CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
We’re both quiet, and I feel suddenly awkward. Perhaps I should go …
I get to my feet, and Tiernon pins me with a stern look. “Tell me what happened six years ago, Arvelle.”
I tense. But deep down, I knew this was coming. Tiernon isn’t going to let it go. And some small part of me wants him to understand my hurt and rage.
Slowly, I lower myself to my seat once more. “Kassia and I were getting ready for our final fight in the Sands. We’d each won two solo fights and chose to fight the last round as a team.” I swallow thickly and meet his eyes. “My brothers wanted to go see the mine.”
“What are you thinking about?” Kassia asks, her delicate brow furrowed as she pulls her white-blond hair back into a braid.
“Death and money.”
“Ah. The usual then.” Tying off her braid with a piece of twine, she slings her arm around my shoulders. “Would you like me to distract you with plans for our future in the north?”
“Yes.”
She squeezes me tight. “Beaches and salt-tinged breeze, all the seafood we can eat, better schooling for the twins.”
There were no downsides for me. But for her …
“You’ll really leave your father?”
Her gaze drops to the ground. “He keeps insisting he wants me to get out and explore the world. When we win this money, it’s going to change our lives, and he told me I better not do anything stupid like stay behind for him.”
I don’t like the idea of leaving Leon here alone either. “We’ll convince him to come with us at some point. The twins will help with that.”
“We’ll help with what?” Evren appears, his brother by his side.
I glower down at them. “How did you get here?”
“Everyone was coming to the Sands. We hid in the back of a supply cart.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Of course they did.
“You’re supposed to be with Mother.” I don’t want them anywhere near the fighting, and they know that.
“If you won’t let us stay, can we go to the mine? Everyone else is going,” Ger blurts out. “Can we—”
I shake my head. “The mine is incredibly dangerous.”
Just a few years ago, one of the emperor’s sons sent his scouts to search the mine for magical resources. They promptly found a vein of fulminar crystal. The incandescent crystal is legendary for its beauty, with some insisting the crystal is remnants of fallen stars.
It’s also highly explosive. And the emperor directs all of it to the front.
Ev heaves a sigh, as if he expected this from me, and yet he can’t contain his disappointment.
Ger scowls. “But—”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t go. We’ll take you to pick berries in a few days.” Once the fighting is over.
“Berries,” Gerith sneers, showcasing the gap where he recently lost a tooth. I fight to hide a smile.
“Yes, berries. Didn’t you ask for pie?”
“But—”
“Repeat after me,” I say. “We can’t go near the mine.”
“But why?” Ev asks. “Everyone else we know is going.”
“No, they’re not. And if they are, they’re risking their lives.” I stare down at their stubborn little faces. There’s only one solution to this.
Kassia’s eyes meet mine, and her mouth twitches. “Go. You’ve got just enough time.”
“If I’m not back …”
“I’ll stall.”
Taking each of my brothers by the hand, I march them away from the southern entrance of the arena and through various alleys and side streets until we come to a dusty dirt road leading back toward home. An oxcart rattles by, and I hold up a coin, convincing the driver to take us to the Thorn.
The twins whine the entire way back, but I’m mentally elsewhere, readying myself to walk into the arena.
The emperor doesn’t often attend the Sands, preferring to attend fights where he is guaranteed to see blood and death. And yet terror has swamped me each time I’ve walked out onto his sand.
Since it’s the middle of the day, our mother is sleeping. Shaking her shoulder, I jostle her. Yes, she’ll be half glistered, and mostly incapable of being a mother. But this is important. She knows the dangers of the mine.
She opens her eyes, blinking blearily at me.
“I need you to watch the twins.”
Evren mutters something and Gerith snorts, shoving him. Evren plows his fist into his brother’s gut. And the fight is on.
Sighing, I shove them both out of the room and close the door, ignoring the muffled grunts and yelps in the hall.
“Why?” Her voice is hoarse.
Because you’re their mother. Because they need you. Because I can’t be here every minute of every day.
I hold my tongue and keep my voice even through sheer willpower. “Because their friends are going to the mine.”
Understanding flickers across her eyes. “And they want to go.”
“Yes.”
“You need to go to work.”
My stomach twists. She hasn’t even remembered it’s my last fight in the Sands today. “Yes.”
Perhaps it’s better if she doesn’t know. If Kas and I win, my mother will spread the news far and wide until we’re targeted by every thief and murderer in the city. I’ll probably be mugged three steps from the arena’s entrance.
“I will watch them. Thank you for waking me, baby.”
I just nod, stepping out of the room. Gerith scowls back at me, rubbing at his arm, while Evren seems to have accepted his dreams of going to the mine are dead. He’s already reaching for a book.
“Berries,” I promise. “Pie. I’ve got to go. Be good.” And then I’m out the door and running back toward the arena, my hand lifted uselessly as I hope for a carriage. But all of them are already full, passing me by, heading toward the same place I am.
“I should’ve known she couldn’t be trusted,” I get out. And the first tear spills from my eye.
A muscle ticks in Tiernon’s cheek. “She was never the mother you deserved.”
I shrug, glancing away. Loving an addict is like being an addict yourself.
Only you’re addicted to hope. You constantly tell yourself that this time will be different.
Things will get better. And always, always, you know that one day, when they’re dead and cold, after their addiction has sucked the breath from their lungs …
you’ll still wonder if you could have done more.
If you could have been more—even though their addiction was sucking the breath from your lungs too.
“Arvelle?”
I swallow around the vicious ache in my throat. “The Sands isn’t supposed to be to the death.”
“And yet people die every day. Old feuds are reignited and new ones begin,” Tiernon says.
“We really thought we would be fine. Even if we didn’t win that last round, there was no chance we wouldn’t survive. We’d trained so hard. We were the perfect team.”
I make it back to the arena just in time, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. “Where’s Ti?” I sweep my gaze over the crowd, looking for wide shoulders and a dark scowl.
Kassia shakes her head. “I have no idea. He should be here.”
He never would have missed this. Never.
Something has happened to him. Oh gods.
“Arvelle.”
I’m blinking back tears as Kassia grabs my shoulders, giving me a violent shake. “You’ll talk to him later. I’m sure he’s fine. But you have to focus.”
She’s right. I let out a long, slow breath and we step inside, following the guard to our waiting spot.
“This is it, Velle,” Kassia murmurs while we wait, the fight before us ending as the winners crow, their opponents throwing down their swords. “It’s all going to be different after this.”
“Your turn,” the guard says, and I reach for Kassia’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
We both step into the arena. On the other side, our opponents do the same.
The first woman is taller than both Kas and me, but it’s not her height that concerns me. It’s her bulk. Her sleeveless vest draws attention to the bulge of her biceps and shoulders.
Speed. Speed and skill. That’s what this will come down to.
A dull boom sounds in the distance, and the ground trembles beneath our feet. I frown, but Kas is cursing, her voice low and rough.
I follow her gaze.
Fuck.
Both of us know the other fighter. Galia Volker. And from the slow smile spreading across her face, she used her father’s influence to be placed in this arena for this fight.
“Fynton wasn’t worth this,” Kas mutters.
“Understatement.”
Galia hadn’t been pleased that her ex-lover had moved on to Kas a few years ago. Kas ended things within a few months, unhappy with the entitlement he thought he had over her time. But Galia had made it clear over the years that she hadn’t forgotten who Fynton had chosen once they were over.
“Some part of me knew then. I’ve never felt dread like it. It … consumed me. And Kas … I don’t know what happened, Ti, she was just suddenly tripping over her feet.”
Tiernon’s eyes flare and I realize I’ve called him Ti. I’m too exhausted to care.
“I still see it every time I close my eyes. Galia went straight for Kas. The woman I was fighting … gods, I don’t even remember her name. She was strong, and I was distracted. I came down wrong on my ankle and almost lost my head.”
The blade had been so close, I’d heard it sing through the air, an inch from my neck.
“I was slow, and I took too long to make her throw down her sword. And in the meantime, Kassia was fighting Galia. In my nightmares, I’m making that run. Sprinting across the arena in slow motion while Galia thrusts her sword into my best friend.”
Blank eyes, crimson sand, Leon’s desperate screams.
“Everyone thinks I killed Galia Volker. Honestly, I wish I did. But Kassia severed her carotid artery. Volker was dead before I sliced off her head.” I can hear the horror in my voice.
Tiernon opens his mouth to say something, and then snaps it closed.
“I was trying to bring Kassia back. Screaming for a healer. But I knew there was no hope. She was dead within moments.”
Someone hands me a sack of coins. When I don’t take it, they tie it around my neck. People are screaming. Not with horror. They’re celebrating. Celebrating me.
Because I lived.
And, gods, I wish I hadn’t.
I ignore them, taking Kas’s hand in mine. It’s already cooling. How can it be cooling?