He tried to tell himself that he’d done the only thing he could do. He’d survived. He’d get a chance to compete for an audience with his father in the final competition two weeks from now. And he’d kept his promise to bring Tarek out of the arena alive.
He was still protecting Tarek, though he was pretty sure the older man thought it was the other way around. Javan had spent a single night in the infirmary, but the guards who took roll at twelfth bell thought he was still sleeping there. Instead, at Sajda’s request, he’d left the infirmary each night and slept on the floor of Tarek’s room in case the warden decided to punish Sajda again by coming after the old man.
He didn’t have a weapon, and he wasn’t sure how he could defeat a Draconi without one, but at the very least, he could be a shield while Tarek ran for Sajda. Perhaps Yl’ Haliq would accept his actions as penance for the blood he’d shed.
After another rough night full of violent dreams punctuated by the thunderous sound of Tarek’s snoring, everything inside Javan felt coiled tight as he joined his fellow prisoners from level fifteen for the chore of polishing the arena’s walls while Tarek helped the cook receive a food shipment. Sajda was by the stalls having just finished feeding the remaining beasts, none of whom Javan had been allowed to see. The warden was strict about her prisoners being surprised in their final round of combat. Sajda raised an eyebrow when she saw him.
“You look terrible.”
“You could’ve warned me that Tarek snores like a lion. Like a pride of lions. Many, many lions.” He rubbed his eyes and tried to shake off the exhaustion.
“Are you sure that’s why you’re so tired? He says you wake up screaming.”
He swallowed hard and looked away. “The important thing is that Tarek is alive. I left him with the kitchen staff. He insisted. Said he had to do his job to keep the warden happy and that the warden wouldn’t dare do anything to him in front of the merchants who are delivering food today. Intizara and several of her friends have kitchen duty right now, and she promised they’d yell for us if Tarek needs help.” Javan yawned while Sajda took off her leather gloves and washed in the basin.
“Are you having nightmares?” she asked quietly as the other prisoners hefted buckets and brushes and began polishing the walls.
“Yes.” He lifted his own bucket of lye soap and reached for a brush. His body hurt, a bone-deep ache that throbbed with every move as his injuries healed. He wanted to curl up in a comfortable bed for a week, but closing his eyes meant seeing the terrible things he’d done.
“Do you want to talk about them?”
He shook his head. It was bad enough to keep replaying the memories in his head. Giving voice to them wasn’t something he was ready to face.
She was silent for a moment, and then her expression sharpened. “You need to give me another lesson.”
He blinked. “Now?”
“Unless you don’t think you’re up to it.” There was a clear challenge in her voice, and even through the haze of exhaustion and guilt, something inside him sparked to life.
“I’ll be fine.” The thought of what she might want to learn, of the bright curiosity in her eyes and the smug smile on her lips when she was sure she’d excelled as a pupil was a welcome relief from the bloody thoughts that plagued him.
Sajda switched his bucket and brush for a broom and a mop in case any guards stopped them to ask why she was taking a prisoner on chore duty to the third level. When they reached the room the more sensitive aristocrats used to avoid seeing the tournament’s violence, he lowered himself onto the softest couch in the room and leaned against the cushions. His eyes closed of their own volition. “What do you want to learn about today?”
“Jobs. I’m going to need a way to earn coin when I get out of here.”
“There are all kinds of jobs. What kinds of things are you interested in doing?”
“I like stargazing. And fighting.”
He opened one eye to look at her. “Is that the sum total of your interests?”
She thought for a moment. “I might like winning things.”
He smiled as he closed his eye. “Nobody pays you to win things.”
“Maybe I could teach other people how to win good grades at school.” There was hope in her voice, and Javan’s smile grew.
“You’d be a really good teacher if you didn’t threaten to hurt your students, and if you kept the sparring to a three-bruise maximum.”
“I don’t want to teach fighting. I think I’ll teach dancing instead.”
His eyes flew open and locked on her face. She was serious.
He sat up. “Dancing?”
She smirked.
Yl’ Haliq help him, despite the wreckage inside him, he couldn’t resist that smirk.
“I’ve been practicing. All the moves you showed me, plus a few that I added to make it more interesting.”
“I’m more than a little frightened now.”
“Come on, I’ll show you. It will be fun. Unless, of course, you can’t keep up because you’re too sore and too tired and too—”
“I can keep up with you.” He was already on his feet, the exhaustion and guilt receding as warmth lit his chest.
The cold, suspicious Sajda he’d become accustomed to reading like a book with half the sentences missing had all but disappeared after their night beneath the stars. He wasn’t yet sure what to do with the new, softer version she showed him when they were alone.
He knew what he wanted to do, but he’d yet to figure out what she wanted, and until he knew that, he was going to take things slowly.
She grabbed his hands and pulled him into position. One hand holding hers. One hand . . .
“Why is my hand on your shoulder and not your waist?”
“I’m leading.” She gave him her I-dare-you-to-try-to-stop-me look, and the warmth in his chest spiraled into his stomach.
“Then I’m following,” he said, and they began to dance, Javan humming the music he’d heard so often during his dance lessons at Milisatria.
She was right. She’d practiced. She spun him expertly and dipped him so low he thought for sure he was going to fall. But then instead of swaying for the sixth and seventh measure of the pallestaya, she let him go.
“New move,” she said as she backed away. “Brace yourself.”
“Brace for— Hey!”
She ran at him, leaped into the air, and landed in his half-raised arms. They tumbled backward, bounced off the couch, and hit the floor. Pain throbbed from his healing injuries, but he didn’t care. She was unguarded, a flush tingeing her pale cheeks, her eyes bright with challenge; and for the first time since leaving the arena, he felt truly alive.
“I said brace!” She looked indignant, and he couldn’t help the laughter that spilled out of him.
“Brace for what?” He gasped. “Did it ever occur to you to tell me what you were going to do so I could be ready? Thank Yl’ Haliq there was a couch in the way.”
She was sprawled on top of him, her hair mussed, the tip of one perfect elven ear visible. He reached up and gently smoothed her hair back in place. It was one thing for him to see her ears. It was quite another to risk another prisoner seeing them.
She leaned her face against his hand, and her eyes darkened.
The heat in his stomach spread through his veins, and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he ran a hand down her back.
Her eyes left his and wandered down to his mouth, and he was lost.
“I think I’m going to kiss you,” he said before he could reconsider it. Doubt it. Stop the idea of kissing Sajda, the girl who wouldn’t stay in Akram no matter how badly he wanted her to.
“Not if I kiss you first.”
He laughed, a little wild, a little desperate. “Does everything between us have to be a competition?”
“Not if you just admit that I’ve already won.” She grinned.
His stomach tingled, spinning in slow, delicious circles as he stared at her full lips. He couldn�
�t seem to remember why this was a terrible idea.
“You can’t win a game you haven’t played,” he said because, Yl’ Haliq help him, he seemed determined to swallow fire while pretending he couldn’t be burned.
This was a terrible idea.
He dragged his gaze from her mouth and found himself mesmerized by her dark blue eyes instead. The spinning in his stomach sent waves of heat surging through him.
“What are the rules?” she asked, smirking at him like she thought this was another combat maneuver she would excel at. Kissing him was a game she wanted to win.
Kissing her was going to ruin him.
This was a terrible idea.
He was going to do it anyway.
She leaned in first, and he tangled his fingers in her hair as her lips brushed his once. Twice. Tiny, delicate kisses that made the wanting worse.
She raised her head, and he pulled her back down. This time, the kiss lingered, and he took his time exploring the pressure of her lips on his, the taste of her mouth on his tongue. When they broke apart, there was a flash of grief in her eyes, and then she was on her feet.
“That’s enough lesson for one day.” Her voice was calm, but there was something beneath it.
He climbed to his feet. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes were too bright as she glanced at him and then away. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
He didn’t mention that he was the one who hadn’t slept. He didn’t say anything as she flashed him a little smile and then walked away.
She was always going to walk away. He knew that. Just like he knew that he couldn’t ask her to stay.
Still, it felt wrong to have kissed her without telling her first that the reason he wanted her was because he loved her.
She might not listen, but that was a chance he had to take. He followed her into the corridor just in time to see her glance down at the center of the arena and begin to scream.
THIRTY-SEVEN
JAVAN RAN TO Sajda’s side and peered down at the arena floor. His hands gripped the railing as his knees weakened. The air felt too thick to breathe, his blood too heavy to run through his veins.
Tarek lay in the center of the scarred wooden floor, his arms and legs staked to the ground with enormous iron pegs. A fifth stake had been driven through his heart.
Sajda wailed, a terrible, gut-wrenching sound that echoed throughout the arena, and then she turned and ran for the stairs. Javan followed, grief slicing into him with every step.
Tarek had been sure the warden wouldn’t attack him while the merchants were present. Javan shouldn’t have listened. Shouldn’t have left the job of guarding Tarek up to Intizara. He should’ve insisted Tarek stay by his side. Maybe he couldn’t have stopped the warden, but he could’ve tried.
Sajda reached the arena floor seconds before he did and stumbled into the arena, her arms wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold herself together at the seams.
He picked up the pace and intercepted her before she reached Tarek’s side, his heart aching. “Let me take care of him for a minute, Sajda. You don’t need to keep seeing him like this.”
She shook, a leaf trembling in his arms, and didn’t respond. Her eyes were glassy. Gently he pulled her against his body and held her. She didn’t seem to notice.
Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see the warden standing at the edge of the arena, close to the stalls. Her one eye bored down on him, and she gave him a vicious smile before heading toward her office. Perhaps she still had merchants to pay. Perhaps she’d done what she wanted and was content to leave Javan and Sajda with the aftermath.
Fury ignited in the hollow spaces of his grief, but he stayed where he was. Sajda needed him. And until he won the competition, the warden held all the power.
He couldn’t wait to turn the tables.
“Tarek,” Sajda whispered, her voice a ghost of its former self.
“Let me pull out the stakes,” he said, desperate to help in some small way, though it wasn’t nearly enough. “And then we’ll take care of him.”
“I’m stronger,” she said, and stepped away from him. Bending, she grabbed the stake that held Tarek’s left hand to the floor and yanked it out. A sob escaped her lips, and she went for the stake in his left foot. The iron left red burn marks on her palms, and the runes on her cuffs glowed like fire.
Javan stood, fists clenched, feeling useless. Every bloody nightmare he’d endured over the past two weeks, every shred of guilt he’d carried on his shoulders paled compared to this. Tarek had been his first friend in Maqbara. Without the older man’s kindness and loyalty toward Javan, Sajda would’ve ignored him. There would never have been a bargain. Never any help. Javan would’ve been dead weeks ago.
He owed his life to Tarek, and the knowledge that he’d failed to protect him was a jagged stone cutting into him from the inside out.
When all the stakes but the one through Tarek’s heart had been removed, Sajda fell to her knees beside the old man, curled over his chest, and cried. Her hands wrapped around the final stake, and she slowly pulled it out.
Javan got to his knees beside her, tears in his eyes, and said, “I’m so sorry, Sajda.”
Her hands clutched Tarek’s tunic, pressing on his chest, and the skin beneath her cuffs hissed as the runes glowed red.
She was trying to use her magic to reach him. Bring him back to life.
Dark elves couldn’t bring the dead back to life, but Javan didn’t tell her that. She had to try what she could. If he thought there was a chance of finding a shred of life left in Tarek, he’d be trying too.
When nothing happened, Sajda dropped her hands and slowly climbed to her feet. “I can’t . . . I can’t do this.” She looked wildly around the arena. Javan followed her gaze, but the warden was gone. “She’ll turn him into meat, and I can’t be here.”
Javan stood as well, his anger burning bright. There was nothing he could do to stop the warden. Nothing he could do to give Tarek a proper burial. All he could do was pay his respects in the best way he knew how, though it felt far too small in the face of this loss. “I’ll say a lament over him. Yl’ Haliq will welcome him and give him eternal rest. I wish I could do more.”
She stood for another moment, trembling and grieving, and then she turned and ran.
Javan let her go. There was nothing he could do to stem the horror and loss she felt, but he could keep his word. He could give Tarek the dignity of a proper send-off before the warden desecrated his body.
Dropping to his knees again, he gently closed Tarek’s eyes and straightened his clothing. He tried to pray, but the words caught in his throat, and he bent over Tarek as he struggled to swallow. To breathe. To do this one last thing for the man who’d saved him. Javan’s voice was a shadow of itself as he finally choked out the lament, every word a dagger that pierced him. When the lament was finished, he stayed on his knees, tears burning his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Intizara’s voice was quiet as she stepped onto the arena floor, a small satchel in her hands.
He raised his eyes to hers. She looked stricken. “What happened? You were supposed to yell if Tarek needed help.”
He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but it was there anyway, threading his words with grief and fury.
“I know.” She looked at her feet.
“Then why didn’t you? Did the warden stop you?”
“She set me free.”
He went still, his hand resting on Tarek’s chest. “Free?”
“She offered me freedom if I gave up Tarek without a fight. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave without telling you the truth.”
He was silent for a long moment as the anger ballooned inside him until he thought he’d burst from it. When she slowly looked up to meet his gaze, his voice was deadly quiet as he said, “You traded an innocent man’s life for your own freedom.”
“I held out as long as I could!” She took a step toward him, saw the expression on hi
s face, and froze. “The others in the kitchen agreed quickly, and I was the only one left.”
He rose to his feet. “So then you be the only one left. You stand in front of an innocent man, and you keep your promises. You behave with honor. You don’t betray him so that you can get out of the sentence for your crime!”
“What crime?” Her voice shook with anger and misery. “I’m here because I slapped an aristocrat’s son for grabbing my chest. He swore I assaulted him, and no one ever let me give my testimony. The others? Here because an aristocrat said they owed a debt they weren’t paying. Only two of them actually owed wahda. The others were thrown in here to get them out of the way. To let someone more powerful take their business, their land, or their families to be sold into slavery.”
He stared at her, his chest heaving, fury blazing, though he couldn’t find it in himself to aim it at her anymore.
How many prisoners were in Maqbara because they hadn’t been allowed to give any testimony or call any witnesses? How many were here on the word of an aristocrat who wanted to use the prison as a way to steal from those who already had less?
This was proof that the father he knew was no longer in charge of his kingdom. He would never have turned a blind eye to this. The aristocratic families Javan knew from Milisatria wouldn’t either, and he was willing to bet the same could be said for most of Akram. This was the result of Fariq’s treachery. His corruption had spread across the kingdom, a sickness paid for with the blood of his people.
Every person Javan had talked to within Maqbara said the same thing. The king was rarely seen now, and was known to be in poor health. Maybe he couldn’t put a stop to the damage Fariq and the impostor were doing to the kingdom, but Javan could.
He just had to make sure he won the last round of combat.
“I really am sorry,” Intizara said as the other prisoners who’d been meant to watch over Tarek joined her, carrying their meager belongings and refusing to meet his furious gaze.
“I am too.” Javan stood in front of Tarek’s body as the warden left the corridor that led to her office and walked toward the door that led to the magistrate’s office, ignoring Javan completely.
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