Sajda’s mind raced, skipping through her options and discarding them one by one until she found the only possible solution. “We aren’t staying in here. It will take her some time to realize you weren’t lying on your bed when she incinerated your cell. When she does, she’ll track you by scent. Your scent might be all over the prison, but the strongest scent trail will be from where you’ve most recently been.”
His face blanched, and she peeked out of the crack in the door to see the dragon still hovering just outside Javan’s cell, watching the whole thing burn.
“If she tracks by scent, there’s nowhere for me to run. You have to get away from me.” Javan’s voice was a desperate whisper. “Are you listening to me? Sajda!”
She pulled back from the door and met his gaze. “You already know I’m not leaving you. I’m going to take you down to the stalls. I have a hiding place there, and it will be very difficult for her to track your scent when it’s mixed in with all the beasts we’re housing. It’s your best chance. Now let’s go.”
FORTY-TWO
THE CROWD WAS already chanting Javan’s name when he slowly made his way out of the tunnel Sajda had spent years carving into the bedrock behind one of the stalls. She’d led him there the moment the warden was gone, creeping past the ruins of his cell by the light of the full moon. His bed was a charred, twisted lump. The rest of his cell’s sparse contents were piles of ash on the stone floor, but it was the bed that held his attention.
He could have been lying on it, oblivious to the death that was heading his way. He already owed so much to Sajda, and now he owed her his life.
He’d stayed in the tunnel all night while Sajda smeared sheep’s guts over the opening and the stall itself to throw the warden off his scent once the sun rose and she saw that the prince hadn’t been caught in the inferno. He wasn’t sure how long the warden searched for him, or what excuse, if any, she’d made to the other prisoners for trying to burn him alive. His world had narrowed down to the cool darkness of Sajda’s little cave until she’d pushed the trough away from the opening and called for him to head to the arena.
The audience of aristocrats would make it nearly impossible for the warden to justify another attempt on Javan’s life during the competition. At least that was his hope.
He left the stalls and walked to the arena, the parchment with a note to his father folded up inside his red sash and tied to his chest with a thin strip he’d torn from the edge of his sheet. He was thankful he’d decided to wear the sash at all times or it would’ve gone up in flames and, with it, the proof of who he was.
His stomach knotted, and his heart felt like it was hammering against his throat.
Today he’d finally see his father again.
Today he’d either become a prince again or die trying.
He reached the gate and stood a little ways from Hashim, who was already there, his fist raised in the air as his supporters screamed for him. Iram, the third competitor, joined Javan, and they surveyed the arena in silence.
The warden’s platform was still empty. The weapons were secured beneath black cloths again, but it hardly mattered. Hashim knew where every weapon was located. So did Javan. And thanks to Sajda, he’d had enough warning about Hashim’s treachery to form an alternate plan.
That plan included silencing Hashim.
Permanently.
The sacred texts were clear about the taking of an innocent life, but Hashim wasn’t innocent. He’d tried to kill Javan, and he’d sent his minions to do the same in the last competition. There was every likelihood that he’d try again, especially because they each had over five hundred points now, so the deduction for killing another competitor would be more than balanced by receiving that prisoner’s points. Javan could kill him in self-defense.
But he wouldn’t.
Hashim had threatened Sajda with exposure. He’d whipped her with a chain. There was no possible way Javan was leaving Sajda behind in the prison if Hashim was still alive.
“We should fight back-to-back,” he said quietly to Iram.
The young man looked at him in surprise.
“The beasts we’ll be facing are lethal. If we don’t have to watch our backs, we have a better chance of surviving,” Javan said.
“Some of us aren’t just trying to survive.” Hashim turned to meet Javan’s eyes. “Some of us are fighting to win.”
Javan held Hashim’s gaze and let every spark of righteous fury he felt show on his face. “I wasn’t offering to fight with you.” He stepped closer. “In fact, if I were you, I’d run from me. The monsters coming into the arena will kill indiscriminately. But me? I’m coming for you, Hashim. And I won’t miss.”
Hashim drew back, fear flashing in his eyes before anger washed it away. “Not if I kill you first.”
Javan turned to Iram. “You like the spiked whip and the long sword, don’t you?”
Iram nodded slowly, his eyes darting between Hashim and Javan.
Javan smiled grimly. “He isn’t your ally, Iram. You’re just another body standing between him and victory. Now listen. The whip is on the floor in the northeast corner. The sword is hanging on the wall directly beneath the warden’s platform.”
Iram’s gaze widened as he peered around Hashim to check the position of the black cloths that hid his weapons of choice. “Why would you tell me that?”
“Because you and I aren’t enemies. We can fight back-to-back. It gives us one less foe to worry about.”
“And if I refuse?”
Javan shrugged. “Then you’ll at least know where your weapons are and hopefully you’ll get out of this alive.”
He glanced at the stalls, where Sajda was calling orders to the guards as they positioned the competition’s monsters for entry into the arena. The pale skin of her arms was burned red where the chains had held her, and a deep welt rose over her heart, courtesy of Hashim. She’d assured Javan that it would fade. That it was nothing. She was used to the pain of her cuffs, but he didn’t care.
Hashim had imprisoned her. Threatened her. Hurt her.
He was going to pay dearly for that.
A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd, briefly silencing the cheering. Javan looked up as a trio of royal guards stepped through the door on the far wall. The air suddenly felt thick, time moving in slow motion as the guards walked forward and Javan caught his first glimpse of the royal family.
Of his father.
He was different from the man in Javan’s memory. His shoulders stooped a bit, his black hair had gray at the temples and throughout his beard, and there was a shakiness to his movements. His piercing gaze had dimmed into something faraway and confused, but though he was different, he was achingly familiar. The same quiet kindness in his eyes when he looked at the boy he thought was his son. The same raised chin and calm expression that demanded perfection from those around him even as he strove to deliver it himself.
He hadn’t delivered it.