Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(40)

Oracle’s gaze shifted back to Serina, and without a word, she pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” she ordered, drawing her away from the other fighters.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, until they reached a stand of scrubby trees out of sight and hearing of the others. Then Oracle rounded on Serina. “Don’t ever talk about refusing to fight, do you hear me? Never.”

Serina’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

Oracle’s brow furrowed, deep frown lines appearing around her mouth. Her pale, milky eye, a complete contrast to the other, brown one, almost seemed to glow. For a long time, she stared at Serina in silence.

“When I first arrived,” she said at last, “some of the women protested. The champions stood on the stage and refused to fight. They knew no one would get the rations that week. But none of them wanted to be the guards’ pawns any longer.”

Serina took a ragged breath.

“The guards shot them all,” Oracle said, voice flat. “Sprayed bullets into the audience too. Fifteen women died. The guards wouldn’t allow the bodies to be moved. The next week’s champions had to fight around the rotting corpses. That was the week I won for the first time.”

The horror unfolded in Serina’s mind, inescapable.

“We fight because we have to. Got me, Grace?” She started back up the hill.

“The name you gave me,” Serina said, while she had the chance. “I’m not a Grace.”

Oracle stopped. Turned. “But you were trained to become one. I can tell.”

“How?” Serina was covered in filth, as aching and sunburned as the rest of the girls.

“The training, the poise. It’s unmistakable.” Oracle’s hands clenched into fists. “I always knew another Grace would make her way here someday.”

“Another… ?” Serina froze, realization dawning.

Oracle dropped into a slow, graceful curtsy, her hands clasping delicately at invisible skirts. The sun bleached out the brown hair at the crown of her head.

Serina was shocked into silence. She’d seen Oracle fight, delivering nearly surgical blows that left her training opponents on their knees, panting. She’d seen her carry a woman’s body miles up a mountain to commit it to a volcano. Oracle’s sudden grace, her courtliness, was the last thing Serina had ever expected. “How did you end up here?” she asked finally.

Oracle lifted her chin. “I spent my whole life training to be a Grace. I was perfect. But that’s not why the Superior chose me. He chose me because I was smart.” She paused, gathering herself. “And he knew that breaking a willful girl would be more satisfying.”

“Breaking you?” Suddenly, Serina saw Nomi’s defiant glare in her mind.

“He can have anything he wants,” Oracle said. “But he’s not interested in things that are easily given. It’s a game to him.”

Serina remembered the ice in the Superior’s voice when he’d delivered her sentence. The way he’d asked about Nomi.

Oracle continued, unguarded emotion flashing across her face. “When I could no longer bear it, I fought back. I knew he would kill me, as he had killed other girls. I knew death was my only escape.”

Serina couldn’t erase the images flashing through her mind.

“But I couldn’t die. I saw the blows coming. I’d learned his patterns. I avoided the killing blows. It was his guard who knocked me out—it was his fist to my eye that did this.” Oracle pointed to her blind eye. “If he hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed the Superior.”

“So they sent you here,” Serina whispered. Treason, attempted murder. Nothing so inconsequential as reading a book. Did the Superior consider reading as dangerous as attempted murder? Or were the requirements for being sent to Mount Ruin subject to the fickle whims of the magistrates handing down punishment?

“So they sent me here. I’m happy you didn’t suffer as I did,” Oracle said, her eyes boring into Serina. “A life in this prison, for all its dangers, is preferable to the Superior’s hell.”

“My sister… my sister was chosen, instead of me,” Serina said. She shivered, thinking of the Superior’s icy stare. “But she’s a Grace for the Heir. Surely, he’ll be different; he won’t be as bad as his father.…” Her voice petered out at Oracle’s look.

The woman stared at her, her pity clear. “In my experience, sons are worse. Pray your sister is easily broken. It’s the defiant ones who suffer the most.”

With a sickening jolt, Serina thought of Nomi and her secret knowledge, her lack of obedience. Why else would Malachi want her, if not to crush her spirit? Serina had been too docile, too obedient. Just as she’d been raised to be.

Fury and fear the likes of which she’d never felt before rushed through her with the force of a tidal wave.

She gazed out toward the ocean, its distant sparkle just visible through the trees. Her sister was a captive in silk and lace, suffering at the hands of the Heir. Unwilling.

Then and there, Serina made her choice. Mount Ruin couldn’t have her. And sure as the fire eating this island from the inside out, she wouldn’t let the Heir have Nomi either. She would escape. Somehow she would escape. And she would save her sister.