M'yu was in the dark of his mother's house with the Vulture pinned beneath him. His mother screamed as M'yu's blade flashed in the night, and M'yu—
Froze. He could kill this man. He had killed him before. But M'yu's side hurt, and Aevryn would hate him, and Karsya would set his mother's house on fire. The Vulture leered up at him. "How are you ever going to compete in Washfall if you can't even manage to face your opponent?"
M'yu howled and brought the knife down—
Into Lania. Her baby blue eyes stared up at him in shock, in betrayal. Her lips fell into an eternal gasp, and he held her close, her coat crinkling against his chest, her warm blood dripping into his lap. "I'm sorry," he crooned, "I'm so sorry..."
"Compromise," Sviya whispered from behind him. "It will ruin you every time."
He cried over Lania's body. She wasn't supposed to die. No one else was supposed to die. One man's blood on his hands had been enough, had been far too much.
"How do you plead, hero boy?" Sviya whispered, as his mother whimpered in the corner and his siblings looked on with horror and Aevryn stood in the door, shaking his head.
"Aevryn, please," M'yu moaned, rocking Lania. "Please help us."
"How do you plead?" Sviya demanded.
The blade was in M'yu's hand. Blood dripped from its tip and covered the floor until everything M'yu had ever touched was coated with it.
"How do you plead?"
"Guilty!" The word tore out of his throat with a whimper, with a shout, with a lifetime of hate and fear and blame. He hung his head, and the world disappeared until he was left with nothing but the cold to keep him company. "I plead guilty."
The world broke into freezing silver floors and hot pain. His shirt and bandages were wet in spots and stiff in others. His cheek was flush and sticky against the metal; his skin was clammy. His bones shook hollowly, like the emptiness of a week without food. His fingers scrabbled against the floor for purchase to push himself up with, but his arm gave out. He collapsed against the floor again, crying out. Aevryn. I have to tell Aevryn...
But what he had to tell him flitted out of reach. That Karsya would sell all of M'yu's secrets—so what? M'yu would never make it to trial, and if he did, everything they found would be the truth.
I have to tell him...
That he was sorry? That he'd screwed everything up? That Aevryn was right, had always been right? He knew that.
Still M'yu tried to push up again. Aevryn wouldn't want him back, but M'yu owed it to him to tell him. What, he could remember later. His arm shook under his weight, and his ribs cried in protest, white hot sparks bursting across his skin. He bit back a cry, tears springing to his eyes, and tried to get his other arm beneath him.
His elbow gave way, and he crashed back to pain and oblivion.
* * *
"I don't care if you're charging him with murdering the known world, he still has rights!"
M'yu's head buzzed. His eyelids slowly came apart as Aevryn rattled off legal jargon. His side still roared with pain, but his bones had filled out some, so biting back a moan of pain, he pushed himself into a sitting position. He sagged against the wall, hand to his side, drawing in greedy, shallow breaths.
The door opened. Aevryn's fur-coated silhouette filled the entry. His eyes swept over M'yu, lips turning down. M'yu hung his head. "Aevryn, I—"
"Don't speak," he clipped, and M'yu cringed. Aevryn stepped to the side, revealing a white-coated man behind him. "Doctor, how do you find him?"
The doctor, a weasel-eyed man with thinning hair, stepped into the room and kneeled down beside M'yu. M'yu shrunk back from the man's hands, then winced.
"The prisoner is to cooperate with the investigation," Aevryn ordered. M'yu's eyes flashed up to him, then dropped back down. He stayed still as the doctor pulled up his shirt, and he only bit down hard on his lip as the doctor pulled back the bandage around his midsection.
"A compound fracture of the third anterior rib, likely hairline fractures in others." The doctor set his hand to M'yu's neck, and M'yu flinched. "Low pulse and temperature, probably a result of high blood loss." The doctor stood and stepped back, rubbing his hands with an alcohol wipe.
"Conclusion?" Aevryn asked coldly.
"In his current state, he is unfit to stand trial. He requires access to the hyperheal facilities at the city hospital to meet tomorrow's date."
"Submit the report." Aevryn stepped back further, revealing a Prav'sudja guard at his elbow. "And I assume you will report that everything here followed procedure?"
With a sour look, the guard clipped a nod. Aevryn turned on his heel, the doctor left the cell, and the door closed with a sickening finality.
M'yu moaned, leaning his head back against the metal wall. Some doctor. His ribs, now unwrapped, burned hotter with every breath. What he wouldn't give for Evriss to fuss over him like he had just yesterday, to wake up on that couch again, to hold the blanket they'd laid over him and not get up.
Aevryn's eyes haunted him as he stared at the ceiling, trying to block out the pain. They didn't flame with hate or flicker with disappointment. They assessed him the way merchants at Nightsale look over goods—detached, analytical, knowing that if what was presented wasn't good enough, they would have another offer soon. A better one. M'yu shivered, remembering Ruslan's story. Somehow, M'yu had managed to be an even bigger failure than him. And he'd end up worse than him too.
M'yu shivered again, drawing his legs up underneath him. He'd never get to go back to Aevryn's house. He wouldn't even get tossed back on the streets. M'yu had been cramming laws down his throat for the last month, hoping to swallow enough to pass Washfall. If he was convicted—
M'yu groaned, a new wave of pain rolling over him as he pushed away grisly images of slavery and execution. The game was over. The pieces had fallen out of his hands; every advantage they could have had, he had ground to dust. His trial wasn't even supposed to be tomorrow; they'd moved it up, he supposed, now that he'd been upgraded to a terrorist. An array of expressions took control of his face, and he bit his lip to force away the burning in his eyes.
At some point, a stretcher came for him. He bit back a scream as the guards hauled him to his feet, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the prodding doctors bundled him onto it. Whatever happened to him, he deserved it. They carted him to a hover, and then to the hospital, with its blinding white walls and fluorescent lights. They stopped in a room with a bed-sized domed structure inside.
M'yu flinched as they wrapped a blindfold tight around his eyes. "The hyperheal unit emits dangerously bright light," one of the doctors explained.
"You're not to talk to the criminal," someone barked from the corner.
"We're going to sedate you, for your own safety."
"I said no talking!"
"Criminal or no, he's still a child!" the doctor protested. On the other side of M'yu, a needle pierced his arm.
They hoisted him from the stretcher, laid him onto a harder bed, and slid him backward. Tunnel walls rose close around his skin; his breath rebounded onto his face. M'yu tensed and swallowed down a cry. I deserve this, he reminded himself, wondering how much different this was from a grave. Tombstones were the last thought in his mind before the sedatives drug him into sleep.
* * *
Metal cuffs cut into M'yu's wrists as he waited in the Prav'sudja court antechamber. He drew a deep breath for the hundredth time since he'd woken up, just to prove he could. His ribs expanded just like they should, without even a hint of pain. He bit his lip, but that didn't hurt as much as it should either; the split was gone, and so were the bruises.
He wondered how many Gloamers had died that could have been completely healed like this.
Auxiliary lights flickered across the chamber dimly, casting deep shadows over the courtroom doors. Apparently the Prav'sudja techs still hadn't managed to repair all of the overloaded systems. A guard shifted at M'yu's elbow. "Are you ready for this, kid?"
M'yu's eyes stayed glued to the doors. "I thought you weren't supposed to talk to me."
The guard shrugged. "I don't see how it matters much. You'll be dead soon either way."
M'yu chuckled. The guard twisted, eyes roving M'yu's face as if checking him for sanity. M'yu's head shook. He'd always told himself he was willing to die to free the Gloam.
He just hadn't accounted for dying to fail to free it.
"The Right to Sheath," M'yu asked the guard. "The tournament?"
The guard snorted. "I know what the Right to Sheath is, kid. Unlike you, I actually participated."
"Yeah, but—" M'yu swallowed the word Aevryn. "Someone told me once that people had nicknamed it the Right to Die. I think I know why."
The guard looked at M'yu like he was beginning to regret starting this conversation. Slowly, he said, "Because participants die."
M'yu set his face back to the door, shoulders squared.
The waiting silence set heavy in the air until the guard asked, "What? Do you think something different?"
M'yu swallowed thickly, remembering the passion in Aevryn's eyes as they'd planned, the hope he'd had talking about the Tsar, the fervor in his promise that he wanted things to be different. "I think it's because they care enough to risk dying. They have the right to try, no matter the cost."
"Oh." The guard snorted. "Is that what you'll tell yourself on the chopping block?"
M'yu closed his eyes, breathed deep, and waited.