You move like flowing water when you fight. It’s breathtaking, really. You’re so powerful. Graceful. I have to struggle not to touch you. All I want to do is reach out and run my hand through your hair. That’s weird, right? Sorry…” he says, grinning. “But then you usually kick me in the face and, well...it’s hard to feel romantic towards someone kicking you in the face.
I’m not calling you you anymore. I’ll think of something temporary until you can decide for yourself. You deserve a name. You deserve so much more than you have right now. I want to be the one to give you everything you could ever desire. I find it impossible that you’re not in there somewhere, waiting to wake up.
Maybe there’s a way. If there is, I’ll find it. I have to. For me and for you.
He looks so impossibly sad by the end. It’s funny how two days ago I’d never cried, and now I seem to make a habit of it. I’m going to put off watching any more until I feel stronger.
Today’s the first day I’m going to be working with Olivia. She cooks for the priestesses, and she’s arranged it so that I’ll be working with her from now on. Cooking is a completely new concept to me; I’ve never done it before, not once. Not that I have any idea how to clean or take care of the elderly or small children, which were the other options open to me, so working with Olivia seems like the best bet.
She’s an hour early when she comes to get me, but I’m washed and dressed already. I see her approaching through the mottled ocean of multi-coloured tents and go out to meet her. A large woven sling hangs over her shoulder, weighting her down to one side, which makes her list as she walks through the mud, her tiny bells tinkling.
“Hey!” she cries. “I brought you more clothes!”
“More cl—” I break off, take a deep breath. “I don’t need more clothes!”
“Of course you do. Ryka said it would be nice if you had something different to wear.”
“Ryka?” Inside the bag, a tangled mess of orange and green and blue and red awaits, along with the flash of silver sewn along the hems. Bells. It’s not just clothes she’s giving me. She’s giving me money, too. “I can’t take these.”
“You can and you will.” For the first time, Olivia looks a little fierce. She cracks a grin at me but I can tell she’s not going to take no for an answer. Stooping down, she plucks a sheer green slip from the sling, holding it up for me to see. I narrow my eyes at her.
“It’s a dress.”
“It is.”
“I’m not wearing a dress.”
Olivia flashes her teeth at me in an entertained smile. “And why not?”
“Because I won’t be able to move properly. I won’t be able to run.” Automatically, my thumbs move to my knife belt.
“What do you think you’re going to have to run from here?” she laughs.
Everything, I think, but I don’t say it. “It’s just not going to happen.”
Olivia pushes past me and staggers through the open doorway to the tent, dumping the sling onto my cot. She flexes out her hands and turns to give me a hard glance. “My brother said you’d say that. He also said I had to make you see sense. I know you haven’t exactly been out wandering though town, Kit, but people are still talking. They know there’s a girl walking around with a knife belt, and they don’t like it. If it were up to me, you’d be able to arm yourself to the teeth and have at it. But there are a lot of people here who follow the Faith and the old ways, and―”
“And?”
“And women don’t carry knives. Not here. Jack said you knew about the changes you’d have to make in order to stay?”
“Jack said I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t lose my temper. He didn’t say anything about not wearing my knives.” Ryka may have told me it was a bad idea out in the woods, but I’ve decided that his advice doesn’t count. The concept of stepping foot into Freetown without a weapon makes a cold sweat break out across my shoulder blades. It wouldn’t feel right.
Olivia’s eyebrows draw together in a tight knit line, a comically frustrated look on her. “It’s for the best, Kit. You can’t come to work wearing them. You have to be a little flexible. Please? Can you just wear this to the kitchens with me? You can change back afterwards, I swear.”
The green dress hanging from her outstretched hand looks like something Miranda would wear. Long and flowing. I stare at it for a full minute before I reach out and take it from Olivia’s hand. “Ugh, fine.”
“Thank you!” she squeals, launching herself at me. No one’s ever hugged me before, not really, and for a moment I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. With my arms pinned to my sides there’s not much I can do, anyway. Olivia’s eyes are bright when she pulls back, studying me intensely. “I’m so glad.” Her face screws up. “I’m going to enjoy telling him how wrong he was.”
“Who?”
Her facial expression levels out, back to bright and happy. “My stupid brother. He said you were more stubborn than me. What was the other word he used? Yes, that’s right, indoctrinated. He said you’d never do as you were told.”
I hold my breath for a moment, because I feel strange. It literally seems like I have to push down a swell of hot pressure in my throat. It doesn’t really subside, just gets a little less intense, until I can eventually talk around it. Why the hell do I care what Ryka says to his sister about me? I only met him three days ago and during that time he’s miraculously managed to get under my skin. “Where does he train?”
Olivia blinks, clearly reading the hard look on my face. She turns away and runs her fingers over the green dress lying over my cot. “Over on the river bank close to the Holy Walk. But Kit, don’t pay attention to anything he says. He acts like a fool half the time. The other half, he’s saying stupid things he doesn’t really mean.”
I stare down at the dress and clench my jaw. “Oh, I’m sure he means it. Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
“I want to talk to him.”
Olivia sighs and picks up the dress. “I don’t suppose you’re going to wear this anymore, are you?”
I look at it and all I see is Ryka laughing at me. “No.”
******
The sound of small children squealing reaches us before we turn the corner on the path following the river to the Keep. “Hey. Hey, Kit—” Olivia reaches out and pulls me back to her side. “You can’t storm over there and start giving him hell, okay? He’s only going to react badly in front of the others. Just wait until he comes to us, all right?”
If Ryka wants to react badly then that is fine by me, but I get the feeling Olivia is going out on a limb for me right now, and if I make a scene it would definitely reflect poorly on her. I screw my mouth up and give her a begrudging nod.
“Okay. Come on.” She leads me around the narrow, rocky finger of claystone, which shelters the fighter’s training ground, and suddenly we’re on a beach. Or at least I think it’s a beach. I’ve never exactly been on one before, but I know what sand looks like and there’s an awful lot of it lying around. White and powdery with speckles of black through it. The knoll that shields the Keep, grassed on the side facing Freetown, turns into a sheer cliff face where it fronts the river, creating a sort of cove.
Fifty feet away, a group of men parry and lunge around one another, their bare feet kicking up sand as they move. Sunlight gleams off their naked shoulders, slick with sweat. As we approach, a group of small children come running out of the river, their skinny, naked bodies drenched, screaming and laughing. They don’t seem remotely fazed by the fact that thirty men are fighting only feet away. The flash of metal in the fighters’ hands means only one thing: they are using real weapons to train with, and worryingly there is a lot of bare skin on show. Olivia points over to the farthest group of fighters closest to the water’s edge. “He’s over there.”
I had already spied him. Ryka’s bright blond hair is unmistakeable, especially as we draw closer and I see that it has mostly fallen loose from his ponytail. Stupid to have hair that
length when you are a fighter. Too long to keep out of your eyes, yet too short to successfully keep back. At least I can tie mine back tight. I’m still thinking about this as the first men on the beach notice our arrival. Three of them stop what they are doing and pause to stare as Olivia leads me to a low, flat boulder that breaches the sand at the very base of the rock face behind them. She tugs on my arm and sits, gesturing for me to do the same.
“He’ll know we’re here for him. We’ll just wait.”
There’s an awkward look in her eye, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the reason. Over half the men have stopped training and are catching their breath, causally shooting glances at us as they talk amongst themselves and flick their knives into the sand. Nearly all of them are muscular and tall, and absolutely every single one of them wears the same tattoos tracing up the backs of their arms. The majority of the stacked lines stop mid-tricep, but some of the fighters have lines that travel all the way to the tops of their shoulders.
Olivia notices me studying them. “They’re counters,” she says, arranging her skirt so it covers her knees. The bells jangle against her shins and make bright metallic sounds where they tink against the rock. “They get a line either side for every fight they win.”
I look back at the men, squinting against the sunlight. From here it’s impossible to try and count those thin black lines, but it would take a lot to get to the elbow let alone the shoulder. All of these men are killers. All of them dangerous. I can’t help but study the ones fighting, still oblivious to our presence, wondering if I would be able to take them.
Ryka is among them. He wheels around the figure of a broad man with dark hair, the sounds of their fight echoing off the buttressing walls of the cove. Slash, retreat, slash, retreat, over and over. He’s quicker than when he fought me in the forest, which makes me even more annoyed. I’d suspected that he’d held back, and this is solid proof. The man fighting him is bigger and more muscular, and definitely older. It takes me a moment to figure out where I recognise him from: it’s James, the man who was in Jack’s tent the night I arrived.
His face is just as controlled as it was then, but there’s something extra―something dangerous in his eyes. When he pivots to avoid a broad cut from Ryka, I see that his tattoos sweep up over his shoulder blades and almost meet at the back of his neck.
“Huh. So James is a good fighter, then?” I ask.
Olivia grunts and folds her hands nervously in her lap. “He’s Kansho, the highest level of fighter. The only Kansho.”
“So how does that work, then? Does that mean he can stop fighting soon?”
Olivia looks at me and laughs. “Any of them can stop fighting, Kit. They can give up any time they like. But if they do, they give up all hope of attaining a position on the council that helps Jack run Freetown. Plus people…I don’t know. People have strange ideas about men who don’t fight. There’s a stigma attached to it, like you’re less of a man.”
This is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. “So they kill each other and die out of pride?”
“You could put it like that,” she says. “They don’t see it that way, though. It’s more about honour.”
A derisive laugh bubbles out of me, louder than I’d intended. A dozen faces turn towards us and Ryka’s is among them. Recognition flashes across his face as he sees me sitting next to his sister. A frown follows, severe and quick, before he spins back to face James, baring his teeth. James dances back, graceful really, considering his size. He twitches his knife over the back of his hand and darts forward. It almost catches Ryka’s wrist, but he tucks himself up and rolls from James’ reach. Olivia sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes wide.
“What?” I ask. Sure, James had nearly had the drop on Ryka, but the knife would have barely grazed him. Olivia fidgets, pulling at her shirtsleeve.
“James nearly drew blood,” she murmurs.
“It was a good move,” I say. “Probably wouldn’t have hurt, though.”
Confusion flits across Olivia’s face as she watches the two of them. “Don’t you have the blood demand in Lockdown?”
“No. What’s the blood demand?”
“All blood must be answered with blood here. It’s the way it’s always been. If a fighter gets cut, even if it’s an accident, it has to be answered in the pits. And a fight in the pits is a fight to the death.”
A jolt runs through me as I turn back to watch Ryka and James skirt around each other. This time I notice the effort on both their parts not to make good on their strikes. They are just training, after all. Ryka makes eye contact with me and I glare at him. Suddenly his comments out in the forest make a lot more sense. His anger, too. I’d cut him. I’d marked him with his own blood, and where he came from that meant a fight to the death.
Suddenly, something else seems mighty suspicious. “And what happens if their opponent takes their weapon?”
Olivia goes pale. “That’s just about the most shameful thing that can happen to a man here. They get cast out of Freetown for good.”
I knew it. If Ryka had walked back into Freetown and I had been wearing his stiletto, he would have been humiliated and made to leave. I wouldn’t have wanted that for him, even back then, but he still could have been less of a jerk.
“Why?” Olivia asks, turning away from her brother as he topples backwards into the sand. James stands over him and laughs, holding his hand out to help Ryka up. It appears their match is over.
“No reason,” I lie. It’s becoming too easy.
Ryka looks rueful as he stalks barefoot toward us over the sand. On the way, he gathers his hair and re-ties it so that it’s out of his face. For the first time I notice that his tattoos reach his shoulders and curl over the top. Not as high as some of the other fighters, but definitely high enough to make him a force to be reckoned with. I scowl at him, hard, and he stiffens up.
“What are you doing here, Liv?” he demands. He may have addressed his sister, but he is looking straight at me.
“Kit wanted―”
“I wanted to come and thank you for encouraging your sister to restock my wardrobe. There was no need, though. I’m not wearing any of it.” I shoot Olivia an apologetic look. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she sighs. I narrow my eyes, refocusing on Ryka.
“Olivia was just filling me in on some of the differences between Freetown and the Sanctuary. It’s been really interesting. I had no idea about the blood demand, or what would happen to a fighter should he lose his weapon.”
I don’t get the reaction from him I thought I would. In place of his warning glare, a lazy smile rolls across Ryka’s face. He laughs, an easy, delicious sound that makes my skin prickle. “There are many differences between here and Lockdown,” he says. “I’m sure there are plenty of things you have to learn and adapt to before you fit in, Kit.” His eyes flicker down to the neckline of my black shirt, which is low enough to reveal my missing halo. That makes him pause. His reactions are weird, and him staring at the naked skin where my halo used to be makes me uncomfortable.
“Oh, I’m all for learning the rules and rituals here.” I give him a sharp smile. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to walk around with jangling bells sewn into my clothes, though. And I’m certainly not going to wear dresses because you think you can goad me into it.”
Ryka shrugs, the movement causing a strand of his hair to fall loose already. “No big deal. If you want Jack to kick you out of Freetown, then that’s your business. There are plenty of other places you can go. Try Sweeton. I’ve heard they treat their women wonderfully there.”
“Ry!” Olivia is a blur of gold as she leaps to her feet. “The only women in Sweeton are prostitutes!” she hisses. “Don’t you dare even suggest she go there!”
Ryka smiles, dusting his hands free of sand. “You’re probably right. Any man who tried to go near her would end up castrated, anyway. But―” he holds up his index finger, looking at me. “They do use coins instead of bells
in Sweeton. Would solve your aversion to jangling.”
He spins around and saunters away before I can open my mouth to say anything in response. My cheeks feel like they’re on fire. The muscles shift in his back, still marbled down his left side with sand as he walks away. I can’t help it. My hands automatically shift to my hips, searching for my daggers. Olivia gives me a wild look and grabs hold of my arm.
“Ignore him. Jack would never make you leave. My grandfather’s an old sweetheart. Come on, let’s get out of here before I end up an only child.”
PRIESTESS
I don’t like the look of the Keep. Columns of black rock jut out of the hillside like stone spears fifty meters high. At their base the same rock lies in shattered ruins where one of the pillars must have tumbled to the earth long ago. It can’t have happened in my lifetime. Fat layers of springy green moss have swallowed some of the great boulders, camouflaging them against the rest of landscape. The undergrowth is thick and damp and smells like rot. Once a dry, narrow track on the other side of the hill, the Holy Walk is now the Holy Wade. Mud sucks up to my ankles, and for the third time in as many days I feel like swearing. Olivia holds her skirts up in one hand as she trudges through the filthy mire in bare feet. The thought of doing the same makes me feel queasy.
“Where are we going?” I ask, as we navigate our way across the base of the valley floor. Olivia points towards the soaring rock formation and smiles.
“The entrance is at the foot of the tallest tower. They’re hollow inside. That’s where the priestesses’ chambers are. The prayer vaults are below ground. Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Beautiful isn’t a word I would use. Sinister seems more appropriate. The sun vanished as we summited the hill blocking the Keep, and now a low lying level of cloud presses down on the world, throwing stretched out shadows off the spears of rock like crooked fingers. It could be the shadows or it could be the residual anger from my encounter with Ryka, but an unwelcome sense of foreboding sits heavy in the pit of my stomach. If it was an option, I might have reconsidered taking care of the children instead of cooking for the priestesses. But Olivia can’t stop grinning, and I think she likes the idea of working with me, so I don’t suggest it.
Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) Page 12