Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Robin: Devastation
“They’re posting the fixtures!” Harlan’s voice cuts through the steam as he bursts into the shower room, water still dripping from his hair. His eyes are wild, frantic.
Max drops his soap. “What? Right now? Before breakfast?”
The shower room erupts. Bodies scramble for towels; feet slip on wet tiles. Water sprays everywhere as men abandon their washing and charge toward the door, half naked and splashing.
Everyone but Cas and me.
We stand frozen under our respective showerheads, steam rising between us like ghosts. Our eyes find each other across the tiled space. The water keeps falling, but neither of us moves to turn it off.
I’ve spent the last few weeks trying not to do the math. The math where I calculate the odds of not having to kill either Cas or Marco. With only eight fighters left, we’re facing four brutal rounds of elimination. One against one, until there’s nothing left but blood and silence.
My throat closes.
“Robin.” Cas’s voice is barely a whisper.
I can’t answer. Can’t move. The hot water beats against my shoulders, but I’m cold everywhere else.
We grab towels without speaking. The dining room calls to us like a funeral march.
The moment we enter, the silence hits like a physical wall. Six pairs of eyes turn toward us. Six faces that know something we don’t. Jason’s mouth curves into that familiar smirk, and my stomach drops to my feet. Am I fighting him?
I scan the room fruitlessly for Marco.
He’s going to lose his mind when he finds out they posted the fixtures without him here.
The others part like water, creating a clear path to the wall where a single sheet of paper hangs. White against gray stone. Black ink that might as well be blood.
My legs move without permission. Cas walks beside me, his breathing shallow.
The paper grows larger as we approach. Roman numerals dance before my eyes.
I. Caspian vs. René
II. Marco vs. Robin
III. Jason vs. Harlan
IV. Max vs. Mikhail
The world tilts.
The words on the paper blur together, then snap back into focus with brutal clarity.
Marco vs. Robin
No.
This can’t be happening. Not after everything. Not after the nights spent in his arms, the promises whispered in our mother tongue, the way he looks at me like I’m something worth saving.
Six pairs of eyes burn into my back. I can feel their stares like brands against my skin. I know I shouldn’t react. Can’t react. Not here, not in front of them.
But my hands are shaking.
“But… why isn’t Marco last?” René’s voice cuts through the silence.
Max snorts. “Maybe it’s a lead-up to me being named captain.”
René laughs. “Dream on.”
Their voices scrape against my skull. My vision tunnels. The paper swims before my eyes, but those three words remain burned into my retinas. Marco vs. Robin. Marco vs. Robin. Marco vs.—
A hand clamps around my wrist. Cas. His fingers dig into my pulse point, anchoring me to something real.
“Come on,” he whispers.
I don’t remember walking. Don’t remember crossing the dining room or navigating the corridors. One moment I’m staring at that damn paper, the next I’m stumbling through the doorway of our cell.
My knees hit the concrete floor hard. The impact shoots up my spine, but it’s nothing compared to the hollow ache spreading through my chest.
“Well, I’d say I told you so, but I’m not a complete dick.” Cas’s voice carries that familiar twisted humor, hollow at the edges. He’s trying to make me laugh. It doesn’t work.
I will never laugh again.
“And fuck! Me and René, man. I’d far rather smash Jason’s skull in. René’s the only one out of the rest of them who’s not a total prick.”
I nod because he expects me to. Because I should care about René, about Cas’s chances, about anything other than the way Marco’s dark eyes go soft when he looks at me. The way they crinkle at the corners when he almost smiles. The way they’ll look when he realizes one of us has to die.
Cas’s hand finds my shoulder, squeezes hard. “Listen, this is fucking shit, but at least they’re not making us fight each other. We’re going to survive this, Robin. Be together next season. It’s you and me, mate. Just like I said.”
Footsteps echo in the corridor. Heavy. Familiar. My stomach clenches because I know that stride, know the way Marco’s sandals hit stone when he’s trying to control his rage.
I look up to see him filling the doorway of our cell, his face carved from granite.
Cas doesn’t say a word. Just stands and slips past Marco, leaving us alone.
“The guards were late to get me,” he says.
“Marco,” I whisper, or try to whisper. My tongue has healed, but it isn’t co-operating right now.
Marco crosses the remaining space in two strides and pulls me to my feet. His hand presses against my cheek, thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
And there. There it is.
That look in his eyes like something inside him has shattered beyond repair.
Raw grief mixed with a fury so deep it could burn cities.
His pupils are wide, dark as the ocean during storms, and for a moment I see straight through to his soul.
See the boy who used to rescue his brother from cliffs.
See the man who whispers my name like a prayer in the dark.
I see someone drowning.
“This is the Emperor’s work.” His voice comes out strangled, barely controlled. “Shoving me in the middle of the matches. Making me seem unimportant. Making me just another fighter.”
His hand drops from my face, fingers curling into fists.
“He knows what you are to me. After last night… He fucking knows.”
I try to find words that don’t taste like ash. “It’s only two weeks’ difference. We might have been the final match any—”
“No.” Marco moves away from me, starts pacing the narrow cell like a caged animal.
Three steps to the wall, turn, three steps back.
His shoulders bunch with tension. “No, the architects wouldn’t have done that.
They’ll have wanted you for next season.
You’re hot fucking property. I bet they’re not happy about this.
And look how they separated out René, Jason, and Max—they’re improving the favorites’ chances of going through. ”
He stops pacing, slams his palm against the stone wall.
“This is all my fault. If I’d just let the Emperor fuck me last night…” His voice cracks on the words.
Something sharp and protective unfurls inside me. I slide my arms around his waist from behind, press my face against his shoulder blade. Feel the rapid rise and fall of his breathing.
“If I’d come to your villa last night and found the Emperor touching you,” I say against his shirt, “I’d have bashed his brain in with the nearest heavy object before the guards could stop me. Then I’d be dead anyway.”
Marco’s muscles tense under my touch. “I’m going to fix this.”
“How?”
His fist connects with the wall again, harder this time. Stone dust trickles to the floor.
I can’t help it—a manic laugh escapes before I can stop it. “Careful. You’ll need that hand to kill me in two weeks.”
Marco spins in my arms, his face twisted with fury. “Don’t fucking joke about this, Robin. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Before I can reply, Marco has pushed me against the stone wall, pressing his lips against mine as if he’s drowning and I’m air.
The kiss burns through me like fire. Desperate. Violent. His mouth moves against mine with a hunger that tastes like grief, and I can feel the tremor in his hands as one slides up my thigh underneath the towel. His fingers dig into my skin like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me.
I pull away, gasping. “Maybe we shouldn’t—” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t say the words that would make this real.
Marco shakes his head, his forehead pressed against mine. “No. Nothing will stop me from spending the next two weeks with you, birdie. Nothing. You’re mine, for as long or as little as we have left.”
The words slam into me. As long or as little as we have left.
I nod because I can’t speak. Because my throat has closed around all the things I want to say but never will. All the words that would break us both.
He kisses me again, softer this time. A goodbye kiss. A promise kiss. A kiss that already tastes like endings.
“Don’t tell Esme anything yet,” I whisper against his mouth. “I’ll… think about what to say to her.”
Marco’s eyes close, and for a moment he looks like he’s in physical pain. “Robin…”
“I know.”
And I do know. I know that in two weeks, one of us will die. I know Esme will either lose her brother, or her ticket out of here. I know that all our stolen moments, all our whispered promises, all our plans for a future in Atrea—
None of it matters now.
The Emperor has made sure of that.