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“What?” Druin gibbered. “This has nothing to do with Quet-Dreai! I need them for… medicinal purposes.”
Thillak didn’t even look up. “You need them because otherwise, you would never win in the pits.”
Druin had the good sense to bite down on whatever words he was thinking of using next. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t use them outside the pits again—”
“I’ve made my decision,” Thillak said coolly, considering the situation closed. He nodded to his goons. “We’re done here.”
They escorted Druin out the door but he managed to turn his head and bark a single threat:
“You’re going to regret this! You’re all going to regret this! You wait and see! Nobody crosses Druin and gets away with it! Nobody!”
A door slammed and Druin was gone.
“Well,” Thillak said, moving around his desk. “You sure know how to pick your enemies.”
Enemies.
For a decade, I’d avoided animosity like it was the plague. Now, in my final week, I’d managed to annoy the species with the worst case of harboring a grudge in the known universe.
“It’s taken ten years and finally we see a little spark of anger in you,” Thillak said. “What was it? A dislike for Druin? If so, I wonder why you didn’t put him in his place a lot sooner. He’s had this coming for some time.”
I wasn’t exactly sure I knew the answer but I was glad Thillak was on my side. Bad things tended to happen when he wasn’t.
“Things just… came to a head, I guess,” I said.
Thillak pursed his lips and nodded. “You won’t be able to save her every time, you know.” He returned to his chair. “Remember that. Oh, and try to be gentle with her. She’s been through a lot already.”
“Gentle with her?” I said. “Who?”
“Lily, I believe her name is.”
“Where is she?”
“You won her fair and square. She’s waiting for you in your cell.”
8
LILY
Glasses took me to another cell and treated my wounds with some kind of salve that stung and made me hiss through my teeth.
“I apologize for the pain,” Cayggod said. (He revealed his name to me along with a friendly shake of my hand, then told me how much he enjoyed reading a human writer named Shakespeare. He shocked me every time he opened his mouth.) “It’s necessary, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all right,” I said, and found that once the initial burning sensation had worn off, it melted into a feeling of coolness like the spray of rain on a hot day.
“Such things… shouldn’t be allowed,” Cayggod said, shaking his head at the welts across my body. “Prizes should be admired and treated with respect. Not beaten and disfigured this way.”
I smiled up at Cayggod. He was the very last kind of inmate I expected at Ikmal prison. He spoke kindly, softly, and his movements were slow and deliberate. Hard to imagine he was capable of crimes that only the worst of the worst were guilty of at Ikmal.
“Is there anything else you require?” he said, backing away from me and bowing politely.
“Uh… no,” I said. “Thanks.”
He turned and left the room, leaving me alone.
There was no clock to count down the seconds. The cell was so quiet, so serene and still compared to the frantic activity that’d taken place earlier in Druin’s cell.
The room was bare but not empty. The bed was freshly made and, judging by the smell of the sheets, clean too. I glanced toward the door but there was no hint of anyone coming in.
