The bar was packed, but as soon as Jake walked in, a table was free as if by magic. I slid into the booth opposite Pasha and Jake and we sat in silence until the drinks came: the same green stuff as before. This time I wasn’t hesitant; I needed that drink, because now I knew more about what I was up against, what I was going to face come tomorrow, and I wasn’t at all sure I was up to the task. I slugged the booze back in one.
A whole fucking castle full of Ministry mages, ones who weren’t limited by the fact that their power came from their own pain. They had plenty of people there to supply it, a whole bunch of human cows. Including Amarie, who, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, had been specifically targeted. Perhaps to get me in there. Perhaps. And Pasha, Jake and I were just going to walk in. If that perhaps was right, we’d be doing just what they wanted. They’d be waiting for us. Hah! Last night alive.
Did I have a choice? Yes, yes I did. I could walk away. I could ignore what felt more and more like a summons, pull out that Ministry pin and haul my sorry arse back Upside, sit in my office and wait for a new job to come in. Wouldn’t take long, there were always jobs available, and I’d be free of this stone around my neck, free of responsibility.
Only this stone had a name, and a father who was relying on me. If I got rid of the stone, there’d be another more weighty to take its place: guilt, an emotion I’m far too familiar with. The effort of keeping myself free from it was why I hated responsibility. Too late now, though. It was one or the other. Shit.
The booze worked its magic, sending warm waves of feel-good through me. I needed more of that. A lot more. I poured myself another and it slid down smooth as you like.
“Fucking family,” I muttered, and went for the bottle again. “Fucking brothers, always getting into fucking trouble and expecting me to sort it out. Fucking pain magic, fucking Ministry, fucking everything.”
Someone sat down opposite me, which was odd, because the seat could only hold two and Jake and Pasha were—I looked up. Jake and Pasha weren’t there. The bar was almost empty, as was the bottle in front of me. And the face in front of me. Dog grinned like I’d just offered him a bag of sweets, and waved.
I looked round, found that everything was blurred and all the angles looked screwy, squinted and tried again. Everything was still blurry, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t see Jake or Pasha anywhere. A slice of panic slid into my gut. On my own, down here where I knew far too little.
Fucking Downsiders.
I pushed on the table and got to my feet, which seemed to have no connection to the rest of me. I almost pitched head-first over the table, but Dog grabbed my arm and held me upright.
“Jake said I got to look after you. Have you been drinking the naughty stuff?”
I peered up, and up again, into his good-natured face and concentrated on not slurring. “Yes, the naughty stuff.”
“It’s OK. Pasha drinks too much of it sometimes. I know what to do.”
He sounded unbearably proud, like a child who has finally learned how to tie his shoelaces.
“That’s goo—” I began, and then Dog hefted me on one arm, swung me over his shoulder and left the bar. The door hit my arse as it swung shut.
“Dog, you can put me down.” It would be a damn good idea anyway, because all the blood was rushing to my head and I felt confident I was going to throw up all over him any moment.
Dog hesitated. “Are you sure? Pasha always has trouble walking when he’s drinking the green stuff. Jake said I had to look after you.”
“You can help me, all right? Only your shoulder in my stomach is making me feel sick.”
He slid me down and helped me find my feet. His arm was good and solid, just what I needed to help me keep straight. Shame the same couldn’t be said for my head.
Dog watched me, an uncertain smile twitching across his face. Probably afraid he’d done something wrong. Shit, I’ve always been crap with kids, and there was no doubt Dog was just a big kid. He chewed at his lip and followed every move with worried eyes.
“It’s all right,” I said, trying for that reassuring, almost wheedling tone parents sometimes use with their young children. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I just need to walk it off.”
His shoulders sagged with relief and the smile was back, the big, sweet-eating one.
“So, where were you taking me?”
“To the match. Pasha said you needed to drink something out of you first.”
To the match. The last place I wanted to go, to watch Jake risk her neck, watch her move with a deadly grace that would not be mine. To watch Pasha watch her and try to pretend it didn’t matter. I don’t know why it had got under my skin so much. She was an emotionally dead bitch who had a way with swords, and Pasha was a fucked-up little monkey with a good line in intimidation, when he had a gun to hand.
I didn’t want to see them; I didn’t want to be down here, being rained on with what was probably contaminated water, talking to a man who could snap me in half without breaking a sweat but who probably had trouble grasping any word over two syllables long. I didn’t want to be in this dark, damp, rotten place any more, and I knew why, too, which was worse. And I even lied to myself about that.
Jealousy, I told myself, plain and simple. Not fear, no, not me. It was jealousy, of course it was. I’d fallen for Jake, bad. Worse, I liked Pasha, most of the time, and I knew damn well how he felt about her. It was in the way their hands never quite touched, the way they seemed to communicate without speaking. It was in Pasha’s eyes and the twitch of Jake’s mouth and I didn’t want to have to see it. I’d rather go into the castle alone than see it. Well, maybe that was going too far, but I didn’t want to go to the match. It had absolutely nothing to do with fear of being found wanting in the courage department.
“Dog, do you know where the Ministry men come down?”
He looked around quickly, as though afraid we’d be caught talking about it. “Yes, but Jake says I’m not allowed there. Bad men, she says. Bad men are looking for you too, all over. Have to keep you away, but they won’t come in this far. Jake made sure.”
I looked up at his earnest face, scrubbed and ruddy. Bad men. “Yes, they are, only that’s my way home. I – I don’t want to go to the match, Dog. I need somewhere to get my head straight, do you understand? Somewhere to think.”
A smile split his face. “Dog knows just the place. Oh yes, a grand place for thinking. Come on.”
For a moment I thought he was going to run, but he seemed to remember himself just before he took me off my feet and we made our way along the slippery cobbles, through rain that dazzled in the lights, dripped down my neck, cold as my heart. Dog chattered contentedly about the matches, and Jake, and how he’d once found a puppy and wanted to keep it. “And they said that puppy was with me just how I am with Jake. That’s why I’m Dog. I like the name. It’s mine. The puppy is called Freckles. She’s my friend, and she’s so fluffy and Jake said I could keep her if I fed her and looked after her, and I do…”
I let his words fade into the background and tried to concentrate on which way we were going. I thought I recognised a shop, then a corner. The match arena bulked behind the ramshackle rooftops, but we moved at an angle to it, so I was confident Dog wasn’t leading me astray.
Right up to the point when he stopped outside a temple. Its whitewashed walls were a dingy grey, streaked from the rain. The door was open and Dog moved towards it, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Not here.”
Dog’s brow furrowed. “Why not? Good place to think, nice and quiet. I come here all the time, to think. I think better in the temple. The Goddess helps me.” He hulked over me and I could sense disapproval in the set of his rather large shoulders.
“Fine. It’ll be quiet, as you say.”
The doorway enveloped me in silky darkness punctuated by a beam of light bringing sparks from dust particles. Dog had to bend almost double to get through the opening across the lobby. I followed, ducking somewhat less, and entered the temple. Instantly I was taken back to my boyhood. To hours spent kneeling next to my mother as she prayed, priests and acolytes gliding silently along the aisles, offering practical help and impractical prayer. The sounds, the velvety shushes as feet shuffled over the embroidered runner, the murmurs of a priest imparting advice, the mutter of someone’s desperate prayer. The smell of the burning herbs, a mellow scent as if the herbs’ sole purpose in growing was to be burned and smell sweet. The way the scent could stamp a picture in your heart when you smelled it again. The way light slanted through the dark from the old-fashioned flame lanterns, cunningly directed by covers to pick out the face of the Goddess on the mural, and the faces of the statues. The statues themselves, of the three martyrs and the four saints, whose feet I should kiss in turn, each with their own chant attached. Chant the chant, pray for their souls before I prayed for myself. Nican, patron saint of many things, including lost children, stared down at me with stony eyes. I stopped in front of him, wishing beyond wishing that I believed in him, that he could help me find Amarie. The words to his prayer that my mother had taught me came back, unbidden, unwanted, unbelieved in. Nican, see me here at your feet, help me find what I have lost, both in my heart and soul and in my life. By losing you I have lost myself, and I would come back to you now.
I turned away from his plaster face, the way his eyes seemed to accuse me; ignored the rest of the statues, to Dog’s consternation; and made straight for a pew. My head was clearing, but that didn’t help. Nothing helped, or was likely to. I looked ahead to the blocky altar and the painting that dominated the wall above. The Goddess, looking down on us.
All temples have a painting of her inside their domes, but this one was different from all those I’d seen growing up. Usually she’s looking benign and a bit constipated, surrounded by flowers and birds and pretty things. In this one she was anything but benign, and there was nothing pretty about any of it. It was primal, raw. Maybe what the Goddess had stood for before the Ministry had sanitised her, I’m not sure. The story of the Goddess and the tiger. It had been one of Ma’s favourites, but had fallen out of favour among the priests.
Sacrifice, that’s what Ma always said the story was about. The Goddess sacrificed part of herself to the tiger to save us. Fed him her hand to appease him, to sate his hunger so he wouldn’t hunt us. I never saw that; what I saw and heard was the guilt I was supposed to feel about it, drummed into me, into everyone. Besides, her hand didn’t sate the tiger. He still stalks us, only now we call him Death, or Namrat. As a sacrifice, pretty useless. Why should I feel guilty, or grateful, that the Goddess had done it?
Ma’s death had made it worse. I was too angry with the Goddess to even glance at a temple as I passed. That death had changed my beliefs, the faith I’d been brought up with. Sacrifice became guilt, goodness became cupidity, faith became stupidity. It still was. Faith didn’t stop bad things or help good things to happen. It was brainwashing, just as Azama was doing to those girls. If you believe, if you’re good, never mind how crap this life is, you’ll get a nice one after you die. It was a sop, a cosh to keep the underclasses manageable.
I stared at the painting a while longer, at the vivid colours, the look on the Goddess’s face as the tiger bit off her hand. As a boy I’d always felt such guilt. Now all I felt was a dull fury, that this load of lies was used to keep people from seeing what was going on around them, that the Ministry used it to try to keep everyone in line. To ignore what was going on around them.
When people are satisfied things will improve, even if it’s only after they’re dead, they tend not to rebel as much. So the Ministry had changed the story, changed the message. The Goddess was no longer about sacrificing herself so our lives would be better, now religion was about behaving well so she’d greet you with a pat on the head after Namrat paid his call.
I stood up abruptly, banging my knees on part of the pew, and hurried outside. The temple had been a bad idea. It always was, always left a bitter taste of bile and betrayal in my mouth. Even the matches would be better than this. Besides, I had someplace to be.
The temple, the painting full of life and death and visceral pain, had decided me. Not for the Goddess, but for me, for Perak and the promise I’d made Ma to look after him. I could go back to a lifetime of gentle reproach in Dendal’s face, to knowing I’d let my brother’s daughter stay down here, but if I did, I’d be dead of drink pretty soon.
So I went to find Jake and Pasha. Braced myself to go into the castle and face magic, my own and others’. Not for goodness, or the Goddess, not even for Perak or Amarie or because it was the right thing to do.
I went for the sake of my liver.
I got Dog to lead the way to the arena. He wasn’t happy with me, I could tell. The chatter had stopped and he wouldn’t look at me. That was fine: I wasn’t much in the mood for talking myself. Being backed into a corner will do that to me. The steady drip of rain, the black streets and Dog’s sullen air suited my mood to perfection.
The thump and thud of the crowd stomping reverberated through my feet and chest long before we arrived. By the time we got there the noise was indescribable, even outside. Dog left me by Jake’s door with a morose, pathetic look, like one of his heroes had just let him down, but it wasn’t Dog I was here to save.
I didn’t bother to knock but strode straight in, and wished I hadn’t. I had clearly interrupted something. An argument by the look of things. Jake’s jaw was clenched tight as she leaned on the sideboard that held the booze. She pinched her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut. My entrance cut Pasha off in mid-something. Not a tirade exactly, because his voice was soft. He stood behind her, one hand reaching for her shoulder. All I heard was “Jake, for the Goddess’s sake, won’t you just—” and then he saw me and snapped his mouth shut. By the time I was fully through the door, he’d thrown himself into a chair and was studying the fight through the glass with infinite and exaggerated care.
I took a hesitant step towards Jake, and tried not to feel satisfied that there was some sort of break, some chink in their relationship where I could insert myself. I kept my voice low, so Pasha couldn’t hear the words, though he shot me a look that could have cut through steel just the same. “Are you all right?”
Jake took a deep breath and looked upwards, as though calling on the Goddess for strength. “Fine.” But she didn’t sound fine, and the way her lips twisted and she blinked rapidly, the way her hands gripped at the sideboard, she looked far from fine. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, took a deep breath and grabbed for her swords. Her hands shook as she strapped them on, but her face was still now, as still as the Goddess in the painting, and as full of promised violence. She stalked past me and out of the door. Once she was gone, I let go a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. Because with her in the room, even angry and closed off, even with two swords at her waist, I wanted her. Not my usual sort of want either – I wanted to make it all right for her, better for her.
Pasha looked up at me from under hooded lids and he knew. Of course he did – his kind of magic. A subtle and invisible wall appeared between us. He sat up from his hunch, leaned forward on his knees and studied the arena, his eyes flicking back and forth as though seeking a weakness.
I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to explain myself. “Pasha, I—”
He didn’t look at me apart from a brief glance, but his hands were between his knees, twisting, pinching, hurting. I’d never seen him do it openly before, though he must have done something for those flashes of magic where he seemed to see inside my head.
“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re getting into. You don’t know her. You think you want her, love her. I’ve seen it before, in the eyes of other men, in their heads. They see the grace, see her pretend to smile and they think they know her. Think they want her. But they don’t. I know men like you, Rojan. They want to say they have, that they were the one to get her, they were the one to get past her wall. We all have walls, don’t we? You and your cynicism, her and her ice-queen act. A wall to keep everyone away, outside, so they won’t see the fear. Those men, you, never see past that exterior; you want her not for her, but for yourselves. You think you love her, but you don’t even know what that means. Would you do anything for her to be happy? What about letting her dice with death out there? Would you let her risk dying for her to be happy, or would you try to make her stop, and kill her inside in the process? Would you take her Upside, away from everything that’s important to her, or would you stay down here, for ever? Would you forbear to—” He broke off with a shake of his head, as though he’d almost let something slip he shouldn’t. “How far would you go?”
That’s when he looked at me, with eyes dark and round with emotion, and I knew just how far he’d gone. Further than he wanted to, but not as far as he would go, if he had to. I didn’t know how to answer. We both stared out at the sandy arena, stained and spotted with blood. Finally, because I sensed he really needed an answer, I said, “I don’t know. Women have never been… I’ve never been good partner material. I don’t know if I have what it takes, or how good I’d be. Piss-poor on past performance. But she makes me want to try.”
Pasha’s head hung low over his knees, but his head bobbed in a nod. He seemed about to say something else, but the music changed. Jake’s music. Pasha leapt to his feet and planted his hands on the glass. Purple welts criss-crossed his fingers – where he’d used his magic. “That’s not right.”
I got up and peered through the glass, at the crowd as they began to chant, to stomp their feet and generally behave as though they wanted to make the building collapse. “What isn’t?”
Jake made her way down the ramp. Pasha was right, something was up. Gone was the easy grace, the carefully still face, the assessing eyes. She moved jerkily, like a puppet on a string. Her gaze flicked our way for a heartbeat and away again. She was trying her damnedest to keep her face still, but her wide, twitchy eyes gave her away. She was terrified.
“Pasha?”
He pressed himself against the window, as though he could help her just by wanting to, by passing it through the glass. “I – she comes down second. Always, she comes down second. Fuck, oh fuck. It’s a Ministry job.”
“A Ministry job? What do you mean?”
He spared me a withering glance. “I told you this was mostly sham, right? This is the bit that’s not sham. One person out there is really going to die.”
“What?” I pulled him away, but he shook my hand off and pressed his hands back on to the glass. The music changed again. The singer’s voice was raw, wailing about a betrayer’s kiss, of Namrat demanding a soul, and things much, much darker. It sent a shiver along my spine.
A figure appeared at the top of the ramp, a dishevelled, bruised-looking man. His clothes were ripped and bloodstained, his arms shackled in front of him. Someone unlocked them, shoved a sword in his hand and ran. The swordsman looked down at the blade and gave it a practice swish. A demonic grin spread from his lips, seemed to alter his whole face. Made him look as though he was the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit what he had to do, he was going to do it, and probably enjoy it too.
“Pasha, just what—”
“A punishment,” he said, so low I barely heard him. “Don’t you have them Upside? What do they do when someone breaks the law?”
“The Ministry holds a trial. Sort of. The priests oversee it and supposedly pray for guidance. I can’t remember the last time there was a not-guilty verdict. It’s a crock of shit. You get arrested, you’re guilty.”
The rumpled man swaggered down the ramp, the demonic grin seeming the only part of him now, the only part I could see. I’d seen that sort of look before. Normally right before someone got their guts laid out on the floor of some seedy bar, or down a dark and lonely alley.
“And what happens to the guilty?” Pasha’s eyes flicked between the two combatants as they sized each other up.
“Depends. Prison, mostly; sometimes they hang them. They say some of them end up down here, though I never believed that.” I’d never been sure which was worse.
“Well, it’s true. Some of them do, and we have some of our own. But we have no prison. No open trials. When they’re found guilty, they disappear. To Azama, to the mages almost certainly.” Pasha’s breath fogged the glass. “A nice, easy, still-alive body that no one will miss. But sometimes, with the worst crimes, they want to ‘set an example’. That’s when they send them here. For public execution, in the name of the Goddess.”
My stomach went cold. Public execution had been banned many years ago Upside, way before Downside was sealed, though it still happened behind closed doors. This – this was barbaric. Jake was peerless with a sword. The man would be cut to pieces in moments, no matter the way his face was twisted. I couldn’t see why Pasha was worried.
“And this is a problem for Jake because…?”
His gaze slid towards me and it wasn’t just withering this time. If looks could kill, I’d have both Jake’s swords rammed somewhere very intimate. Pasha snorted, dismissing me. I didn’t know this place, or her, like he did, that gesture told me.
The prisoner and Jake squared up against each other and waited for the signal: the music stopping. As the last bar faded away, the prisoner lunged for Jake. She parried with one sword and feinted with the other. Yet it was all half-hearted. Her blades didn’t come within a foot of the prisoner. Whilst I’d seen her fight before, and had been seriously impressed, now it looked like she’d forgotten how to attack.
I wanted to ask Pasha, but was sure I’d only get a sneer in return. I thought back, and back. The first time I’d been here, Pasha had said Jake never killed anyone, accidentally or on purpose. Two hundred fights and no deaths, a score she was proud of. Only, would that matter now? Surely she’d done an execution before, if this was common?
“Never done a Ministry job,” Pasha said, reading my mind. I saw how he was twisting one of his fingers, just enough to hurt, and I could almost feel him rummaging around in my head. “Never. This thing, her with her swords, it’s all a sham, a fake, a bit of flash to look good, to cover up what’s underneath… her swords are the wall that she hides behind. She’s good at looking good, at making it look real, but you think she could really beat all these guys? She was damned lucky against the Storad, but that’s it – luck, flash, a bit of panache and a showy way with swords, with the crowd. She’s not a fighter, she’s a… I don’t know. An acrobat, an entertainer, gives the crowd what they want, a bit of blood, a hint of danger, the chance to scream off their anger. Half these men could kill her in a heartbeat: too strong for her. She’s quick, and smart, so it looks good. But it’s flash, that’s all. Besides, no killing, that’s her thing. Even when we rescue the girls, no killing is the rule. She won’t. She won’t.”
That last was a drawn-out moan. “They know, Azama knows we’re on to him, that we might try for him, that we know where he is. No hope of keeping it secret after the Jorrin thing. He knows, and he’s arranged this.” Pasha shut his eyes and rested his head on the glass. “Only she might even do it. Orders of the Goddess, that’s what a trial verdict is, the priests say so. She’ll do anything to please the Goddess, anything, but…”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then she’ll die. That’s the rule of the execution matches. Only one comes out alive.” He smacked a hand on the window with enough force to make it shudder, and turned away. Glass rattled on glass behind me as he poured a drink, but I didn’t take my eyes off the match, off Jake. She defended well enough, but still, her blade never came close to hitting the prisoner. What she thought she’d achieve, I don’t know. Maybe time to think.
The prisoner’s grin had got wider all the while; he knew, I could see by the look on his face. He was gloating. A crack sounded behind me, muffled and weak, but I knew what it was. I didn’t turn.
“He’s a plant,” Pasha murmured. “Been offered a pardon if he kills her.” Another crack, and this time Pasha let out a moan of pain. I still didn’t turn – I knew what I’d see and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had power to intervene and wasn’t. Would the pulse pistol work through glass? I’d never tried. There were other things I could do, only – the sound of a glass breaking and a breathy scream – only they’d hurt. A lot. The black was there, waiting for me to sink into my magic, go too far, fall in so I couldn’t come back. It was waiting for Pasha too, but he didn’t care. I kind of admired that, in a horrified way. How far would you go?
Jake was on the back foot in the arena and the prisoner had got past her guard enough to slice a bloody rent in her allover. The crowd screamed its disapproval as her blood seeped out rhythmically, dripping down her side and on to the sand, mingling with the blood already there. With a glance in our direction, a look of apology in her eyes mixed with something like relief, Jake made a misstep, staggered off balance and fell to one knee. Subtle, but unmistakable. Deliberate. The crowd howled as the prisoner pounced, his sword high, ready to slice her clean in two.
Just as the sword reached its apex, the prisoner stumbled, his eyes wide. The sword fell from his hand and his fingers reached up to his cheeks, scrabbled there as though someone had poured acid on him. Jake’s eyes were round and horrified, her swords loose in her hands. The crowd fell disturbingly silent. The only noise was the prisoner’s screams. Steam began to curl out of his nose and mouth.
“Pasha.” I had to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Pasha, what did you do?”
I dragged my eyes away from the arena because the sick feeling in my stomach told me exactly what he’d done and I didn’t want to see it play out. Pasha sat cross-legged on the floor, huddled over his twisted, bleeding hand. The glass he’d used to cut himself lay scattered around him. Behind me was a popping noise, and the sound of the crowd saying, “Ahhh” as one. A satisfied yet disgusted noise, like you hear in the temples when they make a sacrifice. However Pasha had done it, and I had my suspicions, the prisoner was dead.
Pasha looked up at me with sullen, sneering eyes, daring me to say I didn’t understand. “I did what I had to, which is more than you did. Too afraid of your own magic. Too much of a fucking coward to use it unless you’ve no other choice, too fond of your own skin.”
I moved over to him and crouched down. “You’re probably right. Let’s get that hand—”
I leaned over to look at the mess of his hand but he caught me by surprise and lashed out with a foot. It caught me on the ankle and I flailed backwards. Pasha was on me in a second, smacking me with his good hand. It was only then that I realised he was crying. I grabbed for his hand and caught it in my own, held it fast and tried to stop him. His shirtsleeve twisted away from his wrist, and I saw it. The brand mark, black jagged lines interlinking in an A.
I dropped his hand from nerveless fingers. I’d seen that brand before. Pasha saw what I was looking at and wrenched his arm away, smoothing down the sleeve so the brand was covered, then got up off my chest and turned away.
“Pasha, I—”
But Pasha wasn’t about to be reasoned with, or stopped. He was too far gone for that. He whipped back round and his dark eyes bored into mine, his face hard with hate. “Shut up. Just shut up before you embarrass yourself with your ignorance. They wanted me to be one of them, all right? They wanted me to, to – to gather the power. By hurting others. Not just a little, either. The mages told those girls that pain was their redemption into the Goddess’s blessedness, that they were only doing all of, of that, the pain, so the Goddess would love them again. That the mages did it because they loved them, and wanted them to be saved, and the girls believed them. Believed that the mages were saving them, that the mages loved them and this was how they showed it, how they showed love. They want you to, as well. That’s why you’re here, that’s why they brought you with the lure of your niece. That’s why her. And you’ll do it too, I think.”
Something seemed to break in him then, the hate dissolving into fear and shame and pity, his voice dropping so I could barely hear it. “Only I couldn’t. Not that my magic couldn’t, I couldn’t, because I could see it all in their heads, could feel it with them. I was twelve, and my parents were so proud. I’m from Upside, just like you. We lived just under Clouds, close enough to see it and want it. My parents thought that for me to serve the Ministry was an honour. It might have been. But I could hear those girls, in my head all the time, could hear all their thoughts, how they all got twisted up till they believed what they were told was true. Normality is only a matter of what you’re used to, and after a time it’s normal to them. Not as much time as you’d think, either. That’s the worst part. They think it’s normal. I couldn’t do it, and when I couldn’t, the mages, they, they… Jake saved me. She saved me from Azama and the Jorrin brothers and I’d do anything to see her safe.”
“Even use your magic to kill someone?”
He scraped at his face to scrub away tears and his eyes became cold. “Yes, oh yes. My Major, see, in the brain. See it all, feel it all, if I want, even if I don’t want. I can make it grow in them too, make it build up enough till… I’d do worse. Much, much worse. Anything. You have no idea what she saved me from. No idea, and I’d kill every last person I found, if I had to, if I could save her in return. Only she won’t let me.”
We sat and stared at each other for what seemed like long, long minutes. I couldn’t imagine being beholden to someone for something that big, or ever wanting to be. Yet Pasha seemed proud of it.
When the door banged open, we both jumped. Jake strode in, blood-splattered and seriously pissed off. I could tell by the way the swords weren’t sheathed but pointed at me. It isn’t a good feeling, being at the end of a sword and knowing that the person on the other end could beat you in their sleep, and despite Pasha’s protestations that her talent was all show, all flash, she was damned well better than me. It feels even worse when you haven’t got a sword of your own, only a weapon you loathe using and is non-lethal anyway. I slid my hand into my pocket – gingerly, because it was still pretty fucked up from thumping Jake’s floor – just in case.
The swords hovered an inch from my nose as Jake looked me up and down. She cast a spare glance at Pasha, looked away and then back, staring down at his bleeding hand like she’d never seen one before. Everything seemed to drain from her face – emotion, blood, you name it. The swords dropped down to her sides.
“It was you?” She shook her head, as though trying to shake reality from her, to deny it was possible. Her lips twisted with words that couldn’t seem to make themselves heard. She seemed to gather herself then, and the swords came back up, pointing at Pasha this time. “You killed him. It was you.”
Pasha’s face scrunched up, more monkey-like than ever. His eyes were dark with a sort of pleading, as though willing her to understand, but when the swords came up so did his temper. “I did it for you! He was going to kill you and you were going to let him. Well, I wouldn’t let him. And I won’t let you kill yourself like that. I can’t; you’ve asked it of me too long, and I can’t watch it, watch you killing yourself. Not any more.”
He staggered to his feet and took a step forward, so that Jake’s swords were just touching his shirt. She wouldn’t look at him but kept her eyes on the shaking points of her blades.
That seemed to incense Pasha even more. “I know why you do these matches. Do you know how much it burns me to know?” He barked a bitter laugh when she flinched at that. “You think I wouldn’t see it, know it? That you go into every match hoping this is the one that will kill you, only you’re too fucking proud to just let someone beat you? That the only reason you don’t just take your sword to your own throat is because the Goddess says it’s a sin? You’re good at hiding it, oh yes. But you can’t hide from me, Jake. Not from me. And you might just as well stick that fucking sword straight through me rather than expect me to sit back and let it happen when you won’t kill a man sent to murder you because of some fucked-up notion of what the Goddess wants from you.”
By the time he’d done, his chest was heaving with the venom in his voice or the emotion behind it. He’d kept those dark, sparking eyes on her the whole time, but bar one flinch she hadn’t moved. She didn’t look up at him, or even acknowledge his words. The only reaction was a tiny trembling of her swords’ tips and the tightness of her mouth. Until he went to move around the swords to reach for her, to touch her.
In a heartbeat one blade was flat against his throat and the other hovered between his legs.
“Best you went.” If there was a tremor in her voice I didn’t hear it. She was all ice. “Right now.”
“Jake—”
She looked at him finally, but there was nothing behind her eyes, none of the warmth that had been there before when they’d spoken. “Right. Now.”
Pasha’s jaw jutted defiantly but he moved back, soft and slow, until he was at the door. She lowered the swords, but not by much.
“Please, won’t you just—”
She turned her back on him, on his words and the look on his face, the way it crumpled when he realised she really meant it. He flicked his gaze my way, but all I could do was shrug sympathetically – and that was pretty much a lie. He knew her better than me, right? Obviously not. It was hard not to be the tiniest bit smug. I think he knew it too; his hand would still be hurting him, so if he wanted to know what I was thinking, it wouldn’t be a problem. With a last, despairing look at Jake’s back, he left, slamming the door as he went.
As soon as the door was shut, Jake dropped her swords. They clanged against the floor. I couldn’t see her face, but her hands splayed out across the glass that looked on to the arena where another fight was already under way, to the crowd’s noisy delight. She was standing in just the spot Pasha had been and her fingers caressed the smudge-marks his hands had made.
“Jake, I—”
“Shut up.” Her voice was small and soft, almost inaudible over the roar of the crowd above. “Please, Rojan, just shut up.”
I took my life in my hands but I had no idea what to do or say, other than try to get her back to normal. Well, what normal was for her anyway. “I will, just as soon as you sit down so I can stitch that cut. You’re losing a fair bit of blood.”
She looked at me over her shoulder, surprised, and gave me a wan smile. “Not yet. Azama is going to be pissed off that I’m not dead. He had every reason to believe I would be, and I’d rather not be anywhere obvious for him to find me, us. I’m surprised he’s not here already, but maybe I caught him off guard. He almost certainly knows you’re with me – he’ll have been watching who comes in and out of the arena – which means the Ministry men looking for you know too. They’ll be crawling all over this place soon enough, and I shouldn’t have taken the time to—” She cut herself off with a grimace. “We need to go. Now. So first we need to find somewhere safe to hole up.”
She had a point, so I grabbed Pasha’s little box of sutures and dressings, she gathered all she needed and we left, being careful that no one saw us, or at least followed us.
Where we ended up was possibly the shittiest part of the ’Pit I’d seen yet.
“Alley” was too good a word for the passageway she led me down. A wall had caved in and timbers fallen, leaving a tented gap that I only just managed to squeeze through. There was no door at the other end, just a blank hole into what I suppose I must call a room. It had some crumbling walls and most of a roof, and the floor was still there, in places at least. Jake lit a small lamp, and I wished she hadn’t. A pile of gently mouldering mats lay in the corner, stinking the place up. The stains were possibly blood, or possibly weren’t.
“Nice place.”
Jake managed a tight smile but her eyes were full of bewildered hurt that she tried to cover with a breezy manner. “You think? I think it’s a shit pit, but they won’t find us here.”
She hung the lamp from a jutting piece of roof and found a rotting box to sit on, so I could reach the wound. She fumbled with the bindings for her allover, but got it finally and slid the leather down over her undershirt. The stitches I’d put in previously stood proud, but at least the cut seemed to be healing nicely. Finally she had the allover down to her waist and leaned forwards, her arms with their covering of soft leather windings dangling between her knees.
The wound ripped along her ribs and gouged a line along the side of her torso underneath. “I’ll have to cut your shirt to get at it,” I warned.
All I got in return was a terse nod, but that was enough. After a rummage through Pasha’s box, I found a pair of scissors and cut away the blood-soaked linen so I could reach the wound. I was careful not to touch her at all.
The wound was starting to clot, though it still oozed blood. Jake laid her head on her forearms as I swabbed the area clear but she didn’t flinch. I kept my silence until I had the needle and suture ready. To be frank, it was a wonder I’d managed to keep quiet till now. There were too many questions whizzing around my head, though the oddly intimate nature of what I was doing kind of distracted me for a while. When it came to actually stitching, though…
Jake hissed in a breath when I pushed the needle through, but didn’t flinch.
To take my mind off what I was doing, and because I had a sudden pang of guilt, I said, “Pasha was just—”
Her jerk almost pulled the needle out of my hands. Her head came up off her arms and she looked me square in the eye. “Pasha betrayed me. He interfered, he betrayed the Goddess and my – our beliefs. He betrayed everything our friendship was based on. Everything.”
Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and full of an icy anger.
I looked back down at the needle when I answered.
“He did it because he didn’t want you to die. That man was sent to kill you. Azama arranged it, Pasha said. I’d have done what Pasha did too, if I’d had the guts.”
“Everyone tries to kill me in the arena! The matches are sham, true. But they try anyway. They all want to be the one to beat me, to get past my guard. If I’m good at one thing, it’s not letting anyone kill me. It’s not lack of guts for you to do the right thing, or to let me handle things my way. I let Pasha off easy, because it was him, and he knows it.”
I forbore to tell her what Pasha had said, about her just being flashy, that her swords were her wall against the world, against Pasha and everyone who tried to reach her. It didn’t seem prudent. But maybe by this point I had a death wish, because the next words that fell out of my mouth were “Is it true what he said, about you wanting to die?”
Luckily she didn’t go for her sword, though her tone was as sharp. “What’s it to you?”
Maybe everything. I didn’t want her to die. I wanted to make it so she wanted to live. With me. I would have rather died myself than say that out loud, so instead I said, “Because if you’re still coming with me to the castle, I’d like to know you aren’t going to take any stupid risks.”
I was another three stitches along, and waiting for the inevitable explosion, before she answered.
“I won’t take any stupid risks. I want to stop Azama. I can’t do that if I’m dead.”
“Glad to hear it. But if you won’t kill him, or let me kill him, how will you stop him?”
Her mouth curved up in a cat-like smile, as though Azama was the unsuspecting mouse she had in her sights. “Oh, there’s plenty of ways to stop him without him being dead. Death’s too quick and easy for a bastard like that anyway. I’ve got plans for Azama.”