“We’re going to take care of this, Champ,” Dasher said. “All of it. We’ll figure something out. For now let’s make Will Fisher regret he ever stepped into this arena.”
Venture didn’t miss the new intensity to Dasher’s old grudge against Will Fisher. Earnest had filled him in on who he was, on Justice’s concerns.
“Once I’m on the mat,” Venture assured them, “I’ll be fine.”
As he stood at the matside, waiting for his match, Venture didn’t look at Will Fisher. He told himself all he had to worry about was now. This moment, this match. But the memories kept leaping into his consciousness—his dad jabbing at him playfully, picking him up and throwing him over his shoulders, trying to make him laugh so he’d stop begging to come along. His mother praying for his safe return. The look on her face when Justice came home without him. The blood on Justice’s clothes—their dad’s blood.
Once they were on their lines, Venture looked right into Fisher’s eyes, and they were dark beyond their color, filled with malice, with absolute hatred. A strange new fear, accompanied by the inexplicable thought that he should leave the mat at once, coursed through Venture. Venture kept his match face on as the whistle blew, but his heart pounded with the question,
Are you with me, God? Even now? Even after all this?
But Fisher didn’t come at him with the energetic fury he’d expected. In seconds Venture had felt him out, regained his confidence, and taken Fisher down. But this was too easy. Fisher was a striker, and he knew this was just where Venture wanted him, down on the mat. Thinking Fisher thought he could predict what he would do there, and was relying on that, Venture didn’t go straight for the smother choke he’d planned, but worked one leg past Will’s and gave him a heel in the jaw.
Venture wrapped up Fisher’s arm, as though he were going to lock it, but then he went for the smother choke instead; Fisher didn’t know he had nothing left in his injured arm to finish an armlock with. With his upper body on top of Fisher’s, Venture pushed up and straightened his legs, bringing the force of his body weight down onto Will’s chest and head.
“It’s worth a champion’s prize to them to have you gone,” Fisher said beneath him. “The Cresteds,” he added between ragged breaths.
What?
Venture thought, but he said nothing, kept working his way up Fisher’s chest.
“That’s what my family will get to keep. But I would’ve done it for free. Because this,” he said, “is for my father.”
“No!” It was Dasher’s voice—so sharp and tinged with an urgency Venture knew instantly was unrelated to the match, to his winning this fight, that Venture jerked his head up.
When he moved, the razor Fisher was holding slashed Venture’s arm instead of his neck. As Venture scrambled to rise, Fisher grabbed his ankle, trying to pull Venture down and himself up at once, but Venture gave him an unrestrained knee in the face. Fisher tumbled back on his rear. Blood sprayed from Fisher’s nose and mouth, but it was pouring down Venture’s right forearm.
He kicked Fisher in the ribs, then brought his left fist down on his face like a hammer. Fisher still held the blade. He moved in another attempt to rise, but Dasher leaped between them and grabbed one of Fisher’s arms and legs and picked him up with the superhuman strength of his outrage. Dasher slammed Fisher back down so hard that the razor went flying. The official shouted for the healer, but Earnest had already run to Venture. He clamped a hand over the gash and pulled him away from danger.
Tournament guards rushed to hold back the crowd, brandishing swords in the face of the uproar, while the announcer urged everyone to stay calm and stay put. Most of the spectators did. The other fighters, though, pushed their way close to their friends and rivals, Dasher Starson and Venture Delving, shocked at the treachery of Will Fisher. Though he was widely despised, no fighter could have imagined Fisher throwing away his future, even his life, to murder an opponent before an arena full of witnesses.
Justice had been right; it was more than just a fight. The Cresteds had used Fisher to invade Venture’s faith that his life as a fighter could be different from his father’s—without the chaos, the risk, the desperation. Difficult, and with its own share of blood and sweat, but neat, regulated, respectable.
Chance ran to Venture’s side, and he palmed his head and gave him a quick, reassuring hug. He could hear Dasher’s blows continuing to fall on Fisher, Dasher grunting with rage each time, Fisher groaning in pain, then making no sound at all, not so much as an exhale. The voices, the feet, and the hands fell still all around them. Now that Dasher had a hold of Fisher, a tense sort of calm fell over the fighters, the officials, the crowd. All except Dasher, who seemed unconcerned by the quietness of Fisher’s life slipping away under the impact of his fists.
That Will Fisher had so little honor made Venture wonder what had really happened to end his father’s life in that barn. Part of him wanted to see him die, right now. Part of him wanted to shove Dasher aside so he could finish the job himself. But he released Chance, nudged him toward Earnest, and pushed his way past the others, back to the center of the mat.
Dasher’s eyes were filled with murder. Dasher, with his perfect control, had lost it. Methodical though his blows were, Venture knew it.
“Dash.” Venture put his bloody hand on Dasher’s arm as he pulled it back to strike again. He’d never been afraid of Dasher like this, never. Half expecting Dasher to turn on him, he said, “It’s enough. I’m okay. It’s enough.”
Dasher paused, but there was still vengeance in his eyes.
“He didn’t do this on his own,” Venture said. “Someone slipped him that blade. We’ll never know who was behind it if he dies.”
Dasher gave his head a little shake and raised his fist again.
“Dash! It’s not right.”
Dasher let his arm drop. He looked up at Venture.
“You’re a better man, Dash.”
Better than this
.
Dasher’s eyes said
No, I’m not
. But he stepped away and turned his back on Fisher, not looking back as the tournament guards moved in on the battered man, and waved the healer over.
“How did he think he could get away with this?” Earnest said.
Venture shook his head, glancing warily at Dasher out of the corner of his eye and pretending to examine the gash on his arm. “He didn’t care. As long as he got his revenge, he didn’t care.”
Chance handed Venture a clean towel, which he pressed to his wound. Earnest took it from him and tied it tight around his arm.
“What did Fisher say to you?” Earnest said.
“The Cresteds were behind this.”
Earnest’s eyes gleamed with fury. “Longlake.”
Dasher shook his head. “It’s bigger than that. It’s an old tradition.” He was still heaving with anger and exertion, his hands still clenched into bloody fists. His body looked less in control now, but his eyes had cleared of that murderous glaze. He looked human again. “To kill anyone who’s taught our ways,” he said with disgust. “A matter of honor. I never thought they’d do it now. Never thought they’d do it
here
. I should’ve known I couldn’t just pretend I wasn’t one of them. I should never have—”
“Fisher was willing to do their dirty work for them, willing to risk everything, because he can’t understand that he is not his father, and I am not mine. And you, Dash, are not one of them.”
Dasher opened his mouth to protest, but Venture shook his head sharply. “You just saved my life. And you and Earnest got me here. Got me where I’m supposed to be.”
Venture shooed the healers away and disappeared behind a partition by himself, leaving his friends just outside; he was no longer in mortal danger and his arm could wait to be stitched. He needed a minute alone.
He reached into the pocket of his bag with shaky hands and pulled out his pendant. The little bit of wood looked older, more delicate to him now. It truly was small, as small as one of his knuckles. But it was just as truly the same symbol hewn into the stone at Earthsong, the same one hidden in the layers of swirling shapes of the Glen family crest he’d looked at each day as he sweated on their mats, in their training room. He held it and he murmured a grateful prayer. Nothing had gone as he’d planned, but he’d made it through. Survived. Won his Championship.
He put his head through the circle of leather cord, and his hand went to his chest. He pressed the pendant under his shirt into his skin, feeling more the heir to that symbol than those Cresteds who rested on their ancestors’ accomplishments, whether he ended up leaving this arena still a bondsman or not.
“Vent?” Earnest said, peering around the partition. “Justice wants to see you.”
“All right.”
Justice entered silently, his face stricken with worry, with love, with anger at the mixture of the two. Venture could have avoided a scrape with death if he had listened to him, if he hadn’t fought. Though he would never have thought to make the connection between Fisher and the Cresteds’ threats, in hindsight, Fisher was the perfect choice for the Cresteds. Venture’s murder might have been attributed simply to one man’s revenge.
He waited for Justice to speak, waited for the lecture, but it didn’t come. Instead Justice put an arm stiffly around him, and Venture let him pull him in. He pretended not to notice that Justice was crying. He barely managed not to cry himself.
Venture opened his mouth to speak, but Dasher ducked in. Dasher started a bit when he saw them, and looked away.
Justice released Venture and he said, “What is it?”
“You’d better get out there. That crowd wants their champion.”
“What?”
“Can’t you hear them? Have you forgotten which match that was? You are Champion.”
Venture allowed himself to smile. He didn’t know what would happen to him and Jade, but one thing was certain.
“I’m Champion.”
Earnest, joining them, added, “Champion of All Richland, and the youngest ever to hold the title.”
“Come on, Champ. Let’s get you out there so they can see you, their champion, alive and well.”
Venture emerged and looked out at them, tens of thousands on their feet, clapping and whistling and hollering, all for him. Among all the voices calling his name, one stood out. Venture followed it, trying to locate Jade in the crowd.
One of the guards at the other end of the mat shouted, “Stay back now, Miss!”
Jade.
Their eyes locked, and the guard looked from one of them to the other, then lowered his weapon and moved aside. Jade rushed into Venture’s arms. She pressed tight against him, without a care for the sweat and the blood. With his good arm around her waist, Venture lifted her up off the mat. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, but her eyes were filled with love and relief for him. She didn’t know what her father had said to him, and he wouldn’t tell her, not now.
Instead he kissed her, ignoring the gasps and the renewed uproar from the crowd. Kissed her until he ran out of breath. He tried not to think that it might be the last kiss they ever shared.
“I’m okay.” He tipped his head so that they were nose to nose.
“You’re sure?” Her eyes went to the blood-soaked towel tied around his arm.
“I’m sure. Just a little tired.”
As he set her down, he caught the gaze of Grant Fieldstone, a few yards away, and his heart sank. Had he just blown whatever chance he had of Grant changing his mind with that kiss? Did his impulsive expression of relief and love look more like a public display of defiance and disrespect to Grant?
Having Jade in his arms, having her right here, made him feel all the more intensely the dread of losing her forever.
He could make that promise, tell Grant what he wanted to hear, and get his freedom, maybe even go away for a while, and come back and get her. Take her away when Grant least suspected it. But as soon as he thought it, he knew he couldn’t make a promise with every intention of breaking it.
He knew what he had to do. He looked right into Grant’s eyes, not with defiance, not with fear, but with sheer honesty, and he took Jade’s hand and raised it up to the crowd with his own. No more secrets. He and Jade were not going to quietly go along and forget about each other. Now they never could, for all Richland would soon know, and they would not forget.
There would be no more secrets for Dasher, either. The Glen family name was already being shouted here and there by the crowd; in the course of all the chaos, the news had slipped out.
Jade squeezed his hand. “I love you, Vent.”
Venture pulled her close and buried his face in her hair, so that his enemies—powerful enemies who might this very moment be watching him from among the cheering crowd—couldn’t see his tears. “I love you too,” he whispered into her ear, his voice catching on the last word.
“Mr. Delving.” Chance shoved his small hands up between them, a bit of paper in each one. “From Mr. Fieldstone. He rip it, not me. It important?”
Venture gently pushed the kid back with one hand while he plucked the pieces of paper out of his hands with the other. It was his contract, ripped in two.
“Vent!” Jade ducked under his arm to see. She put her arm around his back and rested her cheek against his chest. He felt her heart beating against him, beating with excitement for him. He was free. But was she?
He tucked the contract into Chance’s shirt pocket, then looked up and found Grant’s face among the crowd. Grant Fieldstone was surrounded, yet alone, his arms folded across his chest, his face painted with loss and resignation.
Venture tried to tell himself he didn’t care what Grant thought, what he felt, but that was a lie. He didn’t want to be anyone’s servant anymore, but in spite of his burning pride, he wanted back everything else he’d had with Grant. His love, his trust, his guidance.
Then Grant turned his back and walked away. He disappeared into the crowd, without his daughter.
“He hates me, Jade. A lot of people hate me.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He hates what he’s done.”
“I was foolish. Reckless. I should’ve—”
“You did what you did, and I love you. No matter what’s happened, no matter what happens next.”