I’m not an aficionado of spaceships, but I’ve been on my share. Junkers and cruisers, fighters and destroyers. One of my boyfriends had his own stellar yacht, and he took me on a cruise from Talmarr IV to Rigel for my seventeenth birthday. His ship had its own ballroom, complete with a thirty-piece orchestra.
Still, I don’t remember being on a ship that had an arena before.
It’s located down in the bowels of the ship, sunk about ten meters into the deck. The walls are the same dark metal as the rest of the Andarael, lit by crimson globes, scored with what might be claw marks. The arena floor is littered with millions of smooth, glowing stones and tall, twisted spires of sharp, dark metal. Long bleachers are arranged in concentric rings, looking down on the pit below.
We’re marched in at rifle point, hundreds of Unbroken warriors taking their places according to rank. They’re male and female, all armed, all gorgeous, all wearing the three crossed blades of the Warbreed Cabal on their brows. They’re possessed of the traditional We’re better than you arrogance that makes pixies so much fun to have around at parties. But I can sense a tremor of anticipation flowing through them, too. A lust for the violence and bloodshed to come.
Saedii takes her place on a balcony, reclining in a throne-like chair, the back crafted of three crossed blades. Her pet sits at her shoulder, watching with glittering golden eyes. A small legion of guards lurks around her like beautiful shadows.
The pixies march us down to the edge, onto a broad gangplank that hangs a little ways out over the pit. I hear a commotion behind, turn to see Finian being led to us, surrounded by more Syldrathi. He looks a little disheveled, but mostly unhurt, and I give him a fierce hug, a quick kiss on his cheek.
“You okay?” I ask.
Our Gearhead peers around the arena crowd, down into the pit below us. “You mean aside from the fact I’m about to be eaten for these people’s entertainment? Yeah, I’m one hundred percent, Scar.”
“Touché, Mr. de Seel,” I smile. “How’s Kal?”
“He’s okay.” Fin frowns, thoughtful, as if suddenly unsure about that. “The cigarillo case Adams gave him … it stopped the shot. Like Adams knew …”
“How is that possible?” I ask, bewildered.
Tyler jumps in before the speculation can begin, cutting to the important part as always. “You got the black box data though, right?”
Fin nods. “On my uni. They confiscated it, but I encrypted the info hard as I could make it. They’ll have a time cracking it without wiping it altogether.”
“Good work, legionnaire.”
Fin nods at the praise, glances to the pit, and swallows hard. “So, anyone know anything about this drakkan they’re throwing us to?”
I shrug. “I slept through xenobiology.”
“They’re not allergic to Betraskan, by any chance?”
“Right there.” Ty points to Saedii’s shoulder. “That’s a drakkan.”
“Oh.” Fin frowns at the small dark-scaled reptilian coiled around Saedii’s throat. She reaches into a bowl at her side and tosses the thing a ragged scrap of meat, which it snaps out of the air with sharp, tiny teeth.
“Ohhhh,” I say, brightening considerably.
Fin’s pale brows come together in a frown. “Um, I’m not one to judge performance based on size, but isn’t it a little … little?”
Saedii stands and holds her hands outward, killing our discussion dead. She looks around at the other Unbroken, radiating a dark, imperious will, until their murmured conversations falter, until the whispers stop, until the only sound is the low thrum of the engines and the thudding of my heart.
Once the arena is perfectly still, she speaks in Syldrathi, and I translate softly.
“One who was lost is found,” she says. “In thanks to the Void for my brother’s return, we shall sing the song of ruin, and dance the dance of blood. We shall feast upon the hearts of our enemies, that their strength becomes our own.”
She points down into the pit, to a tall Syldrathi woman standing by a control panel in the wall below us. Saedii’s lips curve into a small smile.
“Release the drakkan,” she says.
The woman presses a button. The floor in the pit’s heart cracks and slams apart, sudden, violent, revealing a deeper lair below.
And out of it comes a chuddering, bone-deep roar.
“That,” I whisper, “does not sound little.”
The Unbroken around us begin to stamp their feet, solemn, all in time, and my heart drops into my stomach