Bax doesn’t respond. The crowd’s cheers rock the stadium, and Bax yells out. I snap my head toward the fight.
Hypno is down on one knee and holds his bleeding leg. Caben stands above him, his chest heaving. Ignoring the chants to end the defenseless contender, Caben turns his back on Hypno and slowly limps toward us.
The dark coils gripping my insides loosen, and I take in a shuddering breath.
Hypno throws himself to the side and grabs the spear, then angles it back to release. Blackness slams my chest.
“No—” I shout.
Caben’s eyes zero in on me before he turns and launches his sword. The blade cleaves the air as it spirals through the Cage.
Hypno’s head rolls across the black ground.
I bow my head.
Deep inside—in the pocket of my soul—a sultry laugh cackles.
Bax stands before us, issuing orders and pumping up his contenders with speeches of winning the freedom ring.
His voice fades into the background of my mind as I kneel before Caben and wrap his waist with a thick gauze bandage. The wound wasn’t deep, so I was able to clean it quickly and staunch the bleeding.
Caben’s seated on a wooden stool, his arms held out to the side while I work. His face contorts in pain, even though he’s trying hard to hide it from me.
I push myself onto my feet and stand over him. “Look up,” I say, dabbing a swab in the ointment Bax provided.
“Kaliope,” he says, his lilted voice harsh. “I’m—”
“You’re a tough, strong, hulk of a man who doesn’t need a woman to take care of him,” I say. “I know this. But if you’re to be of any use, you don’t need to contract some strange Otherworld infection in your wound.” I raise my eyebrows, daring him to argue. “Now, look up.”
Through the pain etched on his face, he smiles. “I don’t mind certain ways of being taken care of.” He winks his injured eye and winces.
I smile. “Serves you right, you stubborn ass.”
As I clean the gash above his eye, he rests his chin against my stomach and lays his hand on the small of my back. My heart constricts, and I breathe through the tightness griping my chest.
We haven’t spoken of his victory—of his kill. Somehow in this madness, I’ve accepted that Caben tried to spare Hypno despite knowing he’d be punished by the ring leaders. Hypno welcomed death when he didn’t accept Caben’s mercy.
I glance at the blue light illuminating the moonstone on Caben’s cuff and frown.
The rules here are different. I have to abandon my convictions and beliefs. There will be plenty of time later for guilt and penance if we manage to live through this. Now is the time to survive.
After bandaging Caben’s eye, I move to the corner of the chamber. Caben follows, planting his stool next to the wall and leans his head back. He closes his eyes, and I wrap my arms around myself and sink to the floor.
It’s intermission, and new statistics are being entered into the ring leaders’ database according to the wins and deaths. We have an hour before the last two fights of the night take place. Though I was never good at math—it was my worst subject in protector training—I can still calculate the figures.
Out of twenty-one contenders, minus the four deaths per night over the next three nights, nine will be left to enter into the final battle. Nine contenders will enter the Cage together, but only one will leave, three blue lights circling their cuff.
That is the freedom ring.
Three illuminated moonstones that will transform the slavery brace into one of liberty.
It doesn’t matter if you reach your third kill before all have fallen, however. The rules—their rules—state only one can be left standing. If someone must kill seven contenders in the last free-for-all brawl, then seven must die. The contenders wouldn’t allow the victor to walk out alive, regardless.
I imagine Crew earning his third light only to have Metal Mouth kill him to take his winning place.
The final battle is going to be a blood bath if we can’t convince them to take a stand against the ring leaders.
Besides the improbability that we can pull this off, another, bigger concern weighs on me: how do we get to the dark priest?