I breathed through my nose. I didn’t want to throw up. I couldn’t afford to throw up, in fact—I needed all the strength I had left.
As he had every day since I self-revived, Eijeh Kereseth came to watch me eat breakfast. He set a tray of food at my feet and leaned against the wall across from me, hunched, his posture bad as ever. Today his jaw bore the bruise I had given him the day before, when I tried to escape on the way to the arena and managed to get a few hits in before the guards in the hallway dragged me away from him.
“I didn’t think you would be back, after yesterday,” I said to him.
“I’m not afraid of you. You won’t kill me,” Eijeh replied. He had drawn his weapon, and he was spinning the blade on his palm, catching it when it made a full rotation. He did it without looking at it.
I snorted. “I’ll kill just about anyone, haven’t you heard the rumors?”
“You won’t kill me,” Eijeh repeated. “Because you love my delusional brother far too much for your own good.”
I had to laugh at that. I hadn’t realized that silky-voiced Eijeh Kereseth read me so well.
“I feel like I know you,” Eijeh said suddenly. “I suppose I do know you, don’t I? I do now.”
“I’m not really in the mood for a philosophical discussion about what makes a person who they are,” I said. “But even if you are more Ryzek than Eijeh at this point, you still don’t know me. You—whoever you are—never bothered to.”
Eijeh rolled his eyes a little. “Poor misunderstood daughter of privilege.”
“Says the walking garbage can for all the things Ryzek wants to forget,” I snapped. “Why doesn’t he just kill me, anyway? All this drama beforehand is very elaborate, even for him.”
Eijeh didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. Ryzek hadn’t killed me yet because he needed to do it this way, in public. Maybe word had spread that I had helped with an assassination attempt, and now he needed to destroy my reputation before he let me die. Or maybe he just wanted to watch me suffer.
Somehow I didn’t believe that.
“Is giving me useless cutlery really necessary?” I said, stabbing my toast with the knife instead of slicing it.
“The sovereign is concerned that you will try to end your life before the appropriate time,” Eijeh said.
The appropriate time. I wondered if Eijeh had chosen my manner of death, then. The oracle, plucking the ideal future from an array of options.
“End my life with this thing? My fingernails are sharper.” I brought the knife down, point first, on the mattress. I slammed it so hard the bed frame shuddered, and let go. The knife fell over, not even sharp enough to penetrate fabric. I winced, not even sure what part of my body hurt.
“I suppose he thinks you’re creative enough to find a way,” Eijeh said softly.
I stuffed the last bite of toast into my mouth and sat back against the wall, my arms folded. We were in one of the polished, glossy cells in the belly of the amphitheater, beneath the stadium seats that were already filling with people hungry to watch me die. I had won the last challenge, but I was running out of strength. This morning walking to the toilet had been a feat.
“How sweet,” I said, spreading my arms wide to display my bruises. “See how my brother loves me?”
“You’re making jokes,” Ryzek said from just outside the cell. I could hear him, muffled, through the glass wall that separated us. “You must be getting desperate.”
“No, desperate is playing this stupid game before you kill me, just to make me look bad,” I said. “Are you that afraid that the people of Shotet will rally behind me? How pathetic.”
“Try to get to your feet, and we’ll all see ‘pathetic,’” Ryzek said. “Come on. Time to go.”
“Are you at least going to tell me who I’m facing today?” I said. I placed my hands on the bed frame, gritted my teeth, and pushed myself up.
It took all my strength to swallow the cry of pain that swelled in my throat. But I did it.
“You’ll see,” Ryzek said. “I am eager—and I’m sure you agree—to end this at last. So I have arranged for a special contest this morning.”
He was dressed in synthetic armor today—it was matte black, and more flexible than the traditional Shotet variety—and polished black boots that made him appear even taller than he was. His shirt, collared and white, was buttoned up to his throat, showing over the vest of armor. It was almost the same outfit he had worn to our mother’s funeral. Fitting, since he intended for me to die today.
“It’s a shame your beloved couldn’t be here to watch,” Ryzek said. “I’m sure he would have enjoyed it.”