Joints stiff and swollen, extremities numb, his whole body trembling with cold and dripping wet, Imalroc was ready to snap bones. These new masters of his were trying to break him in, just like all the others had. Trying to weaken him and make him pliant. By drowning him in rainwater, apparently.

He coughed against the slick wooden floor slats of the cage, cursing through chattering teeth. It was almost nightfall, and although the rain had eased, it did him little good. He was already soaked.

The long evening spent shackled in a cage had given him too much time to think. He had been close, so very fucking close, to getting out of battleboxing forever. Wester had been furious, ready to sell him off to the first person who asked. He could have been working in a field somewhere, or chipping away at an onyx mine. Any of it would have been better than battleboxing. Even the lowliest worker had a contract they could choose to break. Battleboxing was the last form of slavery left in this cursed country.

He blinked rapidly to clear the water from his eyes and stared up at the house for the thousandth time. In twilight it was a hulking shadow, with not a single candle winking from its dark depths. No one had come out or gone in since Lady Toriem had paid Rago his fee. From behind one severe corner, he could seek the peeking outline of another building, but it offered no clues. Compared to the constant bustle of Duke Wester's enormous estate, this place felt deserted.

Footsteps slapping toward his cage diverted his attention from the brooding house. He twisted his face toward the sound, wincing at the ache in his cramped neck. A tall figure moved steadily closer – the same green-cloaked man from earlier. As the man approached, he swept back his cloak to locate a key.

Imalroc's gaze tore over him, searching for weapons. He spotted the bleached white flash of what looked like a dagger hilt, but beyond that, nothing. And no servants or guards. This man was either very confident or very stupid to approach him alone. Then again, he wasn't at his most intimidating, lying in a slick, wet bundle of chains.

His last vestiges of energy pumped through him as the man drew near. Anxiety twisted like a living thing in his chest, and his skin itched everywhere that cold metal touched him. First-time handlers were notoriously violent and enthusiastically so. A chill crawled through him.

Panic would do him no favors. Imalroc stared at the bottom of the cage. He envisioned shackling the Duke of Wester in his place and setting the cage on fire. The thought wasn't nearly as satisfying as it normally was. He had a new enemy now.

The green-cloaked man stepped up beside the cage and stood over him. "All right," he said. He coughed, and when he spoke again it almost sounded as though he were trying to deepen his voice. "Imalroc. I am your handler, Rerdas Toriem. You're to do exactly as I say at all times. Understood?"

Imalroc was silent for a few heartbeats. He contemplated cursing the handler from here to Drida, but bit it back. Not the moment for defiance. "Perfectly, Master Toriem," he managed. The words stung his hoarse throat.

"Good. I'm going to blindfold you, and then the...ah...the servants and I will take you to where you're to be stabled. Any resistance, the slightest wrong move, and I'll put you right back out here for the night."

The handler seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Imalroc did not give him the satisfaction of a response. He might not be fighting back yet, but he wasn't going to fucking grovel either.

"Here we go, then," the handler muttered.

Imalroc breathed steadily. Listened to the key click into place and the bolts of the door wrench back. The thud of footsteps, just beside his knees. A thick, scratchy fabric was placed over his eyes and knotted tightly at the back of his head.

"Right," Master Toriem said. "I'll be back."

Imalroc heard him step out of the cage and march away across the courtyard.

The handler returned with help. Imalroc lay quiet, listening again as they opened the door and one of them began the work of detaching him from the cage. Needles of pain rushed up from his feet as the links around his ankles were loosened and the bar pressed between his knees was removed. He sagged into the wet planks when they finally released his head and neck, throttling his groan of relief before it could escape. Only his wrists were left manacled together.

"Time to get up." The handler gave terse instructions to the servants as he hoisted Imalroc upwards. Pain jabbed his ribs with every breath, but his head cleared a bit.

"Get his other arm," Master Toriem said. Two pairs of hands on either side of him gripped his arms and ribcage, dragging him to his feet. His throbbing joints protested the movement, but he was so cold it dulled the force of the pain.

"This way," a muffled voice said. The people on either side of him moved quickly and Imalroc stumbled between them. His wobbling legs felt too slow, as though they wouldn't quite respond to what he needed. He was fucked if he had to run at any point tonight. A door squeaked open somewhere in front of him.

"Here, I've got the lantern," someone said, striking a match. There was a long silence, broken only by the clank of the lantern being set on the ground. Imalroc took a deep breath and tasted moldy, damp air strangely flavored with fruit.

"Well...what now, sir?" a flat male voice asked.

"Now you two go back to the house. I'll lock him in."

Whoever had been holding him let go at the handler's instructions. Imalroc swayed, resisting the urge to sink to the ground. He hunched his shoulders forward and tucked his arms against his chest, trying to conserve body heat. Tremors still ran unbidden through him, but at least he managed to get his teeth to stop chattering. He heard a flurry of whispers to his right, and then the scuffle of footsteps retreating again.

There was an ominous silence. The handler was likely still in the room. Fresh waves of goosebumps rippled across his arms and he felt the squirming creep of nerves tip-tap across the back of his neck. He was in exactly the position bloodthirsty young handlers liked their battleboxers: disoriented, weakened and fearful.

"Are you going to take off the blindfold now, Master?" His voice was low and raspy, but threaded with apprehension he couldn't quite mask.

There was no answer from the handler.

Imalroc stilled himself, listening for the sound of breathing, waiting to feel the ruffle of air before a blow struck. But there was nothing. His implacable shaking was getting in the way of his focus. He lowered his head a few inches, turning, listening.

A sound tickled his ears, faint but unmistakable. It was too smooth, too constant to be an animal. The barely-there tremor of a boot sliding across the moist floor, dragging dirt with it. The handler was creeping around to his left, making a measured half circle.

Imalroc swung toward the sound and lowered himself into a defensive crouch.

The handler let out a whoosh of air. He had been holding his breath. Imalroc had yet to meet a handler who was not a fucking trickster.

"Your hearing is very good," said Master Toriem.

Imalroc ignored the spreading pain in his knees and stayed in his crouch.

"How about you stop preparing to attack me, and I take the blindfold off?" the handler offered.

Imalroc straightened, a silent grimace twisting his mouth as he stood to full height. He didn't trust this one at all. Handlers were always trying to lull a fighter into a false sense of security so they could strike. The quiet ones were usually the most cunning.

"I'm just going to undo the knot." Master Toriem came nearer with deliberate footsteps.

Tension hummed beneath his skin, nearly unbearable when he felt the handler's fingers working at the blindfold. Imalroc swiped his forearm across his eyes, knocking the cloth away. He took an immediate, instinctive stride away from his new handler, turning to eye him in the circle of lamplight.

Imalroc had known that the woman in the auction house was attractive when Wester had set his hand on her knee, but for this man he needed no such signal. Master Toriem was striking in a way that made it hard to look straight at him, for fear the look would last too long and still not be enough. Imalroc remembered what the noblewoman had said. This was her cousin the huntmaster, whom she had promised the duke had a heavy hand and knew his way with a knife.

He was like a prince from one of the old stories, with skin the color of honeyed sunlight poured over a long, graceful body. Master Toriem's posture was perfect, a product of noble etiquette training, which Imalroc knew bred straight spines and arrogance in equal measure. The bright irises of his eyes glinted a vicious green in the light. He had the same coppery curls as his cousin, the Lady Toriem. Only his hands did not fit the image of a young noble lord. They looked rough and calloused and Imalroc could make out scratches crisscrossing the backs of them.

Imalroc moved with caution, easing just outside of the handler's range. Master Toriem followed his movements with slight angles of his head and sharp eyes, but his body remained relaxed and unmoved.

Master Xavian had always maintained that the first sign of a predatory sense alive in a person was their ability to stay still. Predators were patient. They waited and observed until their moment was right. This Master Toriem was a predator. A hunter indeed.

"Have you sized me up?" the handler asked. "Come here. Let's get your wrists."

Imalroc blinked when Master Toriem stepped close to him and started to remove the manacles. In Wester's estate, his handler Master Lydak had never freed his hands without the safety of a cage wall between them. Only Master Xavian had ever trusted him to have his hands loose, and he had been a boy then. His gaze shifted around the room, trying to find whatever trap was giving the new handler such confidence.

"Better?" Master Toriem asked. He seemed to have forgotten to put on his fake gruff voice, and he sounded marginally less ridiculous.

Imalroc kept his expression blank with the ease of practice. He turned to face more of the large room in which they stood. "This is where I will live...Master?"

The room was enormous, but icy cold and damp. Drafts of cold night air leaked in from small slit windows covered with nothing but rusted gratings. The floor was stained with dark spills and coated with a grey layer of dirt. Even the bare cement chambers provided by Wester had been better than this.

"Yes, these are your quarters. But the better you do in battles, the more habitable we can make this place."

Imalroc spotted a grey square blending in with one of the far walls. It was a rumpled little bed. He moved toward it, not too quickly to keep himself from staggering, and stood over the lumpy mattress. Part of him wanted to fold to his knees and collapse on it, but he knew better than to let the handler see that. He kept himself still and straight, his teeth gritted.

Master Toriem drifted to the door. "I'll come back in a moment. Don't go to sleep in those wet clothes."

The handler vanished, and Imalroc heard a bolt scrape into place. He got up and stripped to the waist, shivering in the desolate room.

Master Toriem returned and tossed Imalroc some baggy clothing, which he scrambled into as quickly as he could. When he got the shirt over his head, he was surprised to see the handler holding out a large, steaming mug.

"Mint tea. Drink it; it'll warm you a bit," he said. Imalroc took it, his face solemn to hide his bewilderment. Master Lydeck would have knocked him sideways a half-dozen times already. Imalroc pressed his lips together and fixed Master Toriem with a narrow-eyed gaze. This one was going to be a fucking piece of work. Manipulative, maybe. Calm and warm one moment, and raging with a whip in his hands the next.

"These are from the stable, but they'll keep you warm," the handler said, reaching back to thrust a pile of heavy saddle blankets at the battleboxer, who took them warily, still waiting for the trap to clamp shut.

"Good. You're settled then. I'll see you in the morning." Master Toriem rubbed his hands together absentmindedly and moved toward the door. He stopped before he got there and turned to look back at the fighter. "Imalroc," he began, "why did you lose your last battles? What happened?"

Imalroc peered into his mug of tea for a few heartbeats before raising his hooded gaze to meet the handler's. A liberty which, strangely enough, did not seem to bother the handler. "I didn't lose."

One of Master Toriem's eyebrows arched doubtfully.

The corner of Imalroc's mouth crooked up into something that felt like a smile. "I am alive, am I not, Master?"

"I suppose you are."

"Then I didn't lose." Imalroc folded his fingers tightly around the warm mug.

The handler regarded him for a long moment with a curious glint in his eyes, before he turned away and left without another word.

Imalroc let out a heavy breath. He cradled the tea and considered his peculiar situation. Master Toriem had not even bothered to tie him up, and this room certainly was not built to imprison a battleboxer. He could probably make it through the door and back out to the courtyard, but that was next to useless. Escaping the city without help was impossible. Too many knew him as a fighter, he'd be recognized at once, and there would be no mercy once caught. He needed patience, and to find the chinks in whatever armor these new owners wore.

They were strange, and they did not seem to know what they were getting by purchasing his contract. If he stayed quiet and compliant, they might not think to take away the small freedoms they had already thoughtlessly granted. They were treating him like a pet. As if they could buy his loyalty with food, like a dog.

Imalroc stood with the mug in hand. He went to one of the corners and turned the mug upside down, watching the liquid splash onto the stone. It was a waste of good tea, but it gave him some small pleasure.

He was certain he could survive whatever beating the handler eventually gave him. Imalroc had wormed his way out from beneath Wester's thumb. He could find a way to escape these noble bastards too.

Rerdas returned to the garden house to find Hammond in the main room, carefully polishing a set of fine silver goblets. The old butler did not look up from his task while Rerdas thumped into a chair.

"What are these, Hammond?" Rerdas touched one of the goblets. They were beautifully designed, but the silver was tarnished, obscuring the crest stamped into each one.

"Found them when I was going through the attic in the great house. They belonged to Lady Uralta's father. Commemorative goblets for some celebration or another. They're a little heavy for today's fashions, but Earl Heckly might be able to get us a good price for them. It'll hold us over for a little while, at least."

"That's good." Rerdas sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyeing the butler. "What do you think about this battleboxing idea Etiana's got?"

"I fear...I fear that Milady's enthusiasm may have blinded her." Hammond pursed his lips, and then continued. "It is extremely risky. And not just in terms of what happens if he fails to win battles. This man she has purchased...he has a great deal of anger and very little to lose. A volatile creature, I think."

"He didn't seem too bad earlier."

"Sir." Hammond set the goblet he was polishing down and raised his eyebrows at Rerdas. "Imalroc could kill you a hundred different ways without lifting a weapon. He awaits whatever opportunity you give him."

"I'm more afraid that he's going to lose again. We can't recover from that."

"Then let us hope for the best," Hammond responded. He sounded like he was expecting the worst.

"Did Etiana go to bed?" Rerdas asked, standing.

"I believe she went to check on her mother first."

"All right. Goodnight, Hammond."

"Goodnight, sir," the butler said, reverting to the traditional exchange without a shred of irony. Hammond was an excellent butler, but he was far more than that now. It took a true friend to remain in the service of an estate so close to collapse.

Rerdas padded down the hall and knocked at the door to Uralta's room before stepping inside. Etiana sat in a chair, leaning toward the occupant of the bed.

Lady Uralta Toriem lay in an unnervingly still sleep. Her jaw was slack and her thin chest barely rose and fell beneath the layers of blankets covering her. Her hair had been carefully brushed back and woven in a loose grey braid, a few strands drifting down across her waxy skin and jutting cheekbones.

The huntmaster clutched the doorway until his fingers ached. His aunt had been like this for so long, and yet the sight still shocked him. It did not seem possible that the woman who had saved and sheltered him could be dying. She was wasting away from them, slipping through their fingers like fine sand.

"How is she?" Rerdas asked.

"Better, since Hammond gave her the tea."

"That's good."

"I know you're worried about the fighter. I know it's an absurd gamble," Etiana said suddenly. "But you must understand...I had to do something." She looked away from him and stared down at her mother, lifting her chin as she spoke.

"I know. You're right, anyway, about the money running out. I just wish...I wish it weren't this way," he said. Not with manacles and chains and a blank-faced man who seemed to be waiting for something to hit him.

"It's going to work. How soon can you have him in fighting shape?"

"Well..." Rerdas shrugged. He couldn't pretend to know the first thing about preparing a battleboxer."I suppose it depends on the extent of his injuries, if he is indeed injured. If there's nothing too serious, I'd say we'll need at least until Red King's Eve."

"That's perfect." Etiana summoned a strained smile. "You focus on the fighter. I will prepare the fight."

"You know what Heckly will say," Rerdas said. "Red King's Eve is not a good time for a battle. Bad luck."

Etiana's smile did not warm the icy hunger in her eyes. "Then we are fortunate that our future rests on the edge of a blade, and not on a deck of cards."