Caged Warrior (32 page)

Leto leaned close, but that didn’t make understanding him any easier. “I lost,” he
said. “
We
lost. That applause is for the Thieves.”

“What happens to us now?”

“You survived. That was the agreement. I think it will depend on which way the Old
Man wagered.” He unfastened what was left of her armor, which still smoked and hissed.
“But now we’ll know.”

“Know what?”

“If he can be trusted.”

Nynn tried to push him away, but he was too powerful. “You’re talking blasphemy.”

“He’s not a god,” Leto hissed. “He’s a
lonayíp
human.
We’re
the gods.”

The world had gone gray until the lights looked like glowing thunderclouds. He wasn’t
making sense. Jealous still? No . . . They’d lost.

“You blame me.”

“You idiot woman. Whether he lost money or won, the Old Man promised my sister would
be cared for. All I needed to do was keep you alive for three matches.”
He dragged her to standing, despite her protests. “I have.”

She sneered.

“Fine,” he said, jaw fixed. “
We
have. If he honors his word about Pell, then he might do so with regard to your son.”

“My . . .”

Images flooded back. A man she loved . . . and blood. A little boy . . . and tiny,
precise wounds. She saw her mother and a house demolished by a blaze of fire. She
recalled Malnefoley—his years of friendship and support, and the decision that had
made her an outcast.

More memories, this time of captivity. Humiliation and rage and promises she believed
would free her son. Violence and endless hours of disciplined training. She’d been
Leto’s warrior to mold. They had been lovers, too—as close as man and woman could
be.

The halves of two different lives smashed together and spiked from her forehead to
the base of her spine. She remembered a soothing copper light and a voice speaking
directly into her mind. A serpent’s voice.

Ulia. Telepath. Gift.

All that she’d been, both Nynn and Audrey, had been blocked. Wiped clean.

The darkness could take her now. All she knew was bursting apart, as surely as her
gift burst into fields of light. She didn’t—couldn’t—

“I have scars because of Dr. Aster,” she said haltingly. “I met Caleb MacLaren in
school. He was my husband and he’s dead. Dragon damn, Leto.” She smothered her cries
by shoving her knuckles into her mouth. “I hated
you, but I
don’t
hate you. You’re . . . You’ve helped me survive. Resist the Asters. For—for . . .
my son.”

“Yes.” His expression was intent, eager. “Make that leap, Nynn. I’ll catch you. Just
tell me his—”

“Jack.” She closed her eyes against another blinding wash of pain. White and black
fused as if neither existed. Nothing did. Just the agony of nearly having lost something
so precious. “How did I forget him? How could I?”

“This isn’t the time.”

“Isn’t the time?”

“Trust me. By the Chasm and the Dragon, can you do that?”

“Tell me why. Leto, I don’t have anything else. Give me something to
know
.”

“Now is when we’ll see if the Old Man can be trusted.” Leto hauled her along his side,
then kissed her temple. “About my sister, and about Jack.”

L
eto needed to get Nynn out of the Cage and back to the complex before too many pressures
caused her mind to implode. Already, when he looked down into her heavy-lidded eyes,
he saw nothing but defeat.

Sweat tinged with blood trailed down from her hair. A human would be dead by now.
The concussive force. The blow to the back of her head. Her feet tripped along, but
at least she was holding up the majority of her weight.

Get her out of here.

Keep her safe.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Although victorious, Silence and Hark stood quietly by. They were good warriors—better
than good—because they had perfected self-defense of a different kind. Blank disinterest
from her. Grinning idiocy from him. Those expressions were exactly what everyone anticipated
seeing, which had allowed them to appear good little soldiers for so long. Leto had
never considered them allies, but at that moment, he grasped at the best he could
find.

Their plan . . .

The Old Man entered the Cage, as did Dr. Aster and the Pet.

The crowd quieted.

The Old Man was given a microphone. His rasping, crushed voice was even more threatening
when amplified. “Our champion, Leto of Garnis. Defeated!”

While thousands celebrated the novelty, an honorable,
loyal
part of Leto pinched into a stone that dropped through to his gut. Emerging undefeated
had been the goal. Once. Too long ago to remember. Now, he held Nynn, who was mostly
conscious. He had dragged her through three matches, dodging her wrath along the way.
He had succeeded.

Yet having to let go of that former glory was like ripping out his ribs. He needed
his ribs. He needed his pride. The latter had been pulverized.

The rumble of shouts quieted as the Old Man continued gloating. Maybe that answered
whether he’d be wrathful or pleased with the outcome. Had he lost part of the Aster
fortune, Leto might as well resign himself to an execution in the preliminary round
of the next Grievance—Leto, who’d won the entire tournament at age sixteen.

Again, he felt a tingle of that old simplicity. Fight. Win.

Nynn groaned and coughed up a fleck of blood.

Nothing was simple now.

Amid the chaos, the Pet walked with ethereal poise across the scuffed clay floor.
She wore her customary black leather, from her spiked collar down to slim-fitting
boots. Intensely black hair swept in freakish disarray across her brow, around her
ears, down her neck. None of it mattered. She was a riveting beauty—untouchable
and cold, but with features pure and unsullied, as if she’d never conjured a single
thought.

She hunched close to Nynn’s body, touching, almost caressing the shattered armor.

“What in the Dragon . . . ?” Nynn whispered.

“No.
Because
of the Dragon.”

“Who are you?”

The Pet focused her bright green eyes on Nynn. “The Chasm isn’t fixed.”

“You’ve said that before. I don’t understand.” Her body was going into shock as she
shivered against Leto’s side.

“Jack is waiting for you. Nothing will ever be perfect for our kind. But you will
hold him again.”

With a strangled gasp, Nynn faltered. Leto caught her in his arms. At least his strength
was good for something, because his thoughts were a tangle of wire and chain. He strode
past the Asters and out of the Cage. The doctor’s laughter trailed after him like
a dirty stench.

The stench of the labs.

Just out of sight of the madness in the Cage, Nynn sputtered back to life. She fought
him, hard enough that they both collapsed onto the concrete floor of a walkway in
the rear staging area.

“Say something,” he growled.

Too much. He couldn’t process this much at once. So he took it out on her.

“Talk to me, you useless woman!”

“Let me kill him.” She rolled onto her hands and knees. The dragon on her bare shoulder
blade gave off that ominous, beautiful glow in the corridor’s dim light.
Her armor was a lost cause, but the steel in her body remained. “He’s in the Cage.
Right now. I’m going to kill him.”

“With what? Are you going to spit on him, too?” He grabbed her chin with none of the
gentleness the Pet had used. “You’d better learn to play dumb
fast
. I don’t know what’s happening in that head of yours, but it’s all shaken loose.
That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Everything. I don’t—like a car crash in my brain.”

Leto exhaled. “Brave girl.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

He’d have thought himself too tired and abused, with his pride burned to cinders,
but he managed a sick smile. “Then we’re partners again. I don’t either.”

“She said Jack is waiting for me.”

“That doesn’t mean a Dragon-damned thing. She’s like the doctor’s extra limb. Whatever
she said was something he
wanted
her to say.”

He pushed to his feet. He could save Pell and keep Nynn from getting herself killed.
If either of them was harmed, he’d take his rage out on Silence and Hark. The plan
they’d suggested was tantamount to anarchy. What they’d actually done was take the
choice out of his hands.

For the best.

He’d never adjusted well to change. Everyone knew that. Now he needed to move as quickly
in his mind as he could with his body. He was no longer the Asters’ champion, and
his future was not clear. All he knew was that Nynn remembered her son. That eased
the tightness in his chest that he’d carried for months.

Leto pulled her face nearer until their foreheads touched. “We haven’t much time,”
he said. “We’ll have to take the bus back to the complex.”

“There’s snow outside. We’re somewhere high altitude.”

A shudder traveled across his body in a slow but leveling journey. “Is that what it
is? That smell of cold?”

She touched his face. “Yes, Leto.”

“You’re back to thinking about getting free.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Hark and Silence have a plan.”

“Incinerating me with my own gift,” she said with a hard twist of her lips. “Great.”

“I don’t know that I trust them either. But right now, you need to do just as I told
you. Play dumb. Be as brainwashed and compliant as I was.”

“Was?”

He nodded while pulling her to her feet. “Was.”

“I don’t know whether to gloat or celebrate.”

“Both. But
later
. If they think you’re useless or dangerous, they might send you back to the labs.”

“I’d see my son again.” Her hands fisted within his.

“But without the means of setting him free. Think like them. The long game.” He dipped
his head, only briefly. “It’s something I’m not used to doing.”

Darkness passed through her eyes. He watched it as if her soul were being poisoned.
Voice flat, body trembling, she said, “I was Audrey MacLaren.”

Not again, Nynn. Don’t go.

But he forced his stiff neck to nod.

“Before that, I crippled my mother so badly that she’d begged for death. How could
I have forgotten that?”

“You . . . ?” He touched her cheek as understanding dawned. “The psychic block. Calm
yourself, or you’ll never sort through the answers.”

“I was already a killer. Who knew? I was meant to be in the Cages all along.”

“You weren’t. Not you. Not down here.” The vehemence of his reply startled them both.
Logic be damned, he was being selfish—and it felt amazing. “Do this, Nynn. Do it or
they’ll
take you from me
.”

Her expression softened. She leaned into where he still cupped her cheek. “We can’t
have that, now, can we?”

Then, as if by the trick of some magician, her gaze went hazy and heavy-lidded and
dead. She was no magician now. More like a blunt instrument. She straightened her
shoulders. Even in that ruined armor, or perhaps because of it, she looked every inch
a soldier tamed by the Asters. Humbled, yes, but still proud, ready to rise again.

He recognized that posture. He recognized that stance and that vacant acceptance.
He’d seen it in the mirror every day since his adolescence, when defeat was more common
than victory.

“I’ve turned you into a fiend.” His throat was tight enough to gag him.

“You’ve taught me how to survive. Let’s keep it that way.”

A curt nod.

They cleaned and stowed their weapons, soon joined by Hellix and Weil. Weeks had helped
the woman recover from Nynn’s attack during her first Cage match.

“Well, well,” Hellix said. “The Thieves figured out how to turn your freak against
you. The champion taken
down.” His sneer warped into a smile without mirth. A pitiless expression. “Maybe
your punishment about her tattoo will be the first of many. I’d love to be the man
who struck the lash on both of your backs.”

At Leto’s side, Nynn didn’t even flinch. Because she didn’t remember, or because she
was that in control? She’d teased Leto, and she remembered Jack. He had to trust that
her blankness was an act, just as he’d encouraged.

“How did your match fare, Hellix?”

“I’ll rip out your tongue, lab filth.”

She arched a golden blond brow. “I guess that answers my question.”

With that snide reply, she put an end to Leto’s doubts. Nynn was back. She was returned
to him. Now to keep from letting everyone else know that.

After the rest of the Asters’ warriors returned their weapons, they walked toward
the airlock corridor. Silence and Hark assumed no boasting posture, each flicking
glances at Nynn. Silence kept her expression as placid as always, but Hark radiated
an air of accomplishment paired with eyes brimming with curiosity.

They’d done their part, it seemed, even without Leto’s consent. He may well owe them
an apology—and the serious consideration of their plan.