The slaves took their leave and Alaina expected Gurun to come escort her, but instead it was Dyhar. He walked her to the lift. Once they were inside it, shunting down towards the barracks and the tunnels, he looked at her.
“I don’t know what kind of chance you stand,” he said quietly. “But know that I will be rooting for you.”
“Do you know when I’m to fight?” Alaina asked.
Dyhar nodded. “The last game, of course.”
Alaina’s heart thudded towards her heels. “A team fight?”
Dyhar shook his head. “Single combat.”
“Against who?”
“House Chara is in conflict with the Ankaa House Hetchsaakt. You will be fighting their champion, a warrior named Khamun.”
Alaina stared up at him. “An Ankaa? But — they’re enormous!”
“Yes.” Dyhar looked down at her, worry in his eyes. “But I have not taught you to be big. I have taught you to be fast. I have not taught you to be strong, either. I have taught you to be precise.”
“There’s no way,” Alaina said, panic gripping her heart. “There’s no way I can fight one of them. They’re too strong, Dyhar.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Dyhar replied. “This is what must be. Listen to me, Alaina. Be quick. He will be slow. Choose your blows. Aim for major arteries. You are a healer, you know where they are. And if you can, break his helmet. Then he’ll die quickly. That is their weakness.”
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened. Dyhar walked her past the long line of cursii towards the front of the procession.
She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to have to fight for her life. She wanted Vega, but as they walked past the fighters lined up at the tunnel’s entrance, she didn’t see him anywhere. Dyhar must have seen her looking.
“Vega isn’t fighting,” he said quietly. “So he and Bathari do not march with the other cursii. But he’ll be there, Alaina. I promise.”
Alaina nodded and then just tried to focus her eyes straight ahead as she and Dyhar led the procession through the tunnels in the lower part of the station. It was dark and gray, punctuated by yellow overhead lights just like in the barracks, and they walked until Alaina saw a metal gate ahead. Dyhar keyed it open. Before long they came to the familiar, sand-strewn expanse of the Arena. But she was not here to save lives like before, and she knew it. Alaina went to the gate and looked out at the Arena, seeing the sands as a fighter for the first time.
As the other cursii prepared for their games, Alaina stood staring across the sands until a guard came to fetch her back from the gate. She went to sit down on one of the benches lining the wall, but kept her eyes on the arena. Watched the stands begin to fill with spectators. Knew that Lennai and Atticon would be settling on their terrace to watch with their Ankaa opponents. Alaina put her head in her hands, between her knees, and willed Vega to appear to calm her down. But he didn’t.
She heard the call for the games to begin, the muffled bellowing of the Master of Games over the yelling of the crowd. The gate lifted, and the first of the cursii jogged onto the sands as the games began.
Chapter Forty-Four
Vega had expected to be in the pit with Alaina, but before the cursii had formed for the procession, Gurun had arrived in his small room and fetched him to the upper palace. To his surprise, in the slaves quarters he was washed and dressed in finery and then finally presented in the palace foyer to Domina Lennai. He bowed immediately, as low as his wounds would allow without strain.
“Come on.” Lennai waved a hand at him and led him out of the palace, down the steps to her phaeton. She beckoned him to join her inside instead of ordering him to carry it, and he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried. But he climbed into the phaeton and settled onto a seat across from her, not knowing what to expect and struggling to focus on anything but thoughts of Alaina.
“I could have loved you,” Lennai finally said, looking at him.
He kept his eyes low. “You honor me, domina. Truly.”
“No, I’m telling you the truth. Because you were my favorite.”
“I’m sorry to have disappointed you, domina.”
“Vega, look at me,” she demanded.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to her face. “As you wish, domina.”
“I gave you every opportunity,” she said, brows furrowed angrily. “I gave you every chance to win your freedom. I protected you. I made love to you. I wanted you to succeed.”
“I know, domina,” he said softly. “I am very grateful.”
“I know you fell in love with the donara,” Lennai snapped. “I am not a fool. I know you love her. And so I’ve given her this one chance as well. But you mark me, Vega. If she loses, I have already given Atticon leave to sell you to whomever he likes. And he knows I favored you, so he will sell you to the worst people he can find.”
Vega looked down again. He had nothing to say to that. He wasn’t about to be grateful to her for any of it. Not really. And he couldn’t look her in the face and lie about it. He loved Alaina and there was no point hiding it. No point pretending that he could have ever loved a slaver and a mistress, no matter how beautiful she might have been.
“You’ll watch the games from the terrace with me,” Lennai went on, when Vega was silent. “Together we’ll see if this human can save you.”
“Yes, domina.”
Vega’s heart sank. He had wanted to be with Alaina, to help her however he could. Even if it simply meant standing beside her until she had to walk out onto the sand. Now he would be made to watch, unable to help, just as she had been made to do when he fought. Only she hadn’t stayed on the terrace and watched him die. Vega was certain that if he tried to leave the terrace as she had, they would both be killed today. It was Lennai’s last, parting blow. Perfect torture. Punishment for not loving her, Vega supposed.
He grit his teeth against a surge of anger in his heart.
“You cannot command people to love you, domina,” he said quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“You cannot lay claim to someone’s life and order them to love you.” He looked into her eyes again, brazen. “You cannot force someone to fuck you and expect them to love you. You cannot buy and trade in lives and expect anyone to love you. If love is what you want, domina, then you will never, ever have it. Because love is a gift. It must be given, and it must be given freely. And until you understand that, you stupid, selfish girl, no one will ever love you.”
Lennai glared at him, her eyes blazing with fury.
But she said nothing in reply, and soon enough the guards were pulling back the phaeton’s curtains. Lennai stepped out and snapped her fingers for Vega to follow. He did so, rebellion a flame in his heart now, and went with her to the Chara terrace. He was not surprised to find that a gate had been constructed across its edge, barring the possibility of getting to the sands.
Lennai walked over to one of the sofas. “You can stand in attendance,” she said curtly to Vega, waving him towards the back of the terrace.
Vega went, and stood, hands clasped behind his back, and watched as the Ankaa of House Hetchsaakt arrived and took their seats on sofas across from Lennai. And then Atticon walked in, and the dominus paused in front of Vega, looking him over.
“The fallen champion,” Atticon sneered, smirking. “Still. Someone will pay a pretty penny to debase you further, I wager.”
“We’ll see if anyone takes that wager, dominus,” Vega muttered.
Atticon laughed. “And on the day of his destruction, he finally finds a pair of balls.” The dominus touched Vega’s face, but Vega refused to meet his eyes. “It should be a lovely day of games, indeed.”
Atticon finally moved off to join his sister. Vega closed his eyes, exhaling, and did his best to calm the fury and revulsion in his heart. He had to be strong, for Alaina. He had to believe in her, in their future, in the future they must build for their child. A free future.
Chapter Forty-Five
When Dyhar told her that Vega would be watching from the terrace, Alaina almost burst into tears. She managed to stave them off, but it was a near thing, and she could tell from Dyhar’s expression that he understood the agony in her heart. If she fell, Vega would see every second of it. And he would be as helpless as she.
When the games began, Alaina was afraid she’d go mad with waiting. So instead, she rolled up the sleeves of her armor and went to the gate, waiting as each of the battles were fought and cursii returned to the pit with wounds. She patched them up, sewed them up, set their bones and did what she could until her hands were filthy and her armor splattered with blood. She thought of nothing but saving the cursii, nothing but the work she could do and not the fight to come. It bolstered her. Reminded her of who she was and what she was capable of, how strong she could be, which she desperately needed in those hours preceding the final game.
When Dyhar arrived and pulled her away from an Errai cursu with a spear through his shoulder, she started to tell him let her work, but then she realized. It was time. So she nodded, and when he offered her a rag to clean herself up with, she waved it away.
“This is who I am,” she said. “Let them see it.”
Dyhar nodded and went with her to the gate. Her heart started to beat like a jackhammer as the gate lifted.
She looked at Dyhar and the Master of Cursii looked back at her, and smiled. “Show them the strength of the human race.”
Alaina laughed because it was absurd, not because it was funny. And she didn’t say anything back to him, because there was nothing left to say. She set her hands on the knives on her belt and walked beneath the gate, out onto the sands. The crowd was deafening thunder all around her as soon as they saw her.
Her opponent, the Ankaa Khamun, came toward her from the opposite side of the arena. Like all the Ankaa Alaina had seen on the station, he was huge and muscular, skin slick and gray like a shark’s. His face was hidden by the helmet housing the liquid from his home planet he needed to breathe. Dyhar had said to break the helmet. But Khamun was so huge Alaina wasn’t sure she could even reach that high with one of her knives.
They stood across from each other and Alaina found it maddening that she couldn’t see his face. Did he feel anything? She was feeling too many things.
She heard the Master of Games explain what they were fighting for, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter. They were fighting for her freedom, for Vega’s freedom, for any future she might have.
She drew two of the knives from her belt, and the crowd shrieked all around them. Khamun pulled a long curson blade, like the ones Vega fought with, from a sheathe on his back. Alaina had no idea how she was supposed to get under that blade, to get to him with her small ones, but Dyhar had told her again and again to be fast. And that Khamun would be slow. Adrenaline flushed her veins and she felt herself lit up with terror —fight or flight response ringing through her— and then the bell to start the game rang on the air.
Khamun lunged at her straight-out.
She dove to the side, rolling across the sand. She scrambled back to her feet as he came at her with that long blade, slashing. All she could do was hop back and back to avoid it. Dyhar was right. Khamun was slower. Slower than Alaina. Slower than Dyhar himself. As she jumped and ducked to avoid his blade, she started to see openings. If she could just get in close enough, his armor didn’t cover his arms. A blow from her blade would sink the poison into his veins and slow him down even more.
But he was strong as hell. His blade carved divots in the sand every time it landed, deep enough that Alaina could see the metal floor hidden underneath all those grains. One blow and she’d be dead, and she knew it.
The crowd was going mad, screaming and hollering and cheering. Alaina could hear them chanting Cha-ra Cha-ra Cha-ra because they didn’t know her name to chant it. She remembered what Nyssa had said, that the crowd was on her side. That she could use it.
She let Khamun back her towards the arena wall, where the lowest of the stands were only twenty feet above her head. As she ducked another slash of his sword, scrambling away, she shouted up at the stands. “Throw anything you’ve got!”
One of the spectators heard her, and he fumbled a mug of ale up from between his feet and hurled it at Khamun. It hit the cursu right in the helmet, bouncing off the back of his head. Khamun startled in surprise, turning towards the stands. More of the spectators caught on, and suddenly there was a hail of mugs and plates and fruit hurtling at Khamun.
He backed up from the wall, out of reach, and it gave Alaina a moment to catch her breath. Then she rushed him, grabbing one of the fallen mugs as she went, and threw it at his helmet. It hit him dead in the face. The helmet cracked. Khamun recovered quickly, bringing his long blade down right toward Alaina’s head.
She lifted her knife, knowing that it was no use, knowing this was it and she hadn’t been fast enough. She’d pushed herself to her limits. Khamun was too strong.
She lifted her knife and knew it was her end. Alaina tried to make peace with it, but there was no peace in her heart at all.
Her knife met Khamun’s blade. Instead of feeling the weight of his blade slicing right through her, it stopped. Her elbow locked. She dropped her second knife and grasped her own wrist to hold it. The Ankaa’s blade stopped, held in check just inches above her head. By Alaina’s own strength.
She felt her muscles start to shake, to burn with the effort of it. She should not have been strong enough to hold his blade at bay, yet she was doing it. She didn’t have time to wonder. With a furious cry, she twisted her body and turned her knife as Dyhar had taught her, at once forcing Khamun’s blade away and exposing his forearm. She drew another knife from her belt and slashed into his arm. Khamun shrieked in pain and backed away, his blade dragging in his sand as he clutched his arm.
Now it was just a matter of time, Alaina knew.
Now she just had to keep him moving until the poison worked.
He charged her again, lifting his blade above his head. She turned and ran. No shame about it at all. She took him close to the arena wall again, and the crowd pelted him with more fruit and whatever else they could get their hands on.
He plowed through it all, after her. She dodged and tore across the sands again, determined only to keep a few feet ahead of him. Just out of reach of his blade.
And eventually, finally, he started to slow. Until there was so much distance between them, she didn’t have to run anymore. He came at her in small bursts of energy, and she easily darted out of his way as he flagged. Again and again, he regained power only to lose it, and Alaina stayed out of his reach.
Until he hit his knees on the sands.
And he wavered for a moment before falling onto his face, sprawled on the ground, done.
The crowd roared, the sound a wave crashing over Alaina. It was so loud she couldn’t hear anything else, until she looked over at Khamun and saw the crack in his helmet start to expand. A few drops of liquid hit the sand. Alaina rushed over, dropping to her knees beside him, and pulled bandage tape from her armor that she’d been using to treat the cursii in the pit. She quickly spread the tape over the crack in Khamun’s helmet, and the bubbles that had begun to fly through the liquid as it escaped the crack ceased, secured. When she looked up, they were surrounded by guards, and the crowd had gone quiet.
The Master of Games walked onto the sands, his microphone walking stick in one hand. He came to a stop, staring bemusedly down at her.
“You killed him only to save him?” he asked.
Alaina shook her head. “I didn’t kill him.” She was out of breath, still buzzing with adrenaline, but quickly crashing. “I only defeated him.”
The Master of Games looked up at the Chara terrace. Alaina’s heart constricted when she saw the gate, and saw Vega just behind it, gripping its bars, looking down at her.
“Does this satisfy House Chara and Hou
se Hetchsaakt?” the Master of Games asked.
Alaina saw Lennai arrive at the gate alongside Vega. She nodded. “We are satisfied. The human has brought glory to our house and spared a gifted warrior of our enemy’s house.”
The crowd cheered, the Master of Games smiled, and Alaina —on her knees— finally burst into tears. But they were tears of joy, and freedom, and relief.
Chapter Forty-Six
Vega was afraid Lennai and Atticon would go back on their word, but the crowd and the Master of Games saw to it that they couldn’t. Not without enraging the entire populace of the station, and shaming their house. Alaina had made them look merciful and clever, and to go back on their promises now would put a target on their backs. They’d lose all credibility with the other houses on the station, and likely with the other Errai houses in the Cepheus system.
So once the crowd had quieted and the cursii had been removed from the sands, Lennai ordered Alaina brought up from the pit.
It took some time, and Vega knew that Dyhar would be with her, but he also knew they would be stopped again and again in the hallways by the spectators who wanted to shake her hand, or touch her arm, or just look into her face. She’d put on quite a show. The arena and its audience would not soon forget her. It was hard-won fame and Vega knew what it was like. Still, he felt immeasurable relief when he watched her and Dyhar walk onto the terrace.Lennai and Atticon rose to their feet. So did their Ankaa guests, who bowed to Alaina in gratitude for sparing their champion’s life. Alaina bowed back, but then she and Vega were looking at each other and Vega found he couldn’t look away. He wanted to go to her. He wanted nothing but to go to her.
Lennai clapped her hands. “Well. Good show, human,” she said, at last. “As promised, you have earned your freedom.” She pulled a heavy purse from a compartment in one of the side tables and dropped it at Alaina’s feet. “There is your prize. I will not be sad to see the back of you.”
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