CHAPTER FOUR KAI
I bounce lightly on the balls of my feet as I wait in the cellar room of the inn. I can feel the nerves running through my body, hear the crowd beyond. They're drunk and they're hungry for violence.
It feels glorious.
“Kai?” the master of the fighting pit says, looking me over. He doesn't look impressed. I get that a lot. At nineteen years old, I'm lean and dark haired, slender by the standards of most fighters, and without the scars on my face and body to show that I've been in fights.
He, meanwhile, is heavily built and scarred, muscles running to fat with age.
He has the circle of someone who fought in the colosseum cut through with a couple of marks to show his successful seasons.
Either he was partway through earning his freedom when the rebellion came or someone bought him out of the colosseum early.
“That's me,” I reply.
“You sure you want to do this?” he says. They always ask me that if they don't know me.
I nod. There's nothing I want more. Already, I can feel the rush of adrenaline in my body, making me feel alive in a way that I don't the rest of the time. My small gift of magic is rising up in response, humming around my hands.
“All right then, it's your funeral. But Barca’s in against you, and he doesn't hold back, you understand?”
“I understand,” I say and presumably I don't sound nervous enough about the presence of the pit’s foremost fighter, because the master of the pit looks me in the eye.
“Do you understand, boy? This is a place where you can be hurt, badly. The fights aren't to the death these days, but I'm not going to be the one who pulls Barca off you if he decides that he's going to keep going.”
“You don't need to worry about me,” I say.
The master of the pit sighs. “If only I had a coin for every stupid young man who’s said that.”
But he stops trying to talk me out of fighting here, at least.
“All right, you’re up next.”
He leaves and I strip off my tunic. It's better to fight bare-chested in bouts like this, so my opponents don't have anything to grab hold of. I can hear the fight that's currently taking place in the pit, the thud of flesh on flesh somehow carrying above the drunken roaring of the crowd and the singing of a lutenist who’s probably being completely ignored as people focus on the fight. He isn’t very good anyway.
I move to the entrance of the waiting room to watch as much as I can.
Like so much of the city of Aetheria, the inn is built above the ruins of earlier phases of the city, so it can't have been hard for the innkeeper and his cronies to dig down into this space to make their little arena. There’s a roughly circular pit, with patrons of the inn crowded above it, calling down encouragement and insults, trying not to get pushed over the edge as they do so.
One has already fallen, and lies in a drunken stupor at one side of the pit, apparently oblivious to the fight going on just feet away.
Two large, flabby men are hammering at each other with fists and feet, breathing hard as they trade blows.
They look equally matched, but that's not saying much.
Neither one of them is particularly skilled.
Both are nulls, without the magic that flows through so many of the people of the city.
It means this is just a contest of who is toughest and most stubborn, who can absorb the most punishment before he falls.
I sigh as I watch the fight. I used to see contests that were so much better than this in the Colosseum.
Not as a spectator, but as one of the servants there, attending to the needs of the guests in the receiving rooms, but sneaking out whenever I could to watch the gladiators fight on the sands, watching them spill one another's blood for the glory of the empire and for the entertainment of the crowd.
There were days when I wished I could fight in the colosseum, but I was too young; in any case, I'd already been claimed as a slave of the empire. I’m free now, thanks to the rebellion, but free to do what?
The only thing I ever knew was serving the whims of nobles, and I have no wish to do that again.
I think about the great gladiators I saw fighting: Vex, who could make blades fly through the air with his mind.
Ravenna, beautiful enough to make men fall to their knees and beg for her to cut their throats.
I was there for the Champions Trials, seeing the challenges set before the best gladiators of the city.
I had thought that when the former gladiator Rowan became our new first senator, he would allow us to continue the tradition.
I would have my chance to fight. Instead, he closed the colosseum, and if the city is repairing it now, the rumors say it's against his wishes.
He goes along with it just so we have somewhere to put on civic displays, dances, and entertainments, not fights again.
I never thought I would be disappointed in the man responsible for freeing me.
My attention jerks back to the pit as one of the combatants finally lands a decisive blow.
Or at least, as his opponent grows too exhausted to keep standing.
One man topples, and while it's clear he's still conscious, he doesn't get up.
The other one raises his arms in victory, while inevitably, the bookmakers and their customers above start to argue about the result.
A couple of the fallen man's friends come to help him from the pit, not looking particularly happy with him as they do so. They drag away the fallen drunk from the side, too.
The arguments rage above. Eventually, though, silence falls and the master of the pit steps in.
“For our next fight we have a perennial favorite. You know him you love him: Barca!”
There’s a fresh roar of approval from around the pit as one of its favorite fighters steps in.
He's big, taller than I am and probably twice as broad.
His muscles gleam as if oiled. His head is bald, his eyes sunken.
His face is scarred from fighting and his knuckles are toughened and distended.
My understanding is he has a trace of magic, allowing him to heal quickly and take punishment that would drop most men.
I do feel a thread of fear now, looking at him. Can I really beat him? Have I jumped into a fight I can’t win? But it's too late to back out. If I try, the people here will probably grab me and throw me into the pit anyway.
“Who are we going to feed to the beast today?” the master of the pit calls out. “Today we have a fresh young man who thinks he can beat the best our little pit has to offer. I give you Kai!”
There are a few boos around the pit as I step out. It's not that they hate me, they just think I'm not going to be much of a challenge. Barca looks me over with contempt.
“You sure you're in the right place, boy? You'd be better off selling yourself out in front of this inn.”
He laughs and moves forward, fists raised.
I move around him, trying to gauge his movements. He throws a jab, and I slip to the side, reading the kick that comes after it and dancing back from it. Barca nods to himself.
“Looks like we got ourselves a runner,” he calls out to the crowd. They laugh dutifully in response.
I don't look at them, keeping my eyes on my opponent instead.
He throws more attacks, forcing me to defend, because each blow has real power behind it.
He throws one strike with his hand open, fingers aiming at my eyes.
I move aside from it, secretly pleased that he's going for something so violent.
It means he's finally starting to take me a little more seriously.
“Come on, boy, why don't you fight?” he demands.
I can hear jeers coming from around the pit. I don't listen to any of them. I wait and I watch, letting Barca come to me, letting him overextend.
Finally, I see my opportunity. Until now, he's been disciplined, but my defensiveness has lured him into chasing me, arms coming away from his body as he does so. I change direction sharply, power flowing through my body, my fists seeming to blur with the energy that pours into them. I step inside Barca’s reach and I hit him with a series of blows to the stomach that would fell most men outright.
He starts to double over with it, his own magic healing him and letting him absorb the damage.
But I'm not done. I hit him with an uppercut that snaps his head back, then I leap up, throwing everything I have into a punch that connects sweetly with his jaw.
My magic covers my hand with a plane of force as I connect and I hear the crack of breaking bone.
When Barca topples, it isn't the fake, exhausted tumble of the man who fought before. It's more like a falling tree, hard enough that he bounces from the floor of the pit, his eyes rolling back in his head.
I stand there, hand raised in victory in the silence that follows.
People are too shocked to even cheer, at least at first. When they finally remember the noise is overwhelming, cheering and booing, arguing and excitement blending together into one wave of sound that runs through me, feeling better than anything else could.
Moments like this are the reason I fight.
I drink it in, loving everything about it.
I bow to the crowd then leave the pit, re-dressing, then heading up to the floor above to collect my winnings. People look at me warily now, with the kind of respect I was never given as a servant, the kind of respect my heroes used to get.
They're talking about me, but I'm surprised to find that I'm not the only thing they're talking about as I head to the master of the pit, collecting a small pouch of coins.
I also head to one of the bookmakers, because I've bet on myself, obviously.
That's where the real money is. It means I have to wait in line while the few others who've dared to bet on the newcomer collect their winnings.
There aren't many, because who would bet on me against Barca?
But there are a few who were drunk enough, or are there either to argue over the results or to make a bet on the next bout.
I'm waiting in the line when I hear it, one man talking to another.
“Forget this. The rumors say they’re thinking of starting the real fights again. Weapons, not fists. They're trying to get a motion through the senate, and the first senator can’t stop it.”
“They're always saying that kind of thing,” another man points out.
“Yes but this time, Lyra Thornwind is coming back to the city. A messenger just arrived to say she’s coming. Do you think she'd be here if they weren't planning to reopen the games?”
That name stops me short. Lyra Thornwind is the most famous of all gladiators, the beast whisperer who slew the emperor, who made it through her seasons and kept fighting anyway. If she's coming back, who knows what will happen?