He had killed seven White Suits before dusk. The day before, he had killed eight. Due to the great success of the Black Suits in the tournament, and despite the creative shuffling of the brackets, he had also been forced to kill four of his brothers and two of his sisters. The final bout, after all, could not occur between siblings of the same faith.
It had not pleased him to take any of their lives, but he had done so just the same.
And though it might have been useful to analyze their fighting styles, glean something from his successes, he shied away from these memories. He centered his thoughts, burying the past under a tonnage of mental static as best he could. It was a challenge to sustain this state, despite the practice he had put into it. For two long days, he had not allowed his mind to wander or speculate uselessly. He had not followed the other fights or counseled with anyone about the standings. He had simply fought whoever stood before him.
Grey, his final opponent, was only a name, a faceless rival on the other side of the tent, just as the others had been before dying by Vedas’s hand. Undoubtedly, this approach could be seen as dangerously careless.
And yet, only Vedas and one other remained.
Clearly, ignorance had not hampered him overmuch.
His body ached so thoroughly that concentration could not locate a single injury more agonizing than the rest. Lifting a knee, flexing his pectorals, or balling his toes resulted in intense pain. His right shoulder clicked every time he rolled it, and stars flared before his eyes if he tipped his head too far back. His right finger was broken. He suspected his right clavicle and several of his ribs were cracked. The stiffness of his suit alone kept his torso upright and his legs from buckling underneath him.
It had not been so bad, after the first few fights. He had won them handily enough, but this was hardly a surprise during the winnowing stage. The odds fell in a senior fighter’s favor. By the eighth round, however, experienced fighters were finally being pitted against one another, and the winners became harder to predict. Men and women who had worn suits for decades traded punches powerful enough to crush elephant skulls, dodged and deflected attacks too fast for the eye to follow, and died suddenly, often before the crowd registered the killing blow.
Victors and dead men were separated by a blink of the eye. The goal was not to teach a lesson, but to kill efficiently. Retribution or punishment required keeping one’s opponent alive—a condition few smart fighters would tolerate. It was too easy to misjudge another combatant’s injuries and lose the upper hand. To kill a suited man was not easy, after all. Even mortally wounded, a would-be loser could still strike.
No weapons other than the elder-cloth suits were allowed. None were needed. Sufficiently skilled in the martial arts, fused to his suit to the degree that it seemed indistinguishable from flesh, a man like Vedas became a weapon of awesome power. Only magic posed a significant threat to the brothers and sisters of Black and White orders, but magic too had been outlawed from the tournament.
Aching, struggling to remain upright, Vedas gave up on centering his thoughts and allowed himself to wonder what surprises the man Grey had in store for him. Perhaps he would fight like Ria, the thin elderwoman Vedas had fought in round six—a flurry of deceptively wild punches and knee thrusts, a confusing fusion of techniques. Or maybe he would fight like Osuns, the immense hulk of a man Vedas had fought in the tenth round—a wall of flesh taking punishment without apparent damage, only to launch an offensive so carefully timed it nearly took his opponent’s head off.
Or most troubling of all, would Grey fight like Jaffe, the small brother Vedas had nearly lost to in round fourteen? Unable to land a single blow, thrown around the pit like a ragdoll, Vedas had become desperate and thrown sand in the man’s eyes. Many in the crowd had booed, but an equal number had cheered when Vedas killed the man.
He carried the guilt of the act with him still. The thought of winning the tournament under similar circumstances filled him with shame, for he knew he would make the same decision again. He had rewritten the speech, and intended to read it.
But who would listen to the words of a coward?
Doubt settled upon his shoulders, weighting his bones so that he sagged even more upon his stool. He might not live to read the speech. His success had never been assured. He could be the lesser man. Had he traveled so far only to die alone? Obviously, this was the case for all but one of the fighters. Why had the thought of being defeated seemed so preposterous? Was he really such a fool as to believe himself invincible, or had he simply pushed his fears to the side for fear of confronting them?
Die alone, he thought.
The two words settled cold and solid in his gut. He clasped his hands together to stop their shaking. Deeper than the exhaustion, heavier than the doubt, the hope he had suppressed welled up within him: a terrible feeling, like standing on the edge of the Steps, waiting for the wind to either tip him back onto land or carry him out over the sea.
He fought the urge to raise his head, and failed. The whites of his eyes reflected the scant light. A brother met his gaze and took it for an invitation to approach. Vedas shook his head, and the man faded back into the crowd.
The frown deepened on Vedas’s face as he tried to peer through the bodies. He shifted on his stool like a man in great discomfort. Finally, he stood, craning his neck to see into the shallow bowl of the covered arena. He searched the highest stands, the fringes and the entrances. A persistent person could get into the tent, but could not shoulder into the ranks of white- and blacksuited orders, who by right sat close to the action.
He searched for Churls, and came up empty.
‡
“Tell me you will,” he had said, and she told him she would.
Leaving her in the whorehouse was not an easy thing to do. He regretted it the moment he walked out the door. She wanted him to stay—this much was clear, even to someone as unused to companionship as Vedas. After months traveling together, he knew her better than he had known any woman, any person, in thirty-four years of life. Still, there was mystery to her, words left unspoken between them. She possessed urges that both scared and compelled him.
He felt crippled by his inexperience. Did she know he had never been with a woman? Likely, she had guessed as much. Did she suspect he had never kissed a woman, never held a woman’s hand in romance?
Anyone would laugh at his naivety.
Yet somehow he knew that, if given the opportunity, Churls would not laugh. The woman could be coarse, but she had never been cruel. She listened well when he ventured to tell her about his past. She had not chuckled or rolled her eyes while he talked of Julit Umeda’s parents, halting and awkward though his account was. Sometimes, her expression appeared to convey not only sympathy, but a deep understanding.
Of course, sharing on this level occurred with regularity for other people, yet Vedas had rarely experienced it. He wondered, if he had held her gaze in the whorehouse, lingered just a moment more in her company, might she have shown him just how much she empathized?
With every step he took away from her, the more tenuous their connection seemed. It stretched, turning their months together into nothing more than a convenience, a rational arrangement they had arrived upon to keep themselves safe.
The road was lonely, after all. They had grown closer out of boredom. Perhaps he had deceived himself in everything.
Before long, this became his conviction. If she arrived at the tournament, she would be watching out of obligation and nothing more. She would congratulate him, buy him a drink, and say she wanted to see him at her upcoming fights. They would agree to meet up again but attach no importance to the appointment, like all mild friends did in the same situation. Bonds extended only so far.