by M. L. Greye
As Rand uncoiled to his feet and began filling two bowls with his steaming stew, Declan decided the Back Rubes could go ahead and try to pull them apart. Rand was powerful, and Declan was quick. Borderline unnaturally so. They were friends. By choice.
The Back Rubes could pit them against each other. The Stolen could deem them savage, bloodthirsty animals and avoid them like a plague. It didn’t matter. Being friends with Rand was his choice.
He took the bowl Rand offered him with one hand and he used the other to pull back the fur, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. “Thanks, Rand.”
The Gray shrugged again and went back to his spot by the wall, bowl in hand. “You can cook next time.”
Declan lifted a spoonful of the stew to his mouth. He blew on it briefly before closing his lips around the spoon. It wasn’t the best stew he’d ever had, but it was hot and didn’t taste half bad. Better than the rations he’d be given in the mess hall. He took another bite.
“Tomorrow Simon will lick your blood.”
“What?” Declan nearly choked. He sputtered, coughing.
Rand swallowed the bite in his mouth. “I mean, it could be someone else, but I doubt it. Simon likes to collect the stronger ones. After today, seeing what you’re capable of, he’ll claim you.”
After seeing how he’d killed Naria. It was suddenly difficult for Declan to swallow his own food.
Rand noticed. He lowered the spoonful that was on its way to his mouth. “She only died today because Kearns didn’t stop it from happening, Declan. We’re told to win those duels by any means possible. I’ve done far worse.”
“Worse than slaughtering someone?” Declan forced himself to say the words.
“I told you before,” Rand shoved the spoon in his mouth, and said around the food, “by trying to end myself, I took down half the camp. Why do you think I’ve been here the longest? Because I somehow managed to kill off nearly everyone else but myself.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better about myself?” Declan asked dryly.
“No, it’s supposed to show you if I can eat, so can you.” He took another bite, as if to prove it. Declan grimaced, but took a bite. He forced himself to chew and swallow. Rand watched him for a moment. Then, “We’re Stolen, Declan. We’re being crafted into weapons. The cost is losing our souls.”
Declan didn’t respond. He finished off his bowl, and realized there was still more in the pot. Enough for both him and Rand to have seconds. Declan hadn’t had seconds in months. He stood and helped himself to another helping. It wasn’t until he sat down again that he remembered what Rand had said earlier.
“Why will another Back Rube need my blood tomorrow?”
Rand grunted. “Because you’ve moved up. I don’t know if anyone’s told you this yet, but once you’re in one of these-” he waved his spoon around at the room “-the Back Rubes can’t take it from you. One of the few camp laws.”
He stared at the Gray. “So, this is mine for good?”
“Until you die.” Rand smirked. “Welcome home.”
“What does that have to do with Simon?”
“Oh, that.” Rand pushed himself up with a groan and headed to the stove. “Now that you’re a permanent, as we’re called on this side of the camp, Kearns is no longer your Main. She’s an underling. So, you will be handed off to a new Main.”
Declan sat there for a moment, letting the woods settle in. Kearns would no longer be the one pushing him. Part of him felt relieved, but if she was an underling … What did that mean for his future?
“Get ready to make a lot of people beg,” Rand said over his shoulder, his voice going flat again. “And the rest of the time, working until you feel like hurling your guts up.”
“So, not much different then,” he retorted.
Rand chuckled and turned back around to face Declan. He lifted his bowl like he would salute with a glass. “To life as a Stolen.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
At Emry’s request, Llydia stayed in Wexric for an extra week. A day or so after the dress shop incident, Llydia showed Emry “the basics” of the Mountain Thunder. Declan’s mother had claimed she didn’t remember it all that well, which was a flat out lie. Llydia was a fantastic dancer. Right away, Emry realized she didn’t care to go out searching for some Kruth instructor. She wanted Llydia. Fortunately, the woman had agreed to help her.
For the next week and a half, Emry spent every morning with Llydia. To avoid the attention of her guards, they met in various shops, bribing the clerks at the counters to let them borrow a storage room for an hour. Llydia usually did the negotiating. Although, the past two times, she’d had Emry give it a go. Emry’s Kruth accent was sloppy at best, but she had bartered for new ribbons along with the rented room last time. Llydia had been proud.
During those first few days, Emry gained up enough courage to ask Llydia if she needed to get back to her children soon. Llydia had merely laughed and said her children back home were grown and married. She’d said her grandbabies could survive a week or so away from her, especially since she was aiding their future queen. Llydia then went off on how adorable her newest grandson was. Emry hadn’t asked much else after that. Llydia’s children were grown and married.
There. Emry had her answer. Declan was married. She shouldn’t have cared. He was, after all, basically a stranger to her. There was absolutely no reason for the thought of him kissing his wife to make Emry feel slightly ill.
“Well, what be a couple of fine lasses like yerselves doing out on a frosty night like this?”
The man’s voice brought Emry back to the present with a snap. She glanced up from the slushy path she and Llydia had taken from the street to the barn. He was a tall Kruth with icy blond hair and vibrant blue and green eyes. He was also blocking their path to the barn’s door, which was their obvious destination.
“Who you be calling a lass?” Llydia huffed in her Kruth accent. She took a step out in front of Emry, putting herself between them in a move that clearly said she was Emry’s escort. “Run along, lad, or I be boxing yer ears in a minute.”
The Kruth didn’t seem terribly afraid of Llydia’s threat. He merely ran his eyes up and down Emry with a grin before bowing at the waist. “Forgive me. I be going now. Enjoy the Barnerie.”
He stepped aside and Llydia glared him down as she and Emry passed. Emry had to press her lips together not to laugh.
They were about ten paces away from the barn hosting the Barnerie for the night. Lilting music drifted to them through its open doors, and Emry glanced at the dancers in the center of the barn. There were far more people inside than she’d been expecting. She’d thought maybe a hundred would show up. From what she could see, there was at least double that.
Llydia led Emry inside and along the little bit of standing room along the walls. The place was packed! There was barely room to stand.
“So what if he be the reigning Champion at Staffs?” A deep voice said off to Emry’s left side. “Me nephew be it the year before, and he lost it faster than a toad out of scalding water.”
There was a groan in response – another man. “Again with yer nephew?”
“I just be making a point,” the first voice retorted. “Yer champion be unlikely to hold onto his title.”
“What title?” Emry whirled toward the two men. They were literally on the other side of her, cramped into a three-foot radius.
The two Kruths stared down at her, startled. Emry held their gazes. She’d used her Anexian accent on purpose. If this champion thing was common knowledge for a Kruth, then it’d be better if they assumed she didn’t know because she was an Anexian. There’d be less explaining she’d have to do.
“The Champion at Staffs,” the first voice finally replied. The voice belonged to the shorter of the two – not that he was short. Kruth didn’t make short people.
“What is that?” Emry asked.
“Once a year, the finest Kruth warriors be meeting in Wexric for the competition,” the other ma
n explained. “They be fighting with staffs. The winner gains the title.”
“And why does one wish to gain this title?” Emry glanced between the two men.
The bigger one snorted. “They be touted through all of Kruth as our greatest warrior. With the Trials for Princess Citrine be coming soon, this year the winner be most likely chosen as Kruth’s candidate.”
“When is the competition?”
“The end of the month,” the big one answered, his words slow and full of suspicion.
Emry could feel herself grinning as a wild idea began to form. “Is there any sort of qualification to join?”
Llydia appeared at Emry’s elbow. In her Anexian accent, she said, “No, but women don’t usually join in. It tends to be the largest and strongest of the men.”
“But is there a rule against it?” Emry demanded from the two men.
The shorter one shook his head slowly. “No, but to be entering you must be a Kruth.”
Emry dipped her head into a quick nod. “Thank you. Enjoy the Barnerie.”
Before either of them could reply, Emry slipped around them, heading back the way she and Llydia had come. Llydia came up alongside her. “What was that about?”
“I need to work on my Kruth accent,” Emry replied, “and I’ll probably need to know the Mountain Thunder by then, too. That way no one will suspect.”
“You want to enter?” Llydia stared at her like she’d grown another head. “What about learning how to use a staff? I can’t teach that to you.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” Emry chuckled.
They reached the door out of the barn. Emry passed through it, returning to the open frigid air outside. Llydia kept the pace alongside her. “Where are you going?”
“I think we’re good here,” she told her. “We can leave.”
Llydia blinked. “Already?”
“I’ve seen just enough for one night.” Emry grinned. This would work perfectly. In the evenings she would continue to be Princess Emerald with the Kruth nobles and during the day she would prepare for this staff championship. She finally had a path. It felt good to have a path.
:::::
Declan’s routine had changed. Some things were better. Others were far worse. He still ran laps every morning – six times around the camp, then six times up and down the mountain, going a little further every day. He ate breakfast regularly now, but that was because he made it himself.
Simon rewarded him in piles of food and clothing and soaps. Oh, how Declan had missed soap! The food piles, Declan stored in a makeshift cupboard he’d built for himself with wood he’d gathered on his morning runs. The clothing he stored in folded piles beneath the cot that was large enough for two people to lay shoulder to shoulder within. Declan had moved his cot below the one window in his A-frame. When he sat up on it, he no longer had to lean to one side to not hit his head on the roof.
He showered now. In the camp as a permanent, showers were taken at night during a thirty-minute window – provided by the Orange and Blue Stolen. His first one he’d taken, he’d cried.
It’d been months since having his own private shower. He’d been using the icy river – darting out of his tent at Teal speed, fully nude, leaping into the water and tearing around the camp as nothing but a blur to dry off before finally returning to his tent to burrow beneath his furs. A hot shower had never felt so good.
After breakfast, Declan usually joined Fiona on a round. Sometimes Rand would join, bickering with Fiona in Heerth. Fortunately, Fiona had been learning more words and talking with her was becoming easier for Declan. He would have liked to learn Heerth, but Rand and Fiona weren’t all that inclined to teach him. They preferred to snap at each other in it instead.
The three of them would eat lunch together then split to their various torments. Where they went, the Stolen parted. Even for Fiona. Even though she wasn’t a permanent, it was like the others knew to avoid her simply because she spent her time with Rand and Declan. The harbingers of pain. Of death.
Declan no longer lost his duels. The Stolen had noticed. So had the Back Rubes.
Yet, Declan and his friends didn’t care anymore about the Back Rubes trying to split them up. Declan sure didn’t. The Back Rubes could put them against each other on a round as much as they liked, but they’d still find their way back. That was something that had changed – for the better. Neither Rand nor Declan were concerned if the Back Rubes saw them as allies. As for Fiona, Declan wasn’t so sure she’d ever cared.
Declan saw more of Rand than Fiona. They now shared a Main. Rand had guessed right – Simon had claimed Declan for his own. And Simon loved to watch Declan make other Stolen beg.
He still had yet to offer Declan some leathers like many of the other permanents wore. Like Rand. Or the blades that even fewer possessed. Also like Rand.
“You are favoring your left side,” Fiona said as she banged his right wrist with her staff.
Declan swore at the new throbbing pain. It matched what he felt in his left knee. They’d been at this for a good forty minutes, maybe more. Today Rand hadn’t joined them. Declan hadn’t seen him all morning.
“Do not lean so,” Fiona ordered. “It makes you…” She paused, probably searching for the right word. She settled on, “Weak, slow, stupid.”
He let out a short laugh, barely spinning out of the way of Fiona’s blow in time. “Stupid?”
“Yes, do not be stupid.” Fiona flicked her wrist, flinging her staff around him.
She slid against him, catching the other end of her staff with her free hand, wrapping it around his middle. It was a move Declan recognized. He dropped down, sliding his own staff into place behind her – putting himself in the same position she’d been in moments before. This time, he focused on using both arms evenly and yanked his staff toward him. Fiona bent backwards in half, her staff above her head. Her hands – still clutching her staff – landed on the clay and she kicked her feet up and out. Declan had to twist to the side to avoid her feet. She flipped over, landing on her feet, facing him again. Declan gawked at her, impressed.
“Well, aren’t you flexible.”
Both Fiona and Declan turned. Rand stood at the side of their round – arms folded across his chest. Declan lowered his staff to lean one tip of it on the clay. “Where have you been?”
“Keeping a fresh-faced warm.” He smirked.
“Oh.” Declan shifted his attention back to Fiona but her eyes were still locked on Rand.
“The only sort of woman who would agree to let you,” Fiona retorted.
Declan had never heard her use that many words at once. Usually she was very terse, even in Heerth. He blinked as he heard Rand quip back, “Well, they do line up to be with me.”
That comment brought Declan’s head around. Made him count how many days had passed. He took in Rand’s ashen face and tired eyes – remembered the thunderclaps that morning. Rand hadn’t been at his A-frame. He’d been fighting a Back Rube. Yet, for some reason, he wasn’t admitting to dueling in front of Fiona. He chose to gloat over a fake conquest instead…
Declan almost laughed out loud and hard as the realization dawned on him.
Rand and Fiona – Fiona and Rand.
Honestly, he should have seen it sooner. No wonder they baited each other as much as they did. But … Rand would never be seen giving her any sort of affection. Not after what the Back Rubes did to Steffie. He’d never put a soul through that again. Declan hadn’t known Steffie, but from the way Rand had described her, Fiona was not Steffie.
Fiona was stronger – shrewder. Perhaps, Fiona was a better fit for Rand after all. Still, that particular fact didn’t mean Declan couldn’t tease his friend – especially not when he saw the spark of jealousy in Fiona’s gaze.
“I haven’t seen you take a fresh-faced in weeks,” he said a little too casually. “Odd you chose to break the streak now.”
Rand’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly on Declan. “You’re not privy to every asp
ect of my life,” he drawled.
Declan let his own gaze flit between Fiona and Rand. “Clearly.”
The Gray snarled. “Get off the round, Fiona. My turn to knock Declan down.”
“We are not finished,” she retorted with a grunt. “So, no.”
“No?” He blurted, surprised.
“Who do you think you are? A prince?” She snorted. “We are the same. You do not give me…”
“Orders?” Declan offered.
“Yes, orders.” She nodded her head at Declan. “Your orders are worthless.”
Rand didn’t respond as a dark glint filled his eyes. He closed the distance between him and Fiona, putting their faces a hand width apart. It was hardly romantic – not with his whole face in a sneer. “Just because you’ve gotten yourself a tent now does not make us equals.”
She didn’t back down. Instead, she took a half step forward, putting them even closer. “I do not wish to be.”
Before Rand could reply, Fiona wrapped the tip of her staff around the back of one of his legs and yanked. Rand fell flat on his back. Fiona grinned down at him – a lioness in human form. “Now we are finished.”
She dropped her staff at Rand’s side and walked off the round. Declan laughed and extended his hand down to Rand. “Well, that went well.”
Rand clasped his wrist and let Declan pull him to his feet. His eyes never left Fiona as she headed toward the river. “It went as well as it ever could.”
Declan glanced at his friend. At the sadness that had replaced the anger in them a moment before. “You never know,” he replied. “I think Fiona’s stronger than she looks.”
It took a moment for Rand to respond. Declan wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but it definitely wasn’t, “If Fiona was to come at you with a knife, where do you think she’d stab first?”
“What?” He blurted.
“Hypothetically.” Rand let out a short laugh. “Or, realistically, whenever she’s pitted against you in blades.”
Not a question Declan had ever asked himself. Still…