First, the Rules
Esme leaned back in the stands, eating a sausage hand pie.
Arena food was pricey, so she and Urias always smuggled theirs in.
She wordlessly offered a bite to him, sitting beside her.
He uncapped his flask and Esme produced two cups from the oversized sleeves of her dress.
They clinked their drinks and took a shot together. They’d need it.
Today was the Valosia, Bal and Janos’s second trial, but the heirs were nowhere to be found.
A massive swirling maze (because there was always a bloody maze) filled the royal arena with wooden walls so high that no one in the first three stands could see over them.
The passageways were thin, just enough for two men to rush through side by side, and curved inwards toward the eye of the storm, just like Amaris herself.
At the very center was a pit about five feet wide, with something sloshing and hissing deep inside.
Balanced above it was an object on a platform suspended on four pillars with a large sheet thrown over it.
At each cardinal direction, two iron gates stood at the maze entrances.
Rows of giddy onlookers had the arena vibrating.
The air struggled to keep itself straight.
Meat- and pickle-sellers toiled up and down tight staircases, shouting their advertisements.
Bar girls carrying four mugs of ale in each hand and one tucked between their breasts poured their wares down the gullets of the drunks that pushed to the aisles.
Magic was a whisper on the air, lost in Amaris’s own lust for watching a clot of men die in a boiling bowl of sand.
Isobel’s observation box jutted out over the north entrance.
Inside, servants fluttered around like dying moths.
Mak’kon stood sentry behind Hallel as the girl chattered to him.
He cracked a smile at something she said before flattening his mouth again.
To Isobel’s right, the nobles lounged in a large, shaded box with red-and-gold awnings.
A bevy of servants in orange dresses kept them swimming in liquor.
She recognized a few. Karin and Kiren must have donated a few ladies for the day.
“I just don’t know why we can’t do something else,” Tagas said with a sigh, sitting on the wrought-iron railing of the Wraiths’ observation box, over the east entrance.
Its black awning and metal railings made it a sweltering nightmare.
Esme would kill to step into the real shade just to her right, but once the Wraiths entered this box they were barred from leaving until the event was over.
“What do you want? For Isobel to individually shoot each one with a crossbow as they scurry around like beheaded chickens?” Padrian asked, unbuttoning his doublet to reveal smoked meats hanging from the lining. “Deer, cow, or pork?”
“Do you have that iced-cat one you did last year?” Tagas asked, peeking around Padrian’s midsection meat selection.
“Roasted and peppered frost fox, right here.” He plucked the snack from his doublet and handed it over.
“Thanks.” Tagas took a big bite and moaned before continuing. “I just think the maze is boring. It’s easy.”
“You can barely find your way through the Foot and you want to call that easy?” Daphna huffed, throwing themself into a chair beside Esme.
Today was a masculine day, so their stays flattened their chest and their pants were laced low on their hips.
“We should throw you down there and let you do it, then.” Daphna’s eyes cut to slits as they raised a brow, threatening to push him in.
Tagas edged away from the railing just in case, then wrinkled his nose before taking another bite of his jerky. His eyes found Esme, then Urias. “How’s Valos’s favorite murderer doing?” he asked Urias.
The air soured. Samander, Tagas’s husband, cleared his throat from the back of the box, coming to stand beside his troublesome partner.
“He’s almost completely recovered, save for a perpetual stomachache,” Urias said, scooching backward in his chair.
“That’s good, I suppose,” Tagas said.
“Damn shame,” Esme quipped at the same time. Everyone’s head swiveled to her, but she just raised a brow from behind the shadow glasses on her eyes.
“You should talk to him,” Urias said.
“About what? Methods of burning bodies?” The other Wraiths stood up straighter, but Esme doubted they hadn’t already found out on their own. You could hide something from a Wraith for only so long.
“He was forced to do those things, just like us,” Urias protested.
“Does a Bond throttle him when he tries to do his hair, too?” Esme snapped. When Urias didn’t answer, her lip hitched in disgust. “Exactly, Urias. You cannot compare what we were forced to do with what he chose to.”
“His father sold him to the military when he was young,” Urias muttered. “What do you think they would have done to him if he’d refused?”
“We died,” Esme seethed. “Janos bent to the will of his overlord; we died at the foot of ours. He is not the same as us. He is not the same as you.”
Silence prickled the air between them. Tagas leaned back on the railing, tipping his chin down and watching the two of them as if this spat had been his intention all along.
Urias’s jaw worked from side to side as he shook his head. “Then why do I see so much of myself in him? He’s been abandoned by his family and turned out into the world with no other choice than violence. Whose story is that, Bast?” Urias asked.
“You only see the worst of yourself, and that’s what you see in that boy,” Esme said, then sighed. “You are so much more than a sick, weak-willed monster bending to the cruelty of his father. Do not insult yourself.”
“You’re not even going to allow him to explain himself?”
“I can barely look at him without feeling his hands on my throat, Ryukyhn. No, I am not going to allow him to explain himself. Fine, he is a pitiful, sad boy who was forced to do things he didn’t want to do.
Boo-fucking-hoo. I don’t want that pitiful sad boy as king.
” They’d never disagreed so much before and her chest constricted.
“You’re attached to him? Fine. But don’t damn the rest of us to a half-century under a fucking maniac. ”
Urias side-eyed her before crossing his arms. “And Balthazar bashing men to death in a fighting pit is such a benevolent alternative?”
Esme whipped around to him. “You don’t know if they died.”
“That’s your defense? If you didn’t see it, it didn’t happen?”
“You’re conflating two extremely different things.”
“You are a hypocrite.”
“You are a lovestruck old man with a death wish,” Esme shot back.
“You’re only trying to crown Balthazar because he wants to see you naked and you think you can manipulate him,” Urias said.
The blow was low enough for the other Wraiths to freeze.
“Maybe so,” Esme said slowly. “But if anyone will exploit my body, at least it will be me this time.” She guzzled the rest of her wine, then pushed herself out of her seat and stormed off to the back of the observation box.
The closer she got to the gate at the back, the harsher the Bond stung her throat, though she still considered jumping over the barrier and leaving.
Trial or not, she didn’t feel like pacing around a tight fucking box. Not with her and Urias in this state.
“I see you’ve made some choices,” came a voice nearby. Tagas had wandered up beside her, dangerously close to the gate.
“If you only knew—”
“I know,” Tagas cut her off. Before she could question him, Samander settled on the gate beside her, then Daphna came over to them, kicking dust, and leaned against the adjoining railing, winking at a man off the edge of the box as they spoke out of the side of their mouth.
“I thought we weren’t spilling,” they grumbled, sending Samander and Tagas a withering look.
Padrian sighed. “I think it’s spilled, Daph,” he said, taking a spot beside them.
“I hate it when you dick around a point. Tell me what you’re talking about,” Esme told the four of them.
Tagas’s eyes flashed blue, and Esme knew he was speaking to the others with his magic. Something he whispered into their minds must have made sense, because Daphna’s shoulder dropped and they brought their eyes to Esme’s, half remorseful.
“You remember when I cut my braid?” Padrian asked, running a hand over his dusting of hair.
Esme nodded.
“And when we met in the kitchens?” Daphna asked.
Esme hummed.
“And that bit of property I purchased in the Hand a few weeks ago?” Samander added.
Esme’s brows drew in, then blew high.
The woman at the front in Virya’s Belt had smelled like Padrian.
And her hair—her pitch-black, silky hair…
A wig? She’d been wearing a wig of Padrian’s hair.
And Daphna had come down looking for information and been suspicious when there was nothing on Janos.
They’d hovered, even after their order had been filled, because they knew there was something else. Samander and his new properties…
All of it fell into place right in front of Esme’s eyes. She snatched off her sunshades.
“You four run Virya’s Belt.” she said breathlessly.
Tagas’s lips tipped up. “Technically, none of us run anything. Samander simply keeps the papers in order, I interview the employees, and Padrian makes sure the girls wear their uniforms, while Daph ensures no one steals the recipes.”
Esme knew exactly what he meant. Samander bought the properties for them to funnel the refugees through, Tagas made sure they weren’t spies with his powers, Padrian helped to disguise them, and Daphna kept their ear to the ground to make sure no information about their operation got out.
She stood in awe for a few seconds. How had the four of them found all of this out? And why hadn’t they told her?
“Because we didn’t need too many people poking into a system that only works with no leaks,” Tagas said, reading her mind. “Who’d you see, Bast? I need to know.”