After checking the fit of the leather bracer she wore on her right forearm and the ring of horn protecting her thumb, she glanced around the ger that had been set aside for the archers to prepare themselves. Every now and then, one of the competitors would look over at her and shake his head, yet, so far, no one had outright complained about or disparaged her presence in the tournament.
No, she’d been premature in that assessment. Tsend stalked into the ger, carrying a bow, and glared around the tent. Thalia wanted to run up and shove her elbow into his throat. The wounds that Gabriel had suffered at his hands hadn’t been severe, but any injury that Gabriel sustained was one too many, and to have the Heirs’ bully be the cause of those injuries was beyond endurable. She managed to restrain herself, though. Brawling wasn’t allowed in the nadaam. All her hate would have to be channeled into winning the archery competition.
When Tsend’s eyes fell on Thalia, he burst out into harsh laughter and pointed derisively. Most of the other competitors looked away in embarrassment.
“You?” he snorted. “Are Englishmen so feeble that they must have their women fight for them?”
“And you must doubt your own skill,” Thalia countered coolly, “to belittle someone so clearly beneath your attention.”
“I doubt nothing,” he snarled back. Clearly, he was a man unused to being called out.
“Today is a good day to start.”
The giant Mongol took a threatening step toward Thalia. He was easily a foot taller than she, with a sizable weight difference. She did not back away, but stared straight at him, looking just a little bored. When he saw that she wouldn’t be easily cowed, he turned away and muttered something under his breath, and made a big show of adjusting his bow.
Thalia slowly let her breath out and forcibly kept her hands from shaking. She would not let him rattle her.
A tribesman poked his head into the ger. “The competition begins now. Please come out to the field.”
She and the seven other archers filed out of the tent, each carrying his or her bow and a quiver of marked arrows. Thalia made sure to put several men between her and Tsend. She refused to let him bully her, but she also wasn’t stupid. The crowd erupted into cheers at the emergence of the archers. Immediately, Thalia sought out Gabriel in the multitude. He was difficult to miss. Tall, broad-shouldered, radiating a soldier’s focused energy, and looking directly at her with crystalline, alert eyes. An immediate hunger curled through her like incense, and her trepidation about the archery contest disappeared under the thick blanket of desire. Just after the horse race, that kiss…and the night before, the things they’d done…how he’d made her feel…
That way led to madness. If she misplaced her concentration before this, possibly the most important moment of her life, everything would be lost, including her own self. And then it wouldn’t matter if she could have Gabriel touch or kiss her like that again. Nothing would matter.
She spared him a slight nod, which he returned, but his was just as terse. Even from a distance, it was impossible to miss how tightly he held his jaw, the fists he clenched at his sides. Did he doubt her?
Thalia turned her gaze upward, and she watched the clouds as they slipped across the sky. To make sure she had the wind’s direction exactly right, she scooped up some dust and let it scatter in the breeze. Her mind went through its quick series of calculations. The wind wasn’t strong, but it was enough to make a difference, and she would need to make adjustments with her arrow.
Steeling her shoulders, she turned her attention to Bold, who addressed the competitors.
“Your targets are there,” he said, gesturing almost a hundred yards away. Thalia noted the small leather targets, placed at a greater distance than at most nadaam festivals. She’d never shot a target at that distance. “You may shoot three times. Only four of you will move on to the next stage of the tournament. Fire only on my signal, and may the gods guide your arrows.”
Thalia swallowed hard as she and the other archers took their positions. The sun was hot on her shoulders and back. She positioned her arrow, lifted her bow, and drew back the string with her thumb, but it was more difficult than usual. Her arm shook a little. It felt as though every member of the Blades of the Rose, plus the Heirs of Albion, as well as Gabriel and her mother were all holding tight to the string, weighting it with their own expectations and agendas. Worse still were her own hopes, now building to a pressure that was almost insupportable.
Two hundred people watched her. So did Gabriel. And, from hundreds of miles away, so did her father. Her breathing grew shallow. The point of the arrow dipped and danced as her grip faltered. Could she do this?
Thalia lowered her bow and again rubbed her hands on her del. She refused to look at Gabriel, but felt his eyes on her all the same.
“What’s the matter, girl?” sneered Tsend from the end of the line. “Something wrong with your equipment?” He grabbed his crotch and laughed. Thalia remembered his bearing down on her beside the river outside Urga, the menace in his eyes, his very real threat. She felt cold.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Batu restrain Gabriel. She struggled with the impulse to run to him, hide behind him. No. Thalia would do her own fighting. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds of the wind ruffling the grass. She imagined herself an eagle, wings open, riding the currents of heat and air, lifting up and high over the plains.
I am a Blade of the Rose, she thought. I help protect the world’s magic.
Opening her eyes, Thalia raised her bow high. She drew back the string as she aimed. It pulled easier now. The world was quiet, her mind was quiet. The target waited, silently calling to her.
“Now!” Bold shouted, and at almost the same time, the crowd yelled, “Hit the target!”
Thalia fired, as did the men standing on either side of her. Arrows whistled as they split the air, hurtling up in an arc before sweeping back down to earth. Then came the distant, meaty sound of the arrows hitting the targets. The crowd cheered. She wanted to look at Gabriel, but knew that the sight of his face would only distract her.
There was no time to know how she’d done. Bold signaled for the archers to raise their bows and aim. Thalia let herself think only of the target and her arrow, the movement of the wind, the feel of the bow in her hands, the strength of her arms as she drew back the string. And then Bold cried out to fire, the crowd yelled, and her arrow sang in its voyage across the field.
Two of the archers groaned as their arrows fell short. Unfortunately, Tsend was not one of them. Thalia could tell that she, Tsend, and the other four competitors had struck the targets, but only the judges would be able to tell who was the closest to the center. At this distance, she could not see. She’d hit the target, yes, but she could still be edged out. She grappled with an uprising of fear and doubt. What if she failed the Blades? Failed Gabriel? What if she failed herself?
She heard Gabriel shouting his support from behind her, yet, while his words warmed her, she didn’t take her encouragement from him. It had to come from within. If she relied on something, someone, outside of herself, then she would be no good to the Blades. She must be strong on her own.
The signal came to raise bows. Thalia did so, keeping her eyes trained solely on the target. She would be her arrow, and when she released the string, she would fly strong and true. The archers were commanded to shoot. The string leapt forward, propelling her arrow. How beautiful it sounded, whistling like a child.
Every arrow struck home, and the judges came hurrying out to examine the results. The judges consisted of Bold and several tribal elders. Four of the judges carried blue silk banners, which they would wave next to the winners’ targets. She and the other archers, with the exception of Tsend, exchanged concerned looks as the judges gestured and shook their heads. That could mean anything. Thalia risked a glance back at Gabriel, and the smile he offered her, small but proud, broke her heart a bit. No matter the result of the competition, he knew she’d done her best, and that was enough to satisfy him.
But she would not be satisfied if she cost them the ruby.
Thalia clutched at her bow as the first blue banner unfurled next to one archer’s target, a small sapphire flag waving across the grasses. The man grinned triumphantly as his family applauded. Then the next banner was waved beside another target, and the winner couldn’t stop himself from dancing in place with glee. As this was happening, Tsend muttered and swore under his breath. Only two more competitors could progress to the next round of the tournament. But when a judge ran next to Tsend’s target and waved the blue silk, he stopped muttering and laughed at Thalia with a vicious spite.
“Looks like your English fool should have left the shooting to the real Mongols,” he jeered.
A hard knot lodged in Thalia’s throat. She and four other archers remained, vying for a single slot. She wanted to close her eyes and pray to whatever deities listened, but she dared not look away from the judges. Bold, carrying a banner, walked slowly past her target, and she felt her eyes burn. She had failed.
Then Bold stopped, and turned back. As her breath abandoned her, Thalia watched as Bold ceremoniously unfurled his silk banner next to her target. He grinned, enjoying his theatrics.
The cheer that rose from the crowd was louder than any that had come before. Turning, Thalia saw that all the women watching the nadaam were yelling with an almost manic delight, while the men appeared more than a little puzzled. All except Gabriel, who was making so much euphoric noise—clapping, whistling, and even, good Lord, cussing—that she felt her face heat with happy embarrassment. Joy careened inside of her. She’d done it. Really done it. They were another step closer to the ruby.
Thalia turned to Tsend, who looked ready to commit murder then and there, if not for the presence of the tribesmen. She gestured to her del. “This is not a costume,” she said to him. “I am a real Mongol. More than you, traitor.”
With a foul oath, Tsend stormed off, shoving people out of his way.
Thalia barely noticed, because Gabriel was suddenly beside her, wrapping her in an embrace so tight, she saw stars. She tried to think of a time when she’d been happier, but couldn’t.
Thalia was already exhausted, wrung dry from the horse race and archery, but there was still one more competition to go before the ruby’s guardian could be determined. Even the short pause while everyone had some food and drink wasn’t enough to revive her. But her hardest work was over. The final challenge belonged to Gabriel alone.
“Does your Englishman know how to wrestle the Mongol way?” Oyuun asked Thalia. The chieftain’s wife and she waited with the rest of the crowd for the competitors to change their clothing and emerge once more.
“Batu and I explained the rules to him,” she answered.
“Explaining and doing are quite different things,” Oyuun pointed out. Thalia shot her a warning look, already close to her breaking point. She didn’t need anyone adding to her anxiety.
“He was a soldier for most of his life.” It still felt odd to speak of Gabriel’s military service in the past tense. In her mind, in her heart, he was a warrior, and always would be. “He knows how to fight.” She hoped his skills, and determination, would be enough.
The spectators cheered as the wrestlers began to come out of their private ger. When Tsend emerged, as massive and terrifying as fear itself, Thalia gulped. In the skimpy traditional wrestling costume, he appeared a barely civilized brute who used higher reasoning only when all other options had failed, and even then with resentment.
“I do not know who this Mongol is,” Oyuun whispered, “but his eyes are terrible and dead.”
For a moment, Thalia almost confessed that she, Gabriel, and Batu knew Tsend all too well, but then Gabriel came out from the ger, also wearing the prescribed wrestling costume. Her own ability to use higher reasoning disappeared instantly.
“Ah,” Oyuun said on a breath, “that man is not dead. And neither am I.”
Having been to numerous nadaam festivals, Thalia was well-used to the clothing that the wrestlers wore, even if other Europeans found the outfit somewhat shocking. Classical Greek and Roman statues were only slightly more bare. Mongol wrestlers were shirtless, except for a very short jacket that was completely open in the front, and instead of trousers or even breeches, the wrestlers wore trunks much smaller than even the scantiest pair of men’s underdrawers. Typical boots and the pointed hat completed the rest of the costume, such as it was.
When she’d started to come of age, Thalia had been intrigued by male bodies, so unlike her own. There was a degree of openness and frankness with the Mongol people that allowed Thalia to see and learn as much as she wanted—within reason. She did have a father, after all. Then she and her father had traveled to Britain. What English girls knew, or rather, how much they didn’t know, about men and sex had shocked her, and she had happily returned to Mongolia. Certain gaps in her education had been mostly filled in, not literally, of course, by Sergei. They had never seen each other naked, but through their heated pettings and pawings, Thalia came to know the feel, shape, and size of a man. All of him.
And then there was Gabriel. She’d seen him partly covered the night they had taken shelter in the cave. The night before, he’d been almost completely clothed, but she’d felt him, their bodies pressed as close as possible, and him, inside of her. Thalia had a fairly good idea what he looked like undressed. It was a very pleasant idea, and one she couldn’t stop herself from returning to again and again in quieter moments.