It's been three days since we lost Ezzi, and three days since I overheard Ezzi's patron complaining to the warden about missing the chance to choose another contender. She needn't have worried. The warden was filling Ezzi's old cell with new prisoners just as Binks and I were leaving for training. If her number's drawn, she'll have a new contender within the hour.
I rub a hand over my eyes, clearing the rain from my face. It hasn't let up since last night. It's made the pebbled ground slippery, and turned Binks's fur dark, making the warm blue look almost purple.
The stitches on my back burn as I block Binks's next stab. I have to dig my toes into the ground to keep my balance.
"We should stop," Binks says. "I'm st-t-tarting to freeze." She chatters her teeth together to add emphasis.
"We're not allowed back inside," I say. I jerk my head toward the closed wooden door, two guards standing ominously beneath the doorway.
Binks eyes them, as if weighing her options, before sighing and crouching back into her fighting stance, tail raised.
Her parrying has been more lackluster today. She's been quiet since Ezzi. I've tried to tease out conversation, but Binks just feigns sleep, and rolls away. It hasn't helped that I've noticed her glancing at the weapons basket, the remains of her bow staring back. She's using Mika's old sword today, and even though it's obvious her heart's not in our sparring, at least it seems like her head is. She's holding the sword like she should, and she's making good choices with her foot placement and her blade swipes. She might not be a bad sword-wielder, with more practice.
Sar, too, is using a sword. A broadsword. I watched her pick it up and toss it back and forth, weighing the metal.
Over Binks's shoulder I can see Sar jousting with Jak. Sar looks comfortable with the sword in her hand. She steps nimbly from foot to foot. She doesn't so much block Jak's thrusts, as move out of their way. I try to take note of which muscles she uses, but she's clever in hiding them.
"Come on, Mi, I can't be that boring!" Binks says. The feel of her old, jokey self is there, but no smile accompanies her words. This playacting at being happy is almost worse than if she would just take her time to be sad.
Binks's sword clashes against my knife. I'd caught the motion out of the corner of my eye and our blades had locked before Binks had been able to throw her full weight behind the stab.
"Sorry," I mumble. "I'm here, I'm with you."
Binks frowns but says nothing. She wasn't supposed to train today, but her patron scrounged up the coin to let her build her skill with weapons other than a bow. Secretly, I'd been hoping Binks wouldn't train; it would've given me an opportunity to spar with Sar one-on-one, but now I'll just have to watch Sar from afar and hope it's study enough.
Rain leeches through my tunic and chills my back. My teeth chatter too, but we have at least another hour of training to go, if not more.
A string of disgruntled guards loop back and forth between the seating above the training ring. Earlier, they'd put up massive, purple and gold canvas overhangs to protect the seating from rain, and now they're twisting streamers and flowers on twine between the seats. The warden's Moon Day feast is tonight. We've been hearing the sounds of the nobles' camps filtering over the stadium wall all morning. They've been arriving in groups, each one seeming to cheer louder than the next upon their arrival. From what we can hear, it's been an ongoing party.
I wish Myles could see this. He always gets excited for Moon Day. I think it's the last happy thing he's trying to hold onto. But Myles's patron couldn't (or didn't want to) pay for a training session, so Myles is still stuck down below in the damp dungeon, along with the Matron, Jak's withering cellmate, Cass, and everyone else.
Binks thrusts with her sword and I parry. She resets. Behind me, Camden fumbles with his hatchet and I half-turn. Camden's hatchet is a small, close quarters weapon, and from the rich curses spilling from his lips, it doesn't seem to be working well against Skarden's whirling nails.
Binks swipes again, and I raise my arm, seeing from the curve of her wrist that she's angling for a side hit. My hand shakes from the impact of her sword on my knife.
"This is impossible," Binks mutters. She crouches again. Her entire arm is tense. She's holding the hilt too tightly, frustration making her rash.
I step closer to correct her, but a voice cuts through our sparring.
"Binks!" a guard shouts.
Camden's hatchet falls to the ground, seemingly in surprise.
We all turn to look at the guard, utterly shocked that someone would address a prisoner by name.
He's one of the warden's special guards, three red plumed feathers mark his status as they flop from a brass button pinned over his chest. A crossbow is strapped across the guard's back, and I can see Binks eyeing it enviously.
"Yes?" Binks asks.
The guard's upper lip curls. His face is sagged with age, and his jowls quiver with every word. "You have been summoned by the warden."
Jak sucks in a breath. The last time someone was summoned by the warden, they were sent home.
I turn to Binks. "Are you...could you be..." I don't know how to finish my question. Could she be getting sent home? Could the warden and the king truly have decided she's served enough time behind bars to be set free.
Binks says nothing. She stares at me for a brief moment, then turns and leaves the training ring, her tail held carefully aloft.
I watch her go, and while I know she deserves to go home just as much as I do, I can't help the pang of bitterness stabbing my heart as I watch her follow the plumed guard into the dark prison hallway.
"Is she going home?" Camden asks behind me.
I shake my head. "No," I say too quickly, the uncomfortable jabs of envy making me lie. I have no idea where Binks is going, but I can't bear the thought of her going there without me.
"Well now that your little pet is gone, have you ever done two on one, Thief?" It's Sar's resonant voice. She stands with her arms crossed, her biceps bulging.
She's at least a foot taller than me, and I have to crane my neck to look her full in the face.
"My name is Mira," I say.
Sar snorts. "I don't care. Are you fighting us or not?" She rests her hands on the hilt of her sword, the point digging into the pebbled ground.
Jak stands beside her. He looks between the two of us with his eyes wide, and it's clear he wasn't a part of Sar's discussion regarding two versus one.
"Okay," I say. It'll give me a chance to see Sar's fighting style, but I don't like the thought of having to balance watching both Sar and Jak.
Sar gives me a ghost of a smile, before turning her back on me and trouncing through the rain toward the far end of the small training ring.
The door creaks open behind me, followed by a painful grunt. I turn slightly to see a guard carefully laying a bundle of long, charred poles against the wall beneath the overhang, keeping them dry. I saw poles like that at the king's carnival in the Laplands. Fire Dancers use them. So that will be the warden's evening entertainment for his nobles.
"Ready, Thief? Or shall we give you more time to say your prayers?" Sar asks.
I turn back to her. Sar, Jak, and I are facing each other in a triangle. Off to my left, Skarden and Camden continue clashing metal. The platinum of Skarden's nails makes a wet, scraping sound against Camden's iron hatchet and I hear Camden hiss in frustration.
"My name is Mira," I say loudly. My muscles tense with irritation and my toe slips on the wet stones. I take a deep breath to calm myself down. I have to be loose in battle. I can't make a mistake.
Sar watches my every move, her dark eyes flicking to my foot as I stumble.
I grit my teeth, feeling agitated in a way I haven't recently.
Jak moves, his body following the shift of his right shoulder. I turn my head to look, and that's when Sar comes at me.
It's a whir of motion. Her right foot hops and skips forward while her left drags and trips behind. It's skillful enough not to be a limp—she's using her feet in such a way to throw me off.
I stop watching her feet and focus on her sword hand. It's the one thing that seems to stay still. Her head and hips bob and weave, making her look like a fluid blur. No wonder her muscles are so defined, she must be using every single one.
Jak's feet crunch on my left. He steps forward, throwing his right shoulder out with the stab. I step quickly backward and bend back at the waist, Jak's sword narrowly missing the billow of my tunic.
Sar takes advantage of the moment and changes tactic, hop skipping behind me, rather than in front.
I keep my eyes trained on her sword hand as I stand back up straight. Her hand curves downward, minutely changing the angle of her blade to make an upper cut.
I duck and swerve to the right, avoiding her sword.
Something heavy thuds against my side, just below my rib cage, and I crumple to the ground, the wind knocked out of me.
Both my blades clatter from my hands as my wrists smack against the stone ground.
Sar stands over me, her sword trained on my heart. She grins.
"You watched my hands. So I moved my feet." She looks down to her boot.
That's what collided with my side.
I press both hands into the pebbled ground and stand, my knees shaking. At least one stitch has broken free from my back, maybe two. I can feel Jak staring at the back of my head. The hairs on my neck tingle.
A cool trickle of fear dribbles down my spine. Sar found a weakness. She didn't fight defensively like the others, she fought offensively, her movements planned to match the vulnerabilities she saw.
Sar's sword is still an inch from my heart.
"Any last words, Thief?" she asks.
I can feel my hands raising in defeat. "You're not allowed to spill another prisoner's blood in the training ring."
Sar's sword pierces my tunic and pricks my skin. It's a fiery tap of pain and my breath quickens with the fear of it.
"What if I don't want to play by the rules?" she asks. Her face darkens. The sword stands straight and unwavering, rain pattering against its wide blade.
A chiming bell sounds, calling for the early end of the training session. Camden sighs with relief and tosses his hatchet into the weapons basket. I hear it clang against an iron shield. Jak's footsteps walk away from me.
I don't move. Sar has me pinned. For once, I don't know what to do. If I move, it would be a flick of a wrist and Sar could sink her sword into my chest. But if I stay still, what's to stop her from gutting me before going back down into the dungeons? What does she care what happens to me if she knows she's going to rot in the prison regardless?
"Training is over!" an impatient guard calls out. I know from the number of different footsteps that everyone else has left the training ring. It's just Sar, her sword, and me left out in the chilling rain.
I look Sar in the eye. She's mastered the ability to keep all emotion from her face. She stares blankly at me, and I don't know what it is she's waiting for.
"What are you going to do?" I ask. I'm oddly calm. A small, red stain is growing along the edges of my tunic where Sar's sword rests against my chest, but I don't mind it. I almost wonder what it would be like for the sword to cut deeper and take me away from this place.
But your father, Mira. He needs you, I remind myself. I think of the farm and the Laplands. Alani. Binks. My mother. There are people I am fighting for; I can't give up now.
"Ah," says Sar. She draws back her blade and I bend forward, clasping my thighs and gasping. My chest stings. Hot blood mixes with the cold rain against my skin.
"What?" I manage to rasp.
Sar raises her sword and wipes the tip of it against her tunic. My blood smears against the blade and a corner of the beige fabric.
"You show your feelings in your eyes. That's what'll give you away. That's how I'll...devastate you." Sar crosses the training ring and gently places the sword in the weapons basket. She reaches out with her left hand to lovingly stroke Binks's fractured bow, and rain runs off her Fate. The curving letters seem raised, as if Sar went to a shop to have them augmented. But she couldn't have. Artificial tattoos of any kind are illegal throughout the kingdom by order of the king. The current king's even decreed that all Fated people must carry their birth certificates with them at all times. He wants to do random Fate checks to ensure no one's faked theirs.
I rub my eyes and look again, watching Sar's Fate as she disappears through the doorway.
I'll have to figure out how to harden my eyes. Or I could blindfold myself. I've been blind-folded before, it was one of the warden's little tricks for an exhibition duel, so I know I can sound Sar out, but I'm still rattled.
The guard at the door clears her throat. I hurry to pick up my blades from the ground and sheath them in the belt at my waist. My fingers slip against the buckle. The rain's soaked through the leather and it takes me a couple tries before I can push the end of it through the buckle's opening. The guard taps her poleaxe against the ground in irritation.
"Sorry," I mumble to her. I carefully lay the knife belt inside the wooden basket. It rests against Binks's bow.
The woven wooden strips of the basket are swollen with rainwater and threaten to burst. Every metal in it must be close to rusting, and I wonder if the guards will pull the weapons in for the evening or leave them outside to crumble.
The guard clears her throat again, more insistently, and I hurry inside, glancing back at the colorful streamers along the stadium seats before the guard shuts the door and we're thrust into darkness.