Venture shook his head. “I can’t think about that right now.”
“I think about it all the time. I can’t get it out of my head. I saw it. I saw everything.”
“Leave the past in the past! My future is on the line.”
“That’s enough!” Earnest said. “Justice, I’m sorry, but you have to go. He isn’t going to change his mind. He’s going out there. Do you want to mess with his head some more and make it harder than it has to be for him to win? How could you lay something like that on him right now?”
Justice ignored Earnest. He lowered his voice. “You don’t want to back out? Fine, I understand that, Vent. But there’s another way. Your match against Calling Fox. He’s a tough fighter, with much more experience. No one would think anything of it if you didn’t win.”
For a moment Venture just stood there, feeling the outrage well up inside as Justice’s meaning sunk in. “I will not throw a match, not for Calling Fox, not for
anyone
.” He turned his back on Justice and struggled to calm himself.
Earnest whispered, “Don’t let him get you all riled up. Just because Justice’s head’s all messed up doesn’t mean yours has to be. Just put it away for now and work through it later, after you’ve done what you came here to do today.”
But Justice reached for Venture’s shoulder, compelling Venture to turn around and look at him. “Please, Vent, I’m begging you. This isn’t just another fight, not for Fisher. You being here must have something to do with him coming out of retirement. He must know who you are.”
Venture didn’t mention that he knew for a fact that Fisher knew whose son he was. That he didn’t doubt Fisher would like to give him the pounding of his life. But that was no reason for a professional fighter to bail out of a match, and bailing out was no way to deal with a man like Fisher. He needed to keep his head and he needed to beat him. The worst nightmares of his past and his future were about to follow him onto the mat, in the arena, in his final match of the Championship—if he even made it that far. And that’s what he had to worry about right now. Winning the next match.
“Look,” Venture said, “I know it’s hard for you. Me doing this, being a fighter, and now Fisher. I get it. He’s not going to make it easy on me. But it’s still just a fight, whether he hates me or not. This isn’t a barn. No one’s armed. We’ve got officials, healers, guards. This is the Championship, Justice!”
Justice just kept shaking his head the whole time, as if Venture were the one losing his mind.
“If you don’t want to watch,” Venture said with finality, “I’ll understand.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The heat in the arena had made it impossible for the core of Venture’s body to cool down during his half-hour break. Though he’d been doused with cold water, his fresh clothes were already sticking to him with sweat. As he approached his line, he swiped his palm over his dripping face. Gingerly, he touched his swollen ear, which had rubbed too hard against an opponent’s shoulder, and wondered whether it had gotten any bigger. It hurt like it had.
His elbow was a mess, but he was hiding it well. His arm had done everything he’d asked it to today; though the pain screamed out at him, he’d ignored all his body’s protests, all of Earnest’s warnings, and fought on the best way he knew how. The rest of him felt good, strong. He burned within and was lit up without by the searing fire of hard work and victory, for he had four matches down, and only two to go. Now he must face one of his toughest matches, his friend, Calling Fox.
When the whistle blew, the men exchanged a few jabs, and then Venture grabbed Calling around the upper leg with both of his hands in an attempt to take him down, but Calling kept his balance on one foot. Unwilling to give up, Venture let go with one hand and took hold of Calling around the waist, picking his whole body up off the ground and driving him down to the mat.
He landed between Calling’s legs, and the older fighter immediately took the opportunity to take Venture’s right arm, holding it against his chest, moving to lock it in place with his powerful legs. Venture sucked his arm back in toward his own chest just as quick, so he could keep it bent; it must be straight in order to be broken. But as he yanked it in, an agonizing, audible rip went through his elbow. Calling gave him a look that said,
Please, Vent, just tap
, and Venture knew that he had heard it too.
There would be no tapping now. Venture had already pulled his arm back into a safe position as his tissues tore. Sweat poured down his face, and he wanted to scream, wanted to get up and yell and kick something, but Calling wasn’t done fighting for the Championship and neither was he. He moved to try to hold Calling down for a moment, so he could have a moment to push back the pain, but Calling easily rose out from under him and up to his feet.
Venture reacted quickly and stood with him, keeping in contact with him. Reaping one of Calling’s legs out from underneath him with his leg, he managed to take him back down. This time he maneuvered behind Calling’s back, with his legs wrapped around his body, slipping his hands in for a choke from the rear. He was almost there. The crowd hushed in anticipation. Venture felt the win just a breath away, when the pain coursed through his elbow with a renewed sharpness.
For an instant he lost all strength, all control in his right arm, and Calling reversed position on him and got on his feet again, this time leaving Venture on his back. The crowd roared. Calling’s foot came stomping down at Venture. From his back, Venture fended off feet and fists; if he rose, one of them would catch him square in the jaw, and that would be the beginning of the end of this fight.
Venture caught one of the feet coming at him, managing to keep it and pull Calling down to the mat. He tried unsuccessfully to lock the ankle, but to his advantage, ended up on top, with Calling’s legs wrapped around him.
Here we go again
, he thought, as he secured his arm under Calling’s head and began to work for a choke. How many times had Calling escaped Venture’s weakened ability to hold him down? How much more could he make his body do?
But Venture noticed a growing raggedness of Calling’s breath, a slight softening of his strength. He’d fought just as hard as Venture had for his wins all day—perhaps harder—and he was no longer a youth. Calling Fox was getting tired. The realization brought a surge of hopeful power and a renewed hunger for the win flooding through Venture. While he used his left to punch Calling in the face and hold back his grasping hands, he squeezed Calling’s head harder with his right arm, forcing whatever remained of it to work, ignoring the onset of pain-induced nausea.
He worked his knee into Calling’s gut with a painful thrust, until he had his leg free. He grasped Calling’s arm with his free one and stuffed it over his face. Then, holding it in place with his head, he worked his hands that last, nearly impossible half an inch closer, until he could lock them together, walking his legs toward Calling’s head and putting his full strength into the choke. Calling tapped, and it was over.
As Venture stood on the line, listening to the announcement of his name as victor, Calling held out his hand. Venture forced his arm to do one more thing—to rise and shake it. And for just the briefest moment, he regretted that he’d had to win this match. Calling would not win this year; chances were that now he never would. He was a superb fighter, a great leader of his team, a good man, but he was twenty-eight years old.
When he stepped off the mat, Venture immediately snatched the towel Earnest offered him. He held it to his face to hide the sheer agony expressed there.
“Did you tear it the rest the way through?” Earnest whispered.
“I think so,” he said through the towel.
Venture lowered the towel from his face, and there was Grant Fieldstone, standing right in front of them. Venture straightened up outwardly, in defiance of the sudden sagging of his insides.
“Sir,” he said, breaking the stony silence.
Grant was apparently alone; there were no lawmen in sight. Though Venture had said nothing to his friends about his master coming for him, nothing about what had happened before he left, the tension between them was evident, and Dasher, Earnest, and Chance instinctively drew away from them.
“We need to talk,” Grant said.
“In here.” Venture led him behind the partition.
“This is a dangerous place for you to be, Venture.” Grant kept his voice low. “It’s too bad they won’t let you have your sword in here—the one Jade gave you.”
Venture stiffened.
He knows about the weapons?
He didn’t like Grant’s tone. Perhaps he ought to take it as a threat. “I don’t need them,” he said, letting the towel drop and holding up his open hands. “I have these. You wanted me to be able to use these like no other man in the world.” Then, letting his temper get the better of him, he leaned forward, saying, “For what? For what?”
“So you could have a better life!”
“A better life? As long as it isn’t a life with Jade?” Venture felt the tears forming in his eyes as the pain of Grant’s disapproval mingled with the physical pain of his injury, and he blinked them back determinedly. “You were good to me once. I admired you.”
“And you were honest once. I trusted you.”
“Well,” Venture said, forcing himself to back off and regain his appearance of calm. “The past is the past. I have the future to think about.” He gestured toward the arena, where his final match against Will Fisher would soon take place. “Why are you here?”
“When you left, you said you wouldn’t be back until you were Champion of All Richland. I came to tell you not to bother coming back.”
Venture kept his match face on while he waited for Grant to get to whatever he was getting at. He knew, from the quiet rage rumbling beneath Grant’s calm demeanor, that it wasn’t good.
“I’m not here to stop you from fighting.”
No?
“You win this thing, and I’ll let you buy your freedom. You lose, and you are coming with me—but not back to Twin Rivers. I’ll make arrangements for someone else to take you on, for you to finish your service elsewhere.”
“You think I’m not going to win this thing. That I’ll go out there and lose and while I’m off working myself into the ground for some stranger, you’ll send Jade off to work making babies for some man she doesn’t love and call it a marriage!”
“How dare you!”
Venture closed the space between them in one quick motion, leaning too close to Grant’s face, every muscle tense with the threat to strike. “How dare
you!
”
“Let me remind you,” Grant said, without so much as a blink, “that I can call the guards in here and have you handed over to the lawmen and thrown in the lockup in an instant.”
Venture forced himself to take a step back.
“Now you stand there and you listen to what I have to say!” Grant said, as though he hadn’t already said enough. “I won’t compromise my family’s reputation by making a public spectacle of this. I’m not going to involve the lawmen. I’m not going to report you, for leaving, for threatening me, for the weapons. And I won’t stop you from fighting. I’ve thought about it a lot since you left. I always told you I would support you in this. I can’t let what you’ve done . . . I won’t go back on my word. ”
Venture’s anger began to level off. But what was he here for, then?
“So go out there and fight and win your prize. But Jade isn’t going to be that prize. Do you understand me?”
Of course. This was all about Jade. He was good enough to be Champion of All Richland, but he wasn’t good enough for Jade. “Shouldn’t that be up to—”
“None of this
should be
at all! The mess you two have made! Let Jade have the life she was raised for, the only life she’s prepared for, and you go and have yours.”
Grant reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of yellowed paper. He unfolded it, and Venture stopped breathing. It was the contract his mother had signed, bonding him.
“You win, you pay me what you owe me, and you give me your word that you’ll take the rest of your winnings and go make a life for yourself somewhere else, without my daughter. You promise me you’ll stay away from Jade, and I’ll tear this thing up.”
“I’ll never make that promise. Never.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand that it’s my choice whether to allow a servant who has defied me and abandoned his duties to buy his way out of service to my house.”
Venture felt like he’d been punched in the chest, like the little partitioned room was suddenly devoid of air.
Grant slipped the contract back into his pocket. “Think about it,” he said. Then he slid the partition door open and left.
Venture brought his hand over his eyes, squeezing his temples.
Oh, God, help me. My arm doesn’t even work. It’s done. But I’m done if I can’t do this.
If he lost, would Grant really refuse to release him? Would he really rent him out like some kind of animal? If he won, would Grant refuse to let him buy his way out if he wouldn’t stay away from Jade? What about Jade? Grant had legal authority over her for another year, and that was a long time to wait. But would he go further than that? Marry her off so that Venture could never have her? He wouldn’t have thought so, but then he hadn’t thought Grant would handle learning about their relationship quite like this.
When he’d collected himself, Venture stepped out to rejoin the others. He had a match to prepare for—the match of his life.
“You heard?”
“We heard enough, Champ.”
Earnest was watching Grant walk away, looking like he wanted to kill him on Venture’s behalf. When he turned his eyes to Venture, Venture saw the worry and the hurt there, too. He should’ve told Earnest, and then listened to his advice. Waited. He’d screwed everything up. This was the day he’d been dreaming of for so long, the day everything was supposed to come together, and now everything was falling apart instead.
“Earnest—”
“Stop. You’re going to fight. That’s all I want you thinking about right now. Worry about what happens afterward, afterward.”
“I can’t turn my back on her.”
“I know, Vent.” Earnest, standing behind Chance with a hand on each of his shoulders, pulled the kid a little closer.