She nodded, the barest inclination of her head that left him feeling like he was the one who’d been dismissed, and returned shortly with the warden.
Rahim kept it brief. “Announce to the prisoners that the aristocrat residing here and going by the name of Javan is an enemy of the crown. I will grant immediate release to any prisoner who kills him.”
The slave girl remained silent and still. It was infuriating that Rahim couldn’t tell if his words had made an impact.
“He’s becoming a crowd favorite,” the warden said. “If he dies suddenly, those betting on him will demand an investigation.”
Rage curled through Rahim. Would every person he spoke to today question his judgment? Had they no care for the power he wielded over their pathetic lives? Leaning toward the warden, he snapped, “Then tell them to do it in the arena. I don’t care. Just get it done.”
Turning away from the warden, he motioned for the girl to take him to the infirmary and followed behind her as her long strides ate up the corridor. The infirmary was a long room filled with beds. Eight prisoners were currently in residence, including the prince. Torches illuminated the dim space, and a quick glance around the room showed Rahim that the prisoners were all badly wounded. Most were asleep or unconscious, and the two who were awake were lying on their backs groaning in pain.
No one even bothered looking at Rahim as he moved to Javan’s bedside, leaving his guards and the slave girl behind in the hall.
Javan opened his eyes as Rahim approached, and anger swept his face. He struggled to sit up, and Rahim dug his hand into the bandaged wound on the boy’s stomach and shoved him back onto the mattress. Blood seeped into the bandage, and pain bracketed the boy’s mouth, though his furious expression remained unchanged.
Rahim leaned down and whispered, “Why don’t you just die?”
“You first.”
He bared his teeth. “Akram is mine now. The crown is mine. Your father is mine. You have nothing left to fight for.”
“There’s always something to fight for.”
“Keep fighting then.” Rahim shoved his fingers deeper into the wound, enjoying the hiss of pain that escaped the prince’s lips. “It will only make my victory sweeter. You’ll be dead by the end of the next combat round; but before you die, I want you to look in my eyes and know that I will personally kill your father once he gives me the crown. I was going to just let the poison he’s been drinking twice a day do its work. We’ve become rather close these last few weeks, and I thought it the most merciful course of action.”
“You know nothing of mercy. Or honor.” The prince spat the words at him.
“Mercy and honor are for those who’ve never had to fight for a single thing they possess. I know everything about taking what is mine and destroying those who stand in my way.” Blood soaked through the bandage and coated Rahim’s fingertips. He bared his teeth in a vicious smile. “And the knowledge that I will kill your father, that he will suffer as he dies, is how I will finish destroying you.”
Before the prince could reply, Rahim turned on his heel and left the room, and the prison, behind.
THIRTY-ONE
FIVE DAYS AFTER the false prince’s visit to Maqbara, Sajda paused at the door of the infirmary on her way from the weapons closet to the stalls. Javan was inside, still healing from his wounds, but she didn’t dare go talk to him. Not now that Hashim and several of the other injured prisoners were awake and aware.
With the warden’s plans to kill Javan failing, his popularity with the bettors growing, and the false prince’s bounty on Javan’s head in the next competition, Sajda didn’t dare draw attention to her friendship with Javan. For her sake, and for his. It was one thing to spar with him during level fifteen’s practice sessions—she often joined the sparring sessions for the upper levels, both to help the less capable prisoners with their skills and to keep hers honed razor-sharp—or to use level fifteen for some of the arena’s less desirable chores under her direct supervision. And keeping him from joining the others during mealtime could easily be credited to Tarek’s gratitude for Javan’s defending him against Hashim.
But something had shifted inside Sajda. A tiny crack in her defenses that she’d stopped trying to repair. When she was with Javan, she didn’t have to pretend to be cold and indifferent. She didn’t have to keep her distance. She felt free, but freedom wasn’t what she’d thought it would be. It was a fire blazing in the heart of a rainstorm. It was the star-swept sky trapped inside her, and every time she stood near him, she could barely contain the power of it.
She couldn’t risk being near him while their enemies were watching. Instead, she’d left Tarek in the infirmary to help the physician with strict instructions to shout her name if Hashim tried anything.
Turning away, Sajda brushed her palm against the stone wall outside the infirmary, drew on its icy strength, and then hurried toward the stalls as Batula shouted her name.
“They’re here. Magistrate’s door is already open. Don’t like the looks of this shipment,” Batula snapped as Sajda reached the stalls.
“You never like the looks of any of the shipments,” she said as she pulled on her leather gloves and briefly envied Batula’s iron vest.
Sajda had tried to wear a vest once five years ago when they received their first shipment of creatures from the fae isle of Llorenyae, thinking that the discomfort of the iron was better than the risk of being disemboweled by the beasts she was handling. Instant waves of agony had driven her to her knees, and she’d lost her breakfast on the unforgiving floor of the arena. The warden had laughed and said monsters didn’t get protection from other monsters. Sajda had spent the next few years mimicking every half-decent competitor in her spare hours, practicing until her raw strength and reflexes became a finely honed weapon she could use against the beasts; the prisoners; and maybe, if she was lucky, against the warden herself.
Turning, Sajda faced the entrance in time to see two dozen guards carefully maneuvering iron crates through the doorway and into the arena under the careful supervision of Hansel and Gretel, the twin bounty hunters who brought each order the warden requested from Llorenyae. Sajda had spent plenty of time with the twins in the five years since the tournament began. Hansel was a charming tease, but Gretel had become the closest thing to a friend Sajda had outside of Tarek and now Javan.
Quickly counting the crates, Sajda turned to eye the stalls, her stomach sinking.
She’d have to put something in the last stall—the one with her tunnel in it. Frustration set her on edge at the thought of going weeks without making any progress toward escape.
“Sajda, my mysterious rose, it’s been too long,” Hansel called out, flashing her a wide grin. The light that filtered in through the prison’s skylights dusted bits of gold in his dark red hair and lingered on the runes inked into his arms.
Runes that matched the ones carved into Sajda’s cuffs. If the twins had ever wondered about the similarity, they’d never mentioned it, though Sajda had caught Gretel eyeing the cuffs more than once.
“Stop calling her that. It’s ridiculous.” Gretel rolled her eyes at her brother and then whirled as one of the guards stumbled, nearly dropping his crate. She stalked toward him, the silver bells woven into the braided strip of shocking white that streaked through her dark red hair tinkling as she moved.
“Move with care, move with care,” Hansel said to the guards. “If you break it, you’ve bought it, and I do hate to clean up bloodstains.”
Sajda moved through the line of stalls, opening doors and checking for weaknesses, even though she’d already double-checked them the day before.
It paid to be careful around the kind of beasts Hansel and Gretel delivered.
“You’ll need netting around two of the stalls,” Gretel spoke softly from the first stall as she eyed Sajda’s progress. “One of the creatures has wings, and the other can climb.”
Sajda nodded and moved to put netting in place. “Anything else?”
r /> “Oh the usual,” Hansel said as he joined his sister and winked at Sajda. “Teeth, vicious temperaments, and the occasional wee bit of magic easily contained by the iron in these stalls.”
His gaze bounced off her cuffs and away, but heat burned in Sajda’s cheeks.
Did they think she was a vicious beast who needed to be contained too?
“Three of the creatures are sealed in coffins,” Hansel said, “and if I were you, I wouldn’t break those open until the moment you truly need them. Once you let a reiligarda out of its grave, it’s incredibly dangerous to try putting it back. Here.” He handed her a leather pouch half the length of her arm. “We skimmed some grave dirt from each coffin for you. Put it on whomever is going to fight the reiligarda. The nasty things go straight for anyone who smells like they’re the ones who disturbed the grave.”
Sajda accepted the pouch gingerly. “I need to store three coffins?”
Hansel turned to answer a question from one of the guards, and Gretel said, “If you don’t have an extra stall, you could—”
“I have a stall.” Sajda placed the pouch on a shelf and moved toward the end of the row, her magic churning at the relief that flooded her.
She could keep the reiligarda in the stall with her tunnel, and she could still keep digging. Keep working toward the escape she so desperately craved.
“In here,” she said, and then whirled toward Hansel as a crate crashed against the stone floor. The boy cursed, and Sajda moved quickly to assist him as a beast slashed at the crack in its crate with razor-sharp talons.
When the creature was once again contained, she instructed the guards to roll the reiligarda’s coffins to the back stall where Gretel still stood.
“I’ll do that,” Gretel said firmly.
Hansel laughed. “One of these days I’m going to have to introduce you to the wonders of delegating menial tasks to others.”
Gretel didn’t reply. Instead, she waved the guards off and began maneuvering the coffins into the stall. “Sajda, you can help.”
Sajda moved to the stall and grasped one side of the coffin, grateful to be wearing her leather gloves so that she wouldn’t have to touch the iron directly. When they had the first coffin wedged against the far corner of the stall, Gretel said softly, “Are you in trouble?”
Sajda froze and whipped her gaze up to meet Gretel’s piercing blue eyes. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, and then Gretel nodded toward the hay trough.
Turning, Sajda saw that the trough wasn’t flush against the wall. The shadow of her tunnel peeked out from behind it.
Gretel stepped past her and shoved the trough back into place. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”
Sajda’s heart pounded, magic screaming through her veins to hurl itself helplessly at the cuffs that bound her.
“That’s what I thought,” Gretel said, as if Sajda’s silence had confirmed something for her. Glancing at the cuffs on Sajda’s wrists, she said quietly, “Will you tell me what you are?”
What would the girl who hunted monsters do if she learned what kind of monster Sajda was beneath her cuffs? The world dropped out from under Sajda’s feet, and her hands came up, fingers curled like claws ready to draw blood.
Gretel raised her hands, palms out. “I’m on your side, Sajda. I’ve spent a lifetime around those who are evil and those who are powerful. I know the difference.”
Slowly, Sajda lowered her hands, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. “What are you going to do?”
Gretel smiled, and there was a shadow of sadness in her eyes. “I want to help you, if you’ll let me.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re friends, and I don’t have very many of those.”
Letting her help meant trusting her completely, something Sajda struggled to do. Still, Gretel could have called for the warden the moment she saw the hole in the wall behind the trough. She could have just walked away without getting involved. Instead, she’d offered to help, and Sajda knew Gretel never said anything she didn’t mean.
Gretel spoke quickly as Hansel shouted her name in the background. “What if next time Hansel and I deliver some beasts, we smuggle you out in one of the crates?”
The crates. Made of iron. Sajda imagined the terrible waves of pain and sickness that would bring her to her knees, and swallowed back a lump in her throat. She could endure anything if it meant escape. Tarek could easily fit in a crate too. And if Javan was still trapped in Maqbara when winter hit and Hansel and Gretel returned with their next shipment, she’d smuggle him out in a crate as well.
Meeting Gretel’s gaze, she said, “I’m listening.”
Gretel glanced over her shoulder as if looking for eavesdroppers and then spoke quickly. “The order we’re delivering now takes care of all the beasts the warden needs for the remaining rounds of the tournament. We won’t be back until the winter order is placed. If you still need help then, I’ll be ready.”
Sajda looked at the iron crates and swallowed.
Gretel brushed her hand against Sajda’s arm and said, “I’ll bring wooden crates.”
Sajda met her gaze and found fierce compassion on her friend’s face. Would she still feel compassion if she knew what Sajda really was? “I can explain—”
“You don’t need to. I shouldn’t have asked,” Gretel said. “I’ll be here with a wooden crate this winter if you still need help.”
“Three wooden crates,” Sajda said. If Javan didn’t win the tournament, he’d need a way out, and Sajda couldn’t imagine leaving Tarek behind.
Gretel nodded. “Three crates. Be safe until winter.”
“Until winter,” Sajda said as Gretel left the stall.
Maybe Sajda would still be in Maqbara in five months when Hansel and Gretel brought the first shipment for the winter tournament. Or maybe Javan would win the competition, ask the king for his freedom, and return for her once he’d been restored as the prince. Her magic sizzled against her cuffs as she imagined what it would be like to be free.
THIRTY-TWO
RAHIM PULLED HIS royal purple sash across his chest and through the loop at the waist of his blue tunic. Checking his reflection in the gilt-edged mirror above his dresser, he practiced blinking the violent hunger from his eyes. Nearly two months of living at the palace and hiding how much he hated those who still treated him like a puppet was getting easier.
It was about to be easier still.
The coronation was scheduled in three weeks, just after the end of the tournament. He was sure the other prisoners would take the bait and kill Javan during the next round of combat, but he had another plan in place should that one fail. The FaSaa’il was in a fury over Javan’s continued existence—rumors were growing into bold talk as people speculated about the prisoner who looked so much like their ruler.
Rahim wasn’t worried. Rumors would never reach the king. The distrust Rahim had sown with the forged document from Fariq had blossomed into full-blown paranoia as the older man refused to have any staff wait on him, to receive visitors, or to leave the palace unless accompanied by the one person he knew he could trust: his son.
On the day of the final tournament round, should Javan miraculously make it that far, a simple dose of saffeyena could be administered to make the king pliable and open to suggestion. If it seemed the king was fixating on Javan, a quiet word about rumors that one of Fariq’s bastards had been sent to Maqbara would be enough to swing the king’s favor against the true prince once and for all.
Turning away from the mirror, Rahim moved toward the door. He had a packed schedule of visits from the various aristocratic families who lived in or around Makan Almalik. Invitations to the coronation ceremony had finally been sent, and it seemed every wealthy aristocrat in the area wanted to greet him one-on-one and remind him of all they brought to the table as an ally.
Every wealthy aristocrat, of course, except those who’d had children at Milisatria with Javan. Those families were now exiled to distant political posts
in Ichil and Eldr or had lost their lands, fortunes, and reputations to accusations of treason. All Rahim’s idea, though he’d had to make it seem like Fariq had thought of it.
Soon, he wouldn’t have to worry about playing the part of a good little puppet.
Soon, he’d be a god among men, and everyone who wanted to survive would do well to remember it.
The families who remained in the crown’s good graces would either immediately accept Rahim as their king and repudiate the rumors about Javan, or they would find themselves in Maqbara.
The priests would continue their little charity work with the poor but would give a portion of all donations to the crown as a reminder of who truly ruled Akram.
And the FaSaa’il, who thought they’d found an uncouth little peasant who would obey their every whim, would go to their graves knowing they’d been outwitted at every turn.
Rahim’s heart beat faster.
It had been a simple matter to mix a sleeping herb into the king’s morning tonic so that he would remain in his bed for most of the day. And it was easy to arrange to have as Rahim’s personal guard Abbas, the man who’d escorted Javan to the magistrate’s office and then allowed him to go into Maqbara instead of executing him as ordered. The crowning achievement of Rahim’s day was the ease with which he’d smuggled into the palace the three peasant assassins the FaSaa’il had tasked with killing Javan in Loch Talam. It had taken a bit of manipulation on his part to get the assassins’ names from Lord Borak, but he’d done it. He couldn’t pull off today’s plan without them.
Leaving his bedroom, he moved through his opulent sitting room and then down the hall in the residential wing until he came to the dining room used only by the Kadars and their closest friends. Abbas followed at his heels, his eyes constantly studying Rahim as if searching for flaws in his claim to be the true prince.