Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(85)

The poem lasted five minutes. It was beautiful, and it spoke of every star being a sun to someone. At the end of it the Holy Ecclesiarch teared up, and the First Scholar rested his wing on his chest over his heart and had to take a moment.

Oond was next. He performed a dance, and by the end of it I needed a moment from the sensory overload.

Cyanide sang the song of her people, which was long and very yowling. The Higgra delegation were overcome and joined in toward the end.

“I can’t take it,” Sean whispered into my earpiece. “It’s like a room full of cats being slowly strangled.”

“Be nice.”

“She’s an expert weaver. Why didn’t she make something?”

“Because she doesn’t give away her secrets to the enemy.”

My poor werewolf. I could practically feel his eyes twitching.

By the time Cyanide finished, most of the audience had reached a breaking point. Bouncing the light again was a relief. I settled on Unessa. We needed something to wake us up, and she was unlikely to sing. Somehow, I just didn’t feel that Dushegubs put the same value on fine arts as we did.

Unessa practically ran down the ramp with a bounce in each step. Hmmm.

A portion of the stage, twenty feet across, dropped down in a perfect circle and came back up, carrying a big cage. Inside it, green lizards squirmed and hissed, each about the size of a large house cat.

Unessa strode to the cage, pulled a small door near the top open, and snatched a lizard out. The screens around the arena zoomed in on the reptile. A bright red crest snapped erect along its spine. It tried to claw at Unessa, but she held it tight by its throat with one hand and pulled its mouth open with the other, revealing long, sharp teeth.

“Venomous,” Unessa announced. “Sharp teeth. Very fast.”

She dropped the lizard back into the cage. A giant screen descended from the ceiling with a digital timer, the 00:00 in bright red.

What was she…

A bell rang through the arena. The numbers on the timer flashed. The cage collapsed, and fifty lizards dashed in all directions. Unessa plucked the nearest one off the floor, quick like a striking snake, and in one smooth motion twisted its head off.

Oh, dear Universe.

She dropped the dead body and snatched the next lizard. It screamed in terror, like a frightened puppy, and she snapped its neck, dropped it, and grabbed another one.

Oond’s people flailed in alarm, their fins snapping to communicate a predator warning. The otrokars went silent. They were careful hunters, concerned with preservation and management of the animals whose lives they took, and they never murdered for sport. This…this atrocity went against every hunting tradition of the Horde. It was just a pointless slaughter, and the lizards were screaming, dashing, and climbing over each other to get away from her. They didn’t sound like reptiles. They sounded like small mammals gripped by sheer panic.

Another lizard. Another.

“Stop her!” Kosandion growled.

I dropped the stage around Unessa, leaving her standing on a stone pillar. The surviving lizards scattered through the arena. The Dushegubs creaked and hissed in outrage.

“I warned you,” Gaston said into my ear.

He had. I made my voice do that loud, unsettling whisper thing, sending it to every ear in the arena. “The Sovereign thanks candidate Unessa Sybate for her demonstration.”

A large Dushegub charged to the wall of their section and fell through the floor as Sean sent it back into the Pit. The rest of the trees creaked and shook their branches but stayed in their spots.

Unessa counted the lizard bodies with her finger, pointing at each, and looked up at the timer. “Twelve in seven seconds!” And then she smiled.

“It’s time for a short break!” Gaston announced and escorted her back to her seat.

Tables with refreshments sprouted in each section.

Kosandion looked angry. I had never seen that before, not when he dealt with Odikas, not even when he found out about Vercia’s betrayal. Unessa’s display of animal cruelty caught him by surprise. The anger radiated from him like heat from asphalt in the summer.

I should have asked Gaston to be more specific when he mentioned it. But even if he had, nothing Unessa had done was forbidden under the terms Orata had provided to us. The point of the Talent Trial was to reveal the abilities of the candidates. It was meant to be a surprise and a display of skill. We all knew what Unessa’s special talent was. She had told us during her introduction. She was good at smothering.

I gathered the remaining lizards into an enclosure under the arena. Gertrude Hunt’s database identified them as Tumma Fangsinkers. They were, indeed, very venomous. They were also microchipped by their trader. As soon as the trial ended, I would ask Gaston to take them right back to Baha-char to the Tumma trader who’d sold them to the Dushegubs.

The Dushegubs had trained Unessa like a terrier going after rats. Except that she didn’t even rank as a pet. We felt affection for our pets. Dushegubs felt nothing for Unessa. A sickening feeling washed over me. I had a pretty good idea about what would happen to her if she didn’t become the spouse.

Kosandion had stopped her, offending the Dushegubs and breaking the tradition. There would be political ramifications, because even breathing too fast had consequences in the Dominion when you were a public figure. I didn’t think he cared. I checked his face. Nope, he didn’t.