“Who are you?”
Her gaze swept my room. “A little rustic, these quarters. If you win enough matches, they might find a nicer room for you. That’s some incentive. Also, you’ll be alive. That’s reason enough to come out swinging.”
“I thought you wanted me to die a spectacular death.”
“That is what I said.” She paused, assessing me. “My name is Marella. My father, Lord Ustathius, is the other man who spoke today, the king’s most trusted advisor, serving three kings in succession. You’ll find I’m a valuable ally.”
The arrogant old man who had droned on about power being the only thing that mattered. I couldn’t see how I, in my current position of powerlessness, could matter to him, or to his daughter.
“And what did I do to earn your…” I hesitated, not sure how to describe what this young woman offered.
“Friendship?” she supplied. “It’s simple. Stay alive. Win your matches. Be faster and stronger than your opponents.”
I raised my arms. “I’m hardly going to be the strongest.”
“Not your muscles, perhaps. But your fire. Use it to its fullest. Be ruthless.”
“I didn’t expect anyone here to encourage me to be ruthless with my fire, especially against one of your own.”
“That’s the only reason you’re still alive,” she said. “To provide sport by trying to kill one of the king’s champions. If you lie down and welcome death, I’ve troubled myself for nothing.”
“How have you troubled yourself?”
“I’ve risked the king’s displeasure by suggesting he let someone else kill you, for a start.”
“Was that really such a risk?”
“The king is volatile and highly unpredictable. He isn’t in control of himself. He yields to the whispers of… others… who urge him to fill his appetites for bloodlust and cruelty. Say the wrong thing and you may find yourself in the keep, or in the arena. Or killed at his own hand. So yes, Ruby. It was a great risk.”
I startled a little at the sound of my name. She could have called me Fireling, as the king had, or Firefilth, as the captain so enjoyed doing, but instead she chose to give me the honor of my name.
“You dare say such things about the king?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
Her brows rose. “Are you going to tell anyone?”
I shook my head.
Her lips curved at the edges. “Of course not. You’re intelligent. And we both want the same thing. For you to live.”
“Why do you care? What does a Fireblood mean to you?”
“We have more in common than you think. I want to be, if not a friend, precisely, then at least an ally. If you can’t accept me as that, perhaps think of me as an enemy who shares a common goal with you.”
“And that goal is?”
She spread her hands and smiled. “For now, your goal is simple: stay alive. That will be difficult enough.”
“And you want nothing else from me?”
She paused thoughtfully. “A few answers, perhaps. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Her eyes lit with triumph. “Brother Thistle must have been ecstatic to find you.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “You know him?”
“Of course. He used to serve here in the castle before he was sent to the abbey at Mount Una. And speaking of the abbey, who is the mysterious young man who lived there with you? The one who always wears a hood?”
I barely stopped myself from asking how she knew about Arcus. Then I remembered that he had grown up here, in the king’s court. Marella must have known him. How tempting to ask her questions about him, what he was like as a child, what had happened to him. But I couldn’t risk revealing anything to this stranger.
“All the monks wear hoods at times,” I said.
“Not a monk. A handsome young man who bears scars. A Frostblood with a gift unequaled by anyone but the king. Does that sound familiar?”
I shook my head, my pulse raging in my ears. “No.”
Her lips curved again. “Very well. Trust is built slowly. I can be patient.”
She went to the door and knocked. A guard opened it immediately.
“Remember, Ruby,” she said over her satin-covered shoulder. “Don’t hold back tomorrow and you have every chance to win.”
She swept out, as graceful as a young doe, leaving the scent of some exotic flower in her wake.
A thousand questions crashed through my thoughts, like waves breaking over each other in a gale. What did Marella and her father want? How did she know about Arcus and Brother Thistle? What was her intention toward the king? She was clearly full of plans and saw me as a vehicle for their execution. What would she ask in return for keeping me from death in the throne room? What help would she yet give?
I threw myself back on the bed. I had one day to rest. Tomorrow I would fight. It didn’t matter that Marella intended to help me outside the arena. Inside its walls, I would stand alone.