I waited for the first slave to usher the pleasure slaves and servants out of the Champion’s Chamber. The sexy, busty slave girl gave me one last confused glance before the door closed and the bolt slid into place. Then I rushed over to hug Inda.

  At least, I would have hugged her. But she held the iron pitcher full of water in front of her like a shield, blocking me from getting too close. So, I settled on placing my hands on her slender arms as I smiled down at her.

  “How have you been?”

  She kept her eyes down at the floor between us without replying.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “That was a stupid question. Of course, things are bad. I just meant, are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”

  Silence.

  Her silence and lack of eye contact were making me uncomfortable. I wondered what they did to her while I was captured and fighting in an arena. How long was I unconscious?

  I continued, “I spoke to Dacrah a little bit before the fight. He said you were all captured after I was knocked out, but he didn’t know where they took you or the rest of your family.”

  More silence. This time, matched with a scowl.

  “Are you OK? I get the feeling you’re mad at me about something.”

  She lifted her gaze to mine, and for the first time, I could see her face up close. She had angular features framed by glossy black hair that hung down long and straight. Her skin had a coppery brown color I had never seen on the surface world, and the bright blue fabric of the sash wrapped around her body enhanced its beauty. Her skin tone, along with her East Asian features and bright green eyes, made her the most exotic and beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  Unfortunately, she was currently glaring at me.

  She asked, “Is Inda, daughter of Graed, chieftain of the Roaring Hoof Tribe, now a whore to be used for your pleasure?”

  “Uh…no! Why would you…”

  I let my words trail off as I realized why she was angry. She thought I was serious about ‘picking’ her after the first slave introduced the pleasure slaves. I wasn’t quite ready to think of them as whores because prostitutes get paid.

  I continued, “No, I just picked you so we could talk in private. I just didn’t want them to think we were…you know…together.”

  “So you do not find me pleasing, after all? You are ashamed to be seen with me?”

  The conversation wasn’t going as I had hoped. I just seemed to make her mad no matter what I said. It reminded me of the one girlfriend I had in high school.

  “No, I do! I mean, I don’t. I mean…you’re really pleasing. I just didn’t want you to think that I was…” I wasn’t certain how to continue the conversation, so I decided to change the subject. “You know, let’s just eat something. I haven’t eaten since…well, a very long time.”

  I turned towards the plate of food and sat down cross-legged on the floor next to it. I looked over the strange fruits and was trying to decide if I wanted to actually eat meat that I couldn’t identify.

  “You are injured,” she said.

  I looked over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see the cut across my back that Zusz left me during the fight. I still felt its sting every time I moved. But I’ve played through worse injuries than that.

  “Yeah, he got me towards the end there. He was faster than I—“

  “I will tend to your wounds.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. I think I’ll be—“

  “Nonsense,” she said as she walked over to one of the shelves and looked through the jars. She opened a few, smelled them, and put them back until she found one she was satisfied with.

  “What’s that?” I asked as she kneeled behind me.

  “I believe it is an ointment of the kousa root. At least, that is what it smells like.”

  “What’s it for?

  “Well, it is not for eating, which is what you should be doing.”

  My grumbling stomach agreed with her, so I reached for what looked like a turkey leg, if the bird was six feet tall. As I smelled the meat to make sure it wasn’t gamey, I felt her fingers pluck at the straps of the gladiator costume the Vajizk gave me to wear before the fight. She slipped the leather straps off my torso, leaving me in the short leather ‘skirt’.

  I tried to focus on the food and not the touch of her fingers on my bare skin. As I took a bite, I gasped at the hot sting on my back.

  “Do not cry like a child,” she said. “It is not a deep cut.”

  “You know this little outfit they gave me isn’t really armor, right?” I said through a mouthful of poultry, “It barely counts as clothing.”

  “Hm,” she replied absently as she smeared the burning paste on my wound.

  I continued, “There was nothing stopping Zusz’s blade from cutting me to ribbons. If I had run a little slower, then I would have ended up being one of those skins dangling from the ceiling.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Because I’m so fast and strong?”

  “Because your skin would not make for an interesting trophy.”

  I took another bite of bird leg and smiled to myself as she admonished me. At least she was talking to me again.

  We sat in silence for a moment longer. The smell and taste of food helped me ignore the burning sensation on my open wound. I was ravenous, so I continued to eat all the meat. I was reluctant to try the fruit and vegetables because I didn’t know what might be poisonous. Inda and all of the other slaves I had seen appeared to be human, but that didn’t mean that we had the same physiology.

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  Inda finished putting the ointment on my wound before speaking again.

  “No,” she said flatly.

  “No?” I asked, confused because I hadn’t asked her a question. “No, what?”

  “No, they did not hurt me.”

  I think I sighed with relief. “That’s good. What happened to your father and brother?”

  “I do not know. They may have been taken to the mines.”

  I didn’t know which mines she was referring to, but I doubt it was a good outcome. I know people used to die in coal mines in Appalachia all the time, and that was with modern equipment and some attempts at safety. I doubt the reptilian Vajizk would give a damn if some humans died in a mine.

  “I’ll get them out,” I said.

  I said with the same conviction I had when I told Dacrah that I’d find his family. I meant it, though I had no reason to. I was just as much of a prisoner as she was. The only difference between our predicaments was that I was in the Champion’s Chamber. But it was just a nicer cage than what I had before.

  “If you can find them,” she said, “then save them. Don’t bother with me.”

  “Why? I’m sure they won’t leave without you.”

  “I am the reason we were captured.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as I turned around to face her.

  She was looking down, and I could see her eyes scanning the stone floor as if there was some kind of answer there for her. Then, she lifted her face to look out the window where the cylindrical towers stood.

  “It doesn’t matter now. If you can save them, then do so. I deserve this fate.”

  I took her hand and lightly squeezed it to get her attention. When she turned her gaze towards mine, her bright green eyes were wet with tears that had not yet fallen.

  “No one deserves to be a slave,” I said. “You are Inda, daughter of Graed, chieftain of the Roaring Hoof Tribe. And you deserve to be free.”

  Her eyes searched mine and saw the same inexplicable conviction I felt in my voice and words. In that moment, I just hoped I could live up to them.

  She smiled the same radiant smile I remembered when I caught her watching me as I fought the Sathogs on the ship. I smiled back.

  “Very well, then,” she said as she closed the lid on the jar of ointment.

  Seeing that she seemed a little less despondent, I took another bite of the prehistoric turkey leg.

  “This is pretty good. Do you know what it’s called?”

  “That is gnadi. We feed it to our dogs.”

  I thought about that as I looked at my half-eaten bird leg. Then I shrugged a little. I supposed I shouldn’t expect that the Vajizk would serve the Hollow Earth version of filet mignon to one of their slaves, even if he was the Champion of Sarisa. Whatever that meant.

  Inda stood up, but a little too quickly. Perhaps she forgot about the bowl-shaped floor, but she lost her footing and fell backwards. As she did, the jar of ointment flew from her fingers and dropped towards my head. The second it traveled downward from the top of its arc towards my skull, time seemed to slow down for me.

  From my perspective, my mind was still processing everything that was happening, and my body moved at my normal speed as I jumped to catch her. I didn’t even feel like I was rushing.

  But Inda’s face held all the surprise that comes with a fall, even a small one. Her eyes flared wide, and her lips were just starting to open in what I expected would be some kind of shout of alarm. I could see the progress of the jar and her body toward their inevitable descent to the stone floor. But they moved so slowly that by the time I was on my feet, they had fallen only a few inches.

  I moved to her side, out of the way of the falling jar, and cradled her body in one arm. Once I felt I was in a good position to catch her, I wrapped the fingers of my free hand around the jar. The instant I contacted her and the jar, her motion seemed to revert to normal for me.

  “Oh!” she cried out.

  She looked around confused as she processed what had happened. I suppose from her perspective, she had just started to fall, and then was suddenly in my arms. I smiled down at her.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

  She smiled up at me, and I saw an expression in her eyes. I don’t have a lot of experience with women, but even I can recognize the gaze a woman gives when she wants something romantic from her man. She held that look for a moment, but then her face grew hard again.

  “Well? Release me now,” she said. I opened my mouth to speak, but she shouted, “Take your hands off me!”

  Now I was the one confused. She demanded that I let her go, but was making no moves to get away from me. Her emotions seemed to constantly shift between hot and cold, and I didn’t know what to expect from her next. But I lifted her to stand on her feet and then took a step back.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Do not touch me like that ever again!”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts, which caused them to lift. The way they almost fell out of the linen sash wrapped around her made me think she was intentionally putting them on display. My eyes lingered on her curves and the beautiful contrast of the blue cloth against her coppery skin.

  I just didn’t know what she wanted from me. Her face and words were angry, but the rest of her seemed teasing. In the end, I believed what she said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.”

  I took the jar of ointment and placed on the shelf where she found it.

  “Well…good!” she said.

  “Let’s just eat. I’m sure you’re hungry too, right?”

  I took my seat next to the tray of food and scooted over a little so she could sit next to me. She paused for a moment before sitting across from me. Her eyes watched me as she plucked up a red fruit that looked like a mixture of an apple and a banana, but smelled like neither.

  For long moments, we continued to eat in silence. I finished all the meat and even tried some of the bread. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much food in one sitting before.

  Her eyes always watched me, and though I didn’t say or do anything except eat, her expression fluctuated between confusion and anger. And she seemed to get angrier by the moment.

  I was tired of trying to figure her out. I was tired in general. Once I had eaten the last loaf of bread, I felt my arms and legs get very heavy. I felt like I was drugged, but I knew I was just exhausted from everything.

  I really wanted to sleep, but the sun was still up. It was always up. There wasn’t a dark spot in the room, and because the sun was always at the highest point in the sky, no shadows ever moved across the chamber to create a place of darkness where I could sleep. With no better options, I moved to lie down in the bowl in the center of the room with my feet pointing down at the center.

  “What are you doing?” Inda asked.

  “I need to get some sleep.”

  “Sleep? Now?”

  “Yeah, other than being knocked unconscious a couple of times, I haven’t slept in…well, a long time.”

  “Sleep is what you want right now?” she asked.

  I could hear some sort of frustration in her voice, but I was already feeling my eyes close. I nodded as I placed one strap from my gladiator costume over my eyes to act as a sleep mask to block out the incessant light from the orange sun.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “You can have the rest of it.” I waved my hand at the tray.

  She made some sort of sound, like a huff, but I wasn’t really paying attention. After eating all that food, and fighting for my life twice in one day, a day that literally never ended, I was too exhausted to ask what she was huffing about. I would have forced myself to stay awake and ask, if I knew what she was going to do next.