Burning blood screams beneath my skin, fixing me in place. But I keep cool control in front of the guards; they need to know their place, and that’s beneath me.
I wait for them to leave under the hard stare of Victora’s newest offering, hatred radiating from every inch of him.
And why wouldn’t it?
His face is blue and purple around the scarlet slice I stamped in his cheek with my own fist. A violent tarnish that does nothing to lessen his beauty, not that it would probably mean much to him right now to know he’s the most gorgeous sight I’ve seen in five long years.
The guards are as efficient and obedient as ever, but it feels like a lifetime listening to their footsteps recede. Every beat of my heart is an eon while I await one moment alone to talk to this man.
I casually pluck a grape from the overabundance of food that’s pushed at me daily, sickened at the thought of having to eat it. I roll it between my fingers, unable to resist another look at the prisoner.
He’s covered in dirt, still unwashed from his journey. How long was he on that truck? Several days at least… He’s clad in rough-hewn, loose, calf-length pants, a vest pulled taut with string. And for the first time, it occurs to me he likely wasn’t prepared when they came. That he was pulled from his bed in the night, put on the closest thing to hand.
With the wave of nausea that pounds into my skull, I throw the grape into the garden. His head snaps across to follow it, and it’s surprising to see he’s found a deeper shade of hate. I thought we’d already reached the bottom of that pit, but there’s disgust in the slant of his top lip, the handsome arch already so pronounced, now risen with repulsion.
Finally alone, I ask him, “What’s your name?”
His eyes hit mine dead on. “Fuck you.”
“Alright, ‘Fuck You.’ And where are you from?”
The dry lips curl into a defiant grimace. “Fuck you.”
“‘Fuck You’ from ‘Fuck You.’ We’re off to a great start.”
I walk a short pace of the terrace, careful not to get too close to him. He’s desperate—a caged animal. I’ve seen such creatures chew off their own limbs to get free. I even saw a man do it once. There was a time I would have done the same.
Everything inside me wants to throw caution to the wind—to speak to him in the same mother tongue he insulted me with last night. But I can’t. He can’t know where I’m from. It’s been half a decade, and I’ve never once betrayed my people with a word of their existence.
Yet my stomach convulses with desperation to know. Just one word. Just one breath of home. Is he truly from Atrea? Has the island been found? Do my parents live? Did my brother marry? Has fate smiled on them, made them prosperous and happy? Do they know I didn’t choose to leave? That I was snatched from the mainland…
Do they still think of me?
I bite down every one of my questions.
This man is not my friend. No one is my friend. I won’t ever get back there if I trust any of them.
How Victora would love to find Atrea, to know there’s an entire civilization of warriors ripe for the harvesting, ready to be enslaved, abused, forced into war, into the mines, and into this living horror, Deathball.
And after all, he could be from anywhere. Maybe it’s some similar regional dialect that I misunderstood last night. We can’t have been the only people to inherit the language.
I size him up as I turn a close circle. His hands are clasped tight in powerful fists. His log-like wrists strain against the indifferent might of Victoran steel. His enormous muscles are lined with cuts and bruises I didn’t give him, living, healing evidence of his enslavement.
Red dirt clings to his clothes, his knees, his shoulders and forearms. Why haven’t they let him wash? But for all of that, he doesn’t smell bad. He smells manly. Strong. He smells like defiance and open air and everything I crave.
I can virtually feel the salt air radiating off him, sand and slate flowing in his veins. He’s all the cliffs of home, ragged shores and sun-glazed warriors,and a taste of everything I’ve lost.
Before I can contain it, the words are out of my mouth. “You can wash first.”
A strangled scoff breaks out of him. I realize the weakness I’ve shown in the offer. He’s supposed to be under my boot, not the other way around.
I’m about to correct course, but like lightning, he cuts me off. “I’ll die before I let you touch me.”
“Let me?” The words are sharp at my lips, his arrogance a crushing reminder of the upper hand I’ve lost—that I need to regain at all costs. “You’re property of Victora now. Enslaved to the capital and the people. You’re nobody, with no name, and no past, and no family. And until you die in that arena, you’re under my complete control.”
I watch his Adam’s apple work as he swallows, the flicker of a vein flash in his neck. He stares forward, eyes on the wall like a soldier, lips clamped shut.
My tone softens despite myself. He needs to understand. “You’re nothing but a commodity. The sooner you realize that, the better you’ll do. The sooner you accept your place, the more likely you are to survive. If you do what I say, I can help you. If you don’t… you’ll live to regret it.”
