Chapter 149: The Draw.

The Karr led us back through the tunnels we had just come through, then through a section of smaller ones, descending deeper and deeper into the coliseum. We walked in silence, save for our footsteps. The sounds of the crowd dimmed with every step we took, until they were nothing more than the faintest hum somewhere above us. It was just Violet and I. Or at least, I was fairly sure it was just the two of us. I had asked Sere to stay with my father. Hopefully, she would listen.

"Hey," Violet murmured under her breath.

"Hmm?" I looked back at her.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

I stopped. She did not stop with me, which made her bump into me. The Karr in front of us kept walking. I tried to think. As far as I knew, Violet had nothing to be sorry for. Had she done something I didn't know about? That... seemed very unlikely for Violet. "About what?" I finally asked.

Violet looked at me, and her jaw set. "Was thinking about how fun the fighting would be. Forgot why we were doing any of this shit at all," she muttered. "Seeing her like that pissed me off. Staring at the floor. Seriously? She should've had some smartass shit to say about what I was wearing, at least."

Ah. So that was what this was. Seeing Cordelia around her parents had upset her. It had upset me too. It was good to know I wasn't alone in that. It was also surprisingly mature. I reached out and grabbed Violet's arm. "It's fine. Don't feel guilty about having fun." Violet met my gaze. "So long as you make sure you win."

Violet smirked. "Like you need to tell me that. Just hope we aren't in the same group. Wouldn't wanna steal all your shine."

"Yeah, yeah."

The Karr ahead of us called back without turning. "Walk." We hurried to follow.

Eventually, the last of the descending staircases opened into a massive hall, and with it came more buzzing. The sound of thirty-eight children all at once. Forty, counting the two of us. The Karr turned back. "Arrived," the Karr said, and then walked past us and back up the stairs. They really were an efficient people.

The hall was maybe three times the size of my room back home. Several doors near the back led to adjacent rooms. Presumably one led up and into the arena itself. Most of the children stood in their own little knots of three or four, whispering to one another. Others were shouting and pointing. Apparently, there was already some kind of argument underway, one between a tall human boy and a short girl across the hall.

"Better hope I don't get put in with you, pointy-ear!" he said. So the girl was an Elf, then. She was too far away for me to make out her ears with my eyes alone. It was also, as far as Elves were concerned, quite a childish insult. I had read about some... interesting ones. The Elven girl started to reply. I tuned her out and scanned the room.

Everyone was wearing the same outfit. It was a dark, sleeveless tunic, belted at the waist, and every last one of them looked as if it had been stitched for the exact person wearing it. Sere would have loved this place.

It was hard to tell noble and commoner apart when they were all dressed in the same thing. I vaguely knew that at least a few of my bannermen's sons and daughters were here, though I hadn't looked too deeply into it. As far as I was concerned, Violet and Damian were enough. Come to think of it, where was Damian? There were faces I recognized well enough, because I had been looking for them. The two Nox siblings, Sharon and Aaron, stood at the far back of the room, a pocket of empty space around them.

Then something made all of the children pause and look our way. They stared. Some of them pointed. I was not entirely sure how to react. I had been stared at plenty, but every other time, I had known what to do. If a crowd was staring at me, it was either because of my status as nobility or as a Hero. All I really had to do was smile and wave. These children were looking at me because pretty soon, some of them would be in a ring with me, and we would be trying our best to beat each other. I suspected a smile and a wave was the worst thing I could possibly do. I just didn't know what to do in its place.

Vaelin stirred somewhere in my mind. Beat them. Now. The Godblade murmured. Well, I was wrong. A smile and a wave was only the second worst thing I could possibly do.

"What the fuck are you all looking at?" Violet growled, taking a step forward. "You all wanna go right now or what?!" Ah, that was right. Not all of these looks were for me.

I winced. Some of the watching children took a step back. Some others took a step forward instead. One of them, a sharp-looking girl with big dark eyes, took two. She was tall. Almost comically tall compared to everyone else, to the point where I wondered if maybe that was her Gift. I might have taken her for an examiner if she hadn't been wearing the same uniform as the rest of us.

"Eeeh? You wanna go, bitch?" she said, cracking her knuckles. "I'll take you on right now. You're that Indri heir, aren't ya?" she said, loudly. Duchess, actually. Not that anyone seemed inclined to correct her. "None of that matters in here, rich girl. Just try me. Come on." Some of the children behind her nodded along. It was apparently not an unpopular opinion.

I winced again. For if there was anyone in this world who would try exactly that, it was definitely Violet. "If those are supposed to be your last words, they're shit ones," Violet said, taking a step of her own.

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I was just reaching for her when a wall of earth split Violet and the tall girl apart. It rose from directly between them and nearly reached the ceiling. "Violet, relax, will you?" Damian said, stepping out from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. "You do know they'll disqualify us for starting anything outside the ring, right?"

I had not known that. Not that it was the kind of thing that should have needed saying. Damian wore the same tunic as everyone else. It was good to see him. He took a step toward us. The tall girl watched him come, and swung at him as he passed. I opened my mouth to say something. The girl staggered instead. She looked down at herself. Around her feet were layers of packed earth, pinning them in place. When Damian had managed that, I hadn't the faintest idea. It seemed he'd gotten better.

"Aren't you cheerful today, rockboy," Violet said, grinning. "Looks like all that training with your father actually did something."

"Well, yeah," Damian said. He gave me a small bow. "I also actually remember what we're doing all of this for. Not just here because I get a kick out of it."

"I'll have you know I remember that too," Violet said. I felt it unwise to mention that she had remembered it on the walk down.

There was a grinding sound. The tall girl had just torn free of the stone around her feet. "Don't fuck with-"

"All of you, pipe down," someone barked. "What did I say about causing disruptions before your matches?"

A man stepped in from a room on the far right side. He was tall, and wore the uniform I had seen on the examiners the day of my registration. A bright white tunic with a dark sash through the middle. In his hands, he carried a large wooden box. He surveyed the room, and the room went quiet under the surveying. "Line up. Nice and orderly. We're drawing groups."

Surprisingly, people actually listened to him, and they listened fast. Some of the children listened with obvious fear. I took that to mean something had happened before we'd even arrived. We ended up near the back of the line, by the stairs we had come in through. A few people had deliberately asked us to step in front of them, and we'd let them. They'd looked at me as they said it, as if they planned to see where I was assigned and go anywhere else. A good plan…if they could somehow manage it.

"You'll each draw a ball," he said from the front, in a voice that almost echoed off the walls. "Red is group one. Blue is group two. Green, three. Yellow, four. Take your color and stand in your line." He gestured at the empty stretches of floor beside him. "The groups fight in order, one through four. Once everyone's drawn, we'll get you your weapons. Now hurry it up. We don't want to keep the crowd waiting."

And it began. The line slowly moved, and one by one, the children split themselves into the four groups. Whether it was by sheer luck or something else, all four of the lines filled up at about the same rate.

"Think we can trick it into putting us in the same one?" Violet asked.

"There's not much to trick. Unless you can trick wood," I said. I supposed someone with a Gift that let them see through solid objects could manage it, but how they'd actually fight afterward would be a far greater concern.

The two Nox siblings were a few spots ahead of us. Neither of them had so much as met my gaze since we'd entered. After their strange declaration, I had expected them to do that much at least. The boy, Aaron Nox, went first. He put his hand inside the box and withdrew it in the same motion. His ball was yellow. Group four. He went and stood in the appropriate line, and I could not help but notice that everyone already standing in it looked significantly more nervous than they had a moment before.

Then it was his sister's turn. Hers was green. She crossed to the back of the third line, and once again, an entire group of children found something very interesting to study on the floor.

"Wouldn't mind getting in with one of them," Violet said, cracking her knuckles. "Take one of 'em out early. They think they're hot shit, don't they?"

"And what if the opposite happens?" Damian asked.

"Like hell it would. Maybe if you end up with them instead, rockboy."

Damian sighed, and the line kept moving. It was hard to say what the ideal group even was, not without knowing the strengths of everyone here. Still, with those two siblings sorted, the simplest wisdom was to avoid them both. And if all three of us somehow ended up in the same group, the whole thing would become downright trivial.

The tall girl reached the box. She was almost taller than the examiner, and he was not a small man. She pulled out blue, and stalked off to the second line, glaring at the world in general as she went.

The line moved, and finally, it was our turn. Aaron Nox's line had filled some time ago. By my count, only a single green ball remained in the box. Damian stepped forward and stuck his hand inside the box. He fished around for some time. He pulled out his hand, and with it came red. Group one. He would be fighting before any of us. He gave us a nod and went to stand in his line.

Then it was Violet's turn. The examiner looked her over. "We'll need to get you into a proper uniform, Lady Violet."

"Whatever," Violet said, and stuck her hand in. She pulled it out in the same breath, and hers was blue.

The tall girl smirked. Violet saw it, and grinned right back, wide enough to show all of her teeth. Well. At least someone was happy.

I let out a small sigh of relief all the same. They had both avoided the hard groups.

Then it was my turn. The examiner's gaze moved over me. "My Lady. Your dress."

"I know," I said, and reached inside.

Everyone was staring at me. Vaelin stirred, and I felt the Godblade lean forward. He was watching too.

Click. Click.

The whispers of the hall poured in, and there were a great many of them, and nearly all of them were about me.

"-please, gods, any color but mine-"

"-she killed a dragon. A dragon. What am I supposed to do if she-"

"-she can't use the sword, remember? She's nothing without the sword. It'll be fine. It'll be fine-"

That last boy sounded like he was trying very hard to convince himself. I turned my hearing back down. It seemed my earlier worry had been for nothing. I didn't need to smile, or wave, or do anything at all.

By my math, the chances of me getting a bad group were low. They were not low enough that I was entirely confident. My wrist gave a dull twinge as I fished around. All of the balls had a strangely soft texture, one that did not match their appearance at all.

I pulled one out, and it felt like the whole of that hall let out a breath at the same time.

The ball was green. I looked at it, and then I turned to look at the line. Group three. Everyone standing in it was staring at me with wide eyes. Everyone but one.

A girl who met my gaze for the first time today, and did it with a smile. It was a smile perhaps more dangerous than even Violet's. Hope you don't just have her fancy sword, then. Her words from the registration hall came back to me, unbidden.

Well, fuck.