Story of Kings

Chapter 7

Evelyn found Kane not far off, sitting against a wall with his head tilted back and rested against the stone, a vacant expression on his face. "That was one hell of an impression you left," she said a little breathless, a bead of sweat running down her neck. She had jogged to catch up to him.

"I'm not in the mood to play games or dick around," Kane said in response, not lifting his eyes from the point on the wall on the other side of the small corridor. He offered no other explanation as a silence dragged in between them, Evelyn standing over him as she caught her breath.

Realizing he wasn't going to continue, Evelyn sat down beside him, resting her arms on her knees, her stance wide. "You aren't the pep-talk type of guy, are you?"

"No." His tone was dry, his answer flat. Did she think him overly emotional?

"Good, I suck at giving them." Kane didn't have to take in her scent to tell she was being honest, the relief evident in her tone. "More of a keep-yourself-busy type of guy then?"

Kane didn't answer at first and she thought she was going to have to either keep talking or just leave but he spoke up before she had to. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Evelyn nodded to herself. "Care to go spar, then?"

Kane tore his eyes away from the wall to glance over at her. "Do you ask to learn more about who I am, show me off to your Underground, or for us to get to know one another better?" What I am, is what he implied, what they both knew she was after.

She shrugged. "All three," she said back, her honesty so blatant.

He gave a nod in response. "Fair. I'm not going to go easy, though," he said, giving his answer and earning a grin from Evelyn. A demonstration of his strength would work in his favor, too.

"I wouldn't want you to," she said with a feral grin, then pushed herself up from against the wall. They headed back down from where they had come from but turned down a different passageway before they reached the small room that had served as a mess hall. Very few people passed them as they walked along, it was still in the early hours of the morning, and anyone awake would be looking for something to eat and not looking to break a sweat.

Entering a large chamber Evelyn turned to face Kane, arms displaying the room before him. "This is our little sparring pit, what do you think?"

Kane's brow arched as he looked around, he had been right with his earlier assessment of the sparring room, but wrong about its quality. "I think it's a far cry from little, this has more square-feet than my house did." The chamber was large, and outfitted with a decent selection of practice weapons, weights, and a few sparring mats. "Your little organization got pretty lucky with this find. How did you all come across this catacomb system, but Zuan didn't?"

A grin broke out across Evelyn's face. "Oh, god-king Zuan did know about this place once, and that's the beauty of it. He 'knows' these tunnels to be gone, so he is never going to think of checking them for us rebels, if he even knows we exist. We have gone to great lengths to stay unknown."

"How did you manage to pull that one off?" He asked as he continued to look around with fascination. Even if the movement itself was new and weak, their base was strong.

"Well, I guess you could say that it's thanks to our first, official member: Don'jo Domra. Know him?" Receiving a shake of his head from Kane, Evelyn continued. "He was a famous architect, so legendary that god-king Zuan hired him when he decreed that these tunnels, old sewers and catacombs, be filled in to prevent ancient black-market groups from hiding out in them.

Kane arched a brow while tracing his fingers on the cold stone wall, dry and lacking mildew. Don'jo was already living up to expectations. "Sounds like Zuan was tired of having his angels sweep through regularly to clear them out."