I saw what followed as if time herself had slowed to watch. The reverberating blows from Dedreugh, supernaturally strong and so forceful I thought he could punch through the shield to overwhelm his opponent. Sir Xia’s unsteady steps as she tried to find her balance. The shout from the young squire as he put the blade into a position for Nilos to grab it. Time paused.

Dedreugh swung his sword back and took the squire straight through the stomach.

I stood. Everyone stood.

Shock and the naïve belief that the match had finished—it had to be over, didn’t it?—lowered Sir Xia’s guard. Her gaze fixed on her dying squire.

She stopped paying attention to her enemy.

Dedreugh pulled his weapon from the dead boy’s body, spun back to Sir Xia, and used the bloody blade to flip the woman’s shield out of line.

Sir Xia screamed as Dedreugh’s sword pierced her armor’s neck seam, before punching down into her armpit. Dedreugh yanked the blade up, blood spraying as he opened a major artery and severed her arm.

“Tamin!” I shouted.

Tamin’s expression turned ecstatic, his focus lost in victory and bloodlust. His nostrils flared as he heard my admonishing voice, and he turned to me. “You’re my friend, not my count. Your tone is unwarranted.”

“They’ll die,” I said. “Both Sir Xia and her squire will die.”

Tamin stared at me as if I spoke a foreign language. Why should those deaths bother or concern him? He sat in his chair. “Aren’t the tournaments designed to ready us for war? In war, don’t people die?” He raised a hand in a benediction to Sir Dedreugh while others came out to collect the bodies.

“Tamin—”

He smiled and waved, but his expression turned cold when he glanced at me. “Don’t question my actions, Janel. I have a banner on the brink of catastrophe. I have to take drastic action.”

“Drastic action?” I fought to keep my voice level. “Tamin, Dedreugh is your man. You’re responsible for paying the death price for those he slays. If your banner is in such straits, how can you afford that?”

“I won’t accept advice from a stallion who fled her own canton, rather than face Censure.” Tamin leaned forward, his expression nasty. “You think I don’t know the truth behind your visit? Your former betrothed, Sir Oreth, bought out your people even before your grandfather breathed his last. All the while you sat there, oblivious to being made a laughingstock. That’s why you didn’t come by Gatestone—you had neither Gatestone nor Gatekeeper to use.”

His words hurt worse than blows, not least because they were true.

They were also a deflection, and I wouldn’t be turned aside.

“Dedreugh is a monster. As a friend, I caution you not to employ a monster to prove your idorrá.”