JAVAN RAN TO Sajda’s side and peered down at the arena floor. His hands gripped the railing as his knees weakened. The air felt too thick to breathe, his blood too heavy to run through his veins.
Tarek lay in the center of the scarred wooden floor, his arms and legs staked to the ground with enormous iron pegs. A fifth stake had been driven through his heart.
Sajda wailed, a terrible, gut-wrenching sound that echoed throughout the arena, and then she turned and ran for the stairs. Javan followed, grief slicing into him with every step.
Tarek had been sure the warden wouldn’t attack him while the merchants were present. Javan shouldn’t have listened. Shouldn’t have left the job of guarding Tarek up to Intizara. He should’ve insisted Tarek stay by his side. Maybe he couldn’t have stopped the warden, but he could’ve tried.
Sajda reached the arena floor seconds before he did and stumbled into the arena, her arms wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold herself together at the seams.
He picked up the pace and intercepted her before she reached Tarek’s side, his heart aching. “Let me take care of him for a minute, Sajda. You don’t need to keep seeing him like this.”
She shook, a leaf trembling in his arms, and didn’t respond. Her eyes were glassy. Gently he pulled her against his body and held her. She didn’t seem to notice.
Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see the warden standing at the edge of the arena, close to the stalls. Her one eye bored down on him, and she gave him a vicious smile before heading toward her office. Perhaps she still had merchants to pay. Perhaps she’d done what she wanted and was content to leave Javan and Sajda with the aftermath.
Fury ignited in the hollow spaces of his grief, but he stayed where he was. Sajda needed him. And until he won the competition, the warden held all the power.
He couldn’t wait to turn the tables.
“Tarek,” Sajda whispered, her voice a ghost of its former self.
“Let me pull out the stakes,” he said, desperate to help in some small way, though it wasn’t nearly enough. “And then we’ll take care of him.”
“I’m stronger,” she said, and stepped away from him. Bending, she grabbed the stake that held Tarek’s left hand to the floor and yanked it out. A sob escaped her lips, and she went for the stake in his left foot. The iron left red burn marks on her palms, and the runes on her cuffs glowed like fire.
Javan stood, fists clenched, feeling useless. Every bloody nightmare he’d endured over the past two weeks, every shred of guilt he’d carried on his shoulders paled compared to this. Tarek had been his first friend in Maqbara. Without the older man’s kindness and loyalty toward Javan, Sajda would’ve ignored him. There would never have been a bargain. Never any help. Javan would’ve been dead weeks ago.
He owed his life to Tarek, and the knowledge that he’d failed to protect him was a jagged stone cutting into him from the inside out.
When all the stakes but the one through Tarek’s heart had been removed, Sajda fell to her knees beside the old man, curled over his chest, and cried. Her hands wrapped around the final stake, and she slowly pulled it out.
Javan got to his knees beside her, tears in his eyes, and said, “I’m so sorry, Sajda.”
Her hands clutched Tarek’s tunic, pressing on his chest, and the skin beneath her cuffs hissed as the runes glowed red.
She was trying to use her magic to reach him. Bring him back to life.
Dark elves couldn’t bring the dead back to life, but Javan didn’t tell her that. She had to try what she could. If he thought there was a chance of finding a shred of life left in Tarek, he’d be trying too.
When nothing happened, Sajda dropped her hands and slowly climbed to her feet. “I can’t . . . I can’t do this.” She looked wildly around the arena. Javan followed her gaze, but the warden was gone. “She’ll turn him into meat, and I can’t be here.”
Javan stood as well, his anger burning bright. There was nothing he could do to stop the warden. Nothing he could do to give Tarek a proper burial. All he could do was pay his respects in the best way he knew how, though it felt far too small in the face of this loss. “I’ll say a lament over him. Yl’ Haliq will welcome him and give him eternal rest. I wish I could do more.”
She stood for another moment, trembling and grieving, and then she turned and ran.
Javan let her go. There was nothing he could do to stem the horror and loss she felt, but he could keep his word. He could give Tarek the dignity of a proper send-off before the warden desecrated his body.
Dropping to his knees again, he gently closed Tarek’s eyes and straightened his clothing. He tried to pray, but the words caught in his throat, and he bent over Tarek as he struggled to swallow. To breathe. To do this one last thing for the man who’d saved him. Javan’s voice was a shadow of itself as he finally choked out the lament, every word a dagger that pierced him. When the lament was finished, he stayed on his knees, tears burning his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Intizara’s voice was quiet as she stepped onto the arena floor, a small satchel in her hands.
He raised his eyes to hers. She looked stricken. “What happened? You were supposed to yell if Tarek needed help.”
He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but it was there anyway, threading his words with grief and fury.
“I know.” She looked at her feet.
“Then why didn’t you? Did the warden stop you?”
“She set me free.”
He went still, his hand resting on Tarek’s chest. “Free?”
“She offered me freedom if I gave up Tarek without a fight. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave without telling you the truth.”
He was silent for a long moment as the anger ballooned inside him until he thought he’d burst from it. When she slowly looked up to meet his gaze, his voice was deadly quiet as he said, “You traded an innocent man’s life for your own freedom.”
“I held out as long as I could!” She took a step toward him, saw the expression on his face, and froze. “The others in the kitchen agreed quickly, and I was the only one left.”
He rose to his feet. “So then you be the only one left. You stand in front of an innocent man, and you keep your promises. You behave with honor. You don’t betray him so that you can get out of the sentence for your crime!”
“What crime?” Her voice shook with anger and misery. “I’m here because I slapped an aristocrat’s son for grabbing my chest. He swore I assaulted him, and no one ever let me give my testimony. The others? Here because an aristocrat said they owed a debt they weren’t paying. Only two of them actually owed wahda. The others were thrown in here to get them out of the way. To let someone more powerful take their business, their land, or their families to be sold into slavery.”
He stared at her, his chest heaving, fury blazing, though he couldn’t find it in himself to aim it at her anymore.
How many prisoners were in Maqbara because they hadn’t been allowed to give any testimony or call any witnesses? How many were here on the word of an aristocrat who wanted to use the prison as a way to steal from those who already had less?
This was proof that the father he knew was no longer in charge of his kingdom. He would never have turned a blind eye to this. The aristocratic families Javan knew from Milisatria wouldn’t either, and he was willing to bet the same could be said for most of Akram. This was the result of Fariq’s treachery. His corruption had spread across the kingdom, a sickness paid for with the blood of his people.
Every person Javan had talked to within Maqbara said the same thing. The king was rarely seen now, and was known to be in poor health. Maybe he couldn’t put a stop to the damage Fariq and the impostor were doing to the kingdom, but Javan could.
He just had to make sure he won the last round of combat.
“I really am sorry,” Intizara said as the other prisoners who’d been meant to watch over Tarek joined her, carrying their meager belongings and refusing to meet his furious gaze.
“I am too.” Javan stood in front of Tarek’s body as the warden left the corridor that led to her office and walked toward the door that led to the magistrate’s office, ignoring Javan completely.
Helpless anger filled him. He couldn’t defeat the warden without weapons. He couldn’t turn back time and save Tarek. All he could do was prepare for the upcoming round of combat and try to comfort the girl he loved.
Javan didn’t wait to see the prisoners who’d sold Tarek gain their prize. He knew where Sajda would be. Turning away, he climbed the stairs to the fifteenth level and entered the storage closet.
Prayers gathered in his heart and poured from his lips in fractured whispers. As he closed the broken door behind him, he fell to his knees and cried beside the crate Sajda had used to escape into the rafters.