There is a new king on the throne, and everyone is making bets on his life.

It is just past high noon. O stands on the fringes of the crowd, screwing up her face against the blinding white sunlight; it fractures in her dark eyelashes, frosts her vision with incandescent flakes of light. Heat pours down on the crowd like syrup. O feels it on her face, her shoulders, dripping down her legs; her whole body grows warm, a stone left out in the sun. 

The street rats write down names and collect coins. From the corner of her eye, O watches as a scraggly girl with wild, dark, hair snatches money from the purse of a frumpy-looking nobleman and says acridly, “I’ll write you down, sir.” Her eyes, grass-green and sunken into the dark velvet of her face, are emboldened with bright fire. “Two months it is.”

She flips the money through the air to her partner, who tucks it neatly into a drawstring bag already bursting at the seams with collected bets. They are an interesting pair, the two of them—the crackle of annoyance in the air between them makes her think they must be related. And their business seems to be thriving: the crowd jostles against itself as they try to take their spots and make their bets against the new king’s life.

These are the facts all the gamblers have: he is young. Points given for longevity. He is of noble birth. Points given for privilege. It has been rumored, though there are conflicting reports in the Solterran library, that he is quite ill: points taken, for obvious reasons. O can’t help thinking anyone who bets on him lasting longer than a year is a hopeless optimist.

The gambler languishes the girl with a glare before backing away, and O’s soot-dark lips curl into a faint smile as she watches him stumble back into the crowd.( He is ungainly for a person of his birthright, which is exactly the kind of thing she’s always loved to see.)

Bet after bet is placed; contract after contract is written up; the whole court is alive with the sound of laughter, snapped remarks, hooves clicking on the sandstone. Heat bakes the sound into a tinny little record, playing over—and over—and over. O listens into conversations of the crowd, mildly interested, until the novelty of the eavesdropping wears off. Then she pushes her lean weight off the tentpole and slinks toward the table of food, all its bright metal dishes glinting like the Oasis does from far away, and, dog-focused, follows the smell of dark caramel and crushed pomegranate to a platter at the west end of the feast.

It’s laden with dessert: a hundred or so perfectly round flan, their faces so lacquered in sugar that they catch even the brightest bits of sunlight, freckled with jewel-red pomegranate seeds. 

O stares at them for a long moment; then she reaches out to grab one, and brings it to her mouth. 

“Speaking.”