The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (different e readers txt) 📕

Giuna’s upbringing and blood, such an offer was tantamount to calling her a night-piece.

“Who.” Leato’s steel-voiced question pierced Giuna’s reticence.

“M-Mezzan.”

Renata swallowed a curse. Donaia tucked her daughter under her arm, cheeks red and eyes flashing fury. How had Ren ever thought Giuna was the unloved child? “Where is Ryvček?” Donaia hissed through clenched teeth.

“We don’t need a hired duelist to teach Mezzan a lesson,” Leato said. “I can do it.”

“I want more than a lesson. I want him humiliated.”

“I can do it,” Leato repeated calmly.

Without a single mention of the risks of offending House Indestor or jeopardizing the charter Renata had been working on, Donaia nodded.

Leato pivoted. The crowds in the ballroom parted like water around him as he headed for Mezzan Indestor. Caught between alarm and excitement, Renata followed.

Word must have already spread about Mezzan’s insult and Giuna’s flight. A flock of younger nobles surrounded the Indestor heir. Bondiro broke away to meet Leato’s charge.

“Not here.” Bondiro kept his voice low, catching Leato’s shoulder to hold him back. “It’s my sister’s betrothal—”

“Your sister should think twice before marrying that mud-rutting swine,” Leato said, raising his voice in counter. “That ripped chart should offer excuse enough to get her out of it.”

A murmur and hush spread from their center, washing through the ballroom.

“What do you mean by that, Traementis?” The crowd fell back as Mezzan stepped forward, marking a dueling circle with their bodies. If he was still drunk, he showed little sign. His sneer and swagger said that whatever Leato’s reputation with a blade, he didn’t fear it.

Shrugging off Bondiro’s hold, Leato joined Mezzan in the cleared space. “I mean that even a Seven Knots night-piece has better standards than to marry you.”

The sneer dropped. Mezzan went white, then red with rage. “Get me a sword,” he snarled at Bondiro.

“Two, if you don’t mind?” Leato smiled at Mezzan. “Unless you mean to cheat like you did in your last duel.”

Everyone had heard the humiliating story of Mezzan’s Lacewater fight with the Rook—some this very night, from Renata’s own lips. The murmurs broke into snickers at Leato’s taunt, and the press grew tighter. Renata made surreptitious use of her elbows and heels to keep from being nudged out of place.

“What is going on here?” Mettore stormed through the edge of the ring. “Traementis. I showed courtesy to the noble history of your house by allowing your family to attend this gathering, and you repay me with insults?” His voice resounded through the now-silent ballroom. “Guards!”

“Uniat.”

The crowd inhaled. In a context like this, the name of the first numen was more than just the precursor to swords crossing. It was a formal challenge. And Mezzan—not Leato—had just issued it.

Leato’s answering smile was feral. “Tuat.”

They were committed. Mettore couldn’t stop the duel, not without disgracing his son completely. “Bondiro,” Mezzan said, his voice velvet-soft, “get the swords.”

Renata’s heartbeat felt far too loud as she waited for Bondiro to return. For an instant, when she’d heard Giuna’s tale, she’d wondered if that was the reason for her dance with Mettore—if he’d been drawing her away so Mezzan could deliver his insult. But the incandescent fury on his face said he’d intended none of this. And whatever the outcome of the duel, he would extract the price from Mezzan’s hide.

Bondiro reappeared, bearing two swords. The rules of dueling said he had to offer the challenged man first pick, and Leato laughed quietly as he compared them. For a flashing moment, Leato’s keen blue eyes caught Renata’s down the shining edge of a blade, and she could swear he winked at her—but before she could be sure, his attention returned to Mezzan.

“No Vicadrius? Pity. But this will do.” Shrugging out of his coat, Leato selected his blade.

Mezzan flung his coat aside and snatched up the other blade. “After learning with sticks, you should be grateful I’m allowing you a sword this fine.”

If he’d meant to imply something about Traementis’s low breeding or poverty, the insult fell flat. “Don’t worry, Mezzan,” Leato said, lifting the blade into guard. “There aren’t any canals here.”

Fury brought Mezzan straight toward Leato, and almost lost him the duel in that first pass. Leato’s sword whispered past his ear, Mezzan only barely wrenching himself away, and the world suddenly went white around Ren.

The Rook.

The Rook hated the nobility. That was his entire reason for existing: to fight them and their corruption, the way they tried to leech Nadežra dry.

Surely—surely—the Rook would never be a nobleman.

But there was Leato, playing the part of a wastrel even to his own mother, and sneaking out at night on unknown errands. Coming out of a Lacewater alley like he’d been hiding from view—maybe so he could change out of a black coat and hood.

Hunting the Rook. That was Giuna’s theory—but it was Indestor he was targeting. And maybe something else, too. Maybe he was trying to find who had really killed Kolya Serrado, so his old friend would stop hunting him.

A few private lessons and an open practice at the Palaestra weren’t enough to teach Ren how to read someone else’s swordsmanship. Facing Mezzan, Leato fought nothing like the Rook—but also nothing like the display she’d seen in the Traementis ballroom, playfully switching styles against Ryvček. His form was flawlessly Liganti, his stance high, his blade outstretched to present a constant threat. If anyone was looking for a comparison to the Rook, they wouldn’t find it here. He was every inch the proud noble son, avenging his sister’s wounded honor.

But that could be a mask.

Ryvček was watching from the far side of the circle, not bothering to hide her smile. She didn’t seem worried at all. Nor, for that matter, did Leato. After that comment about the canals, he fell silent, his expression alive and watchful. It was Mezzan who snarled, spitting quiet curses when his attacks failed.

And it was Mezzan who lost.

The end wasn’t dramatic. Mezzan thrust, and a subtle shift of Leato’s wrist sent his blade out of line. Then it was a