Chapter Forty-Two – The Other Two Exiles

  From his seat in the middle the room, he watched cat girl gazing at the empty chair as if there were scorpions on it.

  “This is too weird,” she breathed. “Do you think our captain is responsible for the Crumblelands being so crumbly?

  “Captain Sevanya is old and powerful, sure, but I doubt we’ll ever know the truth about her. Maybe she is the evil goddess of all dragons.”

  Tomi rolled her eyes. “I don’t really are one way or another. I’m just glad to see the world. Where I’m from, I never…I couldn’t ever imagine. Never mind about that. Let’s just get this over with.” She sat down. “Okay, now what?”

  Gray leaned forward. “Take my hands.”

  She looked at him like he’d suggested they strip.

  He laughed. “You can’t be afraid. You took down Rynn in seconds. I’ve spent months fighting her, and I’ve never ended a fight that fast.”

  Tomi frowned at him, her eyes twinkling with suspicion half-covered by her unruly hair. “No delving, remember?”

  “Would I delve? Never. Just give me your hands.”

  He took her hands, and again, felt their softness. This time, though, he felt her nails, which were long and sharp. He realized that she had delicate hands, slender fingers, very pretty.

  She was staring at him, a mixture of fear and discomfort on her face.

  He closed his eyes, but he still felt her staring.

  He sighed. “Close your eyes, Tomi. This will be over soon enough. You’re fine. We’ll sit here, with our eyes closed, and it’s not a big deal.”

  “Except you’re going to be putting your weird boy energy in my girl energy. Ugh. Did I really just say that? This is a nightmare. Okay, Fade, I’ll play your sick little game.” She laughed unexpectedly. “Mama said I’d live an interesting life.”

  Gray held her hands, eyes closed, breathing in and out. Unlike with Ames, her core was harder to find. Just when he sensed where it was, it would move, as if it had a mind of its own. She wasn’t open to this, and he felt that resistance.

  He finally had to say something. “I can’t find your core. The longer this takes, the less sleep you’ll get tonight.”

  “Ugh, fine. Okay.” She let out a breath. “This is so weird.” Then she gasped.

  He found her core, and it was small, strikingly purple, and throbbing with every breath she took. It was this quicksilver orb vibrating. It was beautiful and powerful but so small!

  “Not yellow, but purple,” he said softly.

  “You, uh, found it,” she whispered. “Oh, be gentle with me, Gray. I’m so scared. Please, don’t hurt me. Just get it over with. Please.” Her voice cracked. She was close to breaking down.

  “I won’t hurt you. I promise. I know you’ve just met me, and you don’t trust easily, but we’re on the same squad. We have to trust each other if we want to survive.”

  “Win you mean,” the cat girl murmured.

  He didn’t correct her. There had already been one murder that summer at First Field, and he could sense, somehow, that more were bound to follow.

  He slowly eased golden mana into her core, and he watched it brighten and change color.

  “Oh, my mother’s whiskers,” the cat girl hissed. “Oh, you, you found it. You’re doing it. It’s like standing in sunshine. You’re the sun. I don’t have to be careful. I can really try.” She let out a sob. “Gray, do you think we can make it? What if we don’t make it through? What will happen to me? I can’t go back home.”

  He opened his eyes and found the cat girl staring at him. A single tear leaked down her face. “I can’t go home,” she repeated.

  Gray felt his heart melt. Who was this cat girl? Where did she come from?

  “Neither can I,” he said in a thick voice. “We have to win, and we can win, if we all work together.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She closed her eyes but no more tears fell.

  The cat girl squeezed his hands, and then laughed. “Okay, I’m letting go now. I don’t think there was delving, but there was something. That was scary and thrilling and surprisingly pleasant. We really do have a chance, though, even if there is only five of us. I can’t believe I’m feeling optimistic. It makes me want to take a shower.”

  “You should shower,” he said. “If only to save Sindara’s delicate sensibilities.”

  That made the cat girl laugh. “That girl. She’s going to really hate herself when we show her she made the wrong decision. Do you really think we have a chance?”

  He saw the hope in her eyes, and he wanted to tell her about his entire life, how he’d overcome one obstacle after another and ended up in a princess’s bed. He even wanted to tell her about Carter. Poor Carter.

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  Instead, he kept it simple. “I grew up in the Cradleport arena as a slave. I’ve seen hundreds of gladiators fight their way to freedom. Back then, I had a bad heart, and I was so fragile, but I fought and won. Now, I don’t just have a strong heart, I have a strong core. Yes, Tomika Ka, I think we do have a chance.”

  She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, Grayson Fade. I’ll hold you to it.”

  She stood up. “I’ll go get your next victim.”

  “Hey, you said it was scary and thrilling and surprisingly pleasurable.”

  She flashed him a smile, green eyes twinkling under the fringe of her unruly hair. “Like I said…your next victim.”

  She left, and a moment later, Midj came charging in. She clambered into the chair, her feet hanging off the floor. “I’m ready! I can’t believe Tomi agreed to do it. If she can do it, it’ll be easy for me.”

  “You’re not nervous?”

  “No!” She opened and closed her hands in quick succession. “Let’s do it.”

  What was it with Midj and holding hands?

  He took her hands in his. They were warm and soft and plump. That would change over the course of the Testing, he knew. There was no getting around that. They’d become thin, calloused, hard. Would she lose that twinkle in her eyes? Would she dim?

  The goblin girl noticed his stare. “What? Do I have frycake crumbs on my face?”

  “Where did you get the frycake?”

  Midj chuckled. “It’s a marketplace. Every marketplace in the world has frycake. You just have to look. You didn’t look.”

  “I found sugar worms.”

  “Now that is a delicacy! Where did you find sugar worms? It’s frycake unleashed. It’s frycake in its purest form. It is the divine ideal of the ultimate sugar and fat snack. Did you watch them pour the batter into the grease?”

  He nodded. “I’ll show you.”

  “You’d better.”

  He wanted to talk about her gluttony resonance, but he didn’t want to be impolite.

  She squeezed his hands. “Come on. Do me.”

  That made him laugh. “If anyone was listening, they’d think we were up to no good.”

  Midj was unphased. “Well, we know that’s not happening. There’s no way I’m bonding with anyone outside of my race. It’s hard enough to make a marriage work, but trying to understand some big human? No, thank you.” She winced. “ No offense. Sorry, Gray, if you, uh, thought it was…that we were….” She swallowed hard. “Can we just get to the core work please?”

  “Can you believe I didn’t know there were other races on Midmere until about a year ago?”

  “I can believe it. I’ve been to the northern Backbones. I never felt right.” She titled her head. “Are you scared of me, Gray? Is that why we’re talking and not working.”

  “No. No. You’re right.”

  Midj closed her eyes. “I’m ready.”

  For a second, Gray couldn’t stop looking at her round, serene face. The fact that she had green skin didn’t put him off a bit. She was very pretty, very happy, maybe the happiest person he’d ever met. It was sweet how she grabbed any hand she could hold. He remembered how she’d sprinted ahead of them to finish the race, her mana making her glow.

  The goblin girl cracked open an eye. “Is this part of it? I mean, shouldn’t you close your eyes as well?”

  “Yes.”

  They sat, each listening to the other breathing. Gray had trouble finding Tomi’s core, but that wasn’t an issue with Midj. It radiated a warmth that drew him in.

  The minute he noticed it, Midj gasped. “Careful now, Gray. Be so careful.”

  “I will,” he said. “Let me try giving you mana.”

  The minute he did, Midj began to cry.

  He felt the sadness wash into him, an ocean of sadness, until he felt his eyes water. He couldn’t talk through the lump in his throat. He didn’t know why she was sad, only that her smile was a mask.

  Midj couldn’t talk, she was crying too hard. Gray wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know how. Her emotions were overwhelming him. All he could do was push mana into her core, trying to make it gentle and warm and loving.

  He finally found words. “We’re alive, Midj, and we’re going to make it through the Testing. I’ve seen what you can do. I have faith in you.”

  The goblin girl nodded. “I know, I know, my ma is always saying I’m a gift to the world. I liked all the magic and the training. And the eating, of course. Give a goblin a kitchen and they’re happy, and I was happy.” She hesitated. “Can I let go of your hands? I need a minute. And something to wipe my nose. Gosh, this is embarrassing.”

  Gray made sure their link was severed before he pulled back. “Sure thing. He got up and found a pile of soft cloths. They weren’t manabound, and so he took one and gave it to her.”

  Midj wiped her nose and face. “I miss home. I know, I shouldn’t, I’m of age, a grown adult woman, but I do. My family is close, and, Papa didn’t want me to go. He said Cracker Rock was world enough, and he’s right. It’s a big port city, the biggest outside of Pubis Port, though that’s on this side of the world. Don’t know about the Crown.”

  “Why did you come?” Gray asked.

  Midj got shy. “You don’t say no to the captain. I know there’s talk that she’s evil, and she’s not the easiest person to get along with. The first time I grabbed her hand, I thought she’d hit me. Instead, she made it clear that I wasn’t to do that again. But the captain has known my family for generations. We’re special to her, and she said, when she was recruiting, she thought we’d win. If we win the Testing, our future is set. Ma didn’t want another kid hanging around. No, she knew I was our family’s best shot at making it in the Belly. So here I am.”

  Gray wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to delve.”

  “I don’t mind.” Midj then laughed. “I know that Tomi was worried, but I don’t have secrets. It’s just, I felt so open with you just now, and I knew you could see how sad I was. Well, not sad, but homesick, which I guess is a kind of sadness all its own. I’ve only been here for a day, and already, it feels like I might die if I don’t get back home. But I can’t go back.”

  Tomi had said the same thing, but Gray was pretty sure all their reasons were very different.

  “You’re lucky,” Gray said finally. “I felt how sad you were, but I also felt how much you love your family. I was an orphan…I never had that. I grew up among gladiators and slaves, and yes, I was lucky to find a kind of mother and father, but I never had what you had.”

  Midj took his hand between hers. “I’m sorry for that. I’m the youngest of thirteen, and my parents also were the youngest of thirteen. It was cousins, uncles, and aunts for days. We fought, we teased, but we also loved. And the food, Grayson Fade, the food! Maybe someday you’ll get to meet my folks. I hope you do.”

  “I hope so too.”

  He found himself lost in the moment, looking into the goblin girl’s dusky brown eyes.

  Then she smiled. “Okay. I know the deal. You give us mana, and we protect you. With what I can do, I figure I’ll do must of the protecting. We get Rynn and Tomi to do the heavy lifting of fighting, and if we get hurt, Ames is there to help. Looks like we have our team.”

  “Looks like we do,” Gray said.

  He didn’t know what the future held, and the captain’s past was troubled, but living in that moment—connecting with those women—felt like heaven.