Page 9 of Xeda

She seemed to grow uneasy by his staring because she put up her hand and again disappeared. He heard more shifting around before she came back again with that long metal stick, the claws holding something else. What looked like a large red fruit.

"I'll get water when I can, but for now, the fruit will work." She waited for him to take it. When he didn't, she dropped it carefully on the ground. He watched it roll at his feet, then looked back up at her. She slipped the metal stick back out between the bars.

Voices grew in the distance. The woman peered around before turning back to him. "What's your name?"

He watched her, not saying a word. She waited, and when he didn't answer, she only bobbed her head.

She was gone before others approached. They walked past but didn't enter. When it was silent once more, he looked over at the window, then down at the food. He sniffed at it. It smelled safe.

Still, he nearly crushed the meat in his hands.

How the hell was he supposed to eat it with his mouth covered?

He worked his jaw and realized the cover not only had holes but also opened slightly, just like a trap, just enough that he could work in several pieces of meat if he tore the pieces small enough. He took his time, savoring each piece. The meat was good, but it left his mouth dry. He went for the fruit and squeezed part of it open, then let the juice run between the wide slits, licking the droplets away. The fruit was sour, but he didn't mind. It was better than nothing.

When he'd eaten what he could, he threw the remains in a corner. He was glad to have had something at least, but he refused to be grateful that one of them had pitied him enough to help him. He didn't want their pity, and he didn't care to see their gesture as aiding him either. They were all the enemy in his mind. They all deserved his wrath. One who felt sorry, even if just one, meant nothing. It couldn't.

Carefully, he hunkered down against one corner, this time facing toward the window. He stared at it, stared up at the sky. In the distance, he could see a ship growing distant, rising toward the dark of space against the purple-blue sky. There he waited.

CHAPTERTHREE

Ophilia

She didn't get a chance to talk to the vrisha again after she had snuck him food. She thought she had been lucky, but a guard on the tower had seen her. She had to bribe him with quite a bit of what little savings she had to get him to stay quiet. She knew there weren't many other ways to sneak the vrisha food with him being constantly watched. She would run out of credits very quickly if she had to bribe the guard each time.

"You could always pay me a different way," the guard who'd caught her by the cell had said, smirking at her while rubbing his crotch. "If you don't have the money."

She had declined.

She had little to trade in gaining any measure of control in the situation. And Hendrik made sure to make it difficult. She knew his apprentices weren't going to care for the vrisha. Ivan was a skittish, arrogant kid whose father, a military man, wanted him to work and put him under Hendrik to toughen him. It didn't work.

The other, Dane, was lazy and careless. As soon as Hendrik's back was turned, he was popping bluum like he was medicated for it, and when Hendrik left him on his own, he was seen hanging with the guards by the south gate or creeping around the gardens trying to get with one of the housekeepers. It was a wonder any of the fighters were checked on even once a day. Some days not at all if Hendrik had a bad night. On other days when he could get himself to wake up, he was still swaying as he walked, still consumed by his drink, his eyes bloodshot, mumbling to himself. Those days were especially bad because he usually picked one fighter to do "special" training with which usually meant beating or running them until they collapsed to the ground and then beating them after.

But the last couple of days, Hendrik had somehow managed to pull himself together. Ophilia suspected that was because of the vrisha. And the pressure the family put on Hendrik to get the vrisha ready for the games.

As light broke from the horizon, Ophilia slipped from her room and exited the house out the side, walking down her usual route toward the animal pens which would force her to pass by the training yard. She might not be able to feed the vrisha again, but she could check on him as she walked by.

He'd been silent the last couple of times she had passed by. It was unnerving how, as she had snuck a peek into the dark of his cell, their eyes would immediately meet as if he already knew she was coming. One blood red, the other a fiery orange.

He would stare back at her and sometimes growl, but most times, he didn't say a word. She wanted to ask again for his name, but she never had a chance. The guards on the tower would yell down at her to keep moving.

This time, she was determined to say something to him. Even if he didn't respond.

She walked through the gardens, watching out for cats, then down to the orchards, greeting the workers already beginning their shift. When she got to the gate to the training grounds, however, she slowed to a stop just outside the yard.

There was an awful lot of commotion that could be heard for so early in the morning. From the farthest side of the block, she could see at least a dozen men surrounding the vrisha's unit. Over the shouts of men, she heard the vrisha's rage, bestial and violent. Her heart sank as she took one step then another toward the unit until she found herself crossing the training yard at a near jog.

The men pointed their guns toward the inside, and she heard the sounds of chains banging against the walls, of the crackle of the stunners going off again and again. She wanted to say something, to yell at them to stop, but a young house guard got in her way.

"Get moving," he snapped, blocking her view of the inside. She didn't move but didn't try to push her way through either.

She knew what they were attempting to do. They did it to all the fighters. She had just hoped they would have spared the vrisha if only because they were too afraid to get that close. But Hendrik was determined to keep to tradition. Every fighter was branded with the house symbol so in the games everyone knew who they belonged to. It was a painful, awful thing, and she could tell by the way the men struggled that the vrisha was putting up a fight.

"Hey." The guard got in her face, forcing her to look at him. "Did you hear what the fuck I just said?" He pushed her back, making her stumble.

"Yeah, I heard loud and clear." She didn't say asshole out loud, but it was there in her tone, and the guard's face twisted.

"I'm not playing, I'm not afraid to clock a woman in the face, so if you don't back up and leave, you'll regret it."

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