It was no mistake that before they really said anything to each other, as the streets of Peace and Quiet were winding down from the long day, Cari brought Tay to the place where they’d first met.

The old candy shop was closed now. Gharhell had put planks over the windows and bolted the door shut. But she hadn’t taken all of the candy out, which only made everything inside smell all the sweeter as the sugars aged. There was a line of kids hanging out just outside the window that scurried away when they approached, just like wildlife fleeing from the hunter’s appearance. Some of the kids, Tay recognized.

Which was ironic, because most of his memories about this place were full of holes and dead ends. He knew that he’d slept upstairs, in a tucked-away room, with only a dresser. But whose dresser was it? It hadn’t been his from before he came to Stormwall.

That’s how all his memories about the candy shop went. He had about half of the picture left from living here, and just looking at it, decrepit and closed-off, made his numb hand throb slightly. And while normally Tay would’ve been thrilled about having any feeling in his hand, this felt more like his transformation quickening than lessening.

But he was here for Cari now, so he’d worry about that later. She had her arms crossed and hair pulled down to keep him from viewing her face. She was lost in thought at the moment, staring directly at the threshold of the shop.

Then, she said, “I never even got to say goodbye to him. We were in such a hurry—everything happened so fast—I never got to tell him how much he changed my life.”

“Cari,” Tay said. He had nothing to follow that up though. What could he say in this situation? That it was his fault again? If he didn’t admit to what he’d done, then she’d only deny him that.

“He was the one who saved Sally and I from dying on the streets. I’d like to think we’d have been able to make it out on our own but… well, I’ve never told anyone this, Tay, but I was worried when… when we were on our own.

“Living was hard, but only because I had been living for two. Sally didn’t understand what it meant to be on the streets. She still doesn’t, to some degree. I knew I’d be able to make it without her. With her, we were slowly starving to death.”

When Cari turned to Tay, her eyes were streams. “I was less than a week away from leaving Sally when Mond found us. He saw what we were—that we were desperate and dying—and he didn’t shy away from it.”

Tay put his left arm on Cari’s shoulder and wanted to pull her into an embrace, but held himself back.

“He never even asked how we’d gotten onto the streets. He just brought us back here and we never left. In a way, Gharhell was right—we weren’t family. Just some urchins Mond plucked from death who would’ve sold out their own family to save their skins.”

As she spoke, there were flashes of a friendly face in Tay’s mind, but nothing more than a silhouette that only became apparent to him as long as light from a lightning’s flash lasted. Was that Mond? Even though he wasn’t sure, words surer than he was of himself tumbled from his mouth.

“Mond thought you were family. He thought we were all family.” Tay frowned at himself, because he felt a warmth in his chest. That was right. So, he continued, “Fourteen, all of Peace and Quiet was his family and he would’ve chosen to die for anyone here. This, as terrible as it is, is what he would’ve wanted.”

And Tay wanted to collapse on himself. Because some part of him knew that it was true. If he had laid out all eventualities before the man Tay knew Mond to be, even if Mond had known where each path would’ve led him, he still would’ve chosen everything that had happened. He still would’ve chosen his own death.

Tay could force himself to feel guilt about everything, and he owed Cari and Sally recompense for what had happened. But one thing was clear: Mond had wanted nothing from him, and still wouldn’t even now, from beyond the grave.

Pushing himself into embracing Cari was all he could do to keep himself on his feet. His legs wanted to collapse and he wanted nothing more than to break down into tears. Instead, he gritted his teeth and squeezed the life out of Cari.

From within his arms, whispered into his ear, Cari asked, “What did Amellia mean by tournaments?”

Tay’s breath stopped. There it was again. Tournaments. Future tournaments, or what was she trying to ask about?

“She was talking about the melee tournament,” Tay said, pulling slightly back from his hug.

Cari stepped back and out of his arms, shaking her head, eyes fierce. “No. No, she said tournaments. She spoke in plurals and said you were proven, when I wasn’t proven. She wouldn’t have considered just one tournament to be proof, especially if you only placed second. There’s more than one—you won a tournament and she knows it.

“So you need to tell me what she meant, Tay. Now.”

A part of Tay forced him into thinking about those smuggler tunnels that he’d used to find his way into Stormwall. They weren’t too far from where they were. One tier up in Duskborough and then toward the other side from the Jar.

But that was the coward’s way out. That was the old Tay’s way out.

It wasn’t his. Not anymore.

So, Tay did the only thing he could think of. It was the thing that Mond would’ve done—he could be sure of that. He told the truth. “I—I competed in a tournament here in Peace and Quiet.” And he proceeded to tell her everything.

He left no detail out, and by the time he was done, he even told her that Purvon had managed to get away as Garudigas had disposed of Rantho’s guards.

“And I know that I did wrong,” Tay said. “That’s why I’m going to get you and Sally another home and then get as far away from the both of you as I possibly can. I’ll win a couple tournaments, get enough prize money to buy you a new shop, and then I’ll leave Stormwall so that Rantho has no reason to come down here and threaten you both.”

Tay expected Cari to be mad at him. No, that was an understatement. He expected her to lose her mind, tear her—or his—hair out, and beat him over and over again until she saw reason to let him hover around them long enough to earn them coin.

So, when she started laughing to herself, Tay froze up and wasn’t sure how he should act. Cari noticed him and then shook her head.

“Do you know why I brought you here?” she asked.

Tay shook his head.

“It’s because every single day that I lived under Mond’s roof, I had to wonder to myself if I was a terrible person. I had to wonder if the only reason I still had a sister was because Mond had been kind enough to help us both out. Now that he’s gone and we’re out of here, now I know that I’m not going to abandon Sally this time. I know who I am.

“But I thought I was awful for all these years. I’m not saying what happened was a good thing, but you were right before. Mond would’ve done this even if he’d known it’d cost him his life. And you don’t have to blame yourself for it, Tay. It’s the Polamunds who are at fault here.”

Tay looked at the ground. He couldn’t stop his shoulders from trembling. Then Cari put her hands on his shoulders.

“I don’t want you to think you’re a terrible person because of Mond,” Cari said. “Not like I did. He chose this and it’s the Polamunds’ fault. You’re who you are now—and the fact that you’re helping us tells me that I don’t want you to leave when this is all said and done.”

Tay’s voice caught in his throat, but then he thought about their situation longer and said, “It’s never going to be safe for me, living here with the Polamunds.”

Cari took a step back and said, “We got you your sponsorship, Mister Iron. You can compete in tournaments that they’re in too. You want to get back at the Polamunds? All we have to do now is choose the right tournaments. They pay into them same as Amellia will. And if you win, we now have the power to start bleeding them dry.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The hardest part about taking on Amellia’s sponsorship was somehow finding a way to convince Sally that she needed to stay behind.

It was a full-time job all on its own, which was why Cari agreed to also stay behind and make sure her sister didn’t sneak out, much like she had when she’d watched Tay’s first tournament.

“But I want to see Tay beat all the topsiders,” Sally said. “You can’t keep this from me.”

“It’s dangerous up there, Sally,” Cari said to her sister, holding her by her shoulders.

“We’re from topside. I can go back. I want to go back.”

Tay’s heart ached as he stood on the other side of the threshold from Quincy’s shop. He knew how much this meant to Sally. She dreamed of being able to play in topside tournaments just like Mond had, so the fact that Tay was currently lilving her dream had to just burn her up on the inside.

Cari yanked her sister back inside like a houndmaster might try and heel their dogs, though she whispered into Sally’s ears to soothe her and petted Sally’s hair to make sure that she was okay. Cari told Tay that he should go now while he still had a chance.

Tay took that opening and left Peace and Quiet with Amellia. They chatted about various things that Tay ought to expect of topsiders on their up to to the Jar. She wanted him to understand that topsiders were generally blind. They’d have just as hard of a time telling he was a bottomsider as they would telling if she was herself. It was just important not to let them know though.

They didn’t generally like have bottomsiders mingle among them.

Now that Tay had seen how crowded the Jar could get, ascending up through the struts and wooden platforms that spiraled all the way into the sunlight above, the place seemed rather empty and hollow. There were merchants and customers and all sorts of folks to be sure, but there weren’t the swathes of crowds that Runicka had garnered only a couple days before, where he and Atro had to forced themselves through barriers of people.

As they neared the surface, Tay had to squint more and more. He’d been underground for months now. He wasn’t like Qallaz, who’d spent her whole life in the shadows, but his eyes still weren’t used to the bright light of day. It stung, plain and simple, and he wondered if his eyes weren’t permanently going to have issue seeing during plain day now.

But as they ascended up to the final platform of the Jar, the pain lessened and Tay could begin to see the true marvel of Stormwall. Because as impressive as Duskborough was, it quite literally paled to the grand marvel that was the Jewel of the East.

The Jar ended where an older part of the city crumbled away into it, with cobbled roads coming to an abrupt end. The Jar itself had to have been made after some sort of earthquake or natural disaster had allowed so many people to funnel down into Duskborough.

But the rest of the city was untouched by time or upheaval.

Giant spires of white and grey rose up into the sky like mountains that had been shaved away, until only towers of rock and stone remained. They were joined by armies of bridges which served to connect the skyline together in one continuous web of civilization. These were made out of polished stone in some places and swaying rope in others. Some buildings were topped with sleek and colored bricks while others came to domed roofs.

All of it was just as it had seemed when Tay had seen it from outside the city, but just a bit more grand now that it was up close.

Tay thought it was overwhelming, but he should’ve waited before passing any judgment because he wasn’t anywhere near prepared for the hustle and bustle that were the streets of Stormwall.

These were far wider than anything down in Duskborough, and wide enough that five carriages wouldn’t have been able to stop them had they been lined up end to end. Some streets were so wide that folk had plenty of room to walk even when merchants set up tents and wagons and carts to sell their wares, and Tay could see rows of them all the way down to the docks.

And by the Fourteen were the docks something else to behold.

The city was named after its majestic and quite legendary Storm Wall. He’d seen it from outside, but now that he was within its embrace, it was something else entirely.

Just outside the tide of the docks, a behemoth of a stone wall rose up and up and up into the horizon, completely encompassing the peninsula that the city had been built upon. Boats passed underneath the rope bridges that connected the Storm Wall to the rest of the city and lighthouses were constructed on small islands in the harbor.

Everyone knew about the Storm Wall, but no one knew how people had constructed it all the way back when the city was first founded. How had they laid the foundations for a wall against the push and pull of the ocean? Especially when that ocean was the Sea of Storms and known for its wild waters and less-than-ideal weather.

But that was the very reason the Storm Wall was so vital now. Its brick-by-brick, good-as-a-castle width and monstrous height ensured that the city of Stormwall wouldn’t be eroded by the eastern winds of the world.

Amellia wasn’t phased by any of this, of course. She practically dragged Tay to her carriage, where a long-cheeked and thick-shouldered lady held the reins of a mare and a door to a carriage. Once they were inside, Amellia began counting to herself with her fingers. Finally, she looked at him.

“Nervous?” she asked.

“I don’t think that’s quite the word I’d used,” Tay said putting his hand on his deckbox. “Shocked is more like it. I didn’t think this would actually happen.”

“Get over it,” Amellia said. “Can’t have your mind freezing up once you’re out there. This isn’t going to be like the melee. Strategy matters now, more than ever.”

Tay nodded to that and gripped his gloved right hand. He knew that battle tournaments, while not as chaotic as melees, were just as deadly. Mond had been in bed for days and wounded for weeks. If he didn’t play things carefully, he could end up with just as bad of an injury.

Or worse.

Tay’s inner thoughts were drowned out by the humdrum of Stormwall long before the carriage stopped. He first thought they’d pulled up alongside an angrey mob, because all he could hear were yells, shouts, screams, and other sorts of noises that people could make at the top of their lungs.

But exiting the carriage, Tay saw a stadium made out of stone so large that nothing from stories could ever possibly hope to match it. Its top, curving away from him, disappeared into the clouds above. While there hadn’t quite been crowds back in the Jar, those people had obviously flocked to here, as it seemed all of Stormwall was trying to pour into this single stadium.

Three large doorways the size of small ships served as checkpoints of those who wanted to watch today’s tournament. Two were overcrowded and trying to service lines that wound all the way back from where their carriage had come from. Amellia brought him to the final doorway.

But before Tay could leave the street, he happened to notice the carriage pulling up behind theirs. It was made of dark wood with painted black streets running along its sides. A dark stallion pulled it, but what had really caught his eye was the armored guard at the carriages head, holding the reins. He was wearing armor that Tay recognized plain as day.

Then a man in an emerald coat with spiky brunette hair stepped out of the carriage itself, hands behind his head despite holding a scowl over his face.

Ranthomandir Polamund had arrived.