“Especiallyif it’s a fairytale.” He shrugged. “Legend grows enough, who knows? Maybe one day it’ll come true. At the very least, it’ll keep the sad sacks inspired.”
Ah. So it’s for your benefit. Because an inspired whelp is one less likely to cause problems.
Lukain stopped me at the ladder stretching down into the darkness below. “Speaking on making it true, you’ll have another shot at it soon.”
I quirked a brow.
“Got another shadowgala coming up,” he said. “I want you fighting again. Little bit of redemption, eh?”
He smiled as he crouched and took to the ladder.
I should have felt exhilarated. My skin prickled with warning though, a chill coming to my cheeks. I recalled the last word the shadowy man had said to Lukain.
“. . . Gala . . .”
The shadowgala group this time consisted of five fighters and three women—a reversal from the last one. After the Jinneth and Aelin debacle, Lukain wanted to tiptoe into the broodstock side of things.
This event would be me, Culiar, Rirth, and two other active fighters who were champing at the bit to make themselves known. On the female side, Helget was joined by the letter-writer Imis and one of the survivors from last gala, Tajeri.
Roughly three months had passed since my first horrendous shadowgala. It was a quicker turnaround than I’d expected. I didn’t think I’d attend more than one a year, the way things moved like molasses in the Beneath.
Apparently, in that time, my fame had grown around Nuhav. I had no idea who would be spilling such falsehoods, embellishing my story so people believed I hadkilledGarroway, when in fact he’d kicked my ass.
Truehearts flog me, no one in the Firehold even goes to the surface more than once a month! When would someone have the time to gossip to outsiders?
The beautiful carriage was packed full of bodies. The cloying smell was more manly and unpleasant this time around, with fewer perfumed girls in attendance.
Helget had a determined look on her face—determined to be chosen and get out of the Firehold at last, no doubt. Her eyes remained downcast to the floor of the wagon. The usually jovial woman didn’t speak a word the entire two-hour ride.
Imis, who had shocked me with a parting kiss prior to last gala, looked disheveled and racked with fear. She was quaint, bookish, and small. Clearly she worried about never seeing her interfolk partner, Palacia, again. I was worried for her too.
I would never state the obvious, which I had thought on more than one occasion.Someone like Palacia—too frail and feminine to fight but without the right parts to be a broodstock—she’ll never leave the Firehold. Not unless it’s to burn her corpse.
No matter how much Imis enjoyed how big Palacia’s cock was, truth was Palacia served nopurposeto the Grimsons. I was honestly surprised she and the other interfolk were permitted to stay.
It was things like that that threw me off.Lukain can be so cold and brooding. An awful slaver who buys young people and uses them for his own purposes. Breaking them so he can rebuild them how he wants.
Yet at the same time, in his own way, hecaresfor the Grimsons. Almost like they’re his own children. He feeds, houses, and trains them, preparing them for a world of pain and misery.
The only thing he didn’t do, I realized, wasrescuethem from that pain and misery. He merely showed them the door, the possibilities, and taught them how to push past it.
The Grimsons were a merit-based underground society, growing every month. We had nearly a hundred people stuffed in the Firehold now, when we’d had only sixty when I first showed up five years ago.
My eyes scanned the worried faces inside the cart.Events like these are used to trim our numbers, so Lukain can find new members to fill the holes and start all over again with a new batch of sewerboys and guttergirls.
I sat back and closed my eyes, grinding my teeth together as that familiar sense of anger washed over me. It was all I could do to keep from losing my mind—jostling in my seat with the jagged rocking of the carriage, listening to the wind outside and the clopping of the horses drawing the cart.
When I opened my eyes, it was to the voice of Lukain Pierken. Time had passed. The night was darker now, the moonhigher in the sky when I glanced over my shoulder past the front partition where Lukain sat on the riding bench outside.
“The shadowgala we are attending is on the southern tip of Olhav, called Manor Marquin. It may sound familiar to some of you.”
I frowned at Rirth, Helget, and Tajeri across the way. We would carry Manor Marquin in our minds—and its depravity—forever. We were bonded in that.
Now we were heading back into the belly of the beast.
“For the uninitiated,” Lukain continued, “speak to your Holdmates. They’ll explain it.”
For some reason—likely because of my growing “myth and mystique”—all the newcomers’ eyes turned to me.
