wiggled its small paws.