Call to Arms (The Girl In The Arena Book 1) (8 page)

He walked away, leaving her staring after him.

 

**

Chapter 5

 

Reena managed to keep an inscrutable mask on her face until she was alone in her cell, but once there it fell away.

Talon! Her final match was against Talon! Her mouth formed a perfect O and tears fell down her cheeks before she could stop them. How could she possibly fight him? He was her friend! He had been Culled, she had watched that happen with her own eyes. His father had fed her and her father, had sheltered them as well, despite the fact that doing so could have been a death sentence.

How could she fight Talon? How could she not? Her life depended on it, so did…her heart twisted sickly in her chest.

The cell door clattered opened and she looked up, not caring that her tears were visible, not caring that she was covered in blood and gore. Hector stood there, looking down at her, his face unreadable.

“You lived.”

“What good is it?”

“Ask the gods.”

“Maybe they don’t care.” Her own bitterness startled her. Today she had watched a man she had only met once run across an arena screaming and crying as he was allowed his freedom, freedom she had earned with the life of another man. “I killed a soldier to save a coward. Perhaps the gods find that amusing.”

“The man you killed died as he wanted to—covered with blood and in battle. That was his life, and he died as he lived. Do not mourn him, celebrate him.”

Reena used the blanket to wipe her streaming eyes. “You are not helping Hector.”

“I was sent here to make sure you are ready for tomorrow’s battle.”

“Of course I’m not.” Her words were hollow but they fell into the silence like bricks and lay there just as heavily. “Even if I live through all the battles to the one that will set my father free I will have to fight a friend in order to…don’t you understand? Talon is a friend. Can’t you do something to help me Hector?”

“Yes, I can. But I won’t.”

Reena jumped to her feet, her anger nearly blinding her. “You bastard!” Her shout echoed around the small chamber. She lashed out but he caught her hands and held them, so she kicked out instead, nearly shattering her foot on his tough shins.

“Let me know when you are done with that useless anger. All you are doing is tiring yourself out and tomorrow you have a battle.”

“I have killed someone. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, I do. It means you are alive.”

“Hector, I can’t fight Talon. I won’t.”

“Then you will die. That boy is not the one you knew, not anymore. They saw to that. He was trained in the Targut camp. Over there they wash their minds clean of everything so they can turn them into killing machines. They have always held the most victories of any training camp. They turn out gladiators who become legends. Remember that when you go up against him, you remember him—but he does not know you, not at all.”

“Maybe he will know me when he sees me.”

“What he will see is a moving target.”

The silence spun out. Finally Hector sighed and said, “I came here to give advice, do you want it?”

“Run like the place is on fire?” The humor in her voice was false but it was all she had.

“Cut your hair Reena. It almost got you killed today. Don’t let it get you killed tomorrow.”

She looked away from him. Cut her hair? No! That was all she had left to remind her of her mother! But he was right, and she knew it. Grayson had almost killed her today and might have if he had been able to use her hair as a rope to haul her in. She remembered what that felt like all too well and her heart pounded against her ribs.

“Why is this happening to me Hector?”

“Because the gods chose you.”

“Chose me for what?”

“I don’t know but they had to have a purpose in mind. Keep your head up, there are still many more battles before you have to fight your old friend, maybe things will change before then.”

Reena sat there, her arms wrapped around her legs, every limb trembling. She had murdered a man today, and yet nobody thought what she had done was wrong. If she had done that out in the woods, trying to protect her home or her family or even her own life she would have been branded a traitor and an Outlaw. She would have been ordered to die.

Again.

She ripped the bloody clothes off, tossing them out the window of her cell. She watched them float to the ground below but they did not stay there long. Two little boys wearing rags and carrying a plain woven basket snatched them up and ran away with them.

“They just took my clothes,” she said in a wondering voice.

“They will sell them in the marketplace. You just gave them enough money to eat for a week.”

Reena screamed and whirled around to see River looking n at her. She grabbed the blanket off her pallet and hastily covered her nude body with it. “Why are you spying on me?”

“I brought your meal.”

Reena was instantly sorry; she had no business screaming at him, his life was hard enough. “Thank you. How was your day?”

He blinked at her. Reena could tell nobody had ever asked him that before and she wanted to weep with the unfairness of it all. “You’re going to need clothes.”

“I know.”

“My mother is a seamstress for one of the houses along the river. I’ll go to see her tonight; maybe she has something you could wear. You can’t go in the arena naked.” A slim grin lifted his lips. “Not that there is anything wrong with you naked.”

Reena tried to give him a lofty stare but it failed. She took her meal from him and broke the chunk of bread in half, divided the steaming fowl into pieces and pushed them at him. River looked at her, his eyes grave as he said, “You need to eat that.”

“I am going to try to eat what I have here but…after today…” Her throat closed and she had to fight to keep her eyes dry. “Look at me River, am I a monster?”

‘No, you’re just what they are making you be.”

Her voice shook, “And what is that?”

He came a little closer to her door and he looked up and down the hallway before he spoke in the softest of whispers. “They are chanting your name out in the streets. They say you are making the Governor look like a fool. The people think you are going to be the straw that breaks the Senate’s back and makes them decide to overthrow him once and for all.”

What? Thunderstruck, all she could do was stare at him. River ate hastily, wiping his hands clean on the rushes that lay on the floor so that no grease or crumb would betray him. When he finished he said, “I will see you in the morning.”

He left before she could say anything else and she went back to the window and peered out at the darkening streets. The people never noticed the time here in the city, or so it seemed. They were always moving about and the lateness or earliness of the hours never seemed to matter to them.

Right now there were men down there singing and laughing as they stumbled along, a heavily curtained litter was pausing near a shop and hordes of urchins were running amok, begging for food and money or favors from the rich passer-by.

Looking down, Reena realized that what she was staring at was life. It was a life that was far different than the one she had known before, but it was still life. She rested her head against the bars and closed her eyes, trying not to remember the screams of the man whose freedom she had one today.

Now that it was over, she knew why she had hated them so much, why she felt the urge to send a knife flying in his direction. He had expressed the fear and the sorrow that she had not been able to express there in the arena. He’d run away, he’d had the luxury of being able to run away and she hadn’t.

Where was he right now? Drinking in a tavern, telling all of his friends about how he’d escaped death so narrowly? Or was he hiding, afraid that somebody would see him and recognize him from his ignominious flight from the arena?

Tomorrow would be a new day and she would have to kill somebody else. She knew Hector was right, she had almost gotten herself killed today but she just could not bring herself to cut her hair.

The sky turned darker yet; stars came out and went down on citizens of the city. Reena watched them until dawn cracked its way across the sky.

**

She had fallen asleep at the window, and her entire body was stiff and cold. She ached everywhere and as she tried to climb to her feet she realized that she had lost the blanket somewhere in the night. She found it, snatching it up hastily as River paused in front of her door.

“I brought you something.” He was grinning and she drew closer.

“What is it?”

“My mother made this, it was for one of the boys of the house but he did not like it, so since I thought it would fit you, she added some things to it and now you can wear it in the arena.”

Reena stared as he pulled garments from below his own rough rope. The shirt was one piece; it tied on the sides with bright red lacy ends; the heavy leather had been worked until it was supple and soft but the over shirt was not. That leather was tough, almost hard. While it also had red laces as decorations, this time in the front, she knew that it would easily deflect a knife blade although would not give her much protection against a mace or anything else.

The skirt was stunning, strips of red leather hanging from a black belt over top of a chain mail underskirt. The gauntlets that would run up and down her arm were black and red leather as well, crested with tall silver spikes and laced with red and black ribbon that fluttered merrily.

“River, your mother could be killed for removing this from her house.”

River’s face darkened. “She’s dying anyway. She’s had the bad cough for almost three months. She spitting blood and has been for weeks. It won’t be long now.”

Reena’s heart turned over in her chest. River and his mother both deserved more from their lives than this. They were treated as if they were not even human! And why? Because that was the law according to a few people? “I’m sorry River.”

“Don’t be sorry, be victorious. You don’t know this because you’re in here so you don’t hear and you don’t see. They want it that way, that’s why you’re not in the training areas with anybody else. That’s why you’re up here, so you can’t really see too much of what’s going on in the city and nobody can talk to you about it.”

Reena clutched the garments to her chest, “River, I don’t know what you mean.”

His smile was crooked, “You will, before long you will. I can’t say anything else.”

“Will you have breakfast with me?”

“Yes, I will. And I will thank you for it.”

“It’s the least I can do. Please tell your mother I said thank you.”

She divided out the food and set hers to one side while she turned away to put the garments on her pallet. She was still stunned by them and shaken by his words and so she was not paying much attention.

The heavy thump caught her attention. She turned her head to see River lying motionless on the floor, blood pouring from his mouth. “River! River!” She cried his name and went to her knees in front of her door, her hands reaching to the bars to try to touch him. Tremors rocked his body and more blood poured from his mouth.

“Don’t eat,” he grunted.

What was he talking about? What did that mean? Her eyes fell on the hunk of bread lying near his outstretched hand. The food! Someone had poisoned her food! Fear made her mouth so dry she wanted to reach for the water but she did not dare. Her belly rumbled and she knew that fighting while hungry was dangerous, hunger would dull her senses.

Who would she fight today? She did not know, was not sure she wanted to know either. She was no fool; whoever she was going to fight had a powerful Protector, one willing to kill her in her cell. The Governor might have ordered that as well…or had he?

It was too confusing and River was shivering all over, his eyes beseeching her for help she could not give.

The water or the food? Which was poisoned? River had not tried the water, only the food. She heard the footsteps of the guards and she reached through the bars, desperate and terrified. She had to look as though she had eaten the food and was sick or they might just kill her here and now.

River stirred and coughed. His face was pale but he managed to get to his feet just as she pulled the last of the food inside the cell and the guards rounded the corner. He wiped his bloody mouth and his eyes, sunken into dark pockets of flesh, told her that he knew he would never see her again. Whatever this was, it had been meant for her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Make my family proud.” He staggered away from the cell as the guards opened it. He fell into the wall and dropped into a tiny alcove across the way, nobody noticed—all eyes were on her. Reena began to cough and shake, forcing her body to shiver was not at all difficult, spasms were tearing through her. She was sobbing but without tears.

They said poison was a woman’s weapon, but was it really?

“I have to get dressed,” she managed to gasp out. “I don’t feel well this morning.”

River managed to get up and make it down the hallway. He was trying to die somewhere out of sight; that fact broke her heart. He would not betray her, even though he was dying.

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