Chapter Six #2
Feigning nonchalance, he sat down next to Maximillian, leaning into the arm of the couch and half facing the champion. His
elbow brushed a muscled bicep as he turned. Ugh. He pretended not to notice.
Maximillian was busy examining the rich maroon liquid with a dubious look.
“Blackberries. Don’t worry, I haven’t drained some dopey peasant dry.” Cyrus paused. “Although that would’ve been—”
“A terrible idea.” There he went, interrupting again. It would not remain a novelty for long.
Maximillian raised his goblet, the rim almost touching his lips. He locked eyes with Cyrus, his gaze challenging.
Cyrus sighed. “So suspicious,” he tutted, like he wasn’t enjoying Maximillian’s discomfort. He took a sip of his own drink.
Not bad; a fiery kick lurked beneath the sweet mead. Swallowing, he looked pointedly at Maximillian’s goblet. “Do you want
me to—?”
No need. Maximillian was already taking a sip—a large one, more of a gulp. Clearly he wasn’t one to do anything by halves.
He set it down, wiping his mouth, and gave Cyrus that same challenging look.
“Well done,” Cyrus praised condescendingly. “We’ve got over the first hurdle. No poisoning.”
“I think the first hurdle was you not dropping some ridiculous trap on my head the moment I walked in here,” muttered Maximillian.
“As if I would,” Cyrus said peaceably. At the back of his mind, he made a mental note to look into booby-trapping his front door.
It was a good idea, so long as he remembered the triggers.
“Anyway, now that we’re nice and settled—” He stretched out to illustrate just how comfortable and at ease he was, only to accidentally brush Maximillian’s leg with his own and then hastily yank his foot back.
Damn it. “I’m curious as to exactly what you wanted to talk to me about. What you couldn’t say over letter.”
“It was stupid to send anything by letter. Anyone could have read it.”
“Nobody reads my post but me.”
Maximillian exhaled. “Yeah, well, try being an elected champion. I’ve got city officials who’d love to get their hands on
something incriminating.”
Cyrus frowned. He didn’t like the sound of anyone reading their letters, frankly. “You don’t mean—”
“No, nobody read yours. Well, my personal assistant did, but he’s as loyal as they come.”
“Aw. Your loyal dogsbody.”
Rather than denying it, Maximillian nodded. “He’ll never speak of it. Which is good, because you can’t begin to picture the
chaos that would erupt if anyone knew I was sitting here with you. With Earthshaker. In his lair.” Maximillian looked like
he couldn’t quite believe it himself, massaging his temples as though the mere knowledge was enough to inspire a headache.
“Do you have any idea how quickly my brand deals would drop me if they knew?”
Of course that was what most concerned him. “Ah, yes. The worst thing that could happen to anyone, I’m sure.”
Maximillian’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t say it would be the worst thing. But it wouldn’t be good. Wrongdoers just don’t get it. Those sponsorships bring in a lot of money.”
“I know. They’re splashed across every copy of Athaca News.
” Cyrus had meant to sound sardonic, but instead a thread of envy ran through his words.
He moved on quickly before Maximillian picked up on any vulnerability he could dig his claws into.
“But the deals aren’t why you became a champion.
Saved a family from a fire, didn’t you? So very noble.
” He tilted his head, letting a small, knowing smile speak for him.
And now you’re here, in a wrongdoer’s lair. How the mighty fall.
Maximillian’s frown deepened, his shoulders stiff. He was still facing forward, staring down at his drink. Cyrus studied his
profile, the tight purse of his mouth, more curious than he wanted to admit.
“It doesn’t matter why I became a champion,” Maximillian muttered. “That’s the reality of the situation now. Brand deals bring money. You think
we can live off peasants rewarding us with crusts of bread and ale here and there?”
“Please,” Cyrus said, a sharp edge to his own tone. “I think I know what it’s like not to get rewarded with gifts and free
food wherever I go.”
But Maximillian shook his head, finally turning his body to face Cyrus. “No, you don’t know. They give you offerings out of
fear so you’ll leave them alone, but if you want something else you can just go and get it. If they don’t give you something
you like, you demand something else. You’re not—constrained by the same rules as a champion. You don’t have to do everything by the book, the Federation-approved way.”
Cyrus let those words—that tone—sink in. It was . . . unexpected. Everything about this was unexpected.
Maximillian was right, in some ways. It was part of the initial lure of being a wrongdoer, after all—not having to dance to the same tune as everyone else.
Cyrus had long believed that champions were trapped by games of their own making.
They clung to their moral codes and their prideful nobility.
But that was just the glossy veneer of the champion life; peel back the surface and there was a cesspit of competition and ambition and greed, champions jostling for recognition and reward.
They weren’t in it for the people they professed to protect, not really.
Even if they’d started out with grand ideas, most of them took the same path in the end.
But . . . didn’t wrongdoers do the same thing? Yes, they had more freedom than champions; the Guild didn’t hover over their
shoulders judging their work and policing their efforts. But that didn’t mean they were without expectations. Society had
a clear understanding of a wrongdoer’s place in the world, and anyone who tried to do something a little different received
disinterest at best or ridicule at worst. Cyrus himself was the living proof of that.
He shifted, uncomfortable with that line of thought, and looked away, tracing the rim of his goblet just to do something with
his hands. Maximillian was still watching him. Cyrus could feel the weight of his gaze.
“You still haven’t told me what you wanted to talk about,” Cyrus said eventually.
“You want to shake things up,” stated Maximillian.
“Wrongdoers are always looking to shake things up. It’s quite literally in my name.”
Maximillian’s eyes bored into Cyrus’s, too intense.
“But are you willing to change things? To try something properly different, something new, and see what happens?”
Cyrus wanted to object. But saying no felt like shying away, and there was no way he was going to lose ground to a champion. Especially not this one. His nod was quick and fleeting.
Maximillian smiled properly for the first time. It made that awful dimple peep out amid his stubble. There was satisfaction
in his expression that Cyrus recognised from his own face when he’d come up with a plan he was particularly pleased with,
as though an unexpected mirror had been held up between them.
“I thought so,” Maximillian said. “I hoped so.”
“Stop talking around it. What is this change that you want to see?”
Maximillian’s smile grew. He set down his glass and leaned forward, just a touch.
“Have you ever wondered what would happen if a wrongdoer and a champion teamed up?”