If someone had bet Javan during his first few days in prison that he would come to enjoy spending hours with the girl who’d raised the hairs on the back of his neck at their first meeting, he’d have lost everything he owned. He’d been sure she was cold, uncaring, and dangerous.
He was still sure she was dangerous, and one day he planned to ask her who had trained her. It hadn’t been Tarek, and she wasn’t attached to any of the other prisoners. But someone with an excellent understanding of how to harness Sajda’s speed, strength, and flexibility had shown her how to fight. Not just fight but win. Perhaps it was the woman Hashim’s friends had mentioned when they’d followed Javan out of the infirmary. The woman who’d apparently been Sajda’s friend and had died two years ago in the arena. He’d never asked her about it. The look on her face when Hashim’s friends brought the woman up was enough to stop him. If she wanted to talk to him, she would. But someone had taken her under their wing and made sure she could defend herself.
It was more than a little humbling that he had to work so hard just to keep her from outscoring him in their sparring competitions. The thrill of trying to keep up with her, of pushing himself to move faster and fight smarter, kept something alive inside him, despite the shadow of despair he constantly fought to ignore.
He had no idea if it did the same for her, but he had other things to think about if he wanted to get out of Maqbara so he could punish the warden, save his father and his kingdom from the impostor who’d taken his place, and set things right. He had to survive the next round of combat and put significant points on the board. And he needed allies.
Quickly, he slipped to his knees, his lips already moving in a desperate prayer for help, though the longer he stayed in Maqbara, the farther away Yl’ Haliq seemed to be. Eighth bell rang, sending a new wave of prisoners down to the arena to practice, and still Javan prayed, fragments of the sacred texts mixing with his own pleas for mercy as they fell from his lips.
By ninth bell, his knees ached, and his back was stiff, but still he prayed, his forehead pressed to the edge of his bed as he acknowledged the truth.
Beneath his anger at the warden, his budding friendship with Sajda, and the righteous belief that he would be restored to his destiny, fear curled tight around his heart.
What if this next round of competition was even more brutal than the last? What if he lost and remained trapped within the prison, at the mercy of the warden and the enemies he’d made?
What if he died? He’d be a prince stripped of honor, dignity, and the love of his family, turned into meat by the warden and forgotten by all.
His heart beat a frantic tempo against his chest, and he sucked in a slow, calming breath before the fear could paralyze him.
He wasn’t forgotten. Yl’ Haliq would hear him. He would see the great injustice done to Javan, and he would deliver him.
Javan climbed to his feet as tenth bell rang and Tarek appeared with a bowl of boiled vegetables and a wedge of flatbread.
“Have you seen her?” Javan asked as he accepted the food.
Tarek nodded. “She was at the stalls doing her job a few moments ago.”
Javan moved toward the mouth of his cell, and Tarek stepped in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To see her.”
Something soft entered Tarek’s expression. “It does my heart good to see that you care about her, but I can’t let you go down there now.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s tenth bell. You’re supposed to either be in your cell or in the kitchen. Combat is in four days. You can’t afford to be beaten by the guards for breaking the rules.”
Javan clenched his jaw. Tarek was right, but that didn’t stop the prince from wanting to go see Sajda for himself, beating or no.
“Eat up and then go to rec hour,” Tarek said. “Make those alliances and stay out of trouble.”
Javan obeyed, eating quickly, though he saved his flatbread for rec hour, and then running through his approach over and over until eleventh bell rang. Tarek walked with him to level eight and the long rectangular room the prisoners used for their hour of rec time each night. Sajda stood outside the room with the guards as usual, though she wouldn’t meet Javan’s eyes.
An ache bloomed in Javan’s chest as he moved past her and into the room, and he gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t think about Sajda or her reasons for ignoring him. It was time to focus on his strategy.
He needed allies.
Scanning the room, he found the four prisoners he and Sajda had decided would make the best allies. In the far corner, Hashim and seven others from level five were huddled by a fireplace whose flames hissed and popped. None of them looked up from their discussion. Dabir was missing from his usual place beside Hashim. One less threat to worry about.
Moving to the opposite end of the room, Javan approached his quarry. Grabbing a chair from a nearby table where soon a trio of women from level ten would play cards as they did every night, Javan spun it around, carried it a few steps, and plunked it down at the corner of a square table with two cups of dice and a fraying deck of cards with the symbols of Balavata’s head families worked into their upper right corners.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked the four who were already seated, two of which were still finishing their dinners. Quickly he ran through their names as he sat. Intizara was on his right, a woman who looked to be about ten years older than Javan. Beside her sat Gadi, a man with smile creases at the corners of his eyes and nervous fingers. A woman named Kali sat beside him and then on Javan’s left was a tall, narrow man named Nadim.
“It’s a game for four,” Intizara said, hauling her cards close to her chest as if he might announce to the others what was in her hand.
He shrugged. “Then I’ll wait for the next round. It’s been a while since I’ve played thistles and thieves. Might help me to watch.”
Intizara frowned, but Nadim said, “Fine, but we play for the pot, so you better have something to offer.”
Javan watched silently as the four tossed out their bets—half of whatever they grabbed for lunch the next day, a short break from the morrow’s chores while the others at the table did the jobs assigned to the winner, and even a small packet of dried apricots someone’s family members had bribed a guard to bring in. As the game began in earnest, he leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and ate his flatbread.
These four were his key to surviving Hashim’s attempt to kill him in the next tournament round, and he was their key to having a better chance at staying alive. If he could get them to accept his offer and work as a team, all of their odds improved.
When the round ended, Javan said, “Time for me to place my bet.”
Four pairs of eyes found his. The spit dried in his mouth, and he forced himself to swallow.
“What do you have to offer, boy?” Kali asked as she pinched a bit of her flatbread off and scattered the crumbs on the floor for Mal’ Enish, the goddess of animals. When she noticed his gaze following her moves, she shook the rest of the crumbs free and glared. “Didn’t see you giving an offering from your food.”