“He’s in the temple,” she whispered so only Dax could hear. “Ask the guardian called Maya.”
It worked.
That buzzing energy dimmed as Dax looked into Asha’s face. From this close, she studied her brother’s thinning cheeks. She could see too much of the bones beneath his skin. Just like she could with their mother, in those last days.
Thank you,he mouthed. And then, remembering their deal, he tugged their mother’s carved bone ring off his finger. His hand shook slightly as he held it out to her.
Asha took it and slid it onto her fourth finger.
It wasn’t a beautiful ring. But its presence held a kind of power. The same power as her mother’s voice in the darkness. Or her mother’s hands, cupping Asha’s face as she told her not to be afraid.
The ring was a reminder: people hadn’t always been scared to touch her.
Or love her.
The weight of her mother’s ring on her finger comforted Asha.
Dax rose. Roa glanced at Asha before rising, too, then disappeared with him into the crowd.
Jarek nodded to two soldats standing just beyond the canopy, who turned and followed the pair.
Asha was about to go after them, to warn them, when the crowd roared. Draksors got to their feet or hopped up on benches, shouting down into the pit. Jarek rose, one hand going to the pommel of his saber, the other lifted to block the sun from his eyes.
Asha didn’t need to look. She knew what was happening: a slave was about to be killed.
Asha had lost all interest in the pit fights when they’d stopped fighting dragons. After the hunting began, there simply weren’t enough of them left to keep the people entertained. The spiked metal bars ringing the pit acted as a gate now, keeping drunken draksors from falling to their deaths. Back when dragons fought below, the bars were lowered to keep the beasts from flying away.
“You might be interested in the outcome of this one,” Jarek said.
Another roar rippled through the crowd. Chilled, Asha stood. In the depths of the pit below, a young skral forced an elderly skral to her knees. Her gray hair was bound in a thick braid and her hands were knotted with age.
Asha went rigid at the sight of her.
“Last night an intruder came into my home, knocked me unconscious, and stole my slave.” Nodding at the skral with gray hair, Jarek said for everyone to hear, “Greta let the intruder in.”
Asha couldn’t breathe.
“All she had to do was tell me where they went, but she refused,” Jarek explained. “So I’m afraid I have to punish her.”
Asha’s hands balled into fists in her borrowed kaftan.
“It’s not too late.” He turned to look at Asha. “Even now, she could tell me where my slave is, and all would be forgiven.”
Asha should give up the truth, right here and now. She should declare the skral below innocent and she herself the culprit. Tell them the slave they sought was hidden in the temple.
But even if she said all that, Greta would still die—she was complicit in Asha’s crime. Despite his words, Jarek was not a forgiving man. And the moment Asha admitted the truth, Jarek’s steely-eyed slave would die along with her. And probably Maya, the temple guardian, too.
Asha pressed her lips together in a hard line.
She looked back to the pit.
The combatants knew one another. It was why this fight had gone on so long. If they were strangers, it would have already been done.
But the young slave knew Greta, which made it hard to kill her.
Greta tossed her knife away as she knelt. Its shining edge lay in the red sand, far out of reach, and the boy sank to his knees before her. His free hand cupped the back of Greta’s head and Asha saw his lips move, asking a question.
Greta nodded.
