Page 8

RYN

They’d been at it for hours. Most prisoners were smart enough to surrender or pretend to fall out of the black circle, but the uneven feasting cave floor was still speckled with blood from the inmates dumb enough to fight. Ryn inched to the side to avoid stepping in it, folding her arms in disgust. She only looked up from the artwork of red on the floor when Heva’s name was called for the Fall Order.

Heva sailed into the ring, flipping her hair out of her eyes, stretching her wrists, and cracking her neck as she studied her opponent: a tall man with a large belly. It looked like she wasn’t even trying when the flute was blown and the two locked arms. Heva flipped him onto his back, a loud slapping sound ringing through the cave as he met the floor. The man moaned and tried to climb to his feet, but Heva lazily shoved him out of the circle with her foot. Some of the women in the prison cheered.

Up on the board, Heva’s name card was slid out of her spot and placed in the next row beside the winner of the last round. Ryn’s name had miraculously made it to that row too—after she and her opponent had tied, the soldiers decided to let them both move on.

Ryn rubbed her sore arms, dreading her next turn. She’d almost lost her round, had almost been allowed to leave and go spend the rest of the day napping in cave seven until the Fall Order was over.

Twelve more fights took place before Ryn was called upon again. She was half asleep, slouched against the cold wall when her name rang over the feasting cave from the same young soldier with the crescent scar on his chin—the one with the gold flute-whistle. He was the only soldier frowning while the rest looked bored, murmuring bets about who they thought would win each fight.

Ryn rubbed her eyes as she climbed to her feet. She passed the frowning soldier who looked like the sort of person she expected to see in a noble house, not down here in the dirty, rice-smelling caves. His bright, coppery gaze followed her for a reason she couldn’t guess, and she smoothed down her hair, wondering how wild it must have been for him to stare. She wiped her hands down her cheeks to clean them too. When she glanced back at the soldier, he was still staring.

Torch fires flared as Ryn dragged herself into the circle and surveyed her new opponent: one of the thugs from cave five. Of course. She considered walking out of the circle before the flute was blown. Surrender couldn’t be that shameful in a situation like this.

The flute’s tune filled her ears before she could decide, and her arm was grabbed. Her feet left the floor as the thug lifted her, and she shrieked as her body was thrown toward the circle’s boundary like a sack of rice. She collapsed against the flat rock gasping, flesh stinging, blinking against blurred surroundings. Distant ringing noises filled her ears as she lifted an arm and gaped at where the skin had scraped off her elbow. Burning sensations trickled across her kneecaps too.

“Get up, Ryn! You’re still in!” Heva appeared, dropping to a knee just outside the circle. The beads in her hair clapped together as she leaned in, her hair a curtain beside her. She looked Ryn dead in the eyes when she said, “Kick this guy out.”

Ryn moaned. She could hardly breathe; how could she find the strength to push a man twice her size out of bounds? She gasped as the man’s thick fingers wrapped her ankles. He dragged her across the circle, the stone scraping her arms, and Ryn gritted her teeth as she flung onto her back, thrashing her legs until he lost his grip. Her flailing heel struck his face, drawing a stream of red from his nostrils. He leapt backward, slapping a hand over his butchered nose.

“Yeah!” Heva roared. “Go for his nose! Again!”

Ryn’s legs trembled as she climbed to her feet. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, her lashes fluttering as the man snatched her wrist this time and yanked her to him. She waited for him to throw her out of bounds, to end the fight, but he didn’t. His wild green eyes swam, and warmth sailed into her stomach.

He kicked Ryn’s legs out from beneath her and hoisted her high above his head. Her eyes went round as she was dropped and the ground collided with her bones.

For a moment, all Ryn saw was white. She blinked against blurred vision, a sharp noise ringing in her ears. A cough escaped, and she rolled over, spitting blood onto the floor. Somewhere in the sea of noise, Heva was screaming at the soldiers. “This isn’t right! He’s not competing anymore—he’s trying to kill her!”

Ryn touched a sour-tasting cut in her mouth. Her fingers were covered in red when she pulled them back to look, and she had the brief, horrid thought to curse the King’s name for how she’d bit her tongue.

Suddenly her hair was grabbed, and the man’s growling laughter erupted over the space. Heva’s black Folke pants appeared in Ryn’s vision, and the man’s grip released, a cracking sound replacing his laughter, followed by a masculine wail.

“You can’t enter the circle during someone else’s round!” a soldier barked at Heva.

“Then make this Fall Order fair!” she snapped back. “This isn’t how a Fall Order works! It’s not a free for all where people can beat each other up for no reason!”

Ryn ignored them as her focus sharpened on the black line of paint a few feet away. She used her shaking arms to pull herself toward it, the metallic taste of blood rolling through her mouth. She was still inches away when the line blurred before her. She blinked against the haze, the dirt, the sweat and deep regrets.

A hand was out before her when her eyes adjusted. Not Heva’s.

She took it.

Ryn was dragged out of the circle.

“Adassah has surrendered anyway,” a white-haired soldier said, and from the corner of Ryn’s eye, she saw Heva whirl around, her gaze wide in surprise.

The soldiers adjusted the names on the board as Ryn’s mind cleared. She still held tight to someone’s hand—a young man with crooked teeth, dark circles beneath his worried eyes, and a thin red ribbon around his throat.

Faro, the soldiers had called him. He held on as she teetered.

Heva appeared and smacked Faro’s hand off Ryn, then ducked beneath Ryn’s arm and hoisted her off the ground. The wails of the Fall Order vanished behind them as Heva half-carried her into the nearest tunnel and leaned her against the wall to sit.

By some unexplainable curse of the Celestial Divinities, Heva was frowning. Possibly even glaring.

“Why do you look so annoyed?” Ryn asked. She wiped a bead of blood from her lip and scowled at it. “Shouldn’t you be glad I’m not still in there getting pummelled?” Her side swelled where the man from cave five had gripped too hard. She poked the spot lightly.

“You mean ‘Shouldn’t I be glad you’re not still in there letting him pummel you?’ I know you could have beat that man to a pulp!” Heva folded her arms. The light fragrance of moist stone and dirt wafted off her. “Didn’t you hear what I said before? If someone else is in charge of us, Ryn, they make the choices that will determine whether we live or die. Do you want someone else deciding that for you?” Her words were clipped, and Ryn huffed in disbelief.