Orla was anxious. She asked every Dragon King she freed if they had seen Hark, or even where groups of humans were trapped—more entertainment for the bloodthirsty crowd.
“Keep going through there,” said one woman. Her flame-red hair suggested she was Pendray. “I was blindfolded, but it slipped when I was dragged down here. There’s a pen. The humans smell different.”
“They do,” added Jorvaki. “Your man might be with them.”
Mal was quick to appoint the strongest of the freed to attend the rest. He used the sword to cut pipes and rebar to act as crude weapons. “Put aside what differences we have as clans. Work together, or we’ll all die today.”
“Who are you to tell us what to do?” asked a half-stripped man whose flesh had been branded up and down his thighs.
“I’m Malnefoley of Tigony. You may call me the Honorable Giva or the Usurper. Right now, I don’t care. Right now, I’m the man who helped set you free. Repay that kindness by using your Dragon-damned heads. The cartels are better organized, and when the moment comes, they’ll band together as humans against us even more readily than our clans would against them.”
He surveyed the concrete fortress with all the bearing of his station, and with the arrogance only a man of his authority could bring to bear. Avyi’s heart lurched with admiration, love, and abject fear. What could bring down such a being? She looked at him and saw indestructible power. But she’d once thought the same of Dr. Aster, that he was so overwhelming and influential that no one would ever rebel against his sick authority. Men were laid low all the time. Malnefoley could become one of many.
If Dr. Aster was the one who killed Mal, her Giva, then one of her oldest predictions was easy to imagine. She would fight her old master, but instead of worrying about its outcome, she knew the contest would be hers to win.
*
Mal flexed his arms and upper back with a long, strong exhale. He felt more powerful than he had during any time short of those brief, beautiful moments when he and Avyi had collapsed in breathtaking mutual pleasure. This was a different sort of power. This was the measure of a man coming completely into his own.
This moment made his four years on that distant mountaintop feel like he’d been a child just beginning to walk.
Although any number of those freed could’ve looked on him with derisive contempt—was being freed by the Usurper something to truly celebrate?—they stared at him with awe. A few touched his sleeves as he passed. They thanked him in quiet tones. A shiver shot up his spine.
This was power … and it was something he needed to protect, something that could easily be abused. He knew that lesson well. It was time to learn another lesson, one born of humility and temperance.
“Orla,” he called. “Grab something metal and be ready to fight.”
She already held a length of rebar about a meter long. If swung with the precision he didn’t doubt her ability to muster, the metal girding could take off a human head. A Dragon King might suffer a debilitating skull fracture or a crippled spine. The energy coming off her was potent, and growing stronger with every second. He would feel the same way, too, if Avyi were in jeopardy.
“And if any of the rest of you feel fit enough to fight with us, gear up.”
With a quick glance at Avyi, whose golden-green eyes were shadowed by futures yet to come, he exhaled again and let go of his doubts. This was happening. It was the present. The future as Avyi saw it would happen. That didn’t mean he would keep from doing his damnedest to bring down the whole fucking complex and every cartel bastard in it.
Orla took point, followed quickly by other men and women who seemed to have been trained for Cage fighting. Some bore the distinctive seven-pointed star of the Kawashima cartel, branded into the skin of their left shoulders. Few of the others bore such distinctive markings.
As a Sath, Orla was the ideal woman to lead them through the two-story tunnels that waited on the other side of the concrete dungeon’s exit. She had long experience without her collar, and knew how to skillfully borrow other Dragon Kings’ gifts without being overwhelmed by them. She was also a woman with purpose. Mal looked around to find Avyi beside him, and the rest of the freed captives taking up the rear. It seemed … intentional.
“They’re protecting you,” Avyi whispered. “Their Giva.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“As a man? Perhaps not. But as an institution, as a symbol, you mean everything to us.” She took a shallow series of breaths. “And whoever tried to have you killed before will not give up.”
“These newly freed can’t know of the assassination attempt.”
She smiled up at him, with more awe in her eyes than he was used to seeing. She almost appeared as bowled over as the rest of those he led. “They don’t need to. They’re willing to die for you. That’s real power, Malnefoley. Forget the Council. Forget our gifts. You’re the Giva we’ve been waiting for.”
He kissed her swiftly, with all the promise and hope that surged in his veins. “I don’t need another supplicant. I need Avyi. My new beginning and my partner, my equal and my Dragon-damned pain in the ass.” He caught her gaze and wouldn’t let go. “Forget gifts and visions. Tell me what you know.”
“I know I love you. Past, present, future—I love you, Malnefoley.”
He exhaled heavily, accepting her words into the darkest parts of his soul. “Then we do this.”
“Here!”
Orla’s shout prompted the Dragon Kings to surge forward. These Garnis were practiced Cage warriors, which meant Mal had been more lucky than not in besting the pair in Florence. These men and women were fast—almost too fast to be seen, with supreme reflexes and speed. Mal managed to count four before he lost track of the contrails of their bodies. The Pendray were next, roiling and raging as they succumbed to berserker furies. Their conscious minds hid beneath layers of animal instinct, like the legends of werewolves they had inspired so long ago in the Scottish Highlands.
His own Tigony fed off that energy until four sparking, shining individuals arced energy between them like children tossing a ball. Every so often Mal would feel the tap-tap of an Indranan mind, before that telepathic touch backed off. But the connection they forged helped organize the attack. And through the melee, the Sath borrowed here and there, filling in gaps in the phalanx they created.
The Five Clans. Acting as one.
Mal, at the center, had never seen anything so breathtaking. It was as the Dragon would’ve wanted.
The thought shocked him, because he’d long thought himself beyond feeling any genuine belief in their creator. But this … this was right. Their phalanx of roughly sixteen emerged into a huge domed room that looked as if a large bomb had hollowed out the earth. A practice Cage stood at its center, only the octagonal frame was not empty and tempting, ready for the strongest Cage warriors to step forward in deathly combat. It was filled with human beings like a cattle car. Perhaps they were enemies of the cartels, or simply hapless captives, but all were destined to be executed in the opening rounds of the Grievance.
Those who had been silent or even whimpering began to scream with the approach of so many buzzing, eager Dragon Kings. Mal sympathized. It would be like seeing every mythical creature made real.
All the myths are true.
Avyi was smiling up at him. “Told you.”
“Quit it,” he said without malice. “You can’t read minds.”
“No, but I can read your expressions. You know what they’re thinking, all these terrified people. We are their religions and demons and legends made flesh—and coming for them.” She crossed her arms, where her brass knuckles flashed in the light of the eight lamps atop the octagonal posts. “I’d be scared of us, too.”
“Hark!” Orla climbed the wire frame of the cage like a monkey up a tree. “Hark, where are you? You Dragon-damned fool, talk to me!”
An Indranan to Avyi’s left fell to her knees and clutched her head. Avyi quickly knelt beside the woman
, with an arm around her shoulders.
“That Sath bitch is in my head. I can’t—she’s so furious.” The woman’s neck bore the heavy ringed callus of one who’d served a long, long time as a Cage warrior. Her accent was English—perhaps property of the Townsends.
“Try to relax.” Avyi gave her a squeeze, and brushed matted hair back from her forehead. “She’s my sister. I know her. She’s terrified for her husband. Please, let her borrow your gift. Help her find him.”
“There,” the woman said on a whisper. “There he is.”
Mal and Avyi exchanged glances. “Is he alive?” Avyi asked, sounding reluctant.
The Indranan woman gasped, then fell forward. She would’ve hit the ground had Avyi not been there to support her weakened body. “She let me go—your sister. She found him.”
Avyi quickly thanked the woman, then handed her into the care of another nearby Indranan. Mal could only assume the two were speaking to each other telepathically, foreheads together, eyes closed. He chased after Avyi, to where the humans were caught like terrified fish in a huge net. Frightened down to their basest impulses, they were frantically clawing at the wire mesh of the Cage and trying to climb over one another. In their blind terror, they made even the berserkers seem lucid.
Avyi flinched back from the throbbing mob, her face dotted with sweat and panic in her eyes, but Mal watched as she visibly shoved her old fears aside. “They need us.”
“Sath and Indranan,” Mal called from a high set of metal steps. “Calm them! They’re terrified! Calm them before they kill one another!”
Slowly, he felt an eerie wave build and pulse across the domed, hollowed-out cavern. The touches of telepathy weren’t aimed at him, but he felt the brush nonetheless, like what humans believed to be ghosts—that sense of unease, of being watched. The humans began to quiet.
When he believed them calm enough to exit without a mass stampede, he gestured for two Garnis to open the Cage. They would be fast enough to quell the humans should panic arise again. He was giving commands to a pair who obeyed without hesitation.
Avyi did as her sister had, clambering over the wire mesh with superhuman agility. It was the Garnis in her, those reflexes and the gift of senses so deep … He blinked. Senses so deep that she could extrapolate events, sorting through a hundred thousand possibilities until she found the most likely outcome. Perhaps that was how she made her predictions. He had thought her gift unique and separate, but he had been looking at the end result rather than the process. Her mind was as agile as a Garnis’s extraordinary physical prowess. She wasn’t predicting the future so much as running through countless scenarios, using bits of clues and nuances hidden to everyone else, until she found the most likely path. They were probabilities that played out over and over too often to be considered probabilities any longer.
She jumped into the fray as the last of the humans cleared out. Mal rushed down the metal steps and through the Cage door. At its center lay Hark, with his head in Orla’s lap. Avyi knelt beside them. Hark was bloodied. His leg was twisted at an odd angle. His blond hair had been shaved. The Asters’ serpent tattoo wrapped around the back of his skull, with the head at one temple and the tail at the other. It was the ultimate symbol of possession.
Weeping without sound, Orla held his right forearm to the glaring lights. The Thorn that had been the symbol of their union had been torn out. A nasty gash remained in its place—a wound they would both bear.
Hark, however, remained the strangely optimistic, jesterlike man Mal had met briefly in the ruins of the Asters’ detonated labs. “Hey, Giva. Mind getting the women off me? I have some serious retribution to attend to.” He looked up at Orla. “And you, quit that bullshit. Crying over me? You’re tougher than that.”
“I am,” Orla said, her throat tight with obvious emotion. “But now I’ll have to support your lazy hide.”
Mal and Avyi helped Orla get her husband on his feet. “You two aren’t going anywhere,” Mal said. “That’s an order. We have to find a young Cage warrior named Cadmin, and I can’t have Avyi distracted. This is Cadmin’s first Grievance. She fights tonight, during the first round.”
Hark’s expression sobered. “Pendray, yeah? Young, sorta stout but with sharp features?”
Avyi nodded. Mal saw the pale gold of her skin leech of color. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Other than to save my Dragon-damned soul, you’ve come a long way for nothing.” Hark looked at each of them in turn. “I saw her fall. She’s dead.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Avyi’s knees sagged until she thought even the sturdy, wide soles of her boots wouldn’t hold her upright. But instead of falling, she channeled her disbelief into anger. “No,” she said pointing at Hark. “You’re injured. You’ve been abused. That can’t be true. She’s alive.”
Orla’s face was edged with sympathy, but she was too concerned about Hark to offer the reassurance Avyi needed. She turned instead to Mal. His lovely mouth was pinched into a frown that deepened to encompass his entire face. “When have you ever been wrong?” he asked quietly.
“About something this important? Never.”
“And there’s no chance something we’ve done could’ve changed what you’ve seen for so many years?”
Avyi shook her head. She didn’t want to consider it, even though her contradictory visions about Mal’s future made her less than certain. What special sort of hell is this gift? She couldn’t trust anything that had once been true. The only thing she knew to do was to keep looking. Her faith in the Dragon had sustained her through decades of suffering. Without that faith, she had nothing else.
“Orla, get him to what safety you can.” She glanced at Mal, her heart uneasy. “Are you coming with me still?”
They stared at one another for what seemed to be an eternity. They were motionless. No electrical current passed between them, but a deeper, less distinct jolt of pure emotion. If one person in this world was to believe her crazy, frustrating gift, it was Mal.
“Yes,” he said soberly. “Lead the way. I have your back this time.”
Only instinct now. No direction in mind. Some of the other Dragon Kings followed, likely because of Mal. She’d guess that none of them identified her as the Pet, because her appearance and demeanor had been so changed. That is, unless she’d once touched their minds. Any warrior from the Aster cartel could suspect her. They were only temporary allies, if that. She was in as much danger as Mal.
Mal … burned alive.
She shoved the vision away, reached back, and was gratified when he grabbed her hand. They ran together through the underground tunnels.
“Wait,” came Jorvaki’s voice. “Listen.”
Avyi stopped cold. She strained the limit of her senses but heard nothing.
A Sath and another Garnis nodded. Jorvaki looked gravely between Avyi and Mal. “People. Thousands of people. I can hear their voices and footsteps, far above us. It must be nearing time for the games.”
“How long have we been down here?” Avyi asked in frustration. “I thought we’d have more time!”
“Apparently not,” Mal said. His voice was calm and authoritative, but she knew his face so well now. He was as anxious as she. “Let’s go.”
Another winding corridor turned into a long, straight tunnel that had been hollowed out by what must’ve been an industrial drill. Twirling scrapes created a dizzying, circling effect all around. Avyi reached back into the quiver and withdrew the Pendray arrow on the first try. It had simply felt right—dangerous and crazy. She looked at their fat, happy fertility goddess impression of the Dragon and … saw.
“Cadmin,” she whispered.
She bolted down the tunnel, with Mal’s angered voice at her back. She didn’t stop, not even when running the length of the tunnel stole the air from her lungs.
At its end she found darkness. There was no light, but there were voices. Whispers from some. Vocal boasts from others. She remembered the Asters’
technique of transporting their blindfolded Cage warriors by bus to each combat arena. It was to protect eyes used to artificial underground lights, until they could be slowly acclimated to the brightness of the Cages. This would be even more extreme, with Battersea turned into an arena, lit like a football stadium to contrast against the deep black of the night sky.
Mal snapped his fingers. He might as well have been holding a match, so quiet was the flame. Some in the room hissed. He increased the flame until it illuminated the whole space, which was cordoned off into three holding pens.
Like animals.
They were warriors from each cartel. The ones she, Mal, and Orla had rescued had been marked for death. These Dragon Kings were prime, fit, gorgeous specimens. But, as with the partner of Mal’s cousin, Nynn—a man named Leto, who was arguably the most triumphant warrior of all time—these men and women were likely brainwashed. They had fought through individual cartel tournaments to reach this moment, when success in the Grievance would ensure the ultimate reward.
The chance at conception.
It could also mean the ultimate sacrifice. As opposed to cartel matches, which were bloody but nonlethal, these warriors would fight with Dragon-forged swords. To the death.
“Cadmin!” she shouted. “Cadmin of Pendray! I am here for you. I need you to come forward and take the weapons the Dragon has provided for your first Grievance.” No answer. “Cadmin!”
Mal burned brighter, and each Dragon King in their company searched the cartel pens. Some greeted each other with surprised relief, while others snarled insults and damned one another to a lingering death. Mal climbed atop one of the pens. He looked half animal now, with a ragged T-shirt open at the neck. His blond hair was wild. His expression was as feral as it was completely, calmly, forever in control.
Avyi’s heart burned with admiration for the man she’d unknowingly chosen to love.
“Quiet! Everyone!” He circled so that everyone in the pens could see his face. “Do you know who I am? I am Malnefoley of Tigony, your Honorable Giva. You may want to fight today, but you will not fight one another. Our people are on the brink of extinction. I forbid you to kill any of our fellow Dragon Kings. Is this understood? Our enemies are the humans who would profit from the strength of our backs and the mysteries of our gifts.”
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