Page 87 of A Sword of Shadow and Deceit

“Oh?” I release a bemused chuckle. “Sorry to ruin your plans.”

The sharp sound of fists hitting metal screeches into my ears and I open my eyes again to see him hunched over, both fists on the bars of my cell. “Does your life mean nothing to you?” he demands.

Irony, thy name is he. What a funny question coming from the person who put me in this position. “Do I need to remind you the reason I’m here in the first place?” I ask. “My life—whatever it means to me—is whatever the Gods deem it. Unimportant. Expendable.”

“How did you know?” he asks this time.

I debate on telling him the truth. That it was his scent that gave him away. I hadn’t really thought about it all that much during all the times I’d been near him. But it was there. Familiar. Ever present. He, himself, was practically a beacon of his own doings.

“You were in the office when Dolos sentenced me,” I say.

His head lifts and this time when he looks at me, it’s with a twisted expression. Confusion and something more. Something … I hadn’t expected. Slowly, I push my hand back against the wall behind me and use that leverage to rise to my feet.

I step away from the back wall and take another and another until I’m nearly a foot from him. Close enough that I can see the puffs of white his breath makes as he breathes rather harshly. “I didn’t know about the first complaint,” he says as if that changes anything now.

“Rahela likely made it.”

He fixes me with a stare and I don’t have to be able to read his mind to know the questions swarming in his gaze. “She found me in the courtyard a few weeks ago and attempted to drown me for being there.”

Twin dark brows draw together, forming a little V between them as he frowns. “You never said anything.”

I shrug. “It wasn’t important then.”

“I made a specific request of Dolos,” he says. “You were to be banished from the Academy—not … whipped.”

I lean forward until my upper chest rests against the bars that separate us. “What did you have to offer him for that request?” I ask, more curious than upset by the reveal.

He turns his head away from me and releases the bars immediately. He never struck me as a coward, but now I realize he just might be. Cruel in his inability to foresee potential cracks in his little plan. A shiver overtakes me and I close my hands around my upper arms, pulling away from the bars as well.

“If you don’t want to answer that, then why did you come here?” I finally ask after several more minutes of silence. “I know it may seem as if I have all of the time in the world being locked up here for the next three days, but I should probably get my beauty sleep if I’m going to make it through starving and whipping.”

He flinches but doesn’t respond. I blow out a breath and turn away from him, walking back over to my place against the wall. Slipping my cloak under my ass, I drop down onto the hard ground and fold my legs together, crossing them like a child might. The movement stretches the skin of my inner thighs, but it doesn’t feel bad, especially not after all of the dense weight of being in Dolos’ presence.

“Ugh.” I set my elbow on my knee and prop my head up on my hand. “If you’re not going to say anything, then you should leave. It’s cold down here and I’m sure the Gods wouldn’t want you catching anything.”

“You know that’s not possible,” he snaps back, earning a grin from me. Of course, I know that. I just wondered if he’d say anything to the comment and he did. He’s unnerved. Uncomfortable. And most surprising of all, he feels fucking guilty.

Good, I think. He fucking should be.

I never asked to be put in his path. I never fucking asked for this damn mission to take so long. He’s full of rage and remorse, but I’m full of resignation. I’ve always had to be. He played a game he thought he could master to try and get rid of me—a pawn, in his mind. He wanted to walk away without spilling blood, but someone like him should know by now, this whole world is nothing but blood. The blood of our fathers and mothers, the blood in our veins, and the blood that runs in the streets when those who are most powerful rule over all.

We kill to survive even if we aren’t assassins. Seduce and destroy. There is no salvation for any of us.

“You’re sitting in here and you still don’t seem to understand, Kiera,” he snaps, voice full of venom. “In three days' time, you will be walked out to the arena and the entire Academy will watch as Axlan whips your back bloody and raw.”

I put a hand to my chin and crack my neck. “I’m well aware of what awaits me. I just don’t care.”

“You don’t care?” I’ve shocked him. I take pride in that.

My free hand lifts up and his eyes follow it. I flick my fingers at him. “The Gods have always played judge, jury, and executioner ever since they came to this world,” I tell him. “Are you just now realizing that your actions have consequences? I would think a man of your age would have learned that by now.”

“It wasn’t…” He chokes out the words before stopping.

I sigh and drop my hand. “You played the game and it didn’t go your way,” I state. “I’m pretty strong. I don’t think I’ll be able to escape pain, but I think I can live through a few slaps on the back.”

“They won’t be so tame,” he replies. “Axlan is the God of Victory. He will go as hard as he needs to in order to feel as though he’s won.”

“Considering one of us will be the one in chains and one of us will not be,” I say. “It sounds to me like he already has and so have you. Congratulations.” That last word comes out with more bite and no small amount of fury.

His head lowers once more, the dark strands of his hair falling into his face and covering the scar I know to be there, dividing his brow. “For what it’s worth, Kiera,” he says, sounding defeated as his shoulders sag, “I am sorry.”

With that, he turns and strides away. The echo of his footsteps grows distant, but it isn’t until he’s completely gone that I speak. “Apologies make no difference in the light of actions that can’t be taken back,” I murmur. “So you can take your sorry and shove it up your ass, Ruen Darkhaven.”