He went still, which meant she’d just revealed too much of herself to him. She was looking back through her words to find the problem when he said quietly, “Have I done something wrong?”
“You made me be friends with you.” She glared at him as she set her bucket of soapy water by her feet.
“I didn’t make you do anything.” He set his bucket down too. “Nobody ever makes you do anything.”
She ran her fingers lightly over the runes in her cuffs and looked away.
Seconds later his hand brushed lightly across her wrist, lingering on the cuff, one finger resting on the web of scars that peeked out from beneath the iron. “Why do you wear these if they bother you?”
She moved her hand away. “Who says they bother me?”
“Sajda.” His voice was gentle.
She met his eyes defiantly. “What?”
“Are we truly friends?”
“I don’t know how this happened. I blame you.”
“I can live with that,” he said. “And you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. But one day, I hope you trust me enough to tell me why you wear those bracelets if you don’t like—”
“Cuffs.”
The word slipped out before she thought to stop it, and one look at the slowly gathering thundercloud on his face had her wishing she could take it back.
“Cuffs.” His voice was deadly quiet.
“It’s nothing. We should scrub the floor.”
“It’s everything.” He waited until she looked into his eyes, so dark and right now so full of fury. “Isn’t it?”
She clenched her jaw and willed herself to be a star—distant and untouchable. The thundercloud on his face became a storm.
“The warden did this to you, didn’t she? Put iron cuffs on you so that every time you lift your hands you remember that she sees you as her slave.” His voice had a lethal edge to it now.
“She doesn’t just see me as a slave. I am a slave. Bought and paid for.” She was a star. A galaxy. A vast, unknowable space so very far from here.
“She may have paid coin for you, but she doesn’t own you. You’ve seen to that. I’ve never met someone with more confidence and courage than you.” He held her gaze with his, but he didn’t really know her. He hadn’t seen the truth.
The warden hadn’t just bought a slave. She’d bought a monster. And monsters didn’t get to keep mothers or homes or friends.
“I’m going to check on the weapons. The warden ordered me to see what needs to be sharpened before the next combat round. You can scrub the floor. And when you’re done with that, go offer a sneak peek at the weapons’ placement schematic to the four competitors you wanted to build an alliance with. Hashim and his friends will be stuck cleaning the ovens in the kitchen for at least another hour, so you’ll be safe.” She was already backing away, her fingers itching to touch her cuffs as her magic spun through her like chaos, wild and wounded.
“Sajda—”
She left him in the middle of the arena, surrounded by buckets, guards, and the other prisoners from level fifteen.
He wasn’t supposed to hear the things she wasn’t saying. No one was. With him, she couldn’t hide behind the ice she borrowed from the stars. The spaces between her words left her secrets bare to him.
Friendship was terrifying.
She was a fool for falling into its trap.
Magic churned through her, nipping at her skin. It streaked through her veins with a familiar pain, hunting for a target, but there wasn’t one.
She’d allowed this. Dropped her defenses because he’d protected Tarek. Because he’d saved the life of a stranger in the arena at the expense of his own victory. Because he’d said he was a prince, but he treated her like his equal.
Because when he smiled with that hint of challenge in his eyes, something wild and bright woke within her.
The cuffs burned against her skin as her magic thrummed with every heartbeat.
And still she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about Javan.
“Well, look at that. I’ve been hoping to catch you alone.”
Sajda whipped around to find Dabir standing behind her, blocking her return from the corridor that led beneath the seating platforms to the small weapons closet.
“That’s a very foolish wish.” Her voice shook as the magic within her hurled itself against her skin, begging for its freedom. “You’re supposed to be cleaning the ovens.”
“Hashim thought one of us should go see what you do with your pet all day.”
“You’ll be beaten once the guards find you.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been beaten plenty since I came here. Once more doesn’t matter. Especially now that I can tell Hashim you’re using the new boy as a maid during the mornings and a punching bag in the afternoon.” His smile made her skin crawl. “And I can tell him he was right about you.”
“So you skipped roll call yesterday afternoon to watch level fifteen’s arena practice, and you think that means you know something about me?”
“I’d heard the rumors—how you’re too fast and too strong to be just a slave girl who feeds the beasts—but until I saw you sparring yesterday, I thought the rumors were just Hashim making an excuse for not subduing you yet the way he’d like to.”
Her breathing came hard and fast as she stared him down.
He stepped closer, and she held her ground, even though everything about him made her want to back away. “Now I think he’s still making excuses, but I can see why he’d want to overpower all of that speed and strength. Hashim thinks we’re just going to leave you for him, but . . .” He shrugged as if to say oh well, I got here first.
Fury and fear twined within her until she could no longer tell the two apart. Her magic buzzed beneath her skin, a hornets’ nest ready for blood.
His blood.
He thought he’d seen the limits of her power while she was sparring with Javan, but he hadn’t seen anything yet. Raising her fists, she said, “I’ll give you one chance to walk away.”
He laughed. “You’re a good fighter, I saw that for myself, but I’ve got you by several handspans. It’s been a long time since I had to subdue a girl to get a taste of her and there’s nowhere for you to run.”
Her smile was vicious. “No, Dabir. There’s nowhere for you to run.”
He frowned, but she was already moving. She took three running steps forward and slammed her fists into his face. He flew backward and crashed against the rough stone wall of the corridor. Blood poured from his nose, and her magic whispered and begged and screamed until she fell to her knees beside him, cupped her hands beneath his chin, and let his blood pool in her hand.
She’d never held another person’s blood in her hands before. Distantly, she knew she should be frightened or disgusted or worried about the way her magic was scraping at her palms like a rabid animal. But instead, she was fascinated. It was like his blood was the key to a side of her magic she hadn’t known existed.
He groaned and tried to slide away from her, but she wasn’t watching him. She was staring at the tiny crimson lake in the center of her palm. Her magic surged, a painful itch that spread along her arm and exploded into her palm with agonizing brilliance.
The blood spun in lazy circles, and images floated into Sajda’s mind.
His past.
His intentions.
His fears.
She bared her teeth as she slowly raised her head to lock eyes with him, his darkest nightmares playing across her mind, one after the other.
Dark, small spaces.
A woman with short hair and a loud voice.
Falling into a lake and sucking water into his lungs.
Snakes.
Magic was an implacable force that owned her, rushing through her veins until all she could hear was its intoxicating thrum of power.
He’d wanted to overpower her.
He’d overpowered other girls before her. Left them broken and bleeding when he
was finished. She could see their terrified faces in his mind.
“What are you doing?” His words were slurred, blood leaking from the back of his head where he’d hit the wall.
She held his gaze as she leaned down to the little lake of blood in her palm and began whispering. The nightmare took shape in her thoughts, fused with her magic, and became words that fell from her lips with the power of a lightning strike.
The runes on her cuffs blazed red, but she ignored the pain and let the words rush out, conjuring the images in his mind with every breath.
He saw snakes rising from the stone floor, black and glistening. They coiled and writhed and slithered toward him, while the stone gave birth to more. He shoved himself as close to the wall as he could, and still they came. Golden eyes unblinking. Fangs extended. They rushed across the floor, crawled over his boots, and slid over his skin.
He screamed as her words took a different shape and the walls closed in, skylights turning to hard slabs of black stone. The snakes were churning now, a writhing mass of scaly black, as the room shrank to nothing more than a box.
He wailed, a long, broken sound that startled Sajda out of the story she was weaving. She closed her mouth, letting the rest of the words, the images, dissipate into nothing.
Dabir clawed at his body, searching for snakes that weren’t there, and screamed for someone to turn on the lights.
Horror swept over Sajda.
What had she done?
The magic that had borrowed a shield of calm from the stone wall each day to protect her suddenly felt like a weapon that had used her. Controlled her.
Turned her into a monster.
She scrambled to her feet and turned to find Hashim standing at the end of the corridor watching her with curiosity burning in his eyes. Without looking at him again, she swept past and took the stairs to her room two at a time.
But no matter how fast she ran, she imagined she could still hear the echo of Dabir’s screams as he fought with the nightmare she’d given him.
TWENTY-FOUR
WITH LESS THAN a week before the next tournament round, Javan and the other prisoners from his level worked an extra hour during chore time at the behest of the guards to once again scrub the arena, the warden’s platform, and the spectators’ seats. Sajda hadn’t returned. Tarek had brought Javan a lunch of stale cheese and bruised apples and said he hadn’t seen Sajda either, though the older man thought Javan was safe in his cell until level fifteen’s sparring session, as Hashim and crew were distracted by the inexplicable mental collapse of their friend Dabir.
Javan stayed in his narrow, filthy cell, alternately praying and thinking through what he knew of the other prisoners on his level while he waited for seventh bell and the start of his sparring session. With Sajda’s help, he’d spent the last two weeks assessing their skills during practice, observing their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they responded to Hashim’s bullying tactics during rec hour. There were four who stood out to him. Four Sajda had agreed could be bribed to become his allies. Tonight during rec hour, he’d make his move and pray for Yl’ Haliq’s blessing.
Tension knotted his shoulders as seventh bell tolled. If these four turned him down, his options were limited, and the next combat round was less than a week away. He left his cell, shaking out his arms, satisfied that the injuries he’d sustained during his first round were little more than distant aches, easily ignored. It was time to spar with Sajda and mend whatever he’d done wrong.
She never showed.
Worry twisted through him, slick and heavy, as he returned to level fifteen after practice, checked in with the pair of guards assigned to his section, and then obediently stayed within the confines of his cell while levels ten through twelve practiced in the arena far below.
There had been something off about Sajda that morning, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. Maybe it was that she’d been irritable instead of calm. Jumpy instead of still. She could simply be having a bad day—Yl’ Haliq knew being constantly trapped in the dim cavern of Maqbara was enough to set anyone on edge—but Sajda didn’t show her nerves. She held her body still, kept her expression cold, and maintained eye contact until sometimes he wished she wouldn’t.
But today, she’d been fidgety. Unable or unwilling to meet his gaze for more than a quick glance, her expression haunted. And her fingers had worried the iron cuffs she wore as if somehow today the pain of wearing the constant reminder of her position at Maqbara was too much to bear.
Anger coiled within him, hot and dangerous.
What kind of monster bought a child, kept her inside Akram’s most dangerous prison, and forced her to wear cuffs so that no one could possibly forget that, though many of the prisoners would eventually leave, Sajda never could?
The moment Javan was restored to his rightful place as heir to Akram’s crown, he was going to punish the warden for everything she’d done. On the outside, it would certainly appear that the treasonous act of trying to murder Akram’s prince was her greatest crime, but Javan knew better. He would punish her for Sajda first. It wouldn’t give Sajda back her childhood, and it wouldn’t take away the strange web of scars he’d glimpsed beneath her cuffs, but it would set her free of this despicable place. It was the least he could do for her as her friend.
Her friend.
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 fra
ntic 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.