Reach for You by Pat Esden (20)

CHAPTER 20

We are the Hexad. The banished ones.
The song of the stars. We whistle to the
wind with our grandmother’s bones
and drink the hummingbird’s power.

—“Song of the Hexad”

 

 

 

Lotli skirted around a line of punching bags and vanished through an arched doorway set into the fortress’s outer wall. Of course. It made perfect sense. There had to be a way down to the bottom of the fight cage, and this door was the closest one to the grate.

With Dad inches behind, I went under the archway and into a stifling-hot room that buzzed with flies and smelled like rancid milk. There were lines of wooden tables and benches. A boy slumped at one of them, sleeping with his head buried in his arms.

Lotli was a few feet away, desperately scanning the room, the bucket clutched against her stomach. I squared my shoulders and started searching. There were no other slaves or genies in the room. Narrow windows. Two other doors. The shape of a half wall struck me. It was the top of a stairwell.

I fast-walked toward it, dirt crunching under my boots. I was about to start down, when gravelly voices echoed up from below and three beefy men dressed in midnight-black leather tunics came into view, shoulder to shoulder, marching up the stairs toward me. Shit. I knew those uniforms, midnight-black with silver bracers, lots of tattoos, and scarves looped around their necks. These weren’t just any genies. They were members of Malphic’s guard.

I stepped to one side and cupped my mitt-covered hands behind my back, staring at the floor while I waited for them to reach the top. I could only guess it was the respectful thing to do. It seemed wiser than trying to plow through their ranks. I could only hope Dad and Lotli had done the same thing.

Cold sweat iced my body as they slowly moved upward. I wished they would hurry. We needed to get to Chase. On top of that, it would be a miracle if none of them picked up on the fact that we weren’t eunuchs they’d seen before.

“Glad my watch is over,” a guard with a rough voice said. “I don’t want to be around when that one snaps.”

I scuffed backward, my chills transformed into sheer terror. He sounded like the Hulk, a guard I’d run into the last time we were here. He would have forced himself on me if I hadn’t threatened him with a knife and said I was a gift for the Sovereign Mistress’s pleasure.

Careful to keep my hood close around my face, I glanced at him. His skin was a deep russet and he had a curly black beard. Definitely not the Hulk. He’d been clean-shaven, except for a narrow strip of beard.

Curly Beard stopped on the top step and swiveled toward the other guards. “Malphic’s going to regret not gelding that bastard.”

The tallest guard snorted. “If he lives.”

Curly folded his arms across his chest. “Fuck. You remember what he did to Malphic? Beat the hell out of him and claimed his knife as a prize. He was a snot-ass kid then—not a berserker.”

“Death Warrior,” the third guard corrected.

“I don’t care what anyone calls them,” the tall guard scoffed. “This guy isn’t going to make it that far. Did you see his eyes? He won’t make it through another fight.”

I could barely breathe. They were talking about Chase. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. How long were they going to stand there bullshitting and blocking the stairway? Couldn’t they see we were waiting?

Finally, their conversation died. They came up the last step and marched past us without a single glance.

I darted down the stairs, Dad and Lotli trailing. With each step, the light from above faded, darkness growing deeper. The air filled with the sharp reek of body odor and urine.

Dad coughed. Lotli gagged. But none of us slowed and none of us asked the obvious and terrifying question: Why wasn’t there any sound coming from below? When we’d looked through the grate, there’d been lots of noise. This place wasn’t soundproof like the harem and Malphic’s inner sanctum.

The pungent smell of blood mixed with the other stenches. A moment later, we rounded a curve and the stairway opened up to a view of the grim chamber below, washed in torchlight and a macabre blue haze. The chamber was laid out like a wheel. Black carpets hung on the curved outer wall interspersed with dark-mouthed tunnels. In the center of the room, the grated fighting cage rose from floor to ceiling.

Chase crouched in the cage, his face pressed against the bars. A long chain went from a post in the middle of the cage to the shackle on his left ankle. His fisted hand clenched the knife he’d taken from Malphic in that infamous fight. So much dirt and blood caked his face and body that it was impossible at this distance to tell if he was hurt and how badly—or if the blood belonged to someone else.

A brown-robed eunuch and two guards hunched over a figure that lay outside of the bars. The other fighter. He was motionless, his mouth slack open, blood oozing from it and both his eyes. I glimpsed a coil of intestine protruding from his stomach. I turned away, swallowing hard to keep from vomiting. I succeeded at that, but the acrid taste of bile flavored my mouth.

One of the guards straightened up and thrust his thumb in Chase’s direction. “Tend to him,” he said to the eunuch. “We’ll get the next contender.”

The eunuch rose to his full height, matching the guard’s posture. “He needs more than tending. He needs rest and food.”

“Malphic’s orders. This one keeps fighting.” The guard glared at the eunuch for a long moment, before he and the other guard seized the dead fighter by the wrists and dragged him across the room and into a tunnel, leaving a slick trail of blood in their wake.

Something thumped into my leg. Lotli’s bucket.

I turned to glare at her. Why the hell had she done that? Then I realized I’d stared longer than was wise, considering that the guards could see us. Dad was still doing the same thing a few steps above.

“He’s even sexier like that,” Lotli whispered.

Anger roared into every part of my being. I hauled my arm back and slapped her across the face. Unfortunately, her hood got in my way, taking the force out of the blow.

Lotli quietly set the bucket down. Her hand snaked into the folds of her robe.

Her flute. I clenched my teeth, bracing myself for the pain, preparing to not cry out.... An ear-splitting howl erupted from Chase. He dropped his knife and collapsed to the ground, whimpering. Oh God. My hair wasn’t the only thing wrapped around Lotli’s flute. Chase’s yarn was on there as well.

The eunuch squatted up close to the bars, right in front of Chase. “Give into it. Let the change take you. It’ll be over then.”

“No,” Chase groaned.

Rage fisted my hands. My nostrils flared and I struggled against an urge to shove my knife into Lotli’s ice-cold heart. Chase might have been changing and hurting in a million ways, but what he was feeling this instant had nothing to do with that and everything to do with her.

Lotli tilted her head, dark eyes sparking at me. “Last warning,” she said, barely above a breath.

I ground my teeth, but lowered my eyes. I wanted to kill her. Kill her dead. Wrap her in duct tape and send her back to the Sons of Ophiuchus.

Dad’s boots shushed against the stairs as he came down to us. He nodded at the scene below. “Any suggestions?”

But his words were lost on Lotli. She was already slithering down the rest of the stairwell, bucket clutched in both hands. She crept across the room to the cage. Sinking down, next to the eunuch, she retrieved the rag from her bucket, reached through the bars, and dabbed wetness against Chase’s neck.

The eunuch rose from his crouch, studying her as if trying to figure out what she was doing—or who she was. Suddenly he whirled and looked directly at where Dad and I still stood on the stairs.

Without missing a beat, Dad set down his pail and strode downward like a lord descending into his own grand ballroom. His right hand reached into the folds of his robe as if going for his salt or shank. “Time for your break, boy.”

I ran after Dad and grabbed his forearm. “No,” I said forcefully.

His arm relaxed. “I suppose you’re right.”

The eunuch’s gaze darted from us to Lotli and back. He raised his arms out from his body to show he wasn’t going to reach for a weapon. “How about if I leave? Get dinner. Take a piss.”

“Make it a long one,” Dad suggested.

The eunuch hushed his voice. “You should wait. He’s got one more fight. After that, he’ll be put in a cell.” He nodded at the sparks crackling across the cage’s open doorway. “That’s warded. There’s no way you—or I—can get in or get him out.” He turned on his heel and started toward the stairwell, but swiveled back. “Stay strong. Stay proud. Stay free.”

“Same to you,” I said in the deepest tone I could muster.

He nodded and took off up the stairs.

“What was that about?” Dad said.

“It’s some kind of rebel motto. Chase’s half brother Jaquith said it when he was helping us escape the last time,” I said. That was questionably true. Jaquith had said that, but I wasn’t sure if my breaking the egg was solely responsible for our escape going horribly wrong or if Jaquith had double-crossed us and was partially at fault.

Chase grabbed the bars and pulled himself to his knees, face pressed against the metal. His face was dark with beard stubble. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen shut, blood crusting along the lid. His nose lay flat. His lips split open. Bruises. Blood. So much blood.

“Here,” Lotli said, pressing the damp rag to his lips. “This will help.”

He lolled away from her hand, a faint blue aura oozing from his marks as his unfocused eyes strained to look my way.

My chest squeezed. My heart, my soul, every part of me longed to comfort him, to hold the cloth to his lips, to charge through the sparking cage doorway and get him out of there.

I clamped my eyes shut and planted my feet, struggling against the urge to race to him. If I made one wrong move, Lotli would reach for her flute. And it wouldn’t be me who felt its sting. It would be him, and it would be worse this time.

Lotli dampened the rag with fresh water, touched it to his swollen eye, and cooed, “Don’t worry about her. She does not like what you are becoming. We will not desert you like she will. The blood, the death, it does not bother us.”

Dad crouched down, up close to the bars. “Chase,” he said firmly. “Was the eunuch right—will they put you in a cell later?”

Hope fluttered in my stomach. I pulled my hands up into my robe’s sleeves, scrunching the fabric tightly. I couldn’t do or say anything to help Chase, but Dad could. Please, Dad. Let him know I care.

Chase gazed blindly at Dad. “Later good.” His head moved, eyes searching again, finding mine. His lips parted and he rasped, “Annie, I lov—”

Lotli sliced a look at me.

I wheeled away, turning my back on Chase’s needy eyes. For a heartbeat, I held my breath, unable to do what I had to. Then I fled.