Chapter 14 Toran
Toran
Instinct doused his shock as Toran fell.
Tucking his shoulder, he hit the ground and rolled. Clouds of dust burst to life as he slid, forcing him to keep his eyes shut. He came to a bracing halt, coughing as dust crowded his nose and mouth.
He bolted to his feet. Wiping the dirt from his eyes, he blinked at his new surroundings, then looked up.
Nes smiled down at him. It was a fake smile. A facade of innocence. As if him ending up in this damned pit was an accident. He would swear on Cavallis and all the gadots in his coffers this had been her plan all along.
“It seems we have an opponent!” a voice like a roaring bear called out over the pit opening.
He turned and made eye contact with a gruff man in a red overcoat. The man smiled at Toran and spread his thick arms toward him, capturing the attention of the crowd.
“What’s your name?” the announcer asked.
“If someone doesn’t get me out of here, I’ll have you all arrested,” Toran said.
“What’d you say?” the man called out. And then Nes was at the man’s side, whispering something in his ear.
Something he was sure not to like. The announcer turned to the people who’d pressed themselves tight around the edge of the pit.
“I present to you Frederick the Beheader in his first-ever brawl against Growlsabob the Impaler!”
The crowd cheered.
Frederick the Beheader?
“You, son,” the announcer said in a low voice, crouching down to speak to him, “are either the unluckiest son of a bitch to walk the earth or a total chump for getting in that pit.”
Both. He was likely both.
The announcer nodded to the beast behind Toran. “That guy’s our house champion. We don’t call him the Impaler for nothin’. ”
Behind him, he heard Growlsabob let out another pit-shaking cry. He glanced up at Nes. She was still smiling.
So she wanted a fight. Fine. She’d get one.
Toran rolled his shoulders a few times, then turned to face his opponent. He scanned the burly man from head to toe. Growlsabob was large, larger than Quint.
Doubt gnawed on the back of his neck—small nibbles like those of a tiny animal. He’d never lost to Quint, but he knew nothing of this Impaler. The man held no visible weapons. Toran couldn’t figure out what the man used to earn himself such a name. His fingers? Toes?
He should have listened to his gut and gone straight to the bar. Screw sobriety. It had never gotten him anything, anyway.
Growlsabob flexed his muscles.
What he wouldn’t give for a bit of his drunken confidence.
“The sound of the bell will signal the start of the brawls,” the announcer called. “At this time, all bets are closed. You all know the rules.”
The announcer stuck his head out like a turtle and leered at the surrounding faces. They laughed back at him.
For magic’s end. He didn’t know the rules. What were the fucking rules?
A strong chime rang out across the underground, loud enough for the entire brawlhouse to hear. The bell.
Something shimmered on the outskirts of Toran’s vision. He turned his head, and it was as if his bones had been replaced with thick, unyielding ice.
Loriana stood only a couple paces away, her back to the pit wall.
Her wrists were bare—that thin, shimmery, threadlike bracelet she’d always worn in life gone—and the bottom hem of her pure white nightgown flowed in and out of the rock.
She blinked at him, a gentle, pondering expression on her face and a hand held out as if waiting for him to take it.
He stared at her hand. Of the two of them, he’d been the sentimental one. The one to reach for her hand or kiss her cheek or hold her close. She’d never protested when he did. But aside from their first kiss, she’d never initiated.
This wasn’t possible. He was hallucinating again.
Growlsabob plowed into Toran like he was a pile of snow. All air rushed from his lungs, and he fell backward. His shoulders slammed into rock, his head banging. Loose clumps of dirt fell over his eyes.
Shit. The brawl.
He blinked at the spot where Loriana had been, but she was gone. She hadn’t been real, only a figment of his never-ending grief.
He wiped the dirt from his eyes, grimacing as it smeared across his eyelids like kohl, and pushed up off the wall. Growlsabob was lining up for another barreling ram. He rolled out of the way just in time. With a thunder-worthy quake, Growlsabob hit the wall.
Toran fled to the space behind Growlsabob. He stepped with his opponent, turning and angling his body to keep out of the large man’s direct sight. The trick wouldn’t last—not in an enclosed area like this—but he only needed a moment.
Okay. The rules of the brawl. They were…
He spared a glance up at the jeering crowd and easily spotted Nes. Her face was guarded, that irksome smile gone. She’d pushed him in here, but, he recalled with a jolt, she’d also bet against him. Surely she didn’t expect him to lose. She knew he was the Crown. It didn’t make sense.
He looked away. He’d have to assume there were no rules.
Toran slid back into Growlsabob’s line of sight. Just as the man registered him, Toran swung, fist aiming for the side of Growlsabob’s head. His fist never made contact. His punch slid right on through Growlsabob as if the man were a ghost.
He stumbled. Perhaps he was still hallucinating.
Toran barely had time to catch his balance before Growlsabob’s fist was in his gut—a fist that was quite solid. He doubled over, gasping for breath. He swung at his opponent again only to meet nothing but air. This time, he darted away, escaping the man’s retaliation.
He looked back up to Nes and caught the way her nose wrinkled.
No rules meant no rules. The existence of the brawlhouse itself was against Orloneit law, so it stood to reason no other Orloneit laws—including those on the use of magic—would be upheld in these pits.
No wonder Nes had bet against him. If Growlsabob was using magic to make himself intangible, then Toran would never land a strike. He felt like he might be sick.
He shook his head. There had to be another way to take the man down. Perhaps Toran couldn’t hit his opponent—but Growlsabob had to be solid in order to hit him.
He positioned himself in front of Growlsabob and waited. It took eight strikes. Growlsabob was resilient. Resilient but not invincible.
Eight times the man tried to ram Toran. And eight times Toran used the man’s own momentum to drive him into the wall, letting the rock do all the damage. Eight times and Growlsabob crumpled to the ground.
Silence.
He waited for someone to break it. No one did because no one had bet on him. A shame. Had anyone known he was the Crown, they could have made a fortune.
Nes knew. Yet she’d still bet against him.
“We have a winner!” the announcer shouted. “And a new champion, Frederick the Beheader!”
Cheers sprang up from the faces gathered, but Toran wasn’t looking at them. His eyes swept the pit. No sign of Loriana. The remains of his love oozed into his stomach, making it churn.
He needed a drink. Or a shot. Anything at all. Even that shit vodka from Kohen’s seventeenth birthday that tasted like clean piss. He’d drink it. As long as—
A hand appeared. Fingertips so close to his eyes he could see the way the cuticles curled over the nail beds.
He followed the slim fingers up to a wrist, then further to an elbow, all the way to Nes’s freckled face. Her lips had thinned, her brow furrowed. Her blue eyes were somehow darker under the weight of her concern.
All thoughts of alcohol faded from his mind as he took her outstretched hand. She didn’t ask if he was okay. They both knew the answer.
He didn’t look back at Growlsabob, still lying on the pit floor, as Nes yanked his hand hard enough for him to grasp the edge of the pit and pull himself out. She was small, but she was strong and steady.
“Congratulations!” the announcer boomed, and Toran felt something round fall atop his head.
He reached a hand up, pulling off the object. In his hands, painted silver with small weathered pieces of glass on each point, was a wooden crown. He stared at the ugly thing and then burst out laughing.
Beside him, Nes smirked. “You’re the brawlhouse’s new Crown.”
He placed the crown back on his head. “Why did you bet against me?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “Phineas did. And Phineas doesn’t lose.”
He frowned. “But he did tonight.”
Mischief lit up her eyes. “Exactly.”
Before Toran could ask more, the scrawny boy he’d seen Nes watching earlier appeared beside her. Despite looking no older than fifteen, everyone around them gave the boy a wide berth. Everyone except Nes.
“Nes,” the boy said in the way a parent might scold a child.
“Minot,” Nes said with about as much enthusiasm as someone picking food from their teeth.
“Phineas wants to see you.”
Nes cast her arms in one direction, bending low. “Then do be a dear and lead the way.”
The boy—Minot—turned, tossing Nes the middle finger over his shoulder. Toran choked on a laugh.
Nes’s glare promised death. “There are plenty of other pits in here, Captain. Take your pick,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes flitted from his face to the back of Minot’s head. “When we get in there, do yourself a favor and keep your mouth shut.”
He followed her and Minot through the crowd of spectators. Minot led them to a small door opposite the bar. Toran handed the boy the wooden crown before ducking inside.
The room was small, as if it were meant to be a broom closet rather than the office it was. There was barely enough space for him, Nes, and Minot inside. He had to press himself against Nes just so Minot could close the door. He waited for her to jerk away, but she didn’t.
Door shut, Minot squeezed around them to deposit the crown in front of the man seated behind the narrow desk. Except it wasn’t a desk. More like a thin slab of wood folded out of the wall.
The man seated behind it was neither narrow nor thin.
He was quite possibly the most beautiful man Toran had ever seen.
Large green eyes watched them from beneath thick brows.
His lips looked as if they’d been sculpted from wet clay, and his jawline was no different.
The man’s hair shone in the dim light, waves of it flowing over broad shoulders.
Every part of him looked meticulously polished.
The man’s eyes flicked to Nes, and his lips curved into a smile.
“My little hound,” he crooned, and everything Toran had found appealing about the man burned to a crisp.
“When I said I wanted you to bring me new talent, I admit”—his eyes flashed to Toran, his tongue sliding over his top lip—“this wasn’t what I expected. ”