by Alex Lidell
Den’s mouth moved but produced no words. Once, twice, three times. The child repeated her question, her small hand touching Savoy’s skin and coming away wet. Den swallowed.
The soldier inside Savoy demanded he keep his mouth shut. Cursing himself, he spoke nonetheless. “A stranger wanted to hurt me,” he told the girl, “but your papa found us and chased him away.”
“Oh!” The fright in her eyes turned to awe as she gazed at Den, her face full of worship and pride. “You won’t let the stranger come back, will you, Papa?”
Den shook his head and scooped up the little girl. “I won’t, Mia.” Over her head, his eyes met Savoy’s. “I won’t.” He touched his forehead to the child’s. “What are you doing out of bed?”
She mumbled something about a nightmare and the pair left. Savoy was alone. He twisted in his binds, seeking some comfort. A body adjusted to anything. He focused on breathing, and the world had just started to dim away when footsteps roused him. Den pulled free the rope and stepped away while Savoy got his feet under him.
“Go to bed, Cat,” he said quietly. “I’ll make sure Jasper doesn’t bother you.”
Savoy massaged his shoulders and straightened, holding Den’s gaze before walking to the door.
“Her mother died.” Den’s voice paused behind him. “I have nowhere else to leave her.”
“No business of mine.”
“You’re stupid, you know.” Den’s words dripped bitterness. “You should’ve left me to stumble with her. Broken me.”
“I know.” He resumed walking.
“Who are you, Cat?”
“An idiotic, unbroken pup,” Savoy replied, shutting the door behind him.
* * *
It was two days before Den spoke to Savoy again, demanding he stay after training. The others left in a hurry, as if afraid to be named accomplices in whatever offense Savoy was about to answer for. Shrugging, Savoy knelt by the wall and awaited the coming festivities.
Den closed the door behind them. The bolt clicked as it slid into place. That was a first. His gaze remained on the lock. “You needn’t kneel. You’re not in trouble.”
Savoy rose from his usual penalty spot beside the ring in the wall and crossed his arms. This was certainly a first. Den needed something.
The trainer shuffled his feet once and turned, staring at the ground. His jaw clenched and loosened. It seemed an eternity of silence passed before he spoke. “Will you teach me?”
Ah. “No.”
Den jerked straight. “Not the answer I expected.” His brows narrowed, and he tilted his head. “Not the brightest one either.”
“I’m rarely accused of an overabundance of brainpower.” Savoy paused. “Or of making a fine pet.”
“Ah.” Den tilted his head the other way and ran a hand through his hair. Silence reclaimed its hold over the salle. A thoughtful look flickered in his eyes, and Savoy held his breath. Minutes passed before the trainer spoke again. “All right. Not a favor. An exchange? What is it that you want?”
“To get out.”
“That’d be slightly counterproductive to my cause, would it not?” Sarcasm left Den’s face and he added more quietly, “I don’t have the power to do that, Cat. I could get you food, perhaps a girl or—”
“Very well. You train me, I train you. Lesson for lesson.”
“Train you beyond what we do every day?”
Savoy nodded.
“You’ve lost your mind. You’ll collapse from exhaustion.”
Savoy shrugged again. “Can’t argue either point. The deal stands.”
Den frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it and shook away the thought. “Accepted.”
Savoy bowed, idly wondering what brilliance inspired him to better arm his own captor.
CHAPTER 31
No message came on the fourth day of Seaborn’s absence. Or the fifth. Or the eighth. Not even a note to explain the silence. Renee alternated between worrying for him and vowing to dismember the man. Alec had no theory to contribute, except to add that it was doubtful any combination of him, Diam, and Khavi would be able to open the door to the underground tunnels now that the Vipers had strengthened the lock. Bloody helpful. Following their run-in with Nino, Alec had invited Renee to visit the mage tavern more than once, but despite welcoming words, his tone lacked enthusiasm. Although Jasper and Ivan liked her well enough, she made most of Alec’s other mage friends—unregistered, outlaw mage friends—uncomfortable. He seemed to avoid the inn and private conversations with her.
Renee paced the room, kicking any object in foot’s reach. At the writing desk, Diam bent over a sheet of paper.
“How did you get nabbed in Atham?” Renee asked, stopping beside him.
“You asked me that already. Twice.” He cupped his free hand, shielding his work from view. “Someone stuck a smelly cloth over my face while Khavi hunted.” He tilted his face toward her, his eyes wary. “Are you gonna break things again?”
Renee sighed. The week had been rough on them both. “I’m sorry.” She forced a smile. “What are you writing?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Shall I guess?”
His eyes widened and he shook his head. Before Renee could fix the security breach she’d created, Diam stuffed the paper into his back pocket and scurried out the door, Khavi trotting in his wake.
“Diam!” Rubbing her temple, Renee headed outside after him, although experience proved such attempts fruitless. Catar failed to intimidate the boy any more than Atham had, discussions of Savoy’s sacrifice brought nods and tears but no results, and locking the door yielded little beyond broken windows. Acknowledging the truth that she could contain Diam no better than the Academy had been able to, Renee was left with trusting Khavi to protect the boy until she could conjure either Savoy or a way to contact his parents. At least Diam kept his vow to return home before dark each day.
As expected, Diam had slipped out of sight. The wind flung droplets of thin rain into Renee’s face as she stopped in the street and buried her hands in her pockets. The foul morning had driven a meat-pie merchant and his cart under cover of an overhanging rooftop. Despite the aroma, Renee knew better than to purchase the pastries, which had doubled her and Diam over with stomach cramps two days back. Nothing in this gods’-forsaken city could be trusted. An elderly woman, her head bent against the wind, stepped around Renee. A young lad trotting at the woman’s heels carefully cut her purse. A pickpocket. And this was the nice part of Catar City.
Renee ground her teeth together. Her frustration at all the wasted days of inactivity boiled over. She inserted herself between the culprit and his victim. The youth, a half-starved lad with angry eyes and torn clothes, snarled.
“Give it back.” Renee gripped his arm.
The boy spat.
She wiped the saliva from her cheek and folded his wrist, raising him up on his toes. “A Healer will cost more than what you got from her. Give it back.”
He swung at her face. Dodging the blow, she twisted his hand until he howled. Gawkers gathered around, willing to endure the weather for a bit of entertainment. She held fast. Let them look. She released her breath, but not the pressure. “How long do you want to keep at this?”
“This would be long enough,” said a gruff voice. Someone grabbed the scruff of her shirt and jerked her aside. “I don’t need vigilantes in my city.”
Looking up, Renee stared at the uniformed Servant of the Crown who had seized hold of her. Several paces away, his partner growled something to the pickpocket. She licked her lips and met the Servant’s eyes. “I’m not a vigilante. I’m . . . ” The words caught in her throat. She was nothing. Her career had ended before it began. “I’m . . . ” She looked away. “I’m sorry.”
The Servant’s eyes softened. “This is no place for you, girl.”
She nodded, the Servant’s words salting her wounds. There was no place for her. Not in the Crown’s Service, not at her father’s estates, not a
t her friend’s side. The Servant patted her shoulder and walked away. The old woman was nowhere to be seen. Renee stood alone.
Closing her eyes, she seized the emptiness filling her heart and tucked it from her mind. She was done waiting for news. If tomorrow arrived without a message, she’d go to Atham herself. Right after the cursed Predator match she promised Diam.
* * *
Savoy rose the morning of the fight to find tension cracking the air and his own excitement morbidly elevated. A fight for sport. A brush with the outside world. A crowd with hundreds of eyes that, for however vile a reason, could appreciate the art of combat.
And, Savoy admitted, it was amusing to watch Jasper trot in useless anxiety-ridden circles.
At present, the boy mage was supervising the bathing, as if the fighters might drown if left unattended, or else strangle themselves with the towels, which the boy already passed out and collected three times. The apparently complex task finished, Jasper invited a woman with an expression as tight as her hair bun into the bathing room.
“She’s here for the bookies,” Farmer whispered. “Can’t field an injured Predator without disclosing, so they can adjust the odds.” He jerked his head at the examiner. “She caught Jasper trying to pull one over her last year, so he’s on notice.”
Savoy tensed. The woman was a mage. Nausea crept up his throat.
Despite Savoy’s genuine attempt to cooperate, it took the examiner a dozen tries to pierce his Keraldi Barrier. His body fought her like it fought Jasper, and his heart pounded long after she walked away.
Jasper’s face dripped venom. Savoy was certain that only the bell calling all fighters to the arena saved him a private conversation with the boy. Or, at least, delayed it.
“What in the bloody hells were you pulling?” Den growled into his ear, holding him back from the others as they headed down the corridor. “Did you lose your mind?”
“Years ago.” Savoy’s gaze locked on the passage they turned into, recognizing the pattern of tiny blue amulets wedged into the stones. It was the main corridor he and Renee briefly navigated when coming after Diam. Walking in their current direction, they came to the arena.
“Find it. Now.” Den shot a glance toward the arena door. A team of trumpets roused cheers, which escaped into the corridor. The boom-boom-boom of a large drum vibrated through the tunnel. “You’re not facing a death match, but lose and you might be. Someone has to go soon. We have seven fighters and six slots. The Madam will not long tolerate feeding an extra mouth. Understand?”
Savoy stretched his back. “It’s not my first fight, Den.”
“It is here.”
The gravity of Den’s voice made Savoy pause. He nodded, pulling his mind to battle.
The arena overflowed with people, shouts, and ale. Rows upon rows of wooden benches rose high to the ceiling. With no windows to let in daylight, the light from blazing torches and lanterns gave the hall a furnace-like feel. In the center, at the bottom of the pit, stood a roofless cage where the fighting would take place. The design offered a prime view to the top seats, but would seal all inside if the exits failed. Savoy followed his group out of the tunnel and directly into a holding pen, while the opposing team made itself comfortable on the other side. The ripe reek of too many unwashed bodies in a closed space filled his nose, almost but not quite concealing another smell: the copper tinge of blood and fear.
He looked at the spectators. They seemed so close, just a few paces away. But they weren’t close. Seven-span-high bars, topped with barbed wire, separated him and them.
“Boulder, weighing in at twenty-two stone!” shouted a voice deep in the crowd. “Place your bets on the human animal!”
Green-clad young men gripping notepads scurried about the rows, stopping and making notes whenever a spectator beckoned. Women in clothing that revealed more than it hid carried trays of drink. The smell of stale wine mixed with sweat and tobacco settled over the place like a dense cloud of fog.
Savoy frowned at Den. “All I’ve seen Boulder do is move stones. Who pays to watch him fight?”
“No one.” Den’s flat voice set Savoy further on edge. “They pay to watch him kill.”
Ah. Savoy nodded, tightening his jaw. “And if he kills the ref?”
“He won’t.” Den looked toward the sand. “Jasper trained him not to.”
Savoy digested the thought while trumpets sounded and the crowd’s voices quieted to a dull roar. It was almost time. Squaring his shoulders, Savoy raised his face to challenge the room. And his heart froze.
In the second row of the middle section sat Renee and Diam.
* * *
Renee stilled her foot’s tapping. Yes, she was wasting time. And yes, the hours spent supporting Vipers’ sport were hours taken from her mission. But she had made a promise to Diam and it would not do to sulk over keeping her word. She was here. She might as well try and learn something.
Diam jerked forward, startling Renee from her train of thought. He pointed down, jostling a serving girl who scurried by with a mug-filled tray. Stale dark liquid sloshed into his lap. “Korish!” he yelled.
“What?” Renee threw her arms around the boy to keep him seated. The pounding of her heart drowned out the din of cheering drunks as her eyes followed Diam’s extended finger. She gasped. It was impossible. No, it wasn’t.
Savoy stood in the right-side holding pen, his eyes stoically sweeping the room. Centuries stretched on until all at once, their gazes met. She tensed, holding her breath. It lasted no more than a second, but then his head gave a small shake and turned away.
Beside her, Diam yelled for his brother. Renee clamped her hand over his mouth until he quieted. And then she cursed herself, digging her nails into her thighs. She should have known. Or speculated. Or found a bloody bookie and beat him into speaking. There was no better candidate for the Vipers’ games. Hadn’t Seaborn told her that? In all gods’ names, the Yellow Rose in Diam’s demand note was the same bloody Viper pit that sold fight tickets. She scrubbed her trembling palms over her face.
In the seat beside her, Diam regained all the self-control his eight-year-old self could muster and sat on his hands. “Why do they put barbed wire on the bars?”
Renee reined in her silent tirade and looked down through smoke-filled air to where vertical metal bars separated the fighters and spectators. The smooth rods rose seven spans—almost four times a man’s height—into the air to a crown of tangled barbs. The Vipers took no chances. “So no one climbs out,” she told him.
He squeezed her hand.
Music bellowed again while Renee wiped the sweat from her free hand on her thigh. Announcers shouted names and measurements, prompting bookies to close the records. A man holding a knotted rope’s end entered the cage, bowed, and pointed to the holding pens. Another roll of the drum. From Savoy’s side, a large man in white pants stepped onto the sand and gazed at the cheering crowd. On the left, a scrawny fighter in blue was shoved out, skidding to a halt in the sand.
The man in white, a bald behemoth, stopped walking and gazed about. His hand came up to his mouth and he sucked his knuckle. The referee bounced his rope-end. Once. Twice. Shouts of “Crush him, Boulder!” cascaded from the stands. The third time the referee raised his rope, he brought it down hard across the man’s bare shoulders. Boulder flinched and advanced toward his opponent.
The small man trembled. He covered his head with his hands, stretching skin taut over protruding ribs. Unlike the other Predators awaiting their turn, this one looked pitifully underfed.
“Excuse me, what are the odds?” Renee asked the spectator beside her.
“Three to one,” the woman answered.
Renee’s eyebrows rose. A one in three chance of Scrawny’s victory sounded beyond optimistic. “And if, er, Boulder wins?”
She frowned. “Of course he’ll win.”
“But the bet?”
“Can you not see it’s a death match? Boulder only fights death matches. Three he kills
before the five-minute bell, one, after. On you go, Boulder! Move!”
Gods. Boulder now towered over his opponent, and still nothing happened. The growing din of the crowd encouraged the referee to use his rope’s end. Boulder roared, cocked back his ham of a fist, and waited too long. The small man launched forward, like a rabid cornered rat, aiming his fingers at Boulder’s eyes.
That was a mistake.
He missed the eyes, and Boulder’s massive hands closed around the man’s arm. He broke it, snapping the bone to a hideous angle. Then, wearing an expression of a pouting child, he struck his knuckles against the man’s nose. Again. And again. The wound opened wider with each blow. Blood gushed down Scrawy’s chin, onto his chest, and dripped out to the sand. Renee smelled the copper.
“I gotta be sick,” whispered a voice at her elbow. Even in this light, Diam’s face had taken on an unmistakable green tinge.
Grabbing hold of his arm, Renee ushered the boy toward the stairs, ignoring the curses of the spectators whose view they blocked as they passed. She should never have agreed to bring him.
They just made it. Khavi pounced on Diam the moment they emerged outside. The boy clutched his wolf’s fur—she could no longer think of Khavi as a dog—took a breath, and jerked away to retch onto the ground. Renee rubbed a circle on his back, grateful they left before he could see his brother pushed into the cage.
“Renee? Are you well?”
She jumped and turned at the sound of Jasper’s voice. The skinny mage closed the door behind him and adjusted his glasses. Khavi let out a low growl, but Renee welcomed a familiar face. “A bit more gruesome than expected. What brings you here?”
“You didn’t see me?” He looked disappointed when she shook her head. “In the right pen,” he prodded. “With the white pups. I’m their keeper.”
Renee’s mouth dried, as much from Jasper’s words as from the fear that Diam would blurt out Savoy’s identity. The child, however, remained silent and held Khavi’s fur in a death grip. She cleared her throat. “I wanted to see them fight, but . . . ” She jerked her head at Diam, and Jasper nodded in understanding. “What’s a keeper?” she asked.
