Chương 96: Chapter 95 – The Other Cat

They got seats near the front an hour before the horn, which on a semifinal morning meant getting there while the stands were still two-thirds empty and the vendors were still setting up their oil drums. The whole lower tier smelled like scorched sugar and lamp oil and, underneath both, the flat mineral smell of raked sand that never quite left the arena no matter how many days ran through it.

"Front row for a fight we've got no stake in," Duncan said, settling in beside Rowan with the satisfaction of a man who'd decided a good seat counted as its own kind of victory.

"Feels almost decadent."

"We've got a stake in it." Kalsar didn't sit so much as arrange himself, forearms on his knees, already watching the empty sand like the fighters were late.

"Whoever wins this walks onto that strip against Mahkir tomorrow. I want to see what we're dealing with before we're dealing with it." Ray dropped down on Ant's other side with Striata settling against his leg, tail moving slow and steady the way it always did when she was paying real attention.

"Marigolds," he said, like the word itself explained everything, which by this point in the tournament it more or less did.

"Four years unbeaten and everyone still lines up to watch them do it again," Ant said. Ray didn't come back with anything clever, which told Ant more than if he had — none of the usual flourish, none of the big words.

"You don't hold a bracket that long by getting lucky in the semis. Not once, and definitely not four times running." Andy came up the row a minute later with Hexa's absence sitting where Hexa usually sat — no fight for her to be at, nothing to scout for her own sake, but he'd come anyway, and he took the space next to Kalsar without a word about why.

Rebekah slid in on Ant's far side almost the same moment, bow across her back even though there was nothing here for her to shoot, and bumped his shoulder with hers just once, light, before she settled.

"You're allowed to breathe," she said.

"It's not your fight yet."

"I know."

"You've got the face of a man who doesn't." Mahkir, curled at Ant's feet with his tail wrapped tight around his own paws, didn't open his eyes. She's not wrong. I'm fine. You're doing the thing where your shoulders go up around your ears. A pause, the kind that meant he was enjoying himself. It's very endearing. Ruins your whole image, though.

The horn cut through before Ant could answer that one, and the crowd noise dropped from a general roar to a tighter, more expectant hum, the way it always did in the last few seconds before the gate. Frostgate's entrant came out first — heavy-shouldered, ram-horned, the kind of build that had probably flattened everything smaller than a cart wheel it had ever met. The crowd gave it a respectful noise, nothing more.

It had earned its way to the semis on strength alone, and everyone in the stands seemed to already understand what that meant against what was coming through the other gate. Talonstrike didn't walk out so much as arrive, already at speed before the gate had finished lifting, and the noise that met it was a different animal entirely from the polite acknowledgment Frostgate's ram had gotten — the sound of a race everyone in the stands had already bet on.

It was built like a panther that had been stretched and refined past what a panther should be, coat black enough to swallow the morning light rather than reflect it, limbs too long for its body in a way that should have looked wrong and instead looked like the only correct proportion, like the rest of the animal kingdom had simply gotten the measurements slightly off. It didn't stalk. It didn't need to.

It crossed half the sand in the time Frostgate's ram took to plant its front hooves, and it did it without seeming to hurry at all.

"Oh," Rebekah said, quiet. Ant didn't say anything. Neither did Ray. Kalsar's arms had come uncrossed and gone back into their fold twice already, which for Kalsar was practically a shout. The fight, when it started, was barely a fight. Frostgate's ram charged — the only tool it had, the only tool it had ever needed against anything smaller — and Talonstrike simply wasn't where the charge landed.

It went around instead, unhurried, the way water goes around a rock without appearing to make any decision about it at all, and came back with a single strike across the ram's hindquarters that put it stumbling sideways with a sound the whole front three rows heard clean over the crowd. It didn't press the advantage. It let the ram recover, circled again, and did it once more — a strike, a retreat, a pause just long enough to let the ram think it had a chance to close the distance before proving it didn't.

Three more times. Each one landing exactly where the last one had, opening the same wound wider rather than starting new ones, with a precision that looked less like fighting and more like a lesson chalked out for an audience that already knew the answer.

"It's toying with it," Andy said, flat, the first thing he'd said since sitting down. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Whole fight's been toying with it," Kalsar said back. By the time Frostgate's handler put a hand up for the forfeit, the ram hadn't landed a single strike of its own the entire match, and Talonstrike hadn't so much as broken stride to avoid the ones it hadn't bothered trying to dodge in the first place. It sat back on its haunches at the center of the sand while the horn sounded, entirely unbothered, tail moving in one slow sweep like its attention had already moved past the ram entirely.

Nobody in the row said anything for a moment.

"Well," Duncan said eventually.

"That's not encouraging."

"No obvious tell." Kalsar was still watching the sand even though the fight had ended, like he expected it to keep going the moment attention slipped.

"No slow leg, no bad eye, nothing it's protecting. I've scouted four rounds of this bracket and I can't find you a single weakness to work with."

"Maybe there isn't one," Ray said.

"There's always one." Kalsar didn't sound convinced of his own words.

"Just means we haven't found it yet." Andy's eyes hadn't left the sand either, though what he was tracking looked less like tactics and more like a man reading a page he found genuinely interesting.

"Power and speed both," he said, half to himself.

"Usually costs a Kithren one to have the other. That one hasn't paid for either."

"Helpful," Ant said.

"Wasn't trying to be helpful." Andy finally looked over, close to an apology in the look, which from Andy counted as a whole conversation.

"Trying to be honest. There's a difference, and you'd rather have the second one before tomorrow." Rebekah's hand found Ant's arm, brief, gone again before it turned into anything anyone would comment on.

"It's not fighting Frostgate's ram tomorrow," she said.

"It's fighting Mahkir."

"That supposed to help?"

"No," she admitted.

"But it's true, and I like true things better than comfortable ones." Mahkir hadn't said anything the entire fight. He was still curled at Ant's feet, tail no longer moving at all, eyes open now and fixed on the sand where Talonstrike sat. Well? Ant asked, when the silence had gone on long enough that it started to feel like its own kind of answer. It's fast. Mahkir's voice came slower than usual, working through the question rather than reporting an answer. Faster than me, probably.

Hard to be sure from up here — distance does strange things to a read. And? And I've never had anything to actually test myself against. A pause, longer than the last one. Every fight so far has been decided before I've had to work for it — the gap was already too wide going in. This is the first one where I don't know the answer walking in. Does that scare you? No. Immediate, and Ant believed it. It's the first thing all tournament that's made me want to try. There's a difference.

"What's he saying," Duncan asked, because Duncan always asked, and because for once Ant didn't mind answering it in front of everyone.

"That he's never had a real test before this."

"And how's he feel about that?"

"Like he's been waiting for it," Ant said, and Mahkir's tail started moving again, slow, satisfied, like the translation had landed exactly where he wanted it to. The tavern that night smelled like it always did this time of year — woodsmoke and boiled mutton and the sharper edge of ale that had been sitting open too long, the whole room thick with it in a way that stopped registering after the first ten minutes.

They took the long table near the back, the one Kalsar had claimed on the second night and nobody had contested since, and the innkeeper's daughter came round twice before anyone had properly sat down, ladling stew into bowls that were more bread bowl than bowl.

"Eat," Rowan said, sliding one in front of Ant before he'd asked for it.

"You've been running on nerves and adrenaline for four days. Body doesn't care how the tournament's going."

"I'm fine."

"You're grey around the eyes and you've said 'I'm fine' nine times today. I counted." Rowan didn't look up from her own bowl.

"Eat the stew." He ate the stew. It was better than it had any right to be, thick with root vegetables and something gamey underneath, and by the third spoonful he noticed he'd actually been hungry, in the specific way that only became obvious once food was already in front of him.

"That cat," Duncan said, not for the first time that evening, "moved like it wasn't touching the ground."

"You've said that four times," Sam said, from the far end, and it was the first thing he'd said all night, which made everyone at the table pause for half a second before Duncan barreled on anyway.

"Because it's true four times. I've seen a lot of fighting Kithren. Never seen one look bored doing it."

"It wasn't bored," Andy said.

"It was patient. Different thing entirely, and worse for us." Ray had gone quiet in a way that wasn't like him, working his spoon through the stew without actually eating much of it, until Ant caught him at it and just waited, the way you waited for Ray when he actually had a problem instead of an audience.

"Striata could've taken that ram," Ray said eventually.

"Might not have taken the cat."

"Nobody's taking that cat tonight," Kalsar said.

"Not our problem tonight. Tonight's problem is getting some sleep before tomorrow's actual problem shows up."

"Comforting," Rebekah said, dry, and reached across Ant for the bread before he could pass it. Tell them I'd have taken the ram in half the time. Not now. I'm just saying. For the record. Before everyone starts feeling sorry for the wrong cat. Ant didn't relay that one either, though the corner of his mouth gave him away enough that Rebekah caught it and raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation she didn't get.

The runner came through just as the last of the bowls were being cleared — a boy no older than twelve, arena sash too big for his shoulders, weaving between tables with the confidence of someone who'd done this same errand a dozen times already that evening. He found their table by the emblem on Kalsar's coat and didn't bother with ceremony.

"Common final," he said, already half-turned to leave.

"First match tomorrow. Sun-up." He looked at Ant for half a second longer than the rest of them, the way people had started doing all week, and then he was gone, weaving back toward whatever table needed the news next. The table went quiet in a way it hadn't managed all evening.

"Well," Duncan said, into it.

"That's that, then." Kalsar didn't say anything at all. He just looked at Ant, and then at Mahkir under the table, and pushed his empty bowl an inch to the side like he was making room for something that hadn't arrived yet. Mahkir's tail had gone still again, the way it had in the stands that afternoon, watching something only he could still see. Sun-up, he said. Good. I was starting to get bored of waiting.