THE DAY AFTER the combat round in the arena, Javan skipped kneeling for morning prayers. He figured Yl’ Haliq, the all-knowing, understood how stiff he was. How every move ignited a bone-deep ache that throbbed throughout his entire body.
Instead, he lay on his bed staring at the stone ceiling above him, waiting for first bell and praying his doubt into words as the sacred texts instructed.
“Yl’ Haliq, be merciful on your servant,” he whispered. “For I am . . . I feel so alone. Don’t you see that? I’m trapped in prison, my uncle has betrayed me, and my only hope is a girl who barely tolerates me.” His throat closed, and he blinked rapidly as tears burned his eyes. “Have you abandoned me?”
He closed his eyes and tried to quell the seething doubts. The fire of his anger. Tried to make room for the soft, still voice of Yl’ Haliq. “Please. I’m supposed to rule Akram. I’m supposed to protect my kingdom. I can’t do that here.”
There was no reply, but Javan’s heart started beating faster. An awareness spread through him, tingling down his spine and gathering in his chest like joy and heartbreak and hope all twined together.
“Are you there?” he whispered. “Will you please send your faithful servant a sign? Let me know that I’m not alone. That this is part of your plan for my life.”
He fell silent, and in the quiet heard the soft rub of a boot against the stone corridor outside his room. His eyes flew open, and Sajda stood just outside his cell, a chunk of buttered bread and an apple in her hand. The iron bars creaked and groaned as it slowly rose into the ceiling while first bell began tolling.
“Who were you talking to?” She peered around his cell as if he might have someone hidden beneath his bed or behind his privy bucket.
“I was praying.” He pulled a tunic over his head, wincing as he pushed his injured arm through the sleeve. The pain was a dull throb today—much better than the sharp knife of agony he’d felt the day before. He decided the more he moved it, the better. He couldn’t afford to be too stiff to fight if any of the prisoners decided to come for him. “How much did you hear?”
There was a flash of compassion on her face, gone so fast he almost missed it. “Not much. Here’s your breakfast.”
“Tarek sent you, did he?”
“He was running behind this morning, so I came on my own.” She sounded grumpy.
He got to his feet, brushed his hair away from his face, and accepted the apple. “Thank you. Does this make us friends?”
“Maybe.” She frowned at him.
“Your overwhelming enthusiasm is making me uncomfortable,” he said dryly.
She grinned, a quick flash of white teeth and sparkling eyes, and it was as if someone had sucked all the air out of the room.
She was beautiful. He’d known that, of course. He’d have to be an idiot to miss it. But it was usually an icy, dangerous kind of beauty that felt more like a warning than a welcome.
He wasn’t sure he was ready to see more welcome from her. Not when he was still staring at her face as if he’d never seen it before. Not when the casual words he’d been ready to say had turned to dust in his mouth.
This was ridiculous. He’d been living in close quarters with girls since he was seven. There had been a few who made his heart beat a little faster when they looked his way. He was used to appreciating a girl’s smile.
But this.
This was sunshine pouring through a crack in a sheet of ice.
This was starlight dazzling against a snowy hillside.
This was trouble.
And he didn’t need trouble. He needed her help. He needed her friendship. And then he needed to leave Maqbara, and everyone in it, behind.
Her smile disappeared, and she cocked her head to study him. “You look a little unsteady.”
She had no idea.
“I’m still recovering from the arena.”
She nodded. “Best way to recover is to move your muscles. You can get some practice in with the weapons while the others eat breakfast, and we’ll talk about which of the remaining competitors might make good allies. You can start figuring out the best approach to them during rec time tonight.”
“I can start on it sooner than that.”
She shook her head. “You have one hour of chore time and one hour of sparring practice. Besides meals, those are the only times you’ll be allowed out of your cell unless you’ve bribed the guards on your level. And you have nothing to bribe them with. Come on.”
He bit into his apple and followed her from his cell.
The arena was a mess. Seven human corpses were laid out in a neat row on the stone floor in the center of the ring. The ring itself was still damp, though the water had been drained after the aristocracy left. The ground was littered with scales, blood, and bones. The smell—a sharp briny scent with the cloying sweetness of decay beneath it—nearly caused Javan to lose his breakfast.
“That’s quite a stench,” he said as they joined Tarek at the stalls. He’d already fed half the remaining land beasts.
“Enough to make your eyes water,” Tarek agreed. “But it’ll be gone soon enough once the warden does her thing.”
Javan frowned. “Her thing?”
“Meat,” the warden’s voice said from behind them. Javan whirled to find her standing beside the human bodies.
She hadn’t been there a moment ago. Was her office that close? Or did she just move really fast? He scanned the arena but then movement caught his eye. Turning back to the warden, Javan’s stomach pitched as he watched her skin ripple. Her bones began expanding, her skin hardening. She disrobed quickly, even as her shoulders doubled in size and talons sprouted from her fingertips.
“What am I seeing?” Javan demanded, his voice shaking. “What is this?”
The warden’s skin darkened, small patterns becoming visible as she hunched over, smoke pouring from her nose. Javan’s pulse raced, and a slick sense of foreboding filled him.
“Shape-shifter,” Tarek answered, but Javan could already see it. Black leathery wings sprouted from her shoulder blades, and her skin became dull black scales with gray accents. The decay-scented air clogged in Javan’s throat as foreboding became truth.
She was a Draconi.
A gray dragon with an injured eye.
She was the creature who still haunted his nightmares.
Horror filled him, followed instantly by rage as she slowly tripled in size, her bones expanding, her muscles filling out until he was looking at the dragon who’d tried to kill him in Loch Talam.
He reached for his sword before remembering that he no longer had one. “Give me a weapon.”
Tarek sounded panicked. “Son, you don’t—”
“A weapon!” Javan turned to Tarek, his body flushed with the heat of his fury. This was the creature who’d started his nightmare. He’d taken her eye defending himself against her attack.
Now he wanted her life.
When Tarek didn’t move, Javan rushed past him to scour the stalls, hunting for anything he could use. The only thing he found was the metal pole that had been used to stabilize the chute from the previous day’s competition.
It would have to do.
He turned, and Sajda was there, blocking his way.
“Step aside.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her usually calm voice fraying.
“Killing a monster.”
“With a pole?”
“It’s all I could find. Step aside, Sajda. She deserves this.”
She slapped a hand on his chest, and something that felt like a thrill of prickling heat licked over his skin. “She deserves to be actually killed. Not irritated by a boy with a metal pole.”
“I already took her eye. I bet I can take something else she values before she turns on me.” Rage was a fever in his blood. A voice screaming that somehow she was the root of all of his problems. She’d been the first thing to go wrong. If he fixed that—if he took from her the life she’d tried to take from him—somehow it would turn everything around.
“What do you mean you took her eye?”
“She attacked me in her dragon form while I was at the academy in Loch Talam. I injured her eye while defending myself, and she flew south. I never thought I’d see her again, but here she is, and this time I’m taking more than her eye.”
Sajda wrapped her other hand around the pole and held it still even as he tried to pull it toward him. “You aren’t thinking clearly. She saw you compete yesterday. If she wanted you dead, she’d have killed you already. If you attack her, she’ll burn you alive, and then who will save Akram from the impostor?”
That got his attention. Looking away from the dragon, he met Sajda’s eyes and said, “I thought you didn’t believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what you believe.” Her voice was low and urgent and very un-Sajda-like. “Do you have a responsibility to the people of Akram?”
“Yes.” He ground the word out between clenched teeth.
“Then maybe you should stay alive long enough to fulfill it.”
He met her eyes for a long moment, his pulse beating rapidly, his muscles clenched and ready for battle before finally saying, “It’s annoying when you’re right.”
“You’ll get used to it.” She took the pole from his hands and slowly removed her hand from his chest. The strange, prickling heat left him as soon as she stopped touching him.
What was wrong with him? First he was knocked off his feet by a single genuine smile from her. Then he was feeling flushed just because she touched him. He needed to stop letting the girl who barely tolerated his presence distract him.
The dragon roared, and Javan stared in horror as she swept the line of bodies with fire. The smell of cooking flesh filled the air, and Javan gagged.
“You never get used to it,” Tarek said quietly from a few paces away.
“Why is she doing that?” Javan asked, his fists still clenched like he thought he could beat the dragon into submission.
“They’re meat,” Sajda said. “If I were you, I’d stick to eating bread and fruit for the next week.”
He gagged, caught himself, and then gagged again. When he could trust himself to speak, he glared at Sajda and said, “Is that what you meant when you said I was meat?”
“In my defense, I really did think you’d die in your first round.”
He walked away. Away from Sajda’s casual acceptance of the violence that surrounded them. Away from the warden as she moved down the line incinerating one body after another.
This was a brutish, barbaric place. Did his father know what went on down here? How could he allow debtors to be tossed into the combat ring with violent criminals? Where was the honor in that? Or was Fariq behind all of it, and the king was somehow kept ignorant?
Leaving the arena behind, he entered the corridor that ran beneath the eastern edge of level one. The unspent fury he’d felt for the warden still tumbled through him, a nervous, jagged kind of energy that made him want to ball up his fist and send it into the wall.
“You’re upset.” Sajda spoke beside him, and he nearly punched her as he jerked around in surprise.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“If you hit me, I’d hit you back, and we both know how well that turned out for you last time.” She sounded smug.
“I was trying not to hurt you.”
“Oh really? Does that mean you think if you were trying to hurt me, you’d actually beat me in a sparring match?” There was a challenge in her voice.
He matched it with one of his own. “Did you see me in the arena yesterday?”
She snorted. “Rescuing a stranger.”
“Killing the top predator.”
“Getting jumped by Hashim and his friends.”
“Gaining enough points in a single round to put myself above quite a few of the competitors.”
“You got lucky,” she said, and he rounded on her.
“Or maybe you got lucky when you landed that punch. Care to take another shot?”
Her fist plowed into his stomach before even saw her throw the punch. He doubled over wheezing, pain spiking as his injuries protested. “What the . . . you don’t just start a sparring match out of nowhere. You’re supposed to shake hands and—”
“There aren’t rules for sparring matches, Prince.”
“There most certainly are. I think you broke my ribs.” He stayed hunched over and waited.
She paused and then leaned down. “I should’ve held back. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” He grabbed her left arm and spun her to face the wall. When she brought her foot up to kick him, he hooked his leg beneath hers and tried to knock her off-balance.
She recovered much faster than was strictly fair.
Who had trained her? Had there been a prisoner with extensive combat experience who’d taken an interest in a little girl?
She lunged for the wall, pressed her hands against it, and snapped a double-legged kick in his direction.
He was already ducking and moving, though it hurt to do so. She spun to face him, and landed a glancing blow, but he was figuring her out now. She moved so fast, she relied on her speed to get her in and out of range before he could react. If he kept moving, kept breaking pattern, it threw her off. And when she was off-balance he had a second to react. To tap her shoulder. Nudge her kneecap. Nothing to hurt her, but enough to let her know that the point was his.
When that worked three times in a row, she stopped and glared at him.
“What? Do you need me to stand still so you can punch me?” He was wearing a ridiculous grin on his face. He could feel it stretching his lips too wide, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
“Says the boy who still hasn’t hit me.”
“I’m not interested in hitting you. And according to the rules of engagement, I’ve now scored three points in a row.”
“Points?” She looked at him like he’d gone mad. “Who tallies points when they fight?”
“It’s . . . like a game.”
“A game?”
“Yes. A game where the person who gets the touch gets the point. The first person to the predetermined amount of points wins.”
“I don’t usually like games, but I’ll make an exception for this one.” She gave him a sly smile. “Are you still mad?”
He went still. The anger was still there, but it was banked. A pile of embers steadily glowing instead of a fire raging out of control. The vicious, violent energy that had careened through him had steadied. And the loneliness that had filled him when he’d awakened that morning had lost some of its sting.
He was thinking clearly again.
And she’d given him that on purpose.
“You picked a fight with me to get me to calm down?” He frowned.
“It worked, didn’t it?” The challenge was back in her voice.
“Yes.” He almost didn’t want to ask, but the question was already leaving his lips. “Why did you do it?”
“Because you needed it,” she said. “And if I have to be friends with you, then I should get to punch you now and then. Did you give me a point for that? Because I deserved about five.”
“You don’t get five points for one touch.”
“You do when that one touch nearly breaks someone’s ribs. Now get back to the arena for your level’s chore hour before the guards decide to beat you into submission.”