Page 15 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)
He glared at her. “More than I care to admit.” Then, he glanced at me. “Jenny, have you had much food this morning?”
Seemed a strange question. “Some. Why?”
His lips pursed into a grim line. “Because I had hoped to prevent you from vomiting.”
I set my bread down, my stomach flipping, but I supposed I had to face reality at some point. “Time for our torture, then?”
He exhaled a harsh sigh. “In a manner of speaking.”
Longshot’s brows furrowed with worry, and even Rhonda seemed concerned about Malice’s dark mood. “What has you ruffled like a jem’hora, Mal?”
“The avatar Justice has announced for Illiapol,” he grated out.
Surge, the first to seemingly figure out what he meant by that, gasped, his eyes rounding. “It’s not possible.”
“What’s not possible?” I asked, glancing around the table in confusion.
But seconds later, Longshot, Discord, and Tiger also seemed to understand what Mal was referring to.
Next to me, Tiger’s entire body tensed up, his hands curling into fists on the table. “Justice cannot do that! She’s a human! Isn’t there something in the law—”
“Are you going to tell the Ruler of Orhon he can’t do what he wants, boy?” Mal snapped.
“What is it that he wants?” I asked, completely lost.
“ You ,” Tiger spat, his voice full of rage. “He wants you to be the Illiamor avatar.” Then he turned to Mal for confirmation. “Doesn’t he?”
Mal couldn’t look at me. “Yes.”
Given the previous night’s discussion, I thought I knew what that meant. But I needed to hear the exact words. “Justice wants me to be the… guest of honor at the Illiapol feast?”
Mal nodded shortly. “You are set to run the trial of Illiamor. Whether you end up as the guest of honor remains to be seen.”
My entire body chilled at the realization. I’ll be dead. And people are going to eat me . After everything they had told me about that abhorrent holiday, those words spun in a terrifying loop through my head.
“Don’t give her hope, Mal,” Discord said, her face as close to sympathetic as she was probably capable. “Don’t pretend she’s not going to end up filleted. It’s cruel. Even for you.”
He whirled on her, his expression brimming with anger. “And why would I encourage her to give up, Discord?”
She jerked her chin at me. “Look at her. You think she’s a fighter?”
Everyone at the table glanced at me. Tears streamed down my cheeks before I realized they’d started. I’ll be dead. And people are going to eat me.
Mal focused on my face. “Are you a fighter, Jenny?” he asked, his voice quiet, but intense.
“I’ll be dead,” I mumbled, unable to get those awful thoughts out of my brain. “And people are going to eat me.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Discord grabbed his forearm, “Mal—”
“What?” he snarled at her.
“Do you actually mean for her to fight the hunters?”
“Justice has given her some considerations to make this trial more fair, being that she’s a human,” Mal said, his voice more controlled now, though his eyes betrayed the turmoil roiling inside him.
“It’s going to cause an uproar, but he is postponing the official holiday by an extra five days for her to prepare herself to die, which is strangely considerate for him.
But, I’ve been thinking…instead of spending those days contemplating your death, you could use the extra time to train.
Most avatars get a four hour head start.
Justice was going to give her six. I managed to get him to agree to twelve, on account of your short legs. ”
I stared at him in shock, still trying to process…everything.
“I know it’s not much, Jenny,” he continued, raw sincerity in his voice. “But it’s something. I don’t know you, Tiger, but you seem capable, like you might have some combat skills. If the five of us work together for the next ten days, we can train her and she might actually make it out alive.”
The throbbing behind my eyes returned. My mouth felt like sandpaper, so I took another drink of my coffee before I asked, “Is Illiapol actually winnable?”
“Silence Bateen won it when she was sixteen,” Tiger quietly said.
I wiped my face dry of tears and remembered to pretend I hadn’t met her, since she was supposed to be dead. “Was she some kind of track and field star or something?”
Tiger shook his head. “Not at all. Just a regular princess.”
I laughed dryly. “Never thought I’d hear the phrase regular princess .”
“So it is winnable,” Longshot said encouragingly. “Which means there is but one path before you. Train. Hard. Fight your way through and win Illiapol and defeat the man who wants you dead. Were you to win, Jenny, it would guarantee your freedom from the red order issued against you.”
I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Longshot is right,” Mal cut in. “The reason you two were arrested is because there was a red order for you both. A red order means an unclassed person is wanted in connection to the serious crimes of a classed person, usually their boss or accomplice. However, were you to win Illiapol, you would be immune from a red order, because you would become classed.”
Tiger growled beneath his breath. “Justice gave us to you for you to torture, right, Malice?”
“Yes, but—”
He was so angry on my behalf that he was nearly shaking. “Is this a new kind of torture? Tell Jenny she’s the avatar and torment her through your so-called training for days, giving her hope, only to execute her in the end anyway? That’s the plan, right?”
Mal’s eyes bore into Tiger. “It must be terrifying to be you, Orne. The constant fear...” He exhaled a breath. “I do not wish to diminish my reputation, however, even I would not formulate a torture so cruel as to give Jenny hope for ten days, then take it away from her.”
“Then why haven’t you been torturing us since we arrived here?” Tiger asked furiously. “Why are you treating us like guests?”
“Because I don’t want to torture you,” Mal replied simply.
There was no guile in his indigo eyes or the set of his strong jaw.
“You are an employee beneath Deacon Ladrang, the son of a respected general who my former guardian executed. Not a pair of murderers. I don’t have a problem with you.
Jenny, I don’t even know how you fit into all of this.
Not really. So, I certainly don’t have a problem with you, either. ”
“But as executioner, isn’t it your job to mete out Justice’s rulings?” Tiger asked with less vitriol.
“It is,” Mal admitted. “I sit on the council. Have since I was a teenager. I am Justice Bateen’s right hand, the man he trusts above all others.
I take care of the ugly side of ruling for him.
I am privy to state secrets that could shame the worst of us.
Neither of you should be important enough to warrant a red order.
It is beyond overkill, which leads me to believe there is far more to this than Justice is willing to tell me.
If he’s not willing to tell me, then fuck him. ”
Longshot glanced at Mal. “Do you mean those words?”
Mal nodded once. “There is more here than what he’s telling me. Since he did not offer the information, I was forced to ask. He disregarded my question entirely. I mean to find out what is happening.”
“I’m in,” Discord said with a gleam in her eye.
“So am I,” Surge added.
“As am I,” Longshot said.
Mal’s eyes widened in surprise. “Even you?”
Longshot gave him a solemn look. “I have long suspected Justice has been hiding things from the court. A red order on these two—” he shook his head at us, “—is laughable. They’re not hardened criminals, that much is obvious.
If he is afraid of them, then he is slipping.
A ruler who is slipping is no longer a ruler the people will trust or respect.
He is at the precipice of his people’s downfall, unless we act now. ”
Finally, Mal turned to me again. “Jenny, are you willing to train?”
I swallowed hard, considering my options. “What if…I didn’t participate in Illiapol? If I got there and just stood at the start and didn’t run, didn’t fight, or anything? It’s no fun for them if I don’t run, right?”
Surge said, “Were you not to run, instead of chasing you, they would torture you. Horribly. They would brutalize you, heal you, and do it all over again. For as long as it entertained them. Until you begged for death. Then, they would execute you in the worst way they could imagine.”
My stomach twisted violently and it was all I could do not to throw up my bread and coffee. “Then, I guess I’d better train.”