Caged Warrior

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