Mira Threadwell's Arc

Chapter 8 of 13

Mira followed the tall fighter toward the ring, her plain cloak heavy on her shoulders. The combat circle was marked by a tall dreamcatcher staked into the ice, its dark obsidian frame and frosted webbing swaying above the platform. She stopped at the rope barrier and watched him step inside, her stitches walking without her. The first blow came fast. He blocked it well. The second blow struck his shoulder where her doubled seam used to sit. The seam was gone now, picked apart by the inspector and never put back. The single-ply patches flapped open like loose pages. A snowflake lantern hung over the ring, and its light passed clean through the gaps in the cloth. The third blow dropped him. He folded at the knees and hit the ice hard. The cloak spread under him, torn at the shoulder, the bone toggles scattered like teeth. The carved serpent token slid free and skidded to the edge of the ring. The crowd went quiet, then loud. A woman near the rope barrel pointed straight at Mira. She shouted that Mira had known. She shouted that Mira had watched the seams come off and said nothing. Hands slapped the white birch staves of the barrel beside the ring. More voices joined. Why didn't she warn him. Why did she let him wear it. Mira climbed onto the barrel so they could see her. She lifted her voice over theirs. She said the cloak on the ground was not her work. Her work had doubled seams and bone toggles locked through three layers. The guild stripped it. The guild displayed it. The guild let a thief copy half a pattern and call it whole. She pointed at the torn cloth and said that was what their rules built. The marshal moved toward her, but a fighter near the front had already crouched by the fallen cloak. He held up a loose patch and a broken toggle for the crowd to see. The muttering changed direction. Mira stepped down from the barrel. She had not won her name back. But for the first time, the ring had spoken in her favor, and the crowd was listening to the cloth instead of the guild.