The Cage King (2 page)

DragonFire

…and Laire covered Nalah’s eyes with small, delicate fingers, the skin the softest Nalah had ever known. There was enchantment there, a shielding, and Laire said, “You really are sensitive, aren’t you? We’ll train you to develop your own barriers. After all, too much exposure to strong magic has been known to drive people insane, and we don’t want that.”

An explosion, but no ringing in her ears, no debris, no shaking of the ground underneath her. Laire removed her hand, letting Nalah see the sight before her. Tenro had been returned to its place on Fallon’s back, and the pawn shop was nothing more than a collection of rubble and twisted metal collapsing on itself. Fallon turned her head. “Your turn.”

Laire gave a negligent flip of her hand, and from the rubble a huge safe emerged. “Magical,” she said when it landed before them. “Withstands blasts and fire, the usual. I’ll handle opening this one myself.”

A moment later the door on the safe disappeared. Laire rummaged through, throwing aside money and valuables without pause. “There it is,” she said, and picked up a plain grey ring box and opened it.

Red gleamed and Nalah’s heart started, a pinprick of joy threading through the day’s loss. “That’s my ring. That’s the one he stole.”

Laire and Fallon gave a quick glance toward each other.

This is what they came for.
No, no she wouldn’t lose this,
she wouldn’t lose this
, and Nalah snatched at the ring.

The effort failed as Fallon’s hand clamped around her wrist, and several pulls proved Fallon was immovable as stone. The redhead waited until Nalah was still, and asked again, “What’s your name?”

Fallon’s eyes were a molten gold. Unbidden Esh’s eyes surfaced in her memory, a similar color, except his always had a dancing flame within them. Nalah had scoured every book in the meager library, but she could never find that eye color as a characteristic of any known race.

He laughed, told her not to worry about it, he looked human and besides, he would never claim any race that abandoned him anyway. But she wanted to know, just for herself, because she loved his eyes, how they heated and the fire grew when his emotions did, before a fight or when he lowered his head to hers…

She slammed down that memory, buried it. Never again. “My name is Nalah, and that ring is mine.”

“Nalah.” Fallon repeated her name, as if the swordswoman could decode the bleak history and uncertain future within the sound. “And how old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

Fallon glanced over to Laire, whose face scrunched up in thought for a moment. “A little old, but she’s so freaking strong. I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem.”

Nalah pulled at her wrist again, more as voiceless protest than with any real hope of getting away. “What are you talking about?”

The two women did some voiceless communication with their eyes, and then Fallon turned her attention back to Nalah. “Would you like to escape this place?”

“Escape?” This conversation couldn’t get any weirder. Everything tonight was off-balance, a funhouse full of mirrors with no exit sign.

“Come with us. Join our group. We’ll teach you to use your power, and in return, you’ll help us save and protect this Realm.”

What
group? The offer was too glib, too good-to-be-true. No one got offered a ticket out of here without a hell of a cost. “That easy?”

Fallon gave a chuckle, her smile bright but her eyes hard. “Do either of us evoke
easy
?”

No. Fallon didn’t bother to pretend to be anything other than a warrior, and while Laire tried to hide her own power and strength under an outfit reminiscent of cotton candy and a girlish voice, more than a moment in their presence gave lie to
easy
in any sense.

What group were they part of?

Did it matter?

“And my mother’s ring?”

Laire had deposited the ring in her pocket and made no move to take it out. “That’s a bit of a problem. That ring should never be allowed in the general population, kind of like Fallon when she’s in a mood. Or really ever.”

“What Laire
means
is you’ve felt the magic. You know something altering can be found in that ring, a power that shouldn’t be used.”

Bitter bile rose in her throat. Of course. What the hell else had she expected? Since when did
justice
figure into anything? “What is it the ring does that’s so bad I can’t have it back?”

“Can’t tell you, sorry.” Fallon shrugged her shoulders and gave the most insincere apologetic smile Nalah had ever seen.
Sorry? What sorry?

Fucking bitches. They were strong and she was weak, and it didn’t matter if you lived in this shithole or not, the strong kicked you to the side and maybe fed you scraps if you were useful. Fuck them. She’d join her brother before she’d take their offer. Nalah spoke, the same anger churning through her that caused the breaking of the magic. “For all your talk about your superiority over that douche, you’re as much a thief as he was,” she said, pointing at the rubble. “We both know I can’t fight you, so go back to your group and shove your offer up your ass. I’ll never be that desperate.”

Shocked silence reigned for a moment, before Laire doubled over in a peal of laughter. “Ah hells, we’ve just been schooled. Thank gods Aislynn didn’t see that.”

“Yeah, we’d never hear the end of it,” Fallon said, voice low and without any of the humor Laire saw in the situation. She released Nalah’s wrist. “Fine. Let’s modify the offer. You come with us, and after we teach you, after you understand what that ring is, if you still want to take it, it’s yours. You take it.”

“You won’t let it go.”

“Just said I would.”

Nalah stepped around this mental minefield with careful movements, feeling for the trap that had to exist. “That easy?”

This time there was no chuckle, and Fallon’s eyes were hard enough to pulverize stone. “Taking the ring would be easy. Living with the consequences, not so much.”

Nalah bit back a retort, the anger flooding her veins giving her a kick, but the undertone of weary and numb remained.

Why not?
The question kept circling her mind, despite the ping in the back of her mind that said making any decisions now would be a bad idea – and said in the voice she often used to try to stop her brother from making an insane decision. Now, she used it on herself.

Because she was alone.

Well, there was Es–

NO!
Not him. Never again him.

She was alone, and why not? Get out of here, train in her power, maybe be useful in some way. Why not?

“Why not?” Nalah said.

Laire came over and patted her hand. “That’s what I like to hear.”

‡

“P
lease, Nalah, please!
They’ll kill me. Gods honest truth, they will rip me apart. Nalah…please, you gotta convince him!”

SNAP.
The crunch of bone carried loud and clear through the stands, the sound still echoing when the corresponding roar of pleasure rose up. Men of various races on their feet, cheering the carnage. Almost all men, and the few women who were without a male escort were limited to the groupies and the ring workers. And her.

Five years she’d been away from this crap, since that day she walked with Laire and Fallon, neither telling her where she was going. Five years, and seeing the fight now, it was as if not a moment had passed, as if she had just risen from her ringside seat, cheering
him
because of another win, consoling her brother over a loss or draw.

She’d grown up with the matches in all their forms, from midnight fights behind garbage bins to private fights in rich people’s mansions. Since joining the Guild, there was the thought, the expectation maybe this was no longer her world. Tonight proved that wrong. Wherever her life led her, this would always be where part of her belonged, and that part would be comfortable nowhere else.

Not that she was comfortable here, not with this job. She should go back and tell Fallon to shove it, though fat chance the words would work. No matter what the swordswoman said, there had to be another way than this path that had her skidding down memory lane and breaking through all the
STOP
signs along the way.

A whiff of rank body odor hit her full force, and Nalah shrank further into her seat, wrapping her coat around her in a doomed-to-fail bid for invisibility. A couple of guys eyed her with interest, their leers and comments growing louder with each additional fight, each additional drink. Not that she couldn’t put them in their place if necessary, but who needed yet another level of annoyance?

And then a different sensation, a charged energy raced over the crowd. Everyone quieted, their gazes and rapt attention on the fighting cage in the front. Nalah straightened and looked at the ring.

He
was in the cage, bigger now than the last time she’d seen him – any gangliness of body or baby fat in the face gone from this version. Here was sculpted muscle and hard edges as he walked the ring, not showboating to the crowd but projecting his confidence, his superiority all the same. No shirt, only worn light-denim jeans, scuffed black boots, and a chunky silver-linked bracelet around his wrist.

She couldn’t see his eyes from this distance, but the dark brown hair was shorter, a bit spikier on top rather than the mop from her memory, and his skin was the same sun-warmed brown it always was. She had placed her hand on that chest, marveled at the firm muscle and enjoyed the contrast of their skin, how he was a few shades lighter than she. The melding of tones looked perfect together.

More noise signaled another man entering the ring – tall and blacker than she was, bigger than his opponent but nowhere near the same presence. The crowd burst forth with an equal amount of cheers and boos at this entrance, as well as quite a few catcalls.

“Destroy the King!”

“I’m going to spit on your grave, you dumb fuck!”

“Beat him and make me some money!”

The announcer came forth, a short, fat man with a too-tight T-shirt, strutting around like he thought he had the same build as the fighters. Maybe once upon a time, but that time was now long ago. He started to talk, too high of a voice, but before she could even begin to focus on the words
his
head shot up, the direction of
his
gaze coming straight at her.

She ducked. No. No, no. This wasn’t…She wasn’t ready to face him, was still entertaining daydreams of telling Fallon to stick Tenro somewhere impossible. Besides, there was still the smallest of chances this assignment wouldn’t be necessary. She was here to watch him fight and go back to her apartment and completely and absolutely not talk to him.

The crowd was on its feet, upping the energy with smack talk while last-minute bets were made hand over fist.

She shouldn’t have come. She wasn’t ready yet. She’d never be ready, but now was stupid, when there was still a chance she wouldn’t need to convince him.

Time to go.

She rose from the seat, keeping her body low and tight to hide from that damned gaze of his. Growing up, she had always been exposed before his eyes, secrets laid bare and willpower gone, and the fire that lived in his eyes danced because the bastard knew it. When she was a child the fire had an affectionate, familial warmth, and then she got older and the cast changed, hunger and desire replacing unassuming and comfortable. Now was a different time, and she was a different woman, older, harder, but still, she didn’t want to test if she was immune to his eyes.

A meaty hand wrapped around her wrist. “Hey little thing, where ya goin?” a slightly slurred voice asked, and dammit, she really wasn’t in the mood.

She kept her voice even, the same way she always spoke to drunks. “Need to use the bathroom. Can you watch my seat for me?”

The hand pulled her toward its owner, a middle-aged man who was all potbelly and faded glory, the type she’d seen thousands of times at the fights. “Nah, you don’t need to leave now. How bout after this match we go ta my place? You can use anything you want there.”

“I really do have to leave unless you want a big mess. Can you let me go?”

“Told ya no.” His voice got determined, mean, and Nalah glanced around for
anything
she could use as a weapon.

It was too easy. A twist of her arm broke his grasp and in quick turn she had his arm pinned behind his back. A jerk upwards wrenched his arm enough that he yelled in pain, falling away from her and onto his knees.

People turned at the man’s cry and took in the scene, though no one stepped forward to help. A part in the crowd gave her a clear view of the ring, and
he
stared at her, eyes burning bright and as intense as she had ever seen.

Five years fell away, and it might as well have been yesterday when she saw him last. The sweat that beaded off him had the same effect it always had, the desire to nuzzle into him, the desire to stick out her tongue and follow each individual droplet down to wherever it led.