(Landy's POV)
The sweet, cloying stench of the sugar mill was a perfume compared to the smell in our cabin. It was the smell of hopelessness, a sour mixture of sweat, dirt, and despair that no amount of washing could ever scrub away. It was the middle of the night, and the only light came from a single, guttering tallow dip, casting long, dancing shadows that looked like grasping hands on the walls.
I was working on a new carving. A heron, its neck curved in a graceful S, one leg lifted as if poised to step into water. It was for Rose. A piece of the world outside the cane fields. My knife, a sliver of stolen metal sharpened on a stone, bit into the soft cypress wood, the shhh-shhh sound a rhythm that kept my thoughts from spiraling into the dark.
My brother, Ollie, sat on the pallet across from me, not sleeping. He was fidgeting, a nervous energy coming off him in waves. He’d been like that for days, ever since Fred’s announcement about the “special match.” His eyes, the same dark brown as mine but always shifting, never still, kept darting towards the door.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor with your pacing, Ollie,” I said, not looking up from the heron’s emerging wing.
“I ain’t pacing,” he muttered, but he stopped rocking and drew his knees up to his chest. The silence between us was heavy, filled with things we didn’t say. We were all each other had left. Our mother was a ghost of a memory, our father a name whispered by the old ones. It was just us. The fighter and the talker.
“You should be resting,” Ollie said, his voice tight. “For the… the match.”
I finally looked at him. In the flickering light, his face was all sharp angles and anxious shadows. “Resting won’t change what it is.”
“What is it?” he asked, a desperate, almost pleading note in his voice. “Two men? From the Carolinas? What does that mean?”
I put the knife and the heron down. “It means Fred has decided my time as the Chevalier is over. He’s made me popular. A symbol. Now, he needs to make an example. He needs to show that no one, no matter how ‘vigorous,’ is beyond being broken.” I said it calmly, the way you might state that the rain was coming. There was no point in sugar-coating it. We both knew the math of this place.
Ollie’s face crumpled. “There has to be a way out. You could run. Now, tonight.”
“And leave you here to take the punishment?” I shook my head. “They’d hang you from the nearest live oak as a message. And then they’d still find me. Running just makes the death more interesting for them.”
“So you just accept it?” he hissed, his fear turning to anger. “You just walk into that pit and let them tear you apart?”
“I’ll fight,” I said, my voice low. “I’ll always fight. But I’m not supposed to win this one, Ollie. That’s the point.”
The truth of it settled in the room, cold and final. Ollie buried his face in his hands. I thought he was crying, but when he looked up, his eyes were dry, burning with a strange, frantic intensity.
“I can’t watch that,” he whispered. “I can’t.”
“Then don’t look,” I said softly, picking up my carving again. It was a poor comfort, but it was all I had to offer.
---
(Ollie's POV)
He was so calm. It made me want to scream. How could he just sit there, carving a stupid bird, when death was two days away? He had that look in his eyes, the one he got when he was thinking of her. The white girl. Rose. That look was a death sentence all on its own, and he was too stupid or too brave to see it.
I couldn’t die for his pride. I couldn’t die for his secret.
The thought had been a seed, planted in the fertile soil of my fear the moment I heard about the death match. It had grown in the dark, twisting and gnawing at me. It was an ugly, shameful thought, but it was the only one that offered a way out. For me.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Landy thought he was protecting me by staying. But he was just anchoring us both to the bottom of the river.
I waited until his breathing evened out into the shallow rhythm of sleep. The heron, half-finished, lay on the floor by his hand. I slipped out of the cabin, the night air cool on my skin. The patrols were light tonight; most of the overseers were drunk on stolen rum, celebrating the coming violence.
I didn’t go towards the big house. That was too direct, too dangerous. Instead, I went to the overseer’s lodge. A man named Briggs. He was new, ambitious, and cruel in a simple, predictable way. He wanted Fred’s favor. And I had something to sell.
The porch creaked under my weight. I tapped on the rough wood of the door, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
After a moment, the door swung open. Briggs stood there, shirtless, holding a bottle. He smelled of sweat and liquor. “What?” he grunted, his eyes narrowing.
“I have information,” I blurted out, my voice trembling. “For Monsieur Fred. It’s… it’s about the Chevalier.”
Briggs’s expression shifted from annoyance to interest. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh, and yanked me inside.
---
(Landy's POV)
The hammering on the door came just before dawn. It wasn't the usual, lazy summons to the fields. It was violent, urgent.
The door burst open before I could even get to my feet. Briggs and two other overseers stood there, silhouetted by the grey pre-dawn light. Briggs had a smug, triumphant look on his face.
“On your feet, fighter,” he sneered.
I stood slowly, my body already coiling, assessing the threat. This was it. They’d come for me early.
But they didn’t grab me. Briggs’s eyes scanned the small cabin, and they landed on Ollie, who was pretending to stir from sleep on his pallet.
“Him too,” Briggs said, jerking his head.
Confusion warred with dread inside me. What was this?
We were marched up to the big house, not to the back, but to the main entrance—a place we only ever went for punishment. My mind raced, trying to find the angle. Had they found out about Rose? Had our meeting at the mill been seen?
We were shoved into Monsieur Fred’s study.
It was a room I’d only ever glimpsed through doorways. A room of leather and ledgers and deathly quiet. Fred was seated behind a massive mahogany desk, impeccably dressed as if it were midday. He was examining a ledger, not looking up as we entered.
He let us stand there, sweating in the cool, dry air, for a full minute. Finally, he closed the ledger with a soft, definitive thud and looked up. His gaze passed over me, a flicker of cold amusement, and then settled on Ollie, who was shaking like a leaf.
“Ollie,” Fred said, his voice like silk wrapped around a blade. “Briggs tells me you came to him with a story. A fascinating story.”
My blood ran cold. I looked at my brother. His eyes were wide with terror, fixed on Fred. He wouldn’t look at me.
“Is it true?” Fred asked, his tone conversational. “Does my champion, my Chevalier, entertain… affections… for my niece?”
The world tilted. The air was sucked from the room. I stared at Ollie, willing him to look at me, to deny it. But he just gave a frantic, jerky nod.
“He… he talks in his sleep, Monsieur,” Ollie whispered, his voice breaking. “He says her name. He carves things for her. He meets her. Behind the mill. I was scared, Monsieur. Scared for his soul. Scared for the honor of your house.”
The betrayal was so complete, so calculated, it felt like a physical blow. He’d dressed his cowardice in the language of concern. He’d sold me out to save his own skin, and he’d done it in a way that made him seem like the loyal one.
Fred’s eyes shifted to me. There was no anger there. Only a chilling, satisfied calm. He had me. Not just in the pit, but in every way that mattered.
“Such a disappointment,” he said, sighing theatrically. “I had such hopes for you, Landy. But it seems your spirit is too… unruly. Too familiar with things that do not belong to it.”
He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping in front of me. He was a head shorter, but he carried the power of life and death in his gaze.
“The match tomorrow will proceed as planned,” he said softly. “But consider the stakes raised. You see, I cannot have a man with such… dangerous attachments… representing the strength of Le Château de Fer. It sends the wrong message.”
He looked from me to Ollie, a cruel smile playing on his lips.
“Ollie, for your loyalty and your concern for our honor, you will be reassigned to the house. A lighter duty.”
He was rewarding the betrayal. Making Ollie complicit in my destruction. It was a masterstroke of psychological torture.
Then he looked back at me.
“And you,Landy… you will fight. And you will lose. If you by some miracle survive, I will personally flay the skin from Ollie’s back while you watch. Then I will have a… conversation… with my dear niece, Rose, about the consequences of fraternizing with the property.”
He leaned in close, his breath smelling of mint and malice.
“This isn’t just a death match anymore, Chevalier. It’s a lesson. And you are the example.”
The overseers grabbed my arms and dragged me out. As I was pulled from the room, my eyes locked with Ollie’s. He finally looked at me. And in his face, I didn’t see triumph or relief. I saw only a bottomless, shameful horror at what he had done, and the certain knowledge that the safety he’d bought was a poison he would have to drink for the rest of his life.
The betrayal was complete. The trap was sealed. The Death Match was no longer about survival. It was about choosing the manner of our ending.