Our Fractured Souls | Kaz Brekker

[08]

8

Viktorya

The group left the arena briskly and slipped down the passageway.

Instead of turning the way they'd come, they moved counter-clockwise around the old tower. The wall of the arena vibrated with the voices and stomping of feet to their left. The guards posted at each archway paid them little more than a glance, though a few nodded at Kaz, who kept a brisk pace, his face buried in his collar.

Viktorya was so deep in thought that she nearly missed it when Kaz held up a hand for them to slow. They'd rounded a bend between two archways and were in the cover of a deep shadow. Ahead of them a medik was emerging from a cell accompanied by guards, one carrying a lantern.

"He'll sleep through the night." the medik said. "Make sure he drinks something in the morning and check his pupils. I had to give him a powerful sleeping draft."

As the men moved off in the opposite direction, Kaz gestured the group forward. The door in the wall was solid iron, broken only by a narrow slot through which to pass the prisoners meals. Kaz bent to the lock, producing his picks.

Behind Viktorya, Nina eyed the crude door. "This place is barbaric."

Viktorya peered behind her to her Ravkan friend. "Most of the better fighters sleep in the old tower. Keeps them away from the rest of the population."

She watched Nina glance left and right to where bright light spilled into the corridor from the arena entryways. There were guards standing in those doorways, distracted maybe, but all one needed to do was turn his head.

If they were caught here, the guards might not even bother handing them over to the stadwatch for trial and just shove them into the ring to be eaten by a tiger. Viktorya shuddered at the thought.

Witnessing the one fighter catch himself on fire had been harkening enough.

Maybe something less dignified. She thought bleakly. A swarm of angry voles.

It took Kaz a few quick heartbeats to pick the lock. The door creaked open and they slipped inside.

The cell was pitch black and had Viktorya's spine locking up tightly. She hated this place. It reminded her too deeply of the cell she and her family had endured before the General decided to dispatch them.

A brief moment passed, and the cold green glow of two bonelights flickered to life beside her. Inej and Zahra were both holding the glowing little globes aloft. The substance inside was made from the dried and crushed bodies of luminous deep sea fish. They were common among crooks in the Barrel who didn't wish to get caught in a dark alleyway, but couldn't be bothered to lug around a lantern.

Viktorya pulled out her own and shook it, activating the light. At least it's clean. She thought as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Barren and icy cold, but not filthy.

She saw a pallet of horse blankets and two buckets placed against the wall, with one bloody cloth peeking over the rim.

This was what the men of Hellgate competed for: a private cell, a blanket, clean water, a bucket for waste.

Viktorya scoffed. How generous.

Matthias Helvar was sleeping with his back to the wall. Even in the dim illumination of the bonelights, she could see the Fjerdan's face was beginning to swell. Some kind of ointment has been smeared over his wounds - calendula.