The third flaming arrow took down the remaining reiligarda, and then Javan turned toward the roc.
It was already dead. Crumpled into a heap of feathers and blood, Javan’s arrows sticking out of its body.
It was over. Tarek was alive. Javan was alive.
And the warden was still bent on keeping Javan from the final round.
Sajda let go of the netting and ran toward the stairs that led to the betting table as the crowd thundered their favorite’s name.
Did Javan have enough points to advance? He’d killed the roc, all three reiligarda, and a dog. That was two hundred seventy-five points. Plus, he’d killed another prisoner, a man who until that moment had been in second place. That meant that after the five-hundred-point deduction, Javan would get the rest of the man’s points. It had to be enough to put him in the final round, to keep him a crowd favorite and the topic of conversation across Makan Almalik.
His safety depended on it.
Sajda flew up the stairs and stopped just outside the platform with the betting table. The warden’s back was to her as she surveyed the carnage spread out across the arena floor. One of the judges was bringing up the results of the match. Sajda glared at the judge as if that would somehow influence whatever was written on the parchment the woman held in her hands.
“I’ll take that,” she said.
The woman hesitated.
“I’m the warden’s right-hand girl. Do you really want to be on my bad side?” This time she didn’t even need to borrow her composure from the stone. The sickening thought of losing Javan at the warden’s hands was enough to make her feel like she’d swallowed ice.
The woman gave her the score sheet, and Sajda unfolded it with shaking fingers.
A prisoner named Iram was in first place.
Hashim was in second.
Javan was in third.
He’d made it. He was going to the final competition to fight for an audience with his father. And he’d given her a way to keep him alive.
Striding onto the platform, Sajda waved the score sheet in the air. The crowd fell silent.
The warden reached for it, and Sajda shouted, “Congratulations to three crowd favorites who will be advancing to the final competition.”
“Give me that—”
“Iram, Hashim, and Javan are your finalists!” Sajda shouted. “Early betting opens now!”
The warden snatched the parchment from her hands and glanced at it. “You’ve overstepped your bounds, little monster.”
“Have I?” Sajda met the warden’s glare and for once didn’t look away. “I simply announced the true winners and opened betting like we always do. Unless you were planning to announce results other than those on the parchment?”
The warden remained silent. Sajda turned on her heel and left the platform.
Tarek and Javan were alive. She’d ensured that Javan wouldn’t be targeted before the next round of competition. The warden would never be able to explain it, plus she wouldn’t want to lose the bets that were already pouring in for the newcomer who’d destroyed the ranks in his quest for victory.
Now Sajda just had to think of a way to protect Tarek as well.
THIRTY-SIX
TWO WEEKS AFTER gaining a spot in the final competition, Javan still had nightmares of the blood that was now on his hands. It didn’t matter that the killings he’d done had been in self-defense. He couldn’t stop hearing the awful wet sound of his arrow burying itself in a man’s chest. Couldn’t expunge the memory of the once-proud roc lying crumpled on the arena floor, slayed by his arrows.
He tried to tell himself that he’d done the only thing he could do. He’d survived. He’d get a chance to compete for an audience with his father in the final competition two weeks from now. And he’d kept his promise to bring Tarek out of the arena alive.
He was still protecting Tarek, though he was pretty sure the older man thought it was the other way around. Javan had spent a single night in the infirmary, but the guards who took roll at twelfth bell thought he was still sleeping there. Instead, at Sajda’s request, he’d left the infirmary each night and slept on the floor of Tarek’s room in case the warden decided to punish Sajda again by coming after the old man.
He didn’t have a weapon, and he wasn’t sure how he could defeat a Draconi without one, but at the very least, he could be a shield while Tarek ran for Sajda. Perhaps Yl’ Haliq would accept his actions as penance for the blood he’d shed.
After another rough night full of violent dreams punctuated by the thunderous sound of Tarek’s snoring, everything inside Javan felt coiled tight as he joined his fellow prisoners from level fifteen for the chore of polishing the arena’s walls while Tarek helped the cook receive a food shipment. Sajda was by the stalls having just finished feeding the remaining beasts, none of whom Javan had been allowed to see. The warden was strict about her prisoners being surprised in their final round of combat. Sajda raised an eyebrow when she saw him.
“You look terrible.”
“You could’ve warned me that Tarek snores like a lion. Like a pride of lions. Many, many lions.” He rubbed his eyes and tried to shake off the exhaustion.
“Are you sure that’s why you’re so tired? He says you wake up screaming.”
He swallowed hard and looked away. “The important thing is that Tarek is alive. I left him with the kitchen staff. He insisted. Said he had to do his job to keep the warden happy and that the warden wouldn’t dare do anything to him in front of the merchants who are delivering food today. Intizara and several of her friends have kitchen duty right now, and she promised they’d yell for us if Tarek needs help.” Javan yawned while Sajda took off her leather gloves and washed in the basin.
“Are you having nightmares?” she asked quietly as the other prisoners hefted buckets and brushes and began polishing the walls.
“Yes.” He lifted his own bucket of lye soap and reached for a brush. His body hurt, a bone-deep ache that throbbed with every move as his injuries healed. He wanted to curl up in a comfortable bed for a week, but closing his eyes meant seeing the terrible things he’d done.
“Do you want to talk about them?”
He shook his head. It was bad enough to keep replaying the memories in his head. Giving voice to them wasn’t something he was ready to face.
She was silent for a moment, and then her expression sharpened. “You need to give me another lesson.”
He blinked. “Now?”
“Unless you don’t think you’re up to it.” There was a clear challenge in her voice, and even through the haze of exhaustion and guilt, something inside him sparked to life.