The Grim (Ravens #3)

vii. the last knight

A/N: I think most people are back in school now, but I'm off for the rest of the week so prepare for daily updates bc I have nothing better to do than write and binge-watch OITNB

 Monarchia ~~ February

With the screeching sound of the metal cell door opening, the heads of the newest prisoners shot up instantly, frightened by the guards entering. The veterans, the older three who rarely spoke to the youth, kept their heads low, avoiding eye contact and trying their hardest to remain invisible. The girl—she said her name was Ness—quickly noticed their differing reaction, and pressed her back against the wall, as though she could squeeze her way out through the bars. As though she could disappear. She reached for Ezra's hand beside her, beckoning him to do the same.

But her efforts were in vain, for the guard in the front, the very same man who had brought them to Monarchia in the first place, nodded in her direction. On his order, Ness was hoisted off the ground, and although now unchained from the bars behind her, she was flanked on either side by men far larger than her.

"Stop!" Ezra screamed, pulling against his own restraints as his new ally was dragged out of the cell. "Where are you taking her? No, not her. Anyone but her!" She tried to shake her head, tried to call him off, to stop him from drawing anymore attention to himself, but he didn't notice. She was the only person he thought that perhaps he could trust in this forsaken basement prison, and as that last gleaming hope grew smaller and smaller until she was out of sight, he felt the world around him tightening, closing in on itself, suffocating all the air out of his lungs.

"No use fighting them, kid," grumbled one of the other prisoners once the door slammed shut behind the guards. The man seemed to be unfazed, unbothered. It was how they all appeared, leaving Ezra confused and unsettled.

"Where are they taking her?" he asked, his heart racing and sweat beading along his hairline, "Do—do none of you care? What are they doing to her?"

"She'll be in the ring, no doubt," someone said. It was an older woman, one who rarely spoke to her fellow inmates, "What a shame, she was young."

"I heard they're sending Brutus in," added the first, "She'll never stand a chance against him. Guilt kill, I'd say."

Ezra's face dropped, "What is the ring, and who the hell is Brutus? What is going on here?" His voice was lower now, less flustered and more determined.

"Welcome to the Colosseum," said the woman, "It's Ancient Rome up there. Your friend is in a fight to the death against the king's favorite assassin. She won't last a minute."

Suddenly the world began to play again, the cell spinning around him, crushing him, falling against his chest as all the planet's weight closed in. "We're all just here to die?"

"I warned you against making an alliance," groaned the oldest man in the cell, "There was nothing the two of you could have done. It's best that you just look towards the future. Eventually that'll be you in the ring, and someone's gonna have to die. Nothing that girl could do to help you."

"She didn't even resist," Ezra whispered. "She acted so calm that I don't— I don't understand how."

"She's a smart girl. She knew to give up."

------

"I'm going to need your name, sweetheart," the woman said. She seemed to be in her mid-forties, dressed in light pink with her graying hair cut into a puffed out little bob. In her right arm she held a clipboard and a purple pen, the end of which she continued to click as she stared at the prisoner before her. Ness did not speak to answer. Instead, she took a brief glance at her wrists, chained onto the armrests of the wooden chair, and glared up at the woman.