“Don’t think the king gives two shits about it, to be honest. Too focused on the war hundreds of leagues away to pay any attention to what’s happening in his own city right underneath his nose.”
Catching my breath, I glare over at Igor. “I can’t stand for that. And I’m going to do something about it.”
Igor doesn’t question this grand statement, or tell me I’m foolish to think that I can make a change. He knows as well as I do that if you want something done here in Sturmfrost, you have to do it yourself.
Instead, he calmly walks over to one of his debris-strewn tables and opens up a cloth roll. Inside lay a dozen sharply honed, glittering weapons. “You seem angry. Knives?”
A laugh escapes me. “Yes, and yes. Thought you’d never ask.”
We don’t use knives during the hand-to-hand combat we do in the pits, but Igor’s been training me to throw them, anyway.He said you never know when you might need to make someone shit their pants by tossing a dagger at their head.
“What’d you have in mind?” he asks as I head over to the table and select a small and particularly pointy-looking one.
“You taught me to defend myself,” I say, turning toward the target he’s set up on the far side of the yard. “No Nabbers would’ve gotten me, not without a fight, once you got me started. Maybe we can teach the kids, too. I could train them to protect themselves.”
I throw the knife and it sails through the air, hitting the outer edge of the target. Not good enough.
Igor scoffs, sitting down in his creaky chair and staring up at the cloud cover that threatens snow. “You had the fight in you already. Not too many kids are gonna throw themselves at danger the way you did.”
“The way I still do, you mean,” I joke, bravado covering up the painful rush of memory.
When my dad was killed, I was left alone at twelve years old with a pregnant, mentally ill mother. Overnight, everything changed. Saela was born, and she was so perfect and tiny and good. And I was the child put in charge of her.
I was furious at the world, spoiling for a fight.
I used to go out into the alleys and goad older boys twice my size into an altercation just so I could have someone to hit. Just so I could feel something other than the unending, cavernous pain inside of my chest.
Eventually, Igor got tired of watching the little neighbor girl get her ass handed to her. He stomped out into the alley behind our houses, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and dragged me hissing and spitting into his kitchen.
He threw me down into a rickety chair and said, “Are you trying to get yourself killed, girl?”
When I didn’t deny it, he let out a long-suffering sigh. “Well, if you’re going to prowl around acting like an alleycat, then you need to learn to fight like one. Come with me.”
Igor led me to this yard and started to train me—that day, and every one that followed. He helped me hone my anger from something feral into something vicious, polished.
Dangerous.
And when the boys in the neighborhood began to look at me in fear, Igor helped me find a healthy new outlet for my rage. I’m still goading men twice my size into fighting me. But now I get paid.
Grabbing my knife from the target, I turn back toward him. “You’re right. I’m different. But not everyone needs to be a professional. If these kids just knew a few simple tricks, enough to give them time to make some noise, get some help…”
“Don’t think this will get you out of your own training time,” Igor warns, and I know he’s sold on the idea.
“No, I’d never deny you the pleasure of ordering me around,” I tease, and he tosses a knife at me that I dodge easily, laughing.
After I leaveIgor’s in the late afternoon, I head west to the Central Quarter to pick up Saela from school, weaving through the crowded streets. The sinking sun breaks through the clouds now and again, sending reddish reflections glimmering in the windows as I pass homes and shops—more of the windows in Central are smooth and shiny, unlike our neighborhood where a broken pane gets boarded up more often than not.
Saela used to attend primary school in our neighborhood in Eastern, but she was always top of her class, and last yearher teacher recommended her for a more advanced secondary school in Central, which is a wealthier neighborhood.
It’s not convenient, and it costs money—not much, but anything is too much for us these days. The sacrifice is worth it for my sister, though. She will not end up like me, dropping out and working herself to the bone just to stay alive.
In a world full of dead ends, I’m going to make sure she hasoptions.
Saela’s different from me. Bookish, hard working. An optimist. An innocent. She’s got a smart mouth on her, which I take credit for, but the rest of it? Must’ve been from Father, because she just came out that way.
She’s standing alone outside the school building when I arrive, dark hair plaited down her back and eyes narrowed in annoyance.
“Late again,” Saela says, looking pointedly at me.
