Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Robin: Lifeblood
Evander’s words echo in my skull like hammer blows. “Marco played Jason. Marco won.”
I lie motionless on Evander’s bed, staring at the ceiling. My ribs scream with every breath, but all I can think about is whether Marco walked out of that arena whole. Whether he’s bleeding somewhere. Whether—
“Stop squirming,” Evander mutters to Cas. “You’re making this worse.”
Cas hisses through his teeth, knuckles white against the bed frame.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” The words scrape out of my throat. “The guard didn’t say if—”
“I don’t know.” Evander’s voice is clipped. “I can only treat one patient at a time, so please shut up and let me work.”
“But what happened?” I press. “How did Marco play against Jason? How was that allowed?”
“All I know is what I just heard from that guard, Robin. But… I doubt it was allowed.”
From the other bed, Cas lets out a sharp sound of pain. “Ouch! Doc—”
“Stop moving.” Evander doesn’t look up from cleaning Cas’s thigh wound. “It’s infected, remember? This needs to be thorough.”
“Fuck your thorough,” Cas grits out, tendons standing out in his neck.
“If you’d only let me give you some—”
“You know I don’t want that shit in my body!”
“I swear you have a death wish.”
Cas grunts. “You’re enjoying this, you sadistic bastard. I can tell by that little smile.”
“What smile?” But there’s definitely amusement in Evander’s voice now.
“The one you’re trying to hide. You get off on torturing us, don’t you?”
“Only you, Caspian. Only you.”
Cas glares at him. “Keep it up, Doc. When I’m healed, I’m gonna remember every—”
Heavy footsteps thunder through the dungeon corridors. Multiple sets. Moving fast.
Evander freezes.
The voices are getting closer. Deep, authoritative. Official.
“Fuck.” Evander drops his instruments, crosses the room in three strides, and slams the lock home on the door. “They’re here already.”
My stomach drops. “Who’s here?”
Evander whips around, his face grim. “Listen, Robin.” His voice drops to an urgent whisper. “We’ve got maybe twenty seconds. There are people here to see you, probably the head game architect and the Emperor’s high commander. Both awful, powerful men.”
“Who?” I ask stupidly, as if it really matters.
“They’re probably trying to find out what happened. We need to convince them Marco was in the right. Else they won’t hesitate to have him killed.”
“What?” I try to sit up, but Evander shoves me back down.
“So you need to lie down, shut the fuck up, and let me handle this.”
The footsteps are right outside now. Multiple voices, getting louder.
“But—”
“Shut up.” Evander’s eyes are wild, desperate. His fingers dig into my shoulder. “You are now basically dead. You are in a coma. Do you understand me?”
“I—”
“Lie down and shut your fucking eyes! Coma! Got it?”
I nod, heart beating impossibly fast. “Okay.”
I collapse back onto the table, force my breathing to slow. Coma. Coma. Coma. I squeeze my eyes shut, then let every muscle in my body go slack.
The lock rattles. Someone pounds on the door.
“Open up! Emperor’s orders!”
Evander takes a shaky breath, then unlocks the door.
Multiple feet burst through. Five men. Maybe six.
“We’re here for Robin Shore.”
“He’s here.” Evander’s voice is steady now, professional. “But as you can see, he won’t be able to talk to you.”
A different voice, colder. Older. “We’ll see about that. The Emperor has been fed a tall tale, by the sounds of it.”
“What tale?” Evander steps closer to my table—I feel his presence like a shield. “Robin was brought to me several hours ago, half dead. We have no idea who attacked him. Who sabotaged today’s match. I presume a full investigation is being launched?”
A scoffing sound. “Players play their match no matter what condition they’re in. You know that.”
“But he’s unconscious,” Evander says. “He’s in a coma. That wouldn’t have made for a very interesting match, would it? Thank goodness Marco had the sense to quickly save the match, else there would be hundreds of thousands of disappointed citizens today.”
“He was fine yesterday,” the man says, suspicious.
From across the room, Cas speaks up, his voice tight with pain and contempt.
“Yes… he was fine… yesterday…” His tone drips condescension, like he’s talking to a child.
“And then someone beat him to a pulp. I saw Marco carry him in here, barely breathing. He couldn’t even stand.
It’s only thanks to Evander that he still has a pulse. ”
“Caspian, on this occasion, is correct,” Evander confirms.
Silence stretches between them all. I force my breathing to stay shallow, even. The weight of multiple gazes burns through my closed eyelids.
“You say he’s in a coma?” That voice. Why is that voice familiar?
“Yes.” Evander steps even closer to my table. “His body has suffered extensive damage and will require extensive treatment if I’m to save his life.”
The sound of metal sliding against leather.
“This is a medical unit! Respectfully, I ask you to put that away.”
The air locks in my lungs.
“So he won’t react if I drive this knife through him?”
Somehow, I stay perfectly still. Dead weight on the table.
“Don’t you fucking touch him!” Evander snarls. “I just spent hours stitching him back together—”
The sound of a scuffle. Bodies colliding.
“Hold him,” the cold voice orders.
“Get off me! You can’t—” Evander’s protest cuts off with a grunt.
Across the room, Cas shouts, “He’s in a fucking coma, you sadistic bastard!”
“Then he won’t feel a thing,” the man says. “Will he?”
I only have a moment to prepare.
Adrenaline floods my system, a full-body rush that makes my muscles want to lock up and spring simultaneously.
My fingers twitch—I have to consciously relax them, keep them flat against the table.
Every nerve fires at once, screaming run, fight, move.
But I can’t. I won’t. Instead, I picture Marco’s face as he held me this morning, a broken thing searching for comfort in his arms. Replay his voice in my ear, from that day in the garden: “Te daría el mundo entero y más si pudiera.” “I would give you the entire world and more if I could.”
The blade punches through my thigh.
The impact registers first—a brutal punch of pressure—before the pain catches up.
My body floods with more adrenaline, white-hot and chemical, drowning out everything but the foreign sensation of metal splitting muscle.
The agony is there, distant and muffled, like it's happening to someone else.
My hand wants to clench—fingers itching to grab something, anything—but the thought of Marco keeps me suspended in this strange, detached space where I can observe the pain without fully inhabiting it.
Dead. I'm dead. Coma. Coma.
Blood rushes in my ears. The blade is still in me—I can feel it splitting my flesh apart, cool and horribly wrong.
Marco. You can do this for Marco. You must do this for Marco.
The smell of copper blooms in the air. My blood, pooling warm beneath my leg, soaking through the fabric beneath me. A flash of terror cuts through the agony—what if my body betrayed me? What if I flinched and didn’t even know it?
“What the fuck?” Cas’s voice cracks across the room. “What the hell are you doing? Didn’t you listen to us? He’s half dead already! You’re going to kill him!”
“I needed to be sure,” the cold voice replies.
“I told you.” Evander’s voice is steadier, but there’s a steely edge underneath. “He’s unconscious. Now get that blade out of him before you kill him entirely.”
A pause. Then the blade slides free.
The relief is almost worse than the initial stab—a hot, wet rush of blood that makes my stomach roil. Breathe in, breathe out. Shallow. Like a man barely alive.
“Pity,” the man says. “The Emperor was looking forward to questioning him personally.”
“About what?” Evander asks. “He’s a victim here, not a suspect. He’s my patient, and you have no authority here!”
“He’s the Emperor’s property. I have all the authority I need.”
Marco. Esme. Their faces. Hold onto their faces. Their beautiful faces. They need you to do this.
“You’re insane,” Cas spits. “The crowd will riot if they don’t get to see their golden boy play one of the finals. You think the Emperor wants that kind of chaos?”
“The crowd loves drama. A champion fighting through mortal wounds? They’ll eat it up.”
Evander inhales sharply. “He may not survive to play a match in this condition! Especially not now!”
“Then you better work fast, Doctor.”
Footsteps. A presence looming over me. Hot breath ghosts across my ear, reeking of stale tobacco and rot.
“He’ll play his next match, coma or no coma.
The Emperor has already promised the citizens a finale worthy of legends.
” The voice drops lower, almost intimate.
“We’ll prop him up if we have to. Strap him vertical.
Drug him awake just long enough to bleed out in front of the cameras.
Robin Shore will deliver his spectacle.”
The footsteps retreat. The door slams.
Silence.
I don’t move. Don’t open my eyes. This could be a trick. There could be someone else still in the room. Or one of them might have their ear pressed to the door.
So I just lie there. Bleeding. Broken.
Waiting.
Then Evander’s voice: “It’s okay now, Robin.” His hands press hard against my thigh. “Fuck. Fuck. I’m sorry, Robin. I’m so sorry.”
I force my eyes open, gasping. “Did I—”
“You were perfect.” His hands are already working, tearing fabric, reaching for his tools. “You didn’t move. Not even a fucking twitch. How did you not move?”
My whole body starts shaking. The pain crashes over me in waves now that I’m allowed to feel it. “I don’t— I don’t know.”
From across the room, Cas lets out a shaky laugh. “Holy shit. You just took a knife to the leg without flinching. That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Second most insane,” I manage through gritted teeth. “The first was him actually stabbing me.”
Evander grunts. “Kane Bishop. High Commander to the Emperor. Absolutely ruthless. If he thought for one second you were faking, he would’ve killed you right here.”
“Will Marco be okay?”
“The Emperor is not going to be happy.”
“Do you think he’ll kill him?”
Evander’s mouth presses into a thin line. He doesn’t answer, just pours the antiseptic over the knife wound. The burn is excruciating, but it’s nothing compared to the terror clawing at my chest.
“I need to see him!” I try to sit up, but Evander’s hand slams down on my shoulder.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re supposed to be in a fucking coma!”
“I don’t care—”
“Robin.” His voice cuts through my panic. “I’m sure he’ll be down here as soon as possible. Marco knows exactly where you are.”
My breathing turns shallow, rapid. The walls of the medical room seem to shrink inward.
“What you need to do now is to stay alive long enough for Marco to find you.” Evander threads a needle with surgical thread. “This is going to hurt.”
The first stitch bites, but I barely feel it. All I can think about is Marco standing in that arena, blood on his hands, Jason’s body at his feet. The crowd cheering while the Emperor watched from his box, calculating Marco’s punishment.
The Emperor won’t forgive this defiance.
“Listen, I’ll sort this leg out,” Evander says. “Then I’ll go see if I can insist on my post-match examination of Marco. Find out more.”
The needle slides through my skin again. I stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the stone, trying not to picture Marco’s face when the Emperor’s guards came for him. Trying not to imagine those hands—the same hands that held me tightly against him last night—being chained behind his back.
Please, please let him be able to talk his way out of this.