Thank the gods for that.
“Well, I bought one of those scrolls. Slavery never made me comfortable. I would never have gone to the Colosseum if my friends hadn’t taken me. My parents didn’t own any and lost some status when they refused to engage in the practice. They raised me to believe everyone deserved to do work they wanted and earn a wage from it. They had apparently disagreed with the War before I was born. I was born shortly after.”
“It’s good to hear there have always been good Elvasi,” she said, looking away. “Keep going.”
“I read your story. Daughter of the great Andinna general, given a privileged life in Shadra’s palace, then you killed one of her guards, unprovoked.” Mave snarled when he said that, so he stopped for a minute, letting her turn those hard, cool steel eyes on him, full of rage. “I didn’t believe it,” he said softly, hoping she would calm and see the truth on his face. “I wasn’t a complete fool. I knew what happened to slaves. I heard what my friends said about the ones they had encountered. I…knew it couldn’t be true. My parents had also filled my head with how Andinna were a wild people and could be very fierce, but that you weren’t mindless killers. They had lived up north for a time before the War and moved south to get away from the fighting and armies the Emperor had marched through, you see.”
She said nothing, only watching him now, her body relaxing again.
“So, I saw you fight. I saw how you refused to bow, and I guess I grew obsessed. Seeing slavery in its most disgusting and brutal form made me angry. I signed up for the military the next day, telling my parents maybe I could go down there and protect a few slaves from the Elvasi. I never imagined what I was walking into would be like it was, but I was a young, foolish man. And for six hundred years, I was down there, watching.
“About fifty years in, someone got in touch with me, and soon, I was wrapped in with a group in Elliar who whispered about one day freeing the Andinna. That didn’t become useful until one day when Dave told me he needed my help. We both knew we were on the same side, but we never spoke, never helped each other. We couldn’t give away that we were connected by anything but the pits.” Trevan rubbed his hands together.
“The two…Matesh and Rainev. When they were brought, we had received word someone was hoping to free them. I told Dave I wouldn’t help those two without helping you. For six hundred years, I watched you become colder and colder. Seeing you with them, I knew your future was with them, so I fought to see you go, too.”
“And you were right,” she said softly.
“I guess I was.” Trevan chuckled sadly. “I thought I was going to die that night. I was prepared for it. I had achieved the goal I had set myself six hundred years before. It would have been a good death. I was accepting. My parents never taught me any of that, but I…” He touched his chest, hoping she understood what he felt. “I promised something, and I intended to see it all the way through. I clung to it while I was in the pits, and it wasn’t easy.
“Between the Elvasi and the Andinna, even Shadra herself, I had everyone telling me I needed to be a certain way—I needed to sell out whatever I knew about the Andinna to gain my freedom—but I couldn’t because I was set to continue being…good.” He waved a hand at her.
“So, there you go. That’s how I came to be the Elvasi who worked in those pits for six hundred years and ended up helping free you.”
“I hope I’ve lived up to all the dreams you had for me,” she whispered, blinking several times. “I didn’t know anyone dreamed for me. Dave, you…” She turned away and leaned over. “You saw me on those nights I had to crawl back to my room, hoping no one would find me.”
“I wished I could have helped you more,” he said, meaning every word. “If you had been my sister or my friend, I would have killed someone for doing that to you. That’s why I never understood slavery. What was it about you that made it okay to do to you when it wasn’t okay to do to our own people?”
“She wants to break us,” Mave said, holding her face for a moment longer, then taking a deep breath. “She wants to break our spirits and turn us complacent. Maybe one day, when the strong wills were crushed, she would have freed us to be regular citizens. We’ll never know.”
“No, we won’t,” he agreed, “and I’m okay with not knowing. I would rather see all of you as you’re meant to be than to see you under her boot ever again. Elvasi, we’re a proud, vain people. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s what we are, we just need to learn to control it. Andinna, you are a warrior people, and you stand strong, but you live with a sense of balance. That’s what you are, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
He had come to terms with it since he had come to Anden. They lived in balance with nature, in balance with the concepts of life and death. Everything they did respected the world they were in, adapting, not forcing. They were a people of dominance and submission, but they always submitted to nature, respected and treated it properly, protecting it.
The Elvasi had only crushed it, destroyed it, and ruled from ivory towers.
“Are you proud and vain?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t…possibly. I went to work in the pits, thinking I could make a difference, like a child playing a game he didn’t belong in.” Trevan finally walked over to the log. “In the end, I learned. My time down there, both as a guard and as a captive, humbled me. Mave—”
“Quiet,” she ordered, standing up as an Andinna male walked out of the trees.
The male pointed between them and started growling out words in harsh Andena. Trevan recognized him, another gladiator, and probably the worst one who could have walked in on their conversation.
“Speak Common, Kenav. There’s no reason to use a language he can’t understand because you’re feeling like an ass,” she growled in response to whatever he had said.
He continued to rail at her in Andena. She stormed up to him, snarling back in the same language. Trevan got up slowly, wondering if he should have brought his own sword. He considered grabbing hers to throw to her since the male was grabbing the hilt of his own.
“Yeah, I can speak in Andena,” she snapped in Common again. “Funny how things changed once I met respectable Andinna.”
“You can at least have some fucking pride in it by not speaking fucking Elvasi right outside the fucking village,” he growled, switching over to Common as well. “It’s insulting to our people.”
“Every member of the Company knows some Elvasi, even if they aren’t fluent in it, which most are,” she fired back. “There’s no shame in learning a language that can help keep you alive at the end of the day. You don’t get to talk to me about what’s insulting to our people, Kenav. Not today, not tomorrow. Don’t presume you have that sort of power just because Alchan made you one of his advisors.”
“Fine, Champion,” he snapped. “But don’t think I won’t be reporting this.”
“Go ahead and report it, Seventy-Two,” she hissed. “And we’ll see whose crimes are more severe. There’s a lot Alchan knows, but I bet you I can find something that gives me the right to put you out of your misery. Try to pick a fight with me now, and I can promise you, I will win. I’ve only gotten better. Freedom hasn’t made me complacent.”
He backed away from her. Trevan had seen this dance before. Mave always had her ways to keep the gladiators from getting too close. She had grown proficient at it over the years, forcing them to keep their distance under the threat of death. He was almost relieved to see some things hadn’t changed. It meant she was safe from any bad blood from the pits. He would have felt like he failed if that had followed him from freedom and invaded her new life.
“He pardoned us—”
“On the condition you don’t keep up the behavior,” she reminded him swiftly. “We don’t like each other. We will never like each other, but we can agree to work together. I know the pits were a terrible place, and we all did horrendous things to each other. I’m doing my best to move on and let all of you help
the rebellion because the Andinna are yours as well, but don’t ever try my patience. There were some things done to me, I will never forget that you had a hand in.”
He scoffed and started walking away, shaking his head. Trevan walked closer to Mave, wondering if she needed anything.
“Is this going to be a problem?” he asked in Common, not going back to Elvasi since it was obviously a bad decision.
“No,” she said, sighing. “I’ll have to tell Luykas or someone I had a run-in with him. Maybe we shouldn’t have used Elvasi, but it wasn’t something that needed his level of aggression.”
“What did he say?”
“You don’t want to know,” she answered softly. “It wasn’t kind and was along the same lines of things he used to say to me regularly in the pits. I won’t repeat it to anyone because then my husbands will kill him for something small in the scope of things. Alchan will have to punish my husbands for that, then I’ll fight with Alchan. It’s not worth it.”
“Ah.” The fact that she could figure out that entire chain of events and was dead serious actually concerned Trevan even more. “Would they really?”
“In a heartbeat,” she confirmed. “And Alchan would have to deliver his justice swiftly. Then we collapse as a people because I’ll kill my king before he kills my husbands. It’s something Alchan and I have had to deal with before. He once told me he would kill me if I tried to kill Luykas. I knew he was serious, and at the time, I knew he would succeed.” She thumped his shoulder in a friendly manner, and Trevan wondered if she even realized what she was doing.
“Let’s get back down, so you don’t miss training. Do you mind if I stick around? I want to see where Luykas has gotten you and that mutt, Emerian.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Something seemed easier between them as they walked back down the trail. Mave chuckled as she pointed out Vahn, who was rolling around in the dirt, and Trevan laughed.
“Trevan, before we get there,” she said as they stopped in front of his house. “I hope you’ll feel more comfortable here and know you can always come to me as a friend. We have history, and I would love for that to be a future. One where we speak and continue to foster some understanding.”
“You don’t need to—”
“I want you to be my friend,” she said, cutting him off, then walked off in the direction of the training field.
He smiled.
I want to be your friend, too.
31
Mave
Mave watched their training, glad she could finally find what she wanted out of Trevan, and he had been receptive to it. He had been an unknown light in the darkness, and she was glad to see him finding a place in Anden, free.
It was right. In her bones, she knew she had made the right decision. He would be a good friend and ally.
“Mave? Is that my Mave I see?” someone called out behind her. Turning, she grinned to see Rainev land with his father right behind him.
“Rain!” She laughed and opened her arms, letting him come in for a hug. “How have you been? Neither of you came by last night for my welcome home dinner.”
“We figured you needed time with your husbands, so we stayed over in the other village to keep helping this morning too. There were some logistical problems about how the housing is arranged over there, but we worked it out.” Rain squeezed her tightly. “I heard about…” He pulled away and looked at her arms. “Those.”
“Yeah…” Mave sighed. “Those. I know. Let’s just skip the conversation, please. I don’t know why or how. Everything is fine. There’s nothing crazy going on as far as anyone knows.”
“Sure, because Andinna wake up with new tatua all the time,” Zayden said, narrowing his eyes on it. She reached out and lightly shoved his chest. He looked up, and something hot was in his eyes—not just insult from the light, playful shove, but a dare. “Let’s not start that. I’m all healed. I don’t have any reason to spar with you now.”
“But you’re going to, anyway,” she said as if he had already agreed. “Now that you’re healed, we can start up group sessions in front of home every morning before we all go off to our tasks. Allaina does it with her males.”
Zayden’s eyes went wide, then narrowed again as he listened to what she had said. She knew he was putting the pieces together. She was treating him like he belonged to her, and in her mind, he did. Kian and Nevyn said she had to pursue him now, so she would. She would make sure he knew she wanted him—in her life, in her house, and hopefully, one day, in her bed.
He smiled a little after a moment and looked away.
“I’m not your male,” he reminded her. “But I live in your house, so you put out a rule we train every morning, I’ll be there.”
“Good,” she said, still smiling.
Rain looked between them and started walking away.
“I need to get back to Alchan. You two have fun.”
Mave watched him leave, then turned back to Luykas, Emerian, and Trevan, who hadn’t paused their training. Emerian was confident with the sickle Luykas had given him, and the way the sun caught off his dark skin made Mave more interested than she had any right to be. Since he had walked off the boat, she had found him interesting to look at, even pretty. That hadn’t changed even when she had another male she wanted right next to her.
If they were meals, I think someone would accuse me of eyes bigger than my stomach.
There was something about Emerian’s plain face, though. The strong cheekbones he shared with Trevan, an Elvasi feature. The softer brow was an Andinna feature. His eyes were Andinna as well, but that blood-red was bold and vibrant against the black. They were like Allaina’s, but he had more. He had the red horns coming out of thick, cropped, black hair. The red wings and tail were a statement that couldn’t be missed.
“Mave?” Zayden seemed curious, with a heavy dose of annoyed. “You haven’t seen me in weeks, and you’re going to stare at them?”
“He’s pretty,” she said casually. “You are too when you smile, but it doesn’t sound like you’re smiling, so I’m going to keep staring at him.”
He growled and stepped into her line of sight.
“Really?” he demanded, frowning deeply. “You have three husbands, and you’re on the hunt for more?”
“I grew up without a family. I don’t think I know the definition of when enough is enough.” It was true in its own way. If she ended up with a dozen males by her side, she was positive she could make it work. If she ended up with only four, she would be happy. As long as she had a family that was hers, and they knew they all belonged to her, she didn’t care.
He leaned back, and his frown faded at her words.
“Oh. So, you are looking?” he seemed more curious now than annoyed.
“I’m always looking. I was looking before I met Mat. I have an appreciation for the form of a male warrior. I hated them, but I used to stare at the gladiators. I like the big, bulky builds of the Andinna more than the thinner, leaner forms of the Elvasi I was forced to be with most of the time.” She smirked. “I never told you that?”
“No, I think I figured until you met Mat, Andinna males were just…” Zayden shrugged and rubbed the back of his head, obviously trying not to shove his tail into his mouth.
“I have eyes,” she reminded him. “Let’s go. I’m hungry, and I’ve been out all morning.” She stepped away from him, preparing to leave. He chuckled and started walking away, but she laughed and went into the air. “We’re flying! You have to show me what you can do now.”
His answering grin was bright and wonderful as he jumped up to follow her.
“Happy?” he asked before darting away in the air. She followed him, racing him back to her house. She was going fast enough, she had to brace and land on the cliffside, barely beating him. They both did controlled slides down to her porch and staircase.
“I won,” she said happily.
“You’re small and female, of course, you won,” he reminded
her, rolling his eyes. Once they were inside, he went to the kitchen, and she sat down at the table, picking a spot that let her watch him.
“I was told recently, some males need to be pursued when a female wants them. Luykas, Bryn, and Mat all came naturally in their own ways, so I’ve never had that problem. What do you think?”
“Some males, yes,” he answered, coming out with a drink for her. “Some males need a knock over the head to know they’re wanted.” He didn’t look at her now, but she watched his face.
“Okay.” She sipped the drink. “So, you’re all healed. Have you been briefed from last night?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to go with Yenni’s party tomorrow. She’s only taking a few of her females and several males, but when I heard she was going with no one from the Company, I knew I wanted to help out. I need to get back into the fight. I’m ready.”
“Ah. Then I wish you the best and can’t wait for your return,” she said softly. “Zayden—”
“Let me go back out there and feel like a warrior again,” he requested softly. “Let me do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know I’m worthy,” he answered, looking up with deep sapphire eyes that showed the vastness of his insecurities and fear.
“Okay.”
He nodded his thanks, then left the room. He didn’t just leave the dining area, though. She heard the front door open and close, leaving her alone in her home.
Worthy of what, Zayden? Being a warrior? Being a member of the Ivory Shadows? Me? Do you even know what I want to ask you? Is it all of the above or just in general?
She sipped the tea slowly, realizing he must have made it before he and Rain had come to find her. It was her favorite, one of the least spicy varieties they had. It always picked her up and helped her get moving and tasted better than the coffee he was always pushing. With another sip, she realized he had put a little honey and milk in it just for her—none of her males liked either in their tea. She was still sitting there when all three of her males walked in.
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