Caged Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  The two departed, with Hark calling over his shoulder, “Good hunting, my friend.”

  Leto stood, chest out and spine straight. He no longer wanted to be numb either. He’d been selfish for too long. After this match, with Pell safe, he would do what Nynn needed—even if that meant tearing into her thoughts with his bare hands.

  He looked down at his hands. Scarred. Calloused. Too many years of abuse for his body to repair itself. If using force would make this better, he would’ve done it already.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Nynn smiled at Silence and Hark as they entered the Cage. It was a nasty smile. It felt nasty on her lips. Yet she would’ve traded her partner for either of those Sath Thieves. Leto of Garnis was still shackled to her—although not literally. No one entered the ring to bind them together. She didn’t think she’d be able to stomach another such round. Chained as a pair, they took the applause as a pair. The champion of the Asters got to take equal credit when her gift blew the air out of their opponents’ lungs.

  She wanted to scratch the tattoo on her shoulder. Scratch. Peel. Rip it off. This was her third match. Leto fought for a promise for his sister. Nynn intended to appeal to the Old Man. A new tattoo. A serpent. One that proved she belonged among his best warriors.

  First she needed to win.

  Thousands of people bellowed their eagerness to get the evening’s final match under way. Nynn bounced on the balls of her feet, back and forth, and loosened the ligaments of her shoulders. Leto had wanted her to use the whip-thin sword edged with gold. She’d stuck with her heavier, austere choice and her right arm had compensated. She was stronger now. Strong enough to take her place as the Asters’ champion.

  The bell sounded.

  The collars winked out.

  The fight was on.

  Nynn had gained so much control of her gift, but it remained a slow process. Build the energy. Release it. She hovered back as Leto took on the paired Thieves. Her opportunity would come. If she had her say, her partner would stand dead center of the blast.

  Leto was in fine form. Fast. So fast. By the time his eyes set on a target, his body was already there. The mace swirled in his wake like a contrail.

  She shook her head. Pressed fingers to her temples. Sometimes words came to her that didn’t make sense. She saw the image of a plane, with a defined trail of white lancing the blue sky in its wake.

  She lived in the complex. She was losing . . . missing . . . something.

  “Move!”

  Nynn snapped back into her head with a crash. Leto’s warning had come just in time. She raised her shield and deflected Hark’s pouncing assault. He’d stolen Leto’s agility and speed. She landed on her back, shield over her chest, with Hark balanced there—practically squatting. He looked over the rim with that infuriating smile.

  “Are you sure you don’t like being numb?”

  Mouth open, Nynn couldn’t speak, could barely think. She let her body take over. The collars reactivated, so it was strength against strength. She used momentum and a trick of balance to fling Hark away. Bounding to her feet, she found Leto dodging Silence’s fierce shield.

  The break was brief, as the collars deactivated again. Her gift, coming and going on a whim, was like drowning—catching a breath—drowning again. Whoever was in charge had shortened the bursts, perhaps to compensate for her ability. She couldn’t get the rhythm of it. Every time she gathered enough concentration to hurl a ball of energy, she lost it again.

  No.

  It wasn’t the collars this time.

  The Sath had teamed up to take the power from her. Beyond a blue blaze of light and her own red fury, she saw Hark laughing. Silence was nearly . . . sympathetic.

  Leto’s shout was drowned in a sea of pure energy. The force slammed into her like taking a wrecking ball to the chest. The back of her head connected with one of the octagonal frames. She had a brief moment of déjà vu. Once, long ago, she’d let go—let it all go—and had wound up with her head smacked flat against the pole.

  Then the image was gone, because she was screaming. Fire lanced across her body. She practically felt the metal of her armor dissolving into hot glue. Or, Dragon-damn, maybe that was her skin. Her nerves swam and collided. No relief. No air. No telling up from down from death. Her lungs felt crushed in on themselves. Even if she had a thousand bones, they would all be shattered. Pain beckoned her toward unconsciousness. She tried to keep her eyes open but failed.

  With her body made vulnerable, and her brain left defenseless, a concussive force of another kind slammed through her skull.

  Crowds? A Cage?

  Leto was shouting at the Sath. “What the fuck was that?”

  “A test,” Hark replied. “We can’t rely on a weak link.”

  At the man’s mock salute, Leto took up his mace as if to resume the fight. The crowd thundered its approval.

  “Leto!”

  Her scream jerked his head. He ignored both Hark and that thumping call to violence by kneeling beside Nynn. He lifted her head and brought it to rest across his thighs. A manic bubble gurgled up from what was left of her consciousness. “Not a good pillow.”

  Why did she need him? Why had she bellowed his name? He was her tormentor and her captor. Only, the shelter of his arms made her shudder. His body forced her to feel pleasure and relief and utter confusion.

  “Nynn, open your eyes. Now, lab filth. Open your eyes and look at me.”

  She flinched. Lab filth.

  Why do I have scars?

  Leto leaned close, but that didn’t make understanding him any easier. “I lost,” he said. “We lost. That applause is for the Thieves.”

  “What happens to us now?”

  “You survived. That was the agreement. I think it will depend on which way the Old Man wagered.” He unfastened what was left of her armor, which still smoked and hissed. “But now we’ll know.”

  “Know what?”

  “If he can be trusted.”

  Nynn tried to push him away, but he was too powerful. “You’re talking blasphemy.”

  “He’s not a god,” Leto hissed. “He’s a lonayíp human. We’re the gods.”

  The world had gone gray until the lights looked like glowing thunderclouds. He wasn’t making sense. Jealous still? No . . . They’d lost.

  “You blame me.”

  “You idiot woman. Whether he lost money or won, the Old Man promised my sister would be cared for. All I needed to do was keep you alive for three matches.” He dragged her to standing, despite her protests. “I have.”

  She sneered.

  “Fine,” he said, jaw fixed. “We have. If he honors his word about Pell, then he might do so with regard to your son.”

  “My . . .”

  Images flooded back. A man she loved . . . and blood. A little boy . . . and tiny, precise wounds. She saw her mother and a house demolished by a blaze of fire. She recalled Malnefoley—his years of friendship and support, and the decision that had made her an outcast.

  More memories, this time of captivity. Humiliation and rage and promises she believed would free her son. Violence and endless hours of disciplined training. She’d been Leto’s warrior to mold. They had been lovers, too—as close as man and woman could be.

  The halves of two different lives smashed together and spiked from her forehead to the base of her spine. She remembered a soothing copper light and a voice speaking directly into her mind. A serpent’s voice.

  Ulia. Telepath. Gift.

  All that she’d been, both Nynn and Audrey, had been blocked. Wiped clean.

  The darkness could take her now. All she knew was bursting apart, as surely as her gift burst into fields of light. She didn’t—couldn’t—

  “I have scars because of Dr. Aster,” she said haltingly. “I met Caleb MacLaren in school. He was my husband and he’s dead. Dragon damn, Leto.” She smothered her cries by shoving her knuckles into her mouth. “I hated you, but I don’t hate you. You’re . . . You’ve helped me survive.
Resist the Asters. For—for . . . my son.”

  “Yes.” His expression was intent, eager. “Make that leap, Nynn. I’ll catch you. Just tell me his—”

  “Jack.” She closed her eyes against another blinding wash of pain. White and black fused as if neither existed. Nothing did. Just the agony of nearly having lost something so precious. “How did I forget him? How could I?”

  “This isn’t the time.”

  “Isn’t the time?”

  “Trust me. By the Chasm and the Dragon, can you do that?”

  “Tell me why. Leto, I don’t have anything else. Give me something to know.”

  “Now is when we’ll see if the Old Man can be trusted.” Leto hauled her along his side, then kissed her temple. “About my sister, and about Jack.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Leto needed to get Nynn out of the Cage and back to the complex before too many pressures caused her mind to implode. Already, when he looked down into her heavy-lidded eyes, he saw nothing but defeat.

  Sweat tinged with blood trailed down from her hair. A human would be dead by now. The concussive force. The blow to the back of her head. Her feet tripped along, but at least she was holding up the majority of her weight.

  Get her out of here.

  Keep her safe.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  Although victorious, Silence and Hark stood quietly by. They were good warriors—better than good—because they had perfected self-defense of a different kind. Blank disinterest from her. Grinning idiocy from him. Those expressions were exactly what everyone anticipated seeing, which had allowed them to appear good little soldiers for so long. Leto had never considered them allies, but at that moment, he grasped at the best he could find.

  Their plan . . .

  The Old Man entered the Cage, as did Dr. Aster and the Pet.

  The crowd quieted.

  The Old Man was given a microphone. His rasping, crushed voice was even more threatening when amplified. “Our champion, Leto of Garnis. Defeated!”

  While thousands celebrated the novelty, an honorable, loyal part of Leto pinched into a stone that dropped through to his gut. Emerging undefeated had been the goal. Once. Too long ago to remember. Now, he held Nynn, who was mostly conscious. He had dragged her through three matches, dodging her wrath along the way. He had succeeded.

  Yet having to let go of that former glory was like ripping out his ribs. He needed his ribs. He needed his pride. The latter had been pulverized.

  The rumble of shouts quieted as the Old Man continued gloating. Maybe that answered whether he’d be wrathful or pleased with the outcome. Had he lost part of the Aster fortune, Leto might as well resign himself to an execution in the preliminary round of the next Grievance—Leto, who’d won the entire tournament at age sixteen.

  Again, he felt a tingle of that old simplicity. Fight. Win.

  Nynn groaned and coughed up a fleck of blood.

  Nothing was simple now.

  Amid the chaos, the Pet walked with ethereal poise across the scuffed clay floor. She wore her customary black leather, from her spiked collar down to slim-fitting boots. Intensely black hair swept in freakish disarray across her brow, around her ears, down her neck. None of it mattered. She was a riveting beauty—untouchable and cold, but with features pure and unsullied, as if she’d never conjured a single thought.

  She hunched close to Nynn’s body, touching, almost caressing the shattered armor.

  “What in the Dragon . . . ?” Nynn whispered.

  “No. Because of the Dragon.”

  “Who are you?”

  The Pet focused her bright green eyes on Nynn. “The Chasm isn’t fixed.”

  “You’ve said that before. I don’t understand.” Her body was going into shock as she shivered against Leto’s side.

  “Jack is waiting for you. Nothing will ever be perfect for our kind. But you will hold him again.”

  With a strangled gasp, Nynn faltered. Leto caught her in his arms. At least his strength was good for something, because his thoughts were a tangle of wire and chain. He strode past the Asters and out of the Cage. The doctor’s laughter trailed after him like a dirty stench.

  The stench of the labs.

  Just out of sight of the madness in the Cage, Nynn sputtered back to life. She fought him, hard enough that they both collapsed onto the concrete floor of a walkway in the rear staging area.

  “Say something,” he growled.

  Too much. He couldn’t process this much at once. So he took it out on her.

  “Talk to me, you useless woman!”

  “Let me kill him.” She rolled onto her hands and knees. The dragon on her bare shoulder blade gave off that ominous, beautiful glow in the corridor’s dim light. Her armor was a lost cause, but the steel in her body remained. “He’s in the Cage. Right now. I’m going to kill him.”

  “With what? Are you going to spit on him, too?” He grabbed her chin with none of the gentleness the Pet had used. “You’d better learn to play dumb fast. I don’t know what’s happening in that head of yours, but it’s all shaken loose. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Everything. I don’t—like a car crash in my brain.”

  Leto exhaled. “Brave girl.”

  “I don’t understand any of this.”

  He’d have thought himself too tired and abused, with his pride burned to cinders, but he managed a sick smile. “Then we’re partners again. I don’t either.”

  “She said Jack is waiting for me.”

  “That doesn’t mean a Dragon-damned thing. She’s like the doctor’s extra limb. Whatever she said was something he wanted her to say.”

  He pushed to his feet. He could save Pell and keep Nynn from getting herself killed. If either of them was harmed, he’d take his rage out on Silence and Hark. The plan they’d suggested was tantamount to anarchy. What they’d actually done was take the choice out of his hands.

  For the best.

  He’d never adjusted well to change. Everyone knew that. Now he needed to move as quickly in his mind as he could with his body. He was no longer the Asters’ champion, and his future was not clear. All he knew was that Nynn remembered her son. That eased the tightness in his chest that he’d carried for months.

  Leto pulled her face nearer until their foreheads touched. “We haven’t much time,” he said. “We’ll have to take the bus back to the complex.”

  “There’s snow outside. We’re somewhere high altitude.”

  A shudder traveled across his body in a slow but leveling journey. “Is that what it is? That smell of cold?”

  She touched his face. “Yes, Leto.”

  “You’re back to thinking about getting free.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Hark and Silence have a plan.”

  “Incinerating me with my own gift,” she said with a hard twist of her lips. “Great.”

  “I don’t know that I trust them either. But right now, you need to do just as I told you. Play dumb. Be as brainwashed and compliant as I was.”

  “Was?”

  He nodded while pulling her to her feet. “Was.”

  “I don’t know whether to gloat or celebrate.”

  “Both. But later. If they think you’re useless or dangerous, they might send you back to the labs.”

  “I’d see my son again.” Her hands fisted within his.

  “But without the means of setting him free. Think like them. The long game.” He dipped his head, only briefly. “It’s something I’m not used to doing.”

  Darkness passed through her eyes. He watched it as if her soul were being poisoned. Voice flat, body trembling, she said, “I was Audrey MacLaren.”

  Not again, Nynn. Don’t go.

  But he forced his stiff neck to nod.

  “Before that, I crippled my mother so badly that she’d begged for death. How could I have forgotten that?”

  “You . . . ?” He touched her cheek as understanding dawned. “The psychic block. Calm yo
urself, or you’ll never sort through the answers.”

  “I was already a killer. Who knew? I was meant to be in the Cages all along.”

  “You weren’t. Not you. Not down here.” The vehemence of his reply startled them both. Logic be damned, he was being selfish—and it felt amazing. “Do this, Nynn. Do it or they’ll take you from me.”

  Her expression softened. She leaned into where he still cupped her cheek. “We can’t have that, now, can we?”

  Then, as if by the trick of some magician, her gaze went hazy and heavy-lidded and dead. She was no magician now. More like a blunt instrument. She straightened her shoulders. Even in that ruined armor, or perhaps because of it, she looked every inch a soldier tamed by the Asters. Humbled, yes, but still proud, ready to rise again.

  He recognized that posture. He recognized that stance and that vacant acceptance. He’d seen it in the mirror every day since his adolescence, when defeat was more common than victory.

  “I’ve turned you into a fiend.” His throat was tight enough to gag him.

  “You’ve taught me how to survive. Let’s keep it that way.”

  A curt nod.

  They cleaned and stowed their weapons, soon joined by Hellix and Weil. Weeks had helped the woman recover from Nynn’s attack during her first Cage match.

  “Well, well,” Hellix said. “The Thieves figured out how to turn your freak against you. The champion taken down.” His sneer warped into a smile without mirth. A pitiless expression. “Maybe your punishment about her tattoo will be the first of many. I’d love to be the man who struck the lash on both of your backs.”

  At Leto’s side, Nynn didn’t even flinch. Because she didn’t remember, or because she was that in control? She’d teased Leto, and she remembered Jack. He had to trust that her blankness was an act, just as he’d encouraged.

  “How did your match fare, Hellix?”

  “I’ll rip out your tongue, lab filth.”

  She arched a golden blond brow. “I guess that answers my question.”

  With that snide reply, she put an end to Leto’s doubts. Nynn was back. She was returned to him. Now to keep from letting everyone else know that.

  After the rest of the Asters’ warriors returned their weapons, they walked toward the airlock corridor. Silence and Hark assumed no boasting posture, each flicking glances at Nynn. Silence kept her expression as placid as always, but Hark radiated an air of accomplishment paired with eyes brimming with curiosity.