12. Trial of Submission
Chapter twelve
Trial of Submission
Widran lay tucked at the top of a winding set of stone-carved stairs.
The building blended with the red rock around it, engulfed in a cascade of purple hyacinth.
Sweet, floral perfume drenched the air as Imalroc approached the smallest entryway to a battlebox he’d ever seen.
It was only a single lacquered black door.
It opened the moment Lady Nolbrathe’s foot alighted on the last step.
A tall man emerged, his hair shaved to his head and earrings dangling in both ears.
He wore the same style sleeveless tunic as the battleboxer from the alleyway, although the scars he bore were old enough to be flat and shining, long-healed.
He wore no chains that Imalroc could see, but tattooed lines with echoing angles yoked his neck and cuffed his wrists.
“My lady.” The man pitched into a deep bow, holding the door open with one hand.
Nolbrathe chuckled. “I see someone tattled and told you I’d gone out unattended. It was perfectly fine, Damar. You needn’t have waited at the door.” She removed the little cap and veil, running a hand through her sleek black ringlets.
“The servants would be delighted to accompany you, should you require them, my lady.” The battleboxer straightened from his bow. He was pathetically good at avoiding eye-contact.
Nolbrathe led the way inside, calling over her shoulder.
“Damar disapproves of my wandering, but Kibo is the safest city in our queen’s great dominion.
Any sort of crime is swiftly dealt with, and we’ve improved our caretaking to prevent people from being driven to that sort of violence in the first place. ”
Said the woman traipsing into a battlebox. Imalroc pressed his lips together to stop a mocking smile from tearing through his mask. His act felt thinner than usual.
Trailing the party ahead, he squeaked his boots over the gleaming black and white mosaic floor.
A few steps down a narrow hallway, tropical heat blew over him like he’d just walked into a bank of clouds, a humidity that defied the desert.
It reminded him of the overheated apartments in Draal.
The walls were dark purple and strangely textured.
Imalroc drifted toward one and skimmed it with a hand.
The forgiving crush of velvet met his fingertips.
There was something fucking strange about this place. He’d take their onyx all the same.
The velvet-walled hallway opened into a larger room, still not big enough to be called grand.
But it was opulent, decorated with high-backed couches, squat little tables in the Kiboan style, and vases as tall as he was, full of black, coiling branches.
Paintings in burnished gold frames crowded the walls, some of them half veiled by curtains of gauzy fabric.
“Here we are, our antechamber.” Nolbrathe turned and caught Rerdas by the elbow, steering him further in and closer to her. Imalroc watched her arm slide to cage Rerdas’s and noted how stiffly the huntmaster stood. Rerdas was too beautiful for his own good.
The huntmaster made some noncommittal noises about it being very nice.
Nolbrathe seemed to know he wasn’t impressed. She shifted, which had the effect of pulling her satiny dress tight across her hip. “Of course, I’m good friends with Master Alsot. Of Tamasyad?” Even without seeing it, Imalroc could hear her coy smile. “He’s been known to book fighters on my advice.”
That must’ve got her the more attentive response she wanted, because she let out a laugh, and disentangled her arm to pat Rerdas’s chest.
“The battlebox is through there.” She indicated a set of double doors in the opposite wall. “Would you wait here a moment? I’d like to get it properly lit and prepared for you.” She clasped her hands in a strangely girlish gesture. Her nails glinted, long, sharp, and inky.
Rerdas made another half-hearted, polite answer, and the booker and Damar slipped away, Nolbrathe excitedly issuing instructions.
The huntmaster waited long enough that her voice faded, and he spun around. “I don’t like this place. We’ll have to humor her, but I’ll get us out of here.”
Imalroc shrugged. “I want the fight.”
“What?” Rerdas sounded as though part of the ceiling had just cracked onto his head.
Imalroc paced away from him, glancing at the jewel-like colors of each painting. Most of them depicted what looked like bloody murders. Probably memorializing Widran’s most well-known fights.
“Imalroc,” Rerdas hissed, looking nervously at the double doors. “You want me to arrange something here? Are you serious?”
“You heard what she said about the winnings. And Tamasyad. If she really has sway with the booker there, then that’s two fights.
” His heart skipped, strangely light. It might be enough.
He’d have won, and he’d have kept his promise to Rerdas.
Beyond that—he couldn’t let himself look that far ahead yet.
He wove around a couch with the huntmaster following him and stepped into a corner where another vase stood, filled with an artfully arranged explosion of enormous feathers. “What is this?” he asked, batting a feather.
“Ostrich feather,” Rerdas said distractedly. “But we know nothing about this place, and don’t you think it feels… odd?”
“Yes, you’re in a battlebox.” He angled one of the heavy, arched feathers so that it tickled the top of Rerdas’s head. “I’ve told you. They’re all terrible.”
Rerdas stepped directly in front of him, peering into his eyes. “Are you drunk?” he blurted.
Imalroc scowled. “If only,” he muttered.
“No. I want onyx, Rerdas, and she’s practically throwing it at us.
” He did feel over-warm and a little fearless, but the fight wasn’t tonight.
And one egg fizz couldn’t incapacitate him.
Although another one of the drinks didn’t sound like a bad idea presently, with the sweat gathering at his temples.
They kept this place so fucking hot. That’d be unpleasant during the fight.
“I don’t think we should do this.”
“You aren’t the one who has to do anything,” Imalroc said, with a touch more bitterness than he wanted. He busied himself with the frilly little curtain over the nearest painting.
Rerdas was subdued. “If you’re sure—”
“I’m sure.” Imalroc tugged the curtain on the painting back, wrinkling his nose at the scene. A naked man in chains, his back arched, his head thrown back in a scream. “Looks uncomfortable,” he said drily.
“I, uh, I don’t think that’s meant to depict discomfort,” Rerdas mumbled.
Imalroc frowned at him, pulled the curtain further and saw that there was someone else in the image, roped in pearls and his face entirely buried in—“What the fuck?” Imalroc tilted his head. “Is he suffocating himself in that man’s ass?”
“No. He’s… Well, it’s with his, y’know, his tongue…” Rerdas made an illustrative gesture with two fingers, and Imalroc almost burst out laughing.
“Alright, I’ll grant you this is the first time I’ve seen that in a battlebox. Or ever. And it’s meant to feel good? Who tries shit like that?” He shook his head and let the curtain fall.
He glanced back to see Rerdas blinking owlishly at him.
Understanding took root in his stomach, a snaking tendril of new knowledge reaching up inside him.
“Rerdas.” His voice dropped. He put a deliberate edge in it because he felt giddy and he wanted to see what it did to his huntmaster.
“Who tries that?” He took a step forward and stood almost nose to nose with him. “And how is it you recognize it?”
“We can’t discuss this here.” Rerdas turned away, cheeks flushed, delightfully off balance.
Imalroc caught his arm, just where that noxious booker had placed her gleaming claw. “Just tell me, Master Toriem, if you’re the ass or the tongue.”
Rerdas swatted him away, but didn’t have time to retort.
Footsteps tapped near the double doors, and Imalroc composed his expression. He returned to stand, head down and hands clasped behind his back, in the middle of the room. Nolbrathe’s skirts swished through the open doors.
“Ready,” she sang. “Come and see.” She held out a hand for Rerdas’s arm again.
Imalroc focused stubbornly on the scuffed toes of his boots. She could paw at his huntmaster all she liked, but she’d never have him the way Imalroc did. That thought was as good as any cool drink spilling down his throat.
Beyond the doors lay the largest room yet, dimly lit by sconces flickering along the walls.
Enormous marble pillars loomed over heaps of beaded pillows and fur-draped chaises.
Imalroc’s boots made hardly a sound on the floor.
It was some kind of dark wood, smooth planks as wide as his shoulders, polished to a buttery shine.
From somewhere in the depths of the room, a fountain jingled.
Damar crossed through the broad open space at the center of the room to reach them. Even with his eyes lowered, he managed not to veer too close to Imalroc as he fell into their wake.
“Well?” Lady Nolbrathe clasped Rerdas’s forearm. “What do you think? Is it not a work of art itself?”
“It’s a beautiful room.” Rerdas dipped his head. “But I would appreciate visiting the box itself, where the fight will actually be conducted.”
“Master Toriem.” Lady Nolbrathe laughed eagerly. “You are in the box now.”
Imalroc looked up without lifting his head and let his gaze rove. No sand, no walls, and if those chairs scattered about were meant to house an audience—but an elite battlebox would never let the fighters so close to their patrons. He was missing something.
“They fight amid everyone watching?” Rerdas asked.
“It’s thrilling. There’s no other battlebox in Inofar like this.” Nolbrathe preened, sidling closer to Rerdas. “Of course, now you can see why we must be discerning in the fighters we permit to entertain here. Their obedience must be faultless.”