“NO!” THE WORD was ripped from Sajda’s lips before she could stop herself.
The warden smiled, and Sajda trembled. This was her punishment for saving Javan. She was going to lose Tarek, the closest thing to family she had since Maeli, the woman who’d shown her nothing but kindness and decency in the six years the woman had spent in Maqbara, had died in the arena two years before.
“I’m going in with you,” she said to Tarek, as the older man lifted one trembling arthritic hand toward her.
“She’ll kill you.”
“She can try.” Sajda shook, every ounce of the composure she’d borrowed from the stone that morning dissipating like it had never existed. “But you aren’t entering the arena without me.”
“He’ll enter with me.” Javan wrapped a hand around Tarek’s shoulder as the guards shouted for him to return to the wall. “We’ll put him in the center of the triangle.”
“But something could still get to him.” Magic screamed through her blood, raking her skin from the inside, begging to be unleashed. Her cuffs glowed, her skin burning beneath the power of the runes.
“Nothing will get to him.” Javan stepped close to her, close enough that she could see his pulse thrumming rapidly in his neck. See the quick rise and fall of his chest.
He was afraid.
So was she.
“Open the gate!” the warden called.
“I swear on my life, I will return him to you,” Javan said quietly. “The only way you can defy the warden and enter the arena is by showing everyone who you really are. They’ll turn on you in a heartbeat. Don’t reveal anything to this crowd, Sajda. I’ll protect him.”
And then they were gone, Javan spinning Tarek toward the arena and rushing in behind the other competitors who were already grabbing the black cloths that covered the weapons and cursing if they hadn’t found the one they’d hoped to use.
She watched, every muscle straining to run after them, stand in front of them, and destroy everything that came through the gate.
But Intizara reached the triangle of weapons first, followed quickly by Kali, and neither of them allowed another competitor to get to the weapons Sajda had hidden specifically for Javan.
The prince pulled Tarek across the arena to the deafening cheers of the audience, many who were on their feet, casting quick glances toward the warden in case she was the one in charge of recording who’d attended and how thoroughly they’d participated.
Sajda wanted to hurt them. Slice into their veins, let their blood pool in her palm, and whisper terrifying nightmares to them until they understood what it was to be afraid. To be certain that survival was impossible. Maybe she’d even take bets on how long they would last before their minds broke and they were lost.
“Is this the first crate?” a guard asked her, and she whipped her head around to glare at him.
He froze, and then glanced at her wrists. She followed his gaze to find that the runes were still glowing, her skin sizzling and scarring beneath them.
A quick look at the arena showed Tarek in the center of the triangle of Kali, Intizara, and Javan. Javan had the quiver strapped to his back, the short swords looped into his belt, and the bow in his hands. His expression was deadly calm as he faced the gate.
She knew him. He would protect Tarek or die trying. He’d give everything he had to keep his word, even if it meant he’d lose his chance at the final competition.
Her body shook until it felt like her bones were rattling beneath her skin, until the fraying thread that held her together inside felt seconds away from snapping.
She had to trust him.
She did trust him.
The realization did nothing to make her feel better.
The crowd was chanting now. “Release the beasts! Release the beasts!”
Sajda swept them with a glare. The beasts had already been released, and the crowd was sitting in comfortable chairs sipping dainty drinks and screaming for the blood of those who had no power to refuse their demands.
Still, she had a job to do if she didn’t want the warden to decide to come after Tarek herself.
“Ready for the first crate?” the guard asked.
“Not yet,” she snapped. Grabbing a dagger and the pouch of grave dirt Hansel had given her, she stepped into the arena, magic snapping, runes burning.
“We have some special monsters for you today as well,” the warden boomed. “And to make the combat effective, our competitors have to be prepped.”
Sajda moved quickly from prisoner to prisoner. A quick slash of the dagger across their arms. A handful of grave dirt smeared across their chests. She ignored the crowd. Ignored the muttered curses of the prisoners until Hashim whispered that Tarek was his. Then her hand lingered on his chest, full of grave dirt and magic, as she imagined sending her power into his veins to tear through his bones and boil his blood.
The buzzing swarm of magic in her palms bit into Hashim, and he stumbled back, cursing, his eyes widening as he stared at the burn on his chest in the shape of her palm. She bared her teeth at him and moved on.
She was fury and fear and magic held at bay by her cuffs. Every breath she took was tinged with desperation. Every step she took unraveled her a little faster.
“Some of our monsters are hunters.” The warden sounded cheerful. “We have three reiligarda, and every prisoner now wears a bit of the grave dirt from the sites these creatures were supposed to guard. The scent of the dirt will bring the reiligarda straight to them.”
Sajda’s hands shook as she laid the tip of the dagger against Javan’s arm while the crowd cheered.
“He’ll be safe,” Javan whispered.
She couldn’t answer as she gave him a tiny cut and then smeared a small amount of grave dirt on his chest.
“As our grand predator today, we have a roc, captured high in the mountains that skirt the Samaal Desert.” The warden’s voice boomed. “Every competitor has been cut so that the scent of their blood will draw the bird.”
Finished with everyone but Tarek, Sajda moved to his side.
“It’s all right, little one. No matter what happens now,” he said.
“Nothing about this is right.” She laid the dagger on his arm and made a tiny scratch. Enough to satisfy the warden’s eagle eye, but hopefully not enough to make him much of a target to the roc. “She’s hurting you to punish me for helping Javan.”
“You did the right thing,” he said, his eyes clear and steady as they held hers. “I love you, little one. You remember that, no matter what. Promise me.”
She swallowed hard against the swell of tears in her throat and pressed a tiny amount of grave dirt to his chest. And then before she turned away, she pulled him close, wrapping one arm around him while the other pushed the hilt of her dagger into his hand.
“Don’t die. I can’t—” Her voice broke, and she let him go. Walked away. Crossed the arena, a hollow shell full of furious magic trapped when she needed it most.
If she could get the cuffs off, she could destroy the warden. She was sure of it. She could bring the arena down on the heads of every person screaming for blood.
But she couldn’t get them off. She couldn’t do anything but follow the warden’s instructions and put all her hope in the prince who’d sworn to protect Tarek.
“Release the first crate,” she said to the guard as she walked through the gate. She met Javan’s eyes across the arena.
He gave a small nod. He was ready.
She hoped the Yl’ Haliq he always prayed to was truly on his side.
He was going to need the help.
The guard dumped the crate into the arena. Twenty large red beetles scattered, their legs scuttling over the floor while the claws on their raised front legs snapped viciously.
The competitors closest to the front of the arena began attacking the beetles as they came close, but Javan and his allies stayed still, holding their formation while they waited for the true threats to arrive.
“Release the serpents,” she said.
A second guard helped the first wrestle a large barrel into the arena. They tipped it on its side, broke the seal, and ran for the gate, closing it behind them. Long brown and yellow snakes squirmed out of the barrel. Each serpent had a head at either end, each head raised to survey the arena while their bodies writhed, sending them across the floor in sinuous, muscular movements.
Intizara hefted her battle-axes and slashed at a snake that came close to the triangle. Kali was whipping a mace overhead as one of Hashim’s crew closed in on them.
Javan stood still, his muscles tensed, his eyes slowly roving the arena, searching for a threat his allies couldn’t dispose of.
Sajda was about to give him one.
Heart pounding, magic buzzing, she said, “It’s time for the dogs.”
The garmrs were housed in the stall closest to the arena’s gate. Yesterday, she’d laced their food with a sleeping herb so that she could enter their stall, snap an iron collar and chain around each of their necks, and loop the chains through a hook outside the door.
“Get the gate open, don’t let anything out, and stay clear of their jaws,” she said, moving to the stall as the guards did her bidding. Leaping to the top of a crate she’d moved beside the stall for this moment, she grabbed the chains and unlatched the stall door.
The pack of shaggy black dogs came out snarling. Their red eyes zeroed in on her, and their lips peeled back from their fangs as they began to circle her crate. She snapped the chains against their snouts, driving them toward the floor, and then she gathered her elven strength and leaped over their heads.
She landed just outside the row of stalls, and they instantly gave chase. She couldn’t afford to put her strength or speed on display now that the crowd could see her, so she ran just fast enough to stay ahead of their foaming, snapping jaws. Skidding into the arena, the garmrs hot on her heels, she shouted, “Close the gate.”
The guards slammed the gate shut behind the pack of dogs, and Sajda ran for the side, kicking a clawfoot beetle out of her way as she went. The dogs followed her, but they were slower now, distracted by the chaos as competitors fought snakes, beetles, and one another. She scrambled up onto the waist-high wall that edged the arena and let go of the chains.
A smart competitor could use the dangling lengths of chain to help defeat the dogs. A foolish or distracted competitor might trip on the chains and find himself fighting a losing battle against the pack.
She risked a quick look at Javan and found him standing directly in front of Tarek, his swords in his hands as two of the dogs charged. Her heart felt like it was tearing itself free of its moorings—thud, thud, thud—a reverberation she could feel in her spine.
Her wrists burned, as she balanced on the wall and considered leaping to join the fight.
She couldn’t join the fight.
Not without the warden shifting into a dragon and destroying her, Tarek, and Javan. The warden knew what kind of monster she had for a slave, and she wouldn’t risk allowing Sajda to turn the tables.
The best protection Sajda could offer Javan and Tarek was to stay out of their way and do her job. Keep the warden happy. Keep the aristocrats happy. And pray to a god she wasn’t yet sure she believed in that the two people she cared about would get out alive.
Jumping off the wall, she strode toward the stalls and barked, “Bring out the reiligarda.”
The guards looked terrified as they pulled the three coffins toward the gate. Lifting the first coffin, they balanced it on the edge of the wall until Sajda said, “Dump it.”
Grave dirt and a vaguely humanlike body crashed onto the arena floor. Quickly the guards did the same with the next two coffins.
For a long moment, the pile of dirt and bodies lay still, but then it shuddered, a ripple that became more and more violent, sending grave dirt cascading across the arena floor in a swift-moving wave. Seconds later, three skeletons as black as the walls of Maqbara rose in swift, disjointed movements. Strips of rotting black grave clothes hung from their bones, and their eyes were burning black pits of rage.
“If you’re there, please help Javan. Help Tarek.” Sajda whispered the prayer and wondered if Javan’s god would hear a girl the god’s people thought would be better off dead.
The reiligarda jerked their heads toward the competitors and then moved—heads leaning forward, arms rising, hands outstretched, their legs jerking in quick strides that ate up the ground.
Sajda looked for Javan and found him bleeding profusely from a cut on the side of his head. The body of one dog lay at his feet, a chain wrapped around its throat, its tongue distended. Tarek was crouched behind Javan, dagger raised, his back against the arena wall.
Intizara was still in position, the ground around her littered with beetles and two snakes.
Kali was down, her throat torn open.
“And now for our grand predator—the roc!” The warden’s voice boomed across the arena.
Sajda’s hands were clammy as she and the guards wrestled with the roc’s enormous cage. When they had it close to the gate, the guards backed away. Several of them grabbed the ropes that hung down from the length of netting that was rolled above them. A quick jerk of their wrists, and the netting tumbled down into place, surrounding the entire arena. Sajda climbed on top of the cage and leaned down to grab the latch.
A large hooked beak snapped at the bars of the cage closest to her hand. She was going to have seconds to let the roc free and get under the netting before it came for her. Drawing in a deep breath, she let her magic coil around her muscles and then she was moving. Flipping the latch, she jumped off the cage and slid under the netting as the roc exploded into the air.
The bird’s body was the size of a large stallion, its velvet-brown feathers glowing in the afternoon sunlight. Its wingspan was easily the length of two cells end to end; and as it rose into the air, it gave a piercing cry that sent the remaining dogs whining onto their front paws, their red eyes gazing up at a predator who could eat them as a small snack.
The roc wasn’t interested in the garmrs, though. It wasn’t interested in the reiligarda, who were steadily crushing three competitors into a wall, their skeletal limbs moving with sickening speed and strength.
The roc wanted those who were bleeding.
And Javan was standing in a puddle of blood—his own, the dog’s, and Kali’s.
Sajda’s skin went cold, her magic a rush of iced lightning that left her shaking with the effort it took to hold herself still.
“Get an arrow,” she murmured even as he whipped an arrow to his bow.
The roc beat the air with its wings, rose to the top of the arena, and began circling.
“Now!” she said, not caring what the guards around her thought of the warden’s slave shouting advice to a competitor.
Javan raised his bow just as two other competitors crashed into him, sending him into the ground.
“No!” Sajda lunged forward, her hands reaching for the net, but Javan was already up. Kicking, punching, swinging the bow like a weapon, and beating back the two who were doing their best to kill him. One of the attackers rushed for him again, and Javan sent an arrow into the man’s chest.
The roc screamed as it dove, talons the size of Sajda’s arms extended toward the melee. The crowd roared, and Javan looked up at the last second to see the impending threat.
Kicking the second attacker aside, he dropped.
Not toward safety, in front of Tarek.
A tiny sob escaped Sajda’s lips as the prince stood in front of Tarek, bow raised though there was no time to loose the arrow before the bird reached him.
The roc slammed into Javan’s chest, sending him stumbling back into Tarek and the wall. Its talons closed over his shoulders, and then Intizara was there, hacking at the bird’s feet with her battle-axes.
The roc shrieked, a deafening cry of rage and pain, twisting away from Javan and back into the air, blood dripping from its talons. Javan lifted the bow and sent an arrow flying. It buried itself in the roc’s side, but the bird continued circling.
Intizara whipped around to face an incoming reiligarda. The surviving prisoner who’d attacked Javan lunged forward again, running at Javan with a short spear. The prince pushed Tarek out of the way, and the spear grazed his chest, sending blood pouring.
The roc shrieked again and charged. The reiligarda sent Intizara flying into the wall and came toward Javan, skeletal arms reaching, its mouth gaping open in a soundless scream of fury.
“Remember, remember, remember,” Sajda whispered, her hands locked in a white-knuckled clasp. “Come on. It’s right behind you.”
Javan backed toward the wall beside Tarek, his eyes on the approaching roc even as a reiligarda advanced from his left and the other prisoner came from his right.
The prince said something, and Tarek bent swiftly to grab a small bag tied to the black cloth that had covered the bow and arrow.
Another arrow from Javan buried itself in the roc’s chest, and the bird reeled away as the reiligarda and the prisoner converged on Javan.
He went down, and Sajda was already tearing the netting out of the way when he kicked free just long enough to toss a few arrows toward Tarek before the prisoner grabbed his ankles and brought him back to the floor.
The reiligarda slammed its arms into the attacking prisoner, and as the man’s grip slackened, Javan drove a sword through his arm. It wasn’t a killing blow, but it was enough to make the man roll away and try to run. He didn’t get far. The roc crashed into him, landing heavily on the ground and crushing the man beneath him.
Javan kicked and shoved at the reiligarda, but the skeletal creature was strong as iron and single-minded in its pursuit of the one who wore the dirt from the grave it had been meant to protect.
In the center of the arena, Hashim and two others fought the remaining reiligarda. All the dogs were dead. So were the serpents and at least nine prisoners. A few beetles cruised the floor, but no one was paying them any attention.
Terror was a blinding light trapped in Sajda’s chest. Her magic swirled and scraped, begging for freedom, and she could barely breathe past the tears clogging her throat.
What would she do if she lost both Tarek and Javan?
She’d be trapped, alone in the bowels of Maqbara. As she watched Javan struggle to keep from getting crushed by the reiligarda, a thread of anger blazed through her terror.
Why had he offered his friendship? Why had he made her laugh and think and trust? She’d been surviving just fine on her own for years. She hadn’t known what she was missing. But now, she knew. She knew the depths of her loneliness if he died. She knew the void that would open within her. A void no amount of starlight would ever fill.
Tarek worked quickly with the materials he himself had left behind for the prince’s use. Grabbing a small nest of rags wrapped in a ball of woven straw that had been smeared with pitch, he struck the tip of an arrow against a piece of flint held over the straw ball.
Sparks showered onto the ball, and it ignited.
Tarek yelled and jabbed an arrow deep into the ball. Javan gave another kick to gain an instant’s reprieve from the reiligarda while he twisted at the waist, caught the arrow Tarek tossed his way, and plunged the flaming arrow deep into the chest cavity of the reiligarda. The creature stumbled, reached for him once more, and then collapsed to its knees as the fire ate through it.
Tarek already had another burning arrow ready. Javan sent it into the reiligarda who was fighting Hashim. Hashim was on his knees, his mace raised above his head in a futile effort to protect himself from the attack. He looked up as the skeleton dropped, and his mouth opened in surprise to see that Javan had been his salvation.
The third flaming arrow took down the remaining reiligarda, and then Javan turned toward the roc.
It was already dead. Crumpled into a heap of feathers and blood, Javan’s arrows sticking out of its body.
It was over. Tarek was alive. Javan was alive.
And the warden was still bent on keeping Javan from the final round.
Sajda let go of the netting and ran toward the stairs that led to the betting table as the crowd thundered their favorite’s name.
Did Javan have enough points to advance? He’d killed the roc, all three reiligarda, and a dog. That was two hundred seventy-five points. Plus, he’d killed another prisoner, a man who until that moment had been in second place. That meant that after the five-hundred-point deduction, Javan would get the rest of the man’s points. It had to be enough to put him in the final round, to keep him a crowd favorite and the topic of conversation across Makan Almalik.
His safety depended on it.
Sajda flew up the stairs and stopped just outside the platform with the betting table. The warden’s back was to her as she surveyed the carnage spread out across the arena floor. One of the judges was bringing up the results of the match. Sajda glared at the judge as if that would somehow influence whatever was written on the parchment the woman held in her hands.
“I’ll take that,” she said.
The woman hesitated.
“I’m the warden’s right-hand girl. Do you really want to be on my bad side?” This time she didn’t even need to borrow her composure from the stone. The sickening thought of losing Javan at the warden’s hands was enough to make her feel like she’d swallowed ice.
The woman gave her the score sheet, and Sajda unfolded it with shaking fingers.
A prisoner named Iram was in first place.
Hashim was in second.
Javan was in third.
He’d made it. He was going to the final competition to fight for an audience with his father. And he’d given her a way to keep him alive.
Striding onto the platform, Sajda waved the score sheet in the air. The crowd fell silent.
The warden reached for it, and Sajda shouted, “Congratulations to three crowd favorites who will be advancing to the final competition.”
“Give me that—”
“Iram, Hashim, and Javan are your finalists!” Sajda shouted. “Early betting opens now!”
The warden snatched the parchment from her hands and glanced at it. “You’ve overstepped your bounds, little monster.”
“Have I?” Sajda met the warden’s glare and for once didn’t look away. “I simply announced the true winners and opened betting like we always do. Unless you were planning to announce results other than those on the parchment?”
The warden remained silent. Sajda turned on her heel and left the platform.
Tarek and Javan were alive. She’d ensured that Javan wouldn’t be targeted before the next round of competition. The warden would never be able to explain it, plus she wouldn’t want to lose the bets that were already pouring in for the newcomer who’d destroyed the ranks in his quest for victory.
Now Sajda just had to think of a way to protect Tarek as well.