The Mercenary's Bounty by Kristen Banet

Author:Kristen Banet [Banet, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-15T05:00:00+00:00

21

Trevan

Trevan practiced against the dummy full of straw, knowing there was nothing else he could do except keep his training sharp. The sun beat down on him, every second draining his energy. It was only the afternoon training. He was still going to need to make it through dinner and the evening training.

And then I’ll need to find a place to hide. It’s been five days since they cornered me for a beating. They’re probably getting antsy again.

Trevan didn’t have much hope that he would be able to avoid them forever. Eventually, the Andinna were going to turn their sights back on him, but thankfully, they’d had new gladiators for the last couple of days to keep them preoccupied. He’d seen it as a guard. Newcomers were always hazed and harassed in the beginning. He just hoped one of them would end up causing more trouble and keeping the heat away from him for just a little longer.

As the only Elvasi in the pits as another slave, it was all he could hope for. A little more time.

He beat the wooden training sword into the dummy harder. At least he could heal nearly as fast as the Andinna. They took their healing sleep for granted. Elvasi had the same, but the Elvasi weren’t made for war and combat the way the winged warriors were. He could heal much faster than a human, but bruises didn’t always disappear overnight for him. He still had evidence of the last beating he’d gotten.

Why don’t they just kill me?

Trevan asked himself that a lot. He knew the Empress was cruel. She wanted him to suffer. She wanted him to break under the weight of being a slave, unprotected from those who had all the right to hate him. He just wasn’t sure why the Andinna hadn’t killed him yet. Were they told not to? Were they toying with him? Were they hoping he would gain a shred of hope at surviving, then end him?

He had no hope of escaping. He had no hope it would end any time soon. He wasn’t even sure why he was training so hard.

He leaned against the dummy at the end of his forms, out of ideas about what to do. The lenasti ignored him, yelling at the Andinna. The guards whispered at him, some cursing his name. They would beat him again soon, and he didn’t have much of a chance at hiding from them. They could just order him to stay still and there wouldn’t be much he could do about it.

He’d always thought the Champion had been alone in the pits, but looking back, he realized she had kept herself that way. The lenasti, the trainers, they had liked her a little. She was still a slave, but she was a well-behaved one, and the best gladiator in the pits. She brought them glory. The guards who had been around as long as him, they knew her as the one who didn’t cause them trouble, unless they caused her trouble.

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