The days and nights blurred into each other. All that mattered beneath the Pyrogon were the summons to fight and after that, eating a bowl of tasteless but nourishing gruel. Minerva came to pity the arena manticores even more. They deserved better than this singular, sad existence. They didn't even get gruel.
When Kodak and Brenna returned from their matches, they sought her company. Minerva would take out her tin of salve and tend to their burns, while they closed their eyes and tried to breathe through dry, chapped lungs. Perspiration gathered on their pale ashen skin. In those times, Minerva wondered whether it would have been the merciful decision to bar them from competing.
After the first day, the competitors didn't converse much and kept to themselves. Even the nobles turned to conserving their energy and sleeping off the adrenaline crash from their bouts. Less and less fighters returned through the gates as the call to fights grew more frequent.
The tournament whittled at them all like a knife. Only the strongest would survive. Only the brightest would continue to burn when all other lights went out.
In the fifth set of rounds, Brenna didn't come back.
"I hope she's alright," Minerva whispered. Her arms rested on the tops of her knees and she sat leaning against the wall. "She had a headache and her hands felt clammy before she left."
The lantern handle squeaked where it hung from a metal hook in the ceiling. Pyra glanced up and the light strengthened before she returned to her book.
"Heat exhaustion," Kodak murmured. Head tipped back, he closed his eyes. Something had changed about him. Not a single flirtatious comment had passed his lips since the night they'd visited the Firebird. When he gave her long looks, they didn't hold the teasing glint like before. Instead a hard resolve had taken its place, leaving her in the silent company of a prince she didn't recognize or know.
"You don't look so good either," Minerva observed.
No matter how much water he drank, how many times he dunked his head in a bucket, it didn't seem to be enough. Most of the men competing had taken off their tunics after the first round and Kodak was no exception. But where his skin wasn't wan it had blistered red, along his shoulders and arms, the high ridge of his nose.
Minerva unscrewed the salve container. She'd had to ask Pyra to send a guard to her rooms to fetch another two after the first ran out. Walking on her knees over to Kodak, she scooped out a generous dollop with her fingers.
He didn't move or open his eyes while she rubbed ointment over the raw, peeling skin. At least he didn't see her cheeks coloring as his tense muscles relaxed under her touch.
Not for the first time, Minerva wished she had a stronger build like his. As a child, putting on even a bit of weight or a scrap of fat had been an uphill battle. All pale skin and bones, one noblewoman had said of her, the only pretty thing about the girl is her hair.
Matsudo had taught her that in every fight, she could assume she'd be at a physical disadvantage. Her opponent would be bigger and brawnier so she'd have to be faster, smarter. But the hollow place had been more than a tool to Minerva—it had been the advantage she could rely on when her body betrayed her.
"I don't know why I'm helping you ... again," she said to fill the silence.
"You don't have to," Kodak answered.
"Do you not want me to?"
"You don't owe it to me to. But—" He left his sentence unfinished. The way he'd been leaving them unfinished the past few days.
It was enough to drive a girl mad.
Then— "I'll be leaving as soon as the tournament is over." He still didn't open his eyes.
Minerva moved on to his other arm. "So will I. Is that a reason why I should be nice to you?"
"No. It was a completely separate thought." Kodak's dark eyelashes trembled and he sucked in a breath as if in pain.
"Did I hurt you?" Minerva asked, withdrawing her hand.
He ignored the question. "Where will you be going when you leave? The military outpost?"
Minerva's hand dropped to her lap. "No. I'm leaving the empire and going south."
"Why?"
"Why are you asking?" she snapped. Maybe fatigue caused the frustration frothing to the surface, but she couldn't deny some of it came from how aggravating Kodak had been. Hadn't she wanted him to leave her alone? Why draw him out into talking and asking questions she didn't want to answer?
"We were going to keep in touch so I could relay information to you from Ayn."
Logical. A practical answer. Why didn't it appease her anger?
"Don't bother. I won't be able to keep contact where I'm going and I've found another lead." Minerva grabbed the lid for the tin, but her hands shook so much that she couldn't get it on right.
He took it from her and spun the lid on. "I don't think you'll find anything there. You've been south before, right?"
Minerva stared at him. Kodak had finally decided to open his blasted blue eyes. "How do you know about that?" she whispered.
She didn't know how she discerned it—maybe he lacked the light of truth in his eyes—but she knew he was lying. "Brenna," Kodak said.
Don't lie to me, Minerva wanted to cry. Instead she took it in silence and dropped her gaze.
A gate screeched, a faint scream from above. Kodak stood and stretched. His would be the final match of the fifth round. "Since I don't know if I'll see you again after this ... I'm glad I met you, Min. I hope you find what you're looking for."
"Goodbye," she said mechanically.
"Goodbye." His steps took him past her and up the stairs.
The finality in his words couldn't be clearer. He didn't plan on making it to the seventh round. Whether he surrendered in the fifth or the sixth, the Hydro embassy would leave after his defeat and she'd still be behind the gates. They'd already extended their stay so he could compete and wouldn't want to delay their journey any longer.
If she were to accept a loss and miss her chance of fighting Kovine then ...
No. Minerva shook her head. There's no sense in sacrificing the future for something that isn't there.
She paced across the floor, shaking her hands out to loosen up the muscles.
Pyra's voice startled her. "You know this is the part of the story where the heroine runs after the male lead and tells him not to go, that she can't live without him." The guard licked her fingers and cast a knowing glance at Minerva while she flipped the page of her book.
Minerva chuckled. "I'm no heroine. You've been reading too many romance novels, Pyra."
"Maybe you don't read enough," Pyra said.
Minerva shrugged and flopped onto the cushions in her corner, arms tucked behind her head. "Has anyone happened to see Azuki at the palace, Pyra? I usually give him a dish of smoked salmon as a treat on Firedays."
"I can ask someone to deliver a message to the kitchens. I don't know if they'll be able to find him though," the guardswoman answered.
Kats could only be found when they wanted to be found. Every so often, a kat would even abandon their former home and staff. Azuki wouldn't be suited to life outside the empire though, with common fare and no velvet pillows. Minerva hoped he'd understand why she was leaving. On the other hand, he might just blink his golden eyes and treat her departure like a bit of spilled milk. Lick it up and move on.
Pyra shut her book. "I think it's time I escort you to the top."
Minerva nodded and followed. On the way to the gate, she glimpsed Tobias seated on a chair tilted at a precarious angle against the wall. A wet cloth hung over his forehead and his chest rose and fell in deep breaths.
He likely still had her original knot of rank on his belt. It had been purple with a few threads of silver woven in. If you challenged a classmate to an official fight, you'd win or lose a single knot. Since Minerva didn't have any, no one had ever challenged her after the very first—Tobias. In the few cases she'd initiated a duel, she'd made sure to lose. They'd been experiments, tests of her theories on how the hollow place worked.
"My Lady, where are you going?"
Minerva continued where she'd turned off from the path to the gate. She could kick the chair legs out from Tobias and send him tumbling if she wanted to. "Dracova."
He groaned and lifted the corner of the cloth to peer at her. "Pyroline. What do you want?"
Minerva crossed her arms. "If we meet in a match and I win, I want you to give me Brenna's knot." It would be the blue one.
"Not yours?" Tobias smirked then sighed. "Fine, you can have it if—and that's a very big if—you somehow manage to beat me. I'm a little surprised you've made it this far ... any bribes cooking in some referees' pockets?"
"You wish." Minerva spun around to leave.
"I'm only betting the half-breed's knot because she's skipping town," Tobias drawled. "Wouldn't be worth much to anyone else."
It took every ounce of Minerva's self-control not to go for the legs. "Don't call my friend that," she said quietly. "And what are you talking about?"
Tobias rolled his eyes and pitched forward to slam the front legs of the chair into the sand. "Heard the embassy is taking her with them. Your wrist-breaking bodyguard won't be around to protect you anymore." He picked up a bucket of water and drank from the cup that had been floating inside.
Brenna gone too ...
Minerva knew it to be the nature of things—people came and left like the seasons. That didn't mean she liked it. Didn't mean she never wished that time could stand still and things could stay forever the same, that people could stay.
"If you're going to cry, go do it somewhere else," Tobias said, looking away from her.
She took a few steps away then hesitated. "Why do you hate me so much?"
Just when she thought he wouldn't answer, Tobias said, "Because he should have lived, not you. But he didn't and none of that makes sense. You'll never be a better ruler than Vren would have been. The throne is too big for you to fill and you don't deserve it."
"You're right," Minerva said. "It would have been fairer that way. But I guess you haven't learned that the world isn't fair yet, not like I have."
"You really don't get it." Tobias' voice crackled with wet anger like thunder and rain. "Even now you don't understand a thing. He talked about you all the time—wouldn't shut up—as if you were some bloody nine-tailed kat that was abnormally clever. You even followed him around like one. But you were just as quick to jinx him when you thought he slighted you. Tell me that's fair when he did it to prote—" Tobias' eyes widened and his jaw clamped shut like a steel trap.
To protect ... me?
"Protect me from what, Dracova?"
Tobias shook his head. "Nothing. Forget I said anything," he growled, stalking away.
His partial admission rocked Minerva to her core. Protect her from what? Who? Their mother? It had been a gradual shift, she remembered, during the time after Vren returned from military training and she'd been sent out.
He hadn't wanted to play with her anymore when he got back. She'd gotten Auntie Dina to help her bake a batch of bean buns for him and had been so proud of the somewhat lopsided pastries. He'd told her he didn't like them and poked at her hands. "You're soft," he'd said. "Soft as a boiled egg. As white and ugly as one too."
It was an eight-year-old's weak attempt at an insult when she thought about it, but the words had crushed her at the time. Could that really have been to protect her? All the kindness in Vren darkening to anger and bitterness?
Maybe it runs in the family, Minerva thought as she strode through her gate. Maybe I'm already on my way there.
But then she was back in Auntie Dina's arms as she bandaged Minerva's bloodied palms where she'd scraped them falling down. She thought of the scent of herbs as she applied balm to Kodak's burns.
Maybe everyone had destruction and healing in them. Maybe that duality was what it meant to be human—the potential for both but the ability to choose between the two. Sun and moon. Light and shadow.
Minerva groaned suddenly and slapped a hand to her face.
"Is everything well, Heir Apparent?" the referee asked her.
"I forgot something, but it's fine." She waved her hand. "Proceed, please."
He cleared his throat and waved them forward to bow and shake hands. Minerva took passing note of her opponent. Another small, annoying thought held most of her attention.
She'd forgotten to apply salve to Kodak's nose.