Chapter 23 #2
There was a time the insubordination would have been enough for me to slap him, right here in front of everyone. But I’m not embarrassed now. I’m not ashamed. I’m only terrified for him. That, mixed with the racking guilt that he’s doing this for me.
Maybe I should slap him anyway. Let the Emperor see he’s not a threat. Let Robin hate me. Because if he hated me, if I hadn’t gone out on that balcony with him, this wouldn’t be happening.
“Robin—”
“Father.” Julius appears out of nowhere, tight-lipped as ever.
“I’m in the middle of something,” the Emperor hisses, tugging at my arm like a toddler pulling along a miserable dog.
“Father,” Julius repeats, only with so much strictly restrained poison that even the Emperor stills.
“Jonathan would like to speak with you about the Crown Shipping contract,” he spits out, sharp emphasis on every other word.
“He is interested in sponsoring this year’s finale.
” He accompanies his words with such a hate-filled and obstinate glare that the grip on me loosens, lets go, and slides forward to meet a new hand.
It feels as if he’s let go of my heart in the same gesture.
Max knows enough to step away, even if he does it with low shoulders, knowing he’s missed his opportunity to impress.
Not Robin. He waits for me.
And I don’t need to be asked twice.
I move fast after Max, having him and René gather the others. I work through the room, swiftly and courteously, saying goodnight to everyone of consequence to me or anyone I care about.
The last is Cornelia. I pay her every public courtesy due her station, then more again, for my sake, for Robin’s, and above all, for Esme’s.
At the door, while the men are led away by the guards, I wait for the Emperor’s notice. It comes with an irritated frown, but no more. So I place a hand over my heart and smile the first genuine smile I’ve smiled all night.
I’m free. I got away with it. Thanks to Robin.
I spin out of the room under Julius’s dark watch, then instruct the guards to take me out through the garden.
I’m not going back to the dungeon.
I’m not saying goodnight to Robin.
That was far too close, far too dangerous.
Distance. That’s what we need. All the distance I can put between us.
I can resist him.
I will resist him.
Memories of being on the balcony have invaded my dreams all week long. Every movement, every sigh, every brush of Robin’s skin, every word he spoke of a future beneath Atrean stars. Everything he did. And now, a week later, it’s only Robin. He’s all I can think about.
But I eat at home with Maria, like I do every other day.
I half wear myself out exercising here before I have to go see him.
I don’t take any extra care with how I look, don’t adjust my hair or oil my skin with the thought of his eyes or hands on me.
And when I get to the dungeon, I don’t even look at him.
I’m here for one reason, and one reason only: the fixtures.
This time, I enter with the guards. This time, I take the sheet directly from their hands and into the dining hall. And this time, I’ll open it myself, standing in front of them, so I can deliver the news.
“Variety rounds,” I announce to the grim, expectant faces.
“That means champions are back in the game, and that means any of us could go at any time. You’ll see pairs and groups in these rounds, playing on the same side sometimes, so this is not the time for bullshit between any of you.
You’re going to have to rely on each other to survive. ”
“Then kill each other in the next phase.” Max throws it out like it’s a joke, and a few of the men laugh. Gallows humor.
“That’s right. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
For now, you can all relax a little. They’ll want to save enough of you for the champions rounds, so the games will get easier as we go along, if enough men die along the way.
” I pull the ribbon from the scroll, unfurling it as I half joke, “Just hope you’re not up first.”
But the second I lay eyes on the paper, the words swim away from me.
First match.
Me, reigning champion, fighting side by side with Deathball’s number one rising star: Robin.
This feels almost planned. Deliberately designed.
“What is it?” asks Harlan.
“I’m still reading,” I tell him sharply, and I try to focus on the print.
But I can’t. At all. “Variety rounds,” I mutter.
“They’re all different. Um. They haven’t said yet what style they’ll each be.
But the first one is in two days and it’s…
” I make myself meet his eyes for the first time since last week. “It’s you and me, birdie.”
“Bullshit,” Cas hisses out, but Robin’s already coming to stand beside me. I let him guide the paper down onto the table for them all to see.
“Gladiator battle,” he reads. His arm brushes mine, and as much as I know I should pull away, my body leans into him as if it has a mind of its own. “What does that mean?”
“It means… Um… You don’t know about…” It’s not the time for a history lesson. “Basically, we’ll be, sort of… warriors. Dressed that way. We’ll have minimal armor, mostly for show. We’ll be thrown into the arena, you and me, and we’ll have to fight off… whatever they throw at us.”
“Whatever?” he asks, face so close I can feel his breath on my cheek. “What kind of whatever? What does that mean?”
“It could be anything. A team of slaves, a swarm of butcher ants. It could even be the infected.”
“The infected?” He lowers his head a little, trying to catch my eyes, which remain obstinately on the fixtures. “Won’t we get infected?”
“We might.”
“Fuck.” He steps away, pacing, fingers sinking deep into his hair.
The rest of the room has gone silent, waiting for my thoughts. But what am I supposed to say? Because all I’m thinking is, why me? Not in some self-pitying, scared way. But why did the game planners choose me for this? Why chance the champion getting injured? Or worse, infected.
Because I bet they’d love me to play the champions rounds sick. I bet they’d love to bring me out on the sand, frothing at the mouth, hungry for blood, and have me tear one of these men apart.
Then they could put me down in the desert like a rabid dog.
And never grant me my freedom.
What a show-stopping end for the Deathball champion.
I can’t imagine the Emperor would want this for me. So who did it? That bastard Julius? Fuck, he’d love me out of the way.
“Marco?” asks René, watching me closely.
I stare down the line of names, but it’s all a blur.
Who will be captain if I’m infected? René? Max? Robin…
“Training.” It’s my only refuge from this mess. “You’ve got five minutes to look at the match-ups, then I want you all lined up at the door.”
I make my way out of the room, fast as I can, and into the dark passage, where the air is cooler, where I can hardly see a thing. Where I might be able to think for one minute.
“You can’t just walk out.”
My sinking heart wrings a deep breath out of me as I come to a halt. “I’m not doing that.”
Robin’s hands don’t wrap around me like I want them to. He doesn’t grab me like he did last week. He comes to lean against a wall, keeping his distance, the feeble light of the torches flickering orange across his statuesque features. “Don’t you think we need a plan?”
“I think we need a plan.”
“Then let me talk to you.”
“We can’t—”
“About the game, Marco. Nothing else.”
His eyes have softened since the last time I looked into them, at the ball, when they were all fire and granite.
It kills me, and mine flinch away. “I don’t see how we can do this together.”
“It’s not as though we have a choice.” He’s right. But then I also don’t think we have much of a chance, depending on what they throw at us. Not with everything between us. I’m supposed to be pushing him away, not getting closer to him. He’s supposed to hate me. I’m supposed to walk away.
“I’m not asking anything else from you,” he says.
Something about those words is gutting. Something about those words makes me want to punch the wall. Or him. Just to get him away from me.
Yet he speaks on. “If we don’t plan this, we’re never getting out, either of us. You can get back to ignoring me afterwards. And I won’t bother you either, if that’s what you want. But you and me… we have to get home. Both of us. And right now, we’re each other’s best chance at doing that.”
There’s a movement down the hall, men coming, ready for another day of training. Another day of preparing for battle.
But after all, that’s what Robin and I were born to.
Battle.
War.
Ready, since birth, to kill and to die for Atrea.
“I’ll send for you,” I tell him. Then I shove the enormous iron doors wide open, letting the scalding sun blind me, bleach him from my view, take him and all the men and all of Victora away for one blissful, too-brief moment.
Until the lot of it falls down on us all over again.