She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment.
“S’ok. Our dear Crown Prince is a bastard, we all know it,” she answered. “Are you and V still up for an early joint practice tomorrow? The Machi must be close. We need to practice together every chance we can get.”
I nodded. Despite the efforts of our captors, some of us had decided that the best chance we had to survive the Machi Thanatos was to work together. V and I had convinced several of our fellow Mageia to join us. I didn’t want to have to kill any of my people if I didn’t have to.
“Yep, we’re in,” I said, grinning. “Might want to bring snacks, though. He’s got some new tricks to try out on Koutsouro.”
She grinned. Koutsouro was another Earth Mageia. Before V had been sent to the Legion, Koutsouro had been the most powerful Earth Mageia here. V was arguably more powerful now, but Koutsouro was more skilled. Their bouts together were always fun to watch, and usually ended in a draw. It was a good thing they were friends.
She chuckled, then paused, looking at me.
“He’s been good for you, you know,” she said. “Well, for all of us, really.”
“Who? V?”
She nodded.
“Before he came here, we were all just on our own little islands. No one trusted anyone. We didn’t mix. Neos. Cadets. Hoplites. Fire. Water. Earth. Air,” she continued. “We all just stayed in our own little groups and focused on just surviving that day.”
I agreed. It had been part of the plan V and I devised shortly after he had arrived at the Legion.
I remembered the first time we’d ever talked about it. V had just been promoted to Cadet. His team was assigned to run agility drills. The Lochagos on duty that day wasn’t happy with their performance, so he set archers to the walls and ordered them to start shooting at the stragglers.
Then had directed the Fire Mageia to begin shooting fireballs at the Cadets, offering prizes to anyone who scored a hit.
The kids were so scared. The rest of us could see what was going on, but we knew better than to try and interfere. The arrows landing at their feet and the Fire singeing their heads had the desired effect and they ended the drill with a time that pleased the Lochagos. Fortunately most of the fireballs were kept small enough that no permanent damage was done.
“Shit,” Vlakas had muttered once safely in our room, his back was to the door. “They were really willing to kill us.”
“Yep,” I answered after confirming he was unharmed. “They’ve done it before. Last season, they killed three kids, doing the same thing.”
“You’d think they’d at least value us as weapons, as resources, if nothing else,” he said.
“They aimed for the weakest ones.”
He was quiet for a few moments, then spoke.
“It’s deliberate,” Vlakas uttered quietly.
“What is?”
“The Elusians don’t want us teaming up against them,” he said. “They’re afraid of us.”
I had stopped and looked at him.
“You’re just now realizing this?” I’d asked.
“You knew?”
“I… suspected,” I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “Why else limit the Machi Thanatos to a few survivors? Why not just have a graduation ceremony? Why pit us against each other, day in and day out, and try to limit our numbers?”
“It seems naive that I didn’t realize,” he said.
“Not naive, V,” I said softly. “I know some instructors that have never come to that realization.”
“We’ve got to change it, Kat,” he insisted. “We can’t let them keep pitting us against each other. If we don’t learn to trust each other, we’ll never find a way to work together.” He was now pacing our narrow room and running his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end.
I knew the look on V’s face. When he got like this, there was no arguing with him. No matter what you did, you would end up doing whatever he wanted, so you might as well work with him instead.
