The audience pounded their cups on the table in response.

The clanking made my head throb worse, but that was nothing compared to the pressure pushing tighter against my chest.

My father threw up his arms. The curtain parted.

The figure behind it stepped forward into the light.

It was Rodric.

CHAPTER

5

I put one hand over my mouth to stop myself from vomiting. I steadied myself against the table and looked again to be sure. Rodric stood there, staring straight at me.

My father looked at me sideways. “Much like Tamlin, Rodric was sent to us from the desert. He has mastered its ways, and you must master him if you wish to have my throne.”

Breaths caught in my chest. Each of my father’s words were like grains of sand stinging my skin during a sandstorm. Rodric wouldn’t rule. He would annihilate. Anyone who opposed him would be thrown from the palace towers or have their tongues ripped out for criticizing him.

Yet this was the man my father thought the desert had chosen to be our leader and the man I was to marry. If I lost.

The knot growing in my stomach tightened. I would lose.

A thought struck me. “He’s not nobility,” I blurted, turning toward my father. Tamlin hadn’t been nobility either, but the people had been so grateful for his saving them, they’d claimed he was the desert’s choice to fight in the arena trials. And so he’d been allowed. All my other suitors had some ties to royal blood. Rodric had simply appeared out of the desert boasting of his skill with a sword. Just like Tamlin.

My father turned away to address the crowd, as well as me. “Rodric may not be royalty, but it is only fair we honor the desert’s will and pit its champion against our own. Just as Tamlin was given the same chance.”

My stomach dropped. I had promised my mother I would lead her people. I couldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t let Rodric waltz in here and take everything. The people had loved Tamlin. No one loved Rodric.

Except my father.

I’d known they’d been spending more time together, and my father had thought Rodric’s skill so great he’d allowed him to take over training me these last few months. I didn’t think it had gone this far. I didn’t think Rodric had twisted his mind so much that my father actually thought Rodric was the next Tamlin.

But I could see it now. The gleam in my father’s eyes when he turned to look at Rodric. And I wondered if he thought he was seeing a new way to keep his legacy intact, one that would link his name with the greatest king we’d ever had. Or maybe he was seeing the brother I always should have had.

A thought tore through me. My father didn’t care who won. If I did, I’d prove his strength. If I didn’t, picking Rodric despite his lack of nobility would be seen as his way of backing the desert’s choice, of ensuring the strength of the throne.