Serene

It was not difficult for Serene to charm her way into Henke’s camp. A look here, a giggle there, a touch-up of her mask every so often to hone in on her mark’s preferences, and suddenly she found herself hanging on the arm of a man as they strolled into the tight cluster of tents that belonged to the Hero’s team, easily bypassing the grim-faced security people posted around its perimeter.

She was laughing in all the right places and replying to her partner’s advances correctly—equal parts encouraging and aloof to string him along as far as possible without needing to actually engage in anything messy that would cost her time—despite the fact that she was hardly paying attention to the actual words being spoken. In fact, she wasn’t particularly thinking about anything at all. She felt all empty, as though there was no longer a person inside her, but a hollow thing that went only skin-deep, acting on rote reflex.

It was not difficult to sneak away when the man she was with stopped to speak with someone more important than him.

It was not difficult to locate the tent where Henke was being tended to.

It was not difficult to wait until he was alone, then slip inside.

* * *

Henke

Henke did not like the way his night was going.

How could that rat have caused him so much trouble? He kept going over it in his head, but it still didn’t make any sense. Even now that he had learned about the nature of valor surges, he still felt no wiser. How could a wretch like that have harnessed such a technique?

The fans had seen him bleed, and even more humiliatingly, they had seen him be carried out of the ring like a trussed-up pig. Now he was stuck on this uncomfortable mattress while no fewer than three Physicians poked and prodded and fussed over him. Every part of him hurt, and their grubby fingers digging into his tender muscles certainly didn’t help.

People were speaking around him, but all he heard was white noise. He stared up at the tent’s canvas top, and ground his teeth at the thought of that last match.

He would need to utterly trounce Sam Darling in the finals to save at least some face. It was a shame to kill such a handsome woman, but it couldn’t be helped. It was no less than she deserved, for that matter, the way she had spent the entire night making a mockery of the sport he loved.

He shouldn’t have let the rat get him so riled up. Because of that, he had wasted several charges of the Devil’s Eye. There was probably still enough juice left in it to make quick work of Sam Darling, but he was working with too narrow a margin for comfort.

Eventually he realized that someone was repeatedly calling his name, and he glanced down to see that it was his sponsor speaking to him.

Dickie Rich, a Level 16 Scholar, was a short, thin, bespectacled man with neatly combed hair, one hand resting in the pocket of his gray dress pants as he spoke.

“Are you listening?” Dickie Rich asked, frown lines creasing his forehead.

The man was insufferable. Henke hated having to pay him lip service, but he was the richest man in the city, and the one holding the purse strings to Henke’s whole operation. It was he who had given Henke the Devil’s Eye in the first place.

“Yes, Mr. Rich,” Henke replied, hoping the man would think that his clipped, terse tone was on account of the pain he was in.

The businessman nodded. “Good. Don’t worry, kid—this was only a minor setback. We’ll have you back at one hundred percent before your final match, and you’ll win just like always.”

“Of course.” Henke had to clench his jaws painfully tight to avoid saying something that might get him in trouble. Why did he even feel the need to mention that Henke would win? That was a matter of course. No other outcome was possible. Did this imbecile who had never spent one second inside a fighting pit really think that Henke needed some kind of pep talk to do his job? That a single less-than-stellar win had somehow gotten in his head? It was ridiculous.

Luckily, the Scholar soon left, and Henke was able to breathe a tiny sigh of relief. Or at least he would have, if not for the fact that the Physicians were still going at him like a slaughterhouse carcass, lifting an arm here and a leg there, his skin buzzing every time they used a skill to repair his broken tissues.

Eventually, Henke could not stand it any longer. “Get out!” he said, and tore his arm free from a pair of grasping hands.

“We are not finished,” said a gray-haired woman. Venture, the supposed best healer in all of Sheerhome. She looked more like a doddering crone than anything.

“Then come back later,” Henke growled. “I can’t think with all you people breathing down my neck.”

Venture looked like she was about to argue, then shrugged and directed her assistants to leave the tent, following close behind them.

Without them there, Henke could finally breathe out. He closed his eyes and willed calm, thumbing at the ring on his finger, took comfort in the solidness of it. There was no reason for him to be nervous—he wasn’t nervous. God, but his body hurt. He should have made that quack give him something for the pain before she left.

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He was soon interrupted, however, by a small squeak. He opened his eyes, ready to chew someone’s head off, but found a strikingly beautiful woman peeking through the tent flap, making his planned acidic remarks fly straight out of his head.

“I’m so sorry!” the woman said. “I didn’t know this was your tent, sir. I was looking for someone, and—”

“It’s all right,” Henke said, gritting his teeth as he propped up his head on a tender arm.

“Thank you, sir. Again, uh, I’m sorry—I’ll just be leaving now.”

Henke found himself smiling at how starstruck she was. “Why the rush? You can come inside if you want.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Why not?”

“I’d surely get in trouble for bothering someone so important.”

“Who says I’m important? I’m just a fighter, that’s all, and I say you’re not bothering me at all, so what’s the harm?”

“Well, I…”

“There’s a small favor you could do for me, actually, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay, sir.”

The woman came inside, and almost immediately he got a waft of her scent; floral and sweet, but not overpowering. He directed her to fish through the things the healers had left behind to find him some painkillers, and he watched idly as she bent to root through the bags, tucking lustrous black hair behind a perfectly shaped ear. He had never considered the shape of a woman’s ear before, but for some reason, on her, it was an inescapably significant detail.

It seemed as though every time he blinked, she looked a little bit more beautiful. When she eventually found a small pill bottle and handed it to him, her smile dimpled her smooth cheeks so sweetly.

He tossed back two of the pills. Afterward she just stood there, awkwardly clutching the hem of her dress.

“What’s your name?” Henke asked.

“Irene, sir.”

“I see. Are you in a hurry, Irene?”

“I suppose it could wait a little while,” she said with a shyly conspiratorial smile.

“In that case, why don’t you keep me company a while?”

She complied, and knelt primly beside him, her blue-eyed gaze on him half the time and on the floor the other half. He asked for some water, and she held the bottle patiently to his lips while he drank, then took a small swallow herself and smiled at him. She had the most immaculate teeth, he noticed.

“Does it hurt much?” Irene asked after some time, and looked for a moment as though she meant to touch his bare, bruised chest before jerking her hand back.

“No, not much at all,” Henke lied with a winning smile that made his newly mended nose thump with pain. He hoped the painkillers would kick in soon.

“You’re very brave to risk your life so many times in one night.”

“I find that facing death is the only way to feel truly alive.”

“I could never do something like that.” She shuddered at the thought.

“Yes, well, beauty like yours shouldn’t be wasted inside one of those pits anyhow.”

She giggled at that, and hid a strong blush behind her hand. She sure was an innocent one. He wondered how such a lovely creature had managed to keep her purity intact.

Irene turned out to be a fair conversationalist once he broke through her demure introversion, and up close like this her flowery scent was intoxicating. He found his head resting in her lap, her hand running through his hair, and he wasn’t quite sure how he had gotten into that position, but found that he enjoyed it greatly. Something about this woman’s tenderness reminded him of his mother, the way she had ruffled his hair sometimes in those farflung days of a past he hardly remembered.

“Was it frightening,” Irene said in a soft, soothing voice, “when you nearly lost? I hear you’ve never known defeat before.”

Henke frowned up at the tent’s ceiling. “I didn’t ‘almost lose’—I beat that man, and that’s all there is to it. I’ve already forgotten about him.”

“Of course,” Irene amended herself quickly. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Whatever. It’s fine.”

A little while longer passed in pleasant silence, and Henke let out a big yawn, the soothing feeling of fingers running across his scalp almost making him want to sleep.

Then Irene spoke once more. “Although, some people have been saying that you were very lucky to win that match against Ratcatcher. Do you think a fighter needs to have luck as well as skill?”

Henke sat up straight at that, the flare of pain in his abs disguised under a sudden flush of anger. “Lucky?” he hissed, staring into the woman’s eyes, and found her looking innocently back at him. “It wasn’t luck. I’m the best five-under pit fighter in Frontier history—I don’t need luck.”

Irene giggled sweetly behind her hand. “Of course, sir. If you say so, that must be the case.”

Was there something mocking in her tone? Was she making fun of him?

“But then again,” she continued, “people have been saying that you might have lost your hunger for winning. That you’ve grown so complacent that even a nobody like Ratcatcher can rattle you.”

“Don’t fucking mention his name!” Henke barked, and jabbed a finger in her face. “I put that pathetic rodent in the ground. No one will even remember him a day for now, while mine will be spoken for the next hundred years.”

She laughed again, louder this time—a bright, sparkling sound—and the sardonic edge to it cut into him. “A hundred years? I’m not sure you will be remembered quite that long.” The look she gave him was almost… pitying. “After all, a man only stays champion as long as he keeps winning. Once he loses, that loss is all anyone will remember.”

“Shut your mouth, bitch!”

Irene leaned in closer until their faces were inches apart, her plump, kissable lips twisted in a sneer of disgust. “We both know you got lucky, Henke the Hero.” She spat out the name like it tasted sour on the tongue. “And we both know Sam Darling is going to take you apart. Enjoy your next hour as the people’s champion, because you won’t be getting it back.”

He struck her in the face, and she went sprawling on her back. A strange shimmer alighted from her face, and suddenly she was covered in ugly black welts, one eye bloodshot and swollen. She was terrible to look upon.

Irene laughed, and he hit her again to shut her up. He called for security, and two of Dickie Rich’s men came and grabbed her by the arms.

“Sam Darling is coming for you!” the woman howled, hysteric, her heels scraping over the canvas floor as she was hauled bodily outside. “Justice is coming for you!”

Her mocking laughter seemed to reverberate inside the tent even after she was long gone, almost burrowing inside Henke’s skull. He paced, and growled at the tight, painful strain in his muscles, the electric weakness left behind by the valor surge.

He was going to win.

He had to win. Otherwise…

He refused to think about what would happen to him if he lost.