The Runaway King (The Ascendance Series, Book 2)

The sounds of applause and cheering woke me later that afternoon. I sat up and brushed my hair out of my face. “What’s going on?” I asked Fink.

He was standing on a rock and leaning over a tree branch to see something behind my tent. “A Queen’s Cross game has started. Want to go watch?”

There was a serious risk of Fink dissolving into a puddle of disappointment if I didn’t say yes, so after a long stretch of my arms I rolled to my feet and we walked to the field where several men were playing.

Queen’s Cross is played with two teams, each seeking the other’s flag, or “Queen,” from behind their zone. Players fight for control of a leather ball stuffed with grains of wheat or rice. The ball can be kicked, carried, or thrown toward the other team’s zone, but only with the ball can a player enter the zone to steal the Queen and win the game. Queen’s Cross games are very physical, often laden with injuries, and always a lot of fun.

As we walked up to the field, I saw Erick throw the ball to someone farther down the field, who was immediately tackled to the ground. He waved at us, then tripped an opposing player trying to clear a path for his teammate. A few of the players had ridden with us to Harlowe’s last night, and all of them encouraged me to come onto the field, but I still held back.

“Sage, join us!” Erick called. “We need another player.”

“I’m not very good,” I replied, which was perfectly true. I had enjoyed Queen’s Cross as a child until I realized that the children of nobles who played with us had been instructed to let my brother and me win. Darius had tried to explain that this was the way of life for a prince and that it was the duty of the other boys to allow us the advantage. To demonstrate what I thought of the “advantage,” I had climbed with the leather ball to the top of the chapel, then impaled it on a spire where it stood until my father ordered a hapless page to climb up and retrieve it. Queen’s Cross was banned from the castle after that. Games were occasionally played while I was at the orphanage, but Mrs. Turbeldy discouraged them because they almost always ended in fistfights.

“Go on and play,” Fink said. “You look like you want to.”

I’d have had to be blind not to see the desire in his eyes to go onto the field. I called to Erick, “Fink’s going to play with us too.”

“That’ll give us an extra man,” Erick said.

“He’s barely a boy, much less a man,” I answered. “Let him play.”

Just to get the game moving again, the other team gestured for Fink to come out with me. “Thanks,” Fink said, clearly excited.

The game began as soon as we were close enough to take positions. Fink was knocked over immediately, but he signaled that he was fine and the players ran past him toward our zone. I dove into other players to stop their progress and their teammates tackled me down in return. One of them tugged at my shirt, revealing the injury I’d received in defending Nila three nights ago. We looked at each other, but I didn’t recognize him from that night so I rolled away and rejoined the game.

After several minutes more of play, the other team called for a break so everyone could catch their breath. Erick huddled us into a circle and said, “They’re getting tired. We should make another play for their Queen.”

“We’re tired too,” a player next to me said. “We can’t push through all of them.”

“Yes, but they don’t know that,” I said. Everyone looked at me and in turn, I looked at Fink, then explained my idea.

The next time we got the ball near their zone, instead of only one strong man attempting to push through their team to get to the Queen, all of us made a run to go around their team, far down the field and away from their zone. All of us, but one.

When we were far enough away, Erick kicked the ball back to Fink, who was innocently waiting alone near the zone. He caught the ball and ran with it into the team’s zone. The Queen was in his hand before most of our opponents even realized they’d been tricked.

My team members ran toward Fink to celebrate and Erick even put him on his shoulders. Fink’s smile was so wide it practically stretched off his face. At one point, Fink looked down at me. He still had both the Queen and the ball in his hands. He saluted me with the Queen but kept the ball close to his chest.

I smiled up at him, though I felt a tinge of sadness. This place was all he knew, and yet for all his potential, Fink already seemed locked into this world where he had absolutely no chance of a future.