Chapter 15
Iexpected cheers and bets and rowdy behavior as we walked into a part of Drakthar I’d never been.
The first few weeks here, Vander took me around Drakthar to show me the housing wing where most of the apprentices and trainers roomed, the grand hall where I received my initiation tattoo.
We sometimes went to the lower underground level of the kitchens to get a late-night supper if we’d missed it, and I’d peeked into the library, but hadn’t gone inside yet.
There was the Commanders’ tower, and the infirmary rooms. There were rooms for study, and common rooms for socializing, as well as a large hall for indoor training with weapons and mats for the colder months, but as I stood on the ground floor looking up at the huge circular room with three tiered levels, and a domed skylight letting in the morning sun, I wondered why we’d never come here.
Something about it felt sacred. Maybe we weren’t allowed to come here without reason.
Sweeping stone archways supported the balconies filled with assassins.
With so many staring down, the quiet was unsettling.
It had been three days since Viper challenged Dred.
Commander Ace, Commander Locke and four other assassins stood on the wooden-planked ground floor at the center of the arena.
The center planks were shaped in a starlike design and then fanned out to the gray stone walls.
I walked side by side with Vander to meet them.
Dred and Beast made their way from the opposite end.
Commander Ace stepped out from the line with her hands behind her back. “When an assassin invokes a challenge with another member, the entire League must bear witness. Viper has challenged Dred in the name of his apprentice. State before the League why you have done so.”
Vander pushed his shoulders back ever so slightly and clasped his hands behind his back. “Dred’s apprentice Beast attacked my apprentice Bonecarver with a knife, with the intent to kill her. I invoked the challenge because of it.”
Quiet murmurs fluttered around the room, breaking the intense silence.
“Intent can be argued,” Dred said.
Commander Ace held up her hand and silenced him and everyone.
“I didn’t give you permission to speak. I witnessed the altercation and have agreed to the challenge, therefore I agree with Viper’s assessment of Beast’s intent.
” Commander Ace set her gaze on me for the first time.
I instinctively stood straighter, held my breath.
“Duty, loyalty, and honor to LOA and your fellow assassins is imperative, and standing up for a fellow member is the height of duty, loyalty, and honor, as I saw you do for your friend, but smashing a glass over a fellow assassin’s head is provocation.
Dred should have been the one to step into the altercation and says he would have.
” She turned to Dred and Beast. “Ordinarily I’d make the apprentices fight their own battle, but because Bonecarver is from Lothleton I’m making an exception.
However, both apprentices drew blood, and there must be punishment.
We cannot have hatred and fighting among us when we have an enemy more dangerous and lethal outside these walls.
We are like a family, disagreements are to be expected but our enemies’ greatest wish would be that our house falls from within.
Dissension in my house must be quelled. Therefore, the winner of this match will lash the loser’s apprentice across the bare back twenty times in front of the League. And then this rivalry is done.”
I went utterly still. Vander shifted beside me.
Did he know about this prior? I glanced up, and his jaw muscles tightened.
No, I didn’t believe he did. Dred’s coal eyes flicked to mine.
He would be the one to lash me if Vander lost. He’d take pleasure in it.
Nausea rose up, and I had to gulp it down.
“Let the challenge commence.” Commander Ace and the others stepped back to the wall.
Vander turned to me, gently pushing me on the shoulder toward them. “Go stand by Commander Locke.”
My breath came unevenly. I didn’t want him to get hurt for me, and I didn’t want to be whipped.
Why did I smash that glass over Beast’s head?
It was stupid. “Viper...” My voice came out weak and strained.
The assassins in the balconies pounded their chests in unison, the thud thud thud echoed through the chamber.
He ran his hand through his wavy hair. “I’ll die in this fight before I let him lash you. Go.” His voice was so low I barely heard him.
Vander... I didn’t want him to die. He didn’t mean that. I slowly backed away.
Feeling the weight of the stares of a thousand assassins, I made my way to the gap between Commander Locke and Commander Ace.
Commander Locke took my elbow and inched me closer to his side.
I stiffened as Beast took the spot next to me.
He kept his chin raised, his eyes forward.
He didn’t appear nervous, or remorseful of what he’d done to spark this challenge.
Vander stepped toward Dred, and the assassins stopped pounding. The room fell silent. My pulse crashed in my ears. My skin prickled and goosebumps rose all over my body.
It should be me in there with Beast. I’d get beaten bloody but at least I’d be fighting my own fight. If I said as much, would they allow it now? I turned slightly toward Commander Locke and opened my mouth to speak. He quieted me with a look and shake of his head.
Neither Vander nor Dred had a weapon, but as Vander said of assassins, we are weapons.
I held my breath as Dred threw the first strike, a fist aimed for his ribs.
Vander evaded and then it was almost like watching a dance.
Their feet shuffled with ease, their bodies lithe and spry, moving like ribbons in the wind.
Forearms stopped punches, shins blocked kicks.
Their hand speed was fast enough it was blurred movement.
Crack! A fist smashing bone echoed through the room.
Dred landed the first blow, straight to Vander’s chin.
My breath caught. This was the first time I’d ever seen him hit before.
His head snapped to the side, but he turned back with a smile.
I couldn’t believe it. That hit sounded like brick smashing rock and yet he smiled.
Vander’s hands hit like serpent strikes as if that blow had ignited some furious god in him.
A slap to Dred’s face, a punch to his ribs, Viper lived up to his name.
Dred took a few blows, then pulled him in and dragged them both to the ground.
They rolled and grappled, hissing and grunting, fighting for the top controlling position.
My entire body was tense, locked up. This wasn’t just about lashes across my back if he lost. Viper was the one these assassins looked up to.
He was honorable and good and just. I knew in my heart, simply by the way Vander and Falcon hated Dred, that he was not those things, and if Dred and Beast won and their ilk became what assassins started to admire, it could change the atmosphere.
In this already dark world, Vander represented light, and Dred the worst parts of us.
Vander must win. I willed it with all my heart. My entire body felt like it buzzed as the strikes and punches and blows rained on each other. Even if Commander Locke was a rooted tree beside me, I bounced lightly on my toes. I couldn’t hold still.
Vander broke out of their ground scuffle and rose up to crack his knee into Dred’s nose. Dred fell back onto the wood floor, head bouncing off the ground, arms spread wide at his sides. He didn’t move. Vander came in with fists to his face—the sound was sickening. Yet I couldn’t look away.
“Enough.” Commander Ace’s voice cut through the air like ice.
But Vander didn’t stop. Dred’s face was covered in blood, staining the wood planks.
“Stop! It is over!” Commander Locke boomed. One moment he was beside me, the next he was at Vander’s side, shoving him back. Vander’s chest heaved up and down with heavy breath.
He swiped his forearm across his bleeding nose and stepped away with his palms raised. Then he pointed at me. I went still as stone. “Nobody touches my apprentice again.” He threw his chin at Dred, stirring and groaning. “If you come at me and mine, that is what you’ll get.”
I stared at him, crimson trickling from his nose, sliding over his lips and chin.
A small cut above his eyebrow leaked down his temple.
His dark hair was disheveled and sweaty, tunic torn at the shoulder seam and a few gouges were ripped across his chest. A thousand people stood in this room, but it could have been just him and me when our gazes met.
Everything seemed to fade away. The corner of his lip curled, revealing bloodstained teeth.
The coil around my gut loosened. I finally took a full breath. He was alright, and I would avoid the lash.
I smiled back at him. I wanted to run and throw my arms around him, but it wouldn’t be appropriate.
Emotion tightened my throat. Thank you. He did this for me, and I didn’t know why.
But... strangely enough, I’d do it for him.
Falcon said most trainers wouldn’t. Was it because this was simply who Vander was, a protector at heart who did what he thought was right, or something else?
I hadn’t forgotten what he’d said, There will never be any feelings between us other than loyalty.
You have my back, I have yours. That’s it.
This fight was his promise to have my back.
That’s all it was. But my mind drifted to him sewing the cut on my hand, to the way he leaned in like he couldn’t help himself.
.. There was something there between us, something we were both afraid to touch, to even think about.