It was not lost on him, the irony that he was coping the same way Bastian had, back when Bastian was… well, was Bastian. Gabe tried not to think of the implications, of why he felt better when he was subjecting himself to the same humbling. A twisted kind of closeness.
He wished he could find something that made him feel even marginally closer to Lore.
Now upright, Gabe limped to the edge of the ring, holding on to a wooden post for balance. Most fights here took place in repurposed barns, since outside it was always either raining or about to be. Gabe supposed that was a good thing, for him. The weather in Caldien was not conducive to fire.
The referee approached holding a small bag, clinking coins. He handed it to Gabe with an almost-pitying look before turning back to the next fight. Gabe stuck it in his pocket without counting the winnings. He didn’t necessarily want to draw attention to the fact that he was betting against himself. His dignity had taken enough hits as it was, no pun intended.
After arriving in Caldien two weeks ago, following a week on the sea, Val had found them a few rooms in a hovel near the harbor. She knew the landlord from running poisons, but smugglers were not a warm bunch, and even their acquaintance didn’t equal out to free rent. Malcolm’s friend at the university, a librarian named Adrian, had offered to help them with accommodations, but there were no cheaper rooms to be found, and Adrian’s own apartment was far too small for all of them.
And there were the Citadel guards crawling all over the city that made staying near an escape route seem like a good idea.
So they earned money however they could. Mari had sold off one pistol, though she still wore a bandolier with enough ammunition for two. Malcolm did the landlord’s accounting.
And Gabe bet against himself in the fighting rings.
“Again, Gabe?”
Michal. He’d known the other man was here; he always came to watch the fights. Gabe supposed it was a nostalgia thing, Michal remembering who he’d been before he got caught up in god-schemes.
“You only have the one eye,” Michal said, leaning against one of the barn’s support beams. “You should really take better care of it.”
The aforementioned eye was already swelling, smarting to the touch. “I’ll sacrifice my eye so that we don’t have to sleep in Caldienan weather.”
Michal glanced at the sky beyond the door. Rainy, as always, and threatening to blow into a full storm. “There are other ways to earn coin.”
“Nothing I’m good at.”
There were other reasons, reasons Gabe probably wasn’t hiding half as well as he wanted to be. Getting beaten to a pulp every day gave him something to think about that wasn’t the complete mess they found themselves in. His body being one constant ache made other thoughts, if not disappear, at least recede into background noise.
Thoughts like Bastian being Apollius. That the return of the benevolent god their entire religion—Gabe’s entire life—was predicated on was actually the precursor to an Empire that would smash everything beneath a holy fist.
As if in response to the thought, the perpetually threatening storm finally arrived, thunder crashing as endless rain poured from the clouds. A spear of lightning split the sky.
“You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” Michal said quietly. “You’re someone they’ll all remember.”
A risk, certainly. Gabe hadn’t heard any murmurs of whether the Citadel was looking for them, but the bloodcoats lurking in every corner of Farramark made it seem likely. He and Malcolm had taken to wearing fingerless gloves to hide their palm tattoos, but there was nothing to be done for his eye patch.
He nodded. “Point taken.”
But he wasn’t going to stop, and Michal’s pinched expression said he knew it.
The punishment of fighting felt right. Penance for the ones he couldn’t save, for his betrayals. He wasn’t worthy of the love he held, and though no one could beat it out of him, he could at least feel the pain of it and be reminded of all the ways he’d failed, so maybe, hopefully, he wouldn’t again.
“Myriad hells.” A winner from a previous bout approached the barn door, hands on her hips, bruises blooming on her shoulders. The broad brogue of her accent made the profanity somehow softer. “The weather in autumn has never been good, but storms like this are usually reserved for summertime.”
“We have cloaks,” pointed out her friend, presumably antsy to leave the barn. “We can brave it.”
The fighter snorted. “Raincoats are as useless as the Rotunda when it’s this bad.”
Her friend smirked. “Maybe they’ll put the weather to a vote next session. It’d be just as effective as the shit they actually vote on.”
The fighter laughed, then the two of them wandered back into the barn, supposedly to wait out the storm.
“Malcolm wants you to meet him at the boardinghouse,” Michal said when the fighters were far enough away not to overhear. “He’s found something.”
Water from the trough dripped off Gabe’s bruised nose. “In one of those books from Adrian?”
Michal shrugged and didn’t answer, canting his eyes toward the milling crowd. “Something that shouldn’t be discussed in mixed company.”
