The Sword Unbroken - SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Chapter Eight: A Better Sword

Rerdas lay cold and awake in his bed. It was nearly dawn, and he had yet to snatch a moment of sleep. He had left Etiana in her mother's room the night before, after he had given up on offering her any words of comfort.

He was strangely numb. Anger at the battleboxer for his dogged obstinacy, anger at the Duke of Wester for selling them a useless fighter, anger at Etiana for risking everything, anger at himself for his helplessness...it had wrung him out. His knuckles ached where he had rammed them against Imalroc's cheekbone.

An image of Uralta flickered into his mind unbidden. She sat across from him at the enormous table in the grand dining hall of the manor house. His aunt said nothing. Her lips were thin with disapproval and in the mirror-glass glint of her eyes, he read disappointment. Nothing else, no gaze nor words, had ever managed to make him boil with such shame.

Rerdas scrubbed at his eyelids, as though he could erase the vision. His pulse stung in his throbbing knuckles.

"We did it for you, Aunt Uralta. You must understand that," he murmured to the silent room.

The steel spined vision of what his aunt had once been shook her head at him.

There is no excuse for such dehumanization. I raised both of you better than this.

"We're trying to save you! To save all of us!"

Find another way. She had ended plenty of conversations with him like that. Left him with frustration welling up over his tongue, choking on bitter retorts. It had especially been like that when he had first come to live with her.

He had been an angry young man, betrayed and abandoned. His way had never been good enough for her. Always, it was find another way.

Rerdas rolled onto his side. He watched the occasional drop of rain splatter against the windowpane. Another way. He tried to sort through their options, but he could think of nothing. They had no money, a former spy dying of the Sleeping Sickness, a dire need to get beyond the Queen's wrath, and a battleboxer who had chosen to lose on purpose. Who had also cost them a fortune. Losing on fucking purpose. Just because that stupid duke—

The huntmaster sat up, his pulse pounding through his limbs. He flicked the heavy blankets aside and climbed out of the bed. At the small desk on the opposite wall of his room, he fumbled through a stack of paperwork, and found a blank sheet. Rerdas scribbled out words in barely legible handwriting. He blew on the ink for a moment, and then dragged his boots on over bare feet.

He gave a cursory rap against Etiana's door and winced as he struck his bruised knuckles.

Etiana sat up as he entered, her eyes red-rimmed and her face pale. Sleep had not come to her either. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Rerdas knelt down next to her side table and shuffled through the papers in the top drawer. "I'm trying to come up with something. If we sell Imalroc, we won't get anywhere close to what we could get if he were winning fights, right?"

"That's true, but Rerdas, I...I don't know if he's going to win anymore. It seems like the rumors were right. He's lost his nerve."

"He hasn't. He's got more nerve than is good for him. We've just got to get him to use it in our favor."

"What are you talking about?"

"Imalroc lost his last six...now seven...battles because he wanted to. Because the Duke of Wester did not give him his promised freedom. Where's his contract?"

"That's impossible! He lost because of his injuries—"

"Etiana, he doesn't have a fucking shoulder problem. He's clever, and he's angry. I've seen it. I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. Why would a man with absolutely no loyalty to us win on our behalf? What does he stand to gain?"