Chapter 42: The Invisible Line

"Dammit, Trixie!" Oberon's fist slammed against the table.

The harsh noise drew flinches from some of his peers, but he ignored Morwenna's glare from the seat next to him, ignored Alecto and Gaspar's muttering. He had eyes only for the screen in front of him, where his daughter let out a growl of fury enough to match his own upon receiving his note; promptly, she'd ripped it to shreds, kindling for Silverhorn's newly-started fire. Dramatic. Given where she got it from, though, he couldn't exactly criticize her for that.

No; their immediate problems were much bigger.

In the corner of the screen, a steady stream of public sponsorships trickled in, but the longer the number didn't jump by at least three figures, the more on-edge he became. Given the first sixty seconds of the Games, that was saying something. Goddammit, he owes us.

Oberon slumped forwards onto his elbows, nose inches from the screen. His eyes slipped closed to block the glare, head resting heavily in his hands as he frantically tried to piece together some way to salvage this. He couldn't shake the jitters of it all; had a feeling he wouldn't any time soon. The panic that spiked when the Eleven boy threw his token; the relief when it hadn't worked tempered by the strain of watching his daughter kill… Somehow, it wasn't as disturbing as when he'd watched Bellara. It was just expected.

Perhaps because it wasn't the first time.

As expected, she'd made it out of the Bloodbath alive; that was all that mattered. At least, until she'd decided to throw away their carefully thought-out strategy.

So much for controlling her narrative.

They wanted blood. He'd promised them blood. And Venatrix… Even if she hadn't deemed it necessary to flay the boy alive, she could've at least waited for a better time to kill him than within the first five minutes. No doubt she realized that now, judging by her clouded expression. He could guess why she'd done it; he'd recognized that look on her face, a derivative of the one she'd worn during her killing exam, but now wasn't the time to coddle her. He'd told her how to play this; no, she'd told him how she was going to play this, and yet she'd thrown away her ace by taking the Eleven pair out too early, too quickly.

Mercy wasn't something he remembered teaching her, but maybe the fact that she already had four kills to her name would make up for it. It better.

The newscasters were already calling it an anti-climactic yet satisfying end to what could've been one of the most exciting rivalries of the Games — of the decade, even — while the Jabber feeds were hailing her as 'perfectly ruthless'. The other Victors saw it too, the heightened attention garnered by his daughter's performance; belatedly, he realized the mentoring room was quieter than usual post-Bloodbath. Eyes seemed to flick away whenever he turned his head, though Oberon could feel them watching him. Inevitable, given last year; this year. In his peripheral, he half-registered the glared daggers sent his way by Proxima, whose kid hadn't managed a single kill while Trixie had four. Across the room, a muted cheer rose up from the silence as the District Eight boy finally managed to drag himself from the river, collapsing, bloody and gasping, on the bank; nearby, last year's Quell Victor didn't even bother trying to hide the tears that spilled down her cheeks in light of her dead charge, taking comfort in the compassion of her fellow outer-districtsmen.

Maybe that should appease him, but the sight only made him feel worse.

He looked away, even though he'd give the world to have Bellara in her place, to have her watching from this side of the screen rather than as scattered bits of atoms floating through the atmosphere. Here or not, the cycle of violence cranked onwards, spearheaded by his eldest; for now, the will of the 'Makers had landed in their favor.

And yet…

Still nothing from Karkarros. Fucking Capitolite bastard. Granted, it hadn't even been ten minutes into the Games; no doubt the Minister of Finance was enjoying the chance to flaunt his power in their faces. Still, he was bound by law as much as the rest of them. It wouldn't just be Oberon breathing down the man's neck if he didn't pay up; Victors like himself and Dagmara, they didn't come cheap.

Oberon sighed, trying to stifle the bouncing in his leg as he refreshed Venatrix's inventory, the list steadily growing as she claimed items from the Cornucopia. Sword. Pack. Fur cloak. Token. A stronger leather breastplate that replaced the one she'd been given. Enough food from the horn and the other sponsor gifts that he didn't need to send any.

As for the note… The Gamemakers had insisted that any messages sent to the tributes be handwritten this year; didn't want to 'deviate from the aesthetic of the arena', whatever the hell that meant. Most mentors didn't bother including one if they needed to send something urgently as it delayed the reception of the gift while the Gamemakers checked the content for anything seditious or unfairly advantageous. Oberon had never seen one get approved this fast.

Now that his nerves were morphing into something semi-manageable, regret began to trickle in with it. That note was all he'd feel comfortable sending until the rest of the money came in. If it did.

Just like that, his heart rate shot upwards again, the cold claws of paranoia tightening their grip around his body.

It didn't help when the mentoring room suddenly went dead quiet, the only sound the rapid, heavy click of heeled shoes. Heads turned towards the entrance, but before Oberon's could do the same, something sharp dug into the hair at his scalp, yanking him bodily from his seat. Oberon yelped, twisting instinctively; the hold only strengthened, forcing him to stumble after the assailant— his wife, he realized, still dressed for whatever Capitol party she'd been forced to attend for the beginning of the Games.

Anyone who hadn't been looking before certainly was now. Again, he tried to shake free of the stares, of her grip, to no avail. "Dagmara, what the f—"

Her fingers tightened, cutting off his words with a wince of pain.

Waves of mortification washed over him at the mixture of amused titters and grimaces of pity rippling through their peers. As she dragged him from the room, Oberon thought he caught a camera flash from Gervaise's cellular before the door whisked shut.

"In front of everyone? Really?" he spat, humiliation bleeding into his tone in the form of scorching derision.

She didn't respond, not wasting a minute before tossing him into the nearest bathroom and clicking the lock shut; as soon as they had their illusion of privacy, the sheer volume of her voice shot through every corner of the gold-trimmed room, putting its once-serene state to shame.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Oberon recoiled, pressing against one of the stall doors in an attempt to make himself smaller. She had said she wanted to talk. "Dagmara, I…"

Cold anger poured from her in waves; whatever he'd been intending to say withered to ash under her glare. It's been a while since he'd been on the sharp end of one this vivid— more often than not, he found himself at her shoulder, doubling it with his own. Well, aside from this past year…

"Tell me, Oberon, what the fuck was going through your head when you sent her that message?" She was so close he could count the freckles dotting her face; impossible to ignore, impossible to escape. He shouldn't have sent the note. He knew that, but petty anger had gotten the better of him, as it tended to do these days; as it itched to do now. "Or when you told her to torture a child, for that matter?"

Oberon bristled defensively, his tone sharpening to combat hers. "She had an angle, Dagmara. She had something we could control." Dagmara's eyes narrowed, but he wasn't finished. "She forfeited it, and for what? That's one more thing up to the Gamemakers now." His lip curled into a snarl at the thought. "Just because she didn't have the guts to do what was necessary—"

"If it was necessary, she would have done it!"

Oberon flinched back from her shout, his head knocking into the stall door. Frustration came with it, searing through his veins, temporarily more dominant than the regret. This is how it works, he argued internally. You push through the horror, and you can collapse after you win. This time, though, perhaps he'd been too cruel. You're always too cruel.

Sometimes it was necessary. Sometimes, he couldn't help it.

Maybe it hadn't been necessary this time. He hoped it wasn't, because Venatrix killed that opportunity as soon as she'd killed the Eleven boy.

Whatever expression his face had morphed into, Dagmara's didn't change one bit, as unforgiving as stone. "I know you're not telling me you want her to come home and have to live with that. Because that's so easy to do, right?"

"She could handle it," he snapped. "It's what they wanted from her."

"What they wanted, or what you wanted?"

A coarse exhale rattled through his clenched teeth, his fingers digging through his hair. He shied away from his wife's harsh, knowing gaze, unable to find the right words in the jumbled buzzing mess of his mind to explain that he didn't…

"Don't lie to me."

Wouldn't dream of it. It was another uncomfortable beat of silence before Oberon found his voice. "What else do we do then?" he challenged, hating the note of desperation that leaked into his tone. "How are we supposed to make up for what they did to Bell?"

"'They'." Dagmara folded her arms. "District Eleven?"

"I—" Again, Oberon couldn't meet her eyes. District Eleven didn't send those dogs after her. "We can't…"

There it was again, that familiar vulnerability that came with being completely powerless. But there was only so much within his reach, and already that stretched farther than the majority of the other Victors. It's not enough. It never would be.

Did you really think you could change that?

"Since you seem to have forgotten, that is our daughter in there, Oberon. Not just some tool you can use to get back at someone who isn't even the problem!" Her fingers curled into claws, caught between wanting to rip her own hair out or throttle him, before she clenched them into fists. "We're supposed to be making it easier for her, not harder."

"I'm not trying to make it harder—"

"Then what the fuck are you doing?"

Oberon threw his hands up in frustration. "I'm trying to get her home, Dagmara! What the fuck else would I be doing?"

"Then fucking act like it!" she spat. "For fuck's sake, send her something better than a goddamn scrap of paper; how do you think she feels right now?"

The neurotic jitters picked up again inside his chest, a bubbling mixture of anxiety and shame. Something else prickled behind his eyes; it took a minute for Oberon to recognize the gnawing headache, one that would only increase in potency the longer this went on, the more he pictured himself in Venatrix's shoes, resurrecting the mindset of the arena— kill-fight-die-win.

Of course now would be the worst time to coddle her. But that didn't mean he couldn't at least be fucking kind.

He rubbed fiercely at his temple. "For her sake, I hope she's compartmentalizing this." Dagmara's exhale was more a growl than not. "You're right; I'll send her something. Karkarros hasn't sent what he owes, but she's got more than enough food now, between Silverhorn's gifts and the Cornucopia."

Dagmara's eyes narrowed. "About that… Mind telling me why Venatrix was so concerned about Percy's family before she boarded?"

Oberon froze mid-action, hand still pressed to his forehead.

Judging by his wife's stern expression, the question was rhetorical; one he'd hoped he'd never have to confront. The real question was how the hell she — and presumably, Venatrix — had found out.

He didn't have to think too hard about it; he just hadn't expected Silverhorn to snitch. Should've made myself more clear, he thought with an inward snarl. "It's insurance, Dag," he growled, his fingers pressing more firmly into the epicenter of his budding headache. "You saw what he nearly did to Iago. Who's to say he wouldn't do the same to her? Or worse?" He squeezed his eyes shut, if only to avoid her piercing glare. "There can only be one Victor. They may be on each other's side now, sure, but you can't predict what'll happen in the arena. You should know best, after what you did to Ruiz."

His wife stilled, eyes round as saucers.

Fuck. He backtracked immediately. "I'm—I'm sorry." I'm a fucking idiot. The wounded look in Dagmara's eyes told him as much. "I didn't mean…" He'd only meant to bring it up as an example — the first to come to mind — but after twenty-some years, he should know better than to dig up her age-old grief so callously. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck.

"How dare you." Dagmara shook her head slowly. "How dare you. Don't you act like I'm some two-faced backstabber— I killed Ruiz out of mercy; you know this!" The pitch in her voice lowered, her glare sharp enough to rend flesh from bone. "You. Know this."

"I'm so sorry," he choked out. "I didn't mean it like that—"

A cold fury swam in her eyes, pinning him in place; he couldn't look away. "Never," she rasped, "in all the years I've known you would I have expected you to use that against me like this." Sharp pain welled in his chest at the anguish in her expression; at the fact that he was the one to put it there. She shook her head again, a deliberateness in the fact that she made no effort to conceal the hurt on her face, the disgust. "Never would I even think of using your past against you, but if that's how you want to play, I can."

Oberon could practically feel the blood curdling in his veins. "Dag—"

"You've crossed a line, Oberon. Hell, you've crossed so many lines, I've lost count."

"I'm sorry," he croaked, "I just want to get her out."

"And how are you planning to do that? By threatening the one ally she's likely to have in there?" Dagmara scoffed. "Who the fuck do you think you are, the President of Panem?" She jabbed a finger at his chest. "You can suck Valorius's dick for as long as you want, but we do not sink to that level. We do not need to sink to that level. Do you understand me?"

"I wasn't actually going to follow through with it," he countered, only half a bluff; Dagmara scowled at his petulant response.

"You made that poor boy think you would. For six months, Oberon."

"Oh, fuck that, Dag." That was the point. He didn't need to say it out loud; judging by Dagmara's stony glare, she understood well enough. This one, Oberon didn't have any qualms about returning. "Who the fuck cares about Silverhorn's feelings?" he sneered. He sure didn't, not with his daughter's life at stake; he didn't have room to care. And so what if he fought dirty? That wasn't exactly news. Not like it mattered when they were usually fighting on the same side.

"Venatrix does." Dagmara's eyes narrowed. "Morwenna does."

"Don't you fucking tell her about this."

Dagmara lifted her chin, belligerent. "He's her tribute. She deserves to know."

"Really? At Venatrix's expense?"

"If you really think you didn't already worsen her chances by nearly ruining their relationship, then you're a fucking fool."

"Silverhorn did that himself," Oberon hissed.

Her hand shot up to grab him by the face, forcing it level with hers. "I don't fucking care, okay? You call off your dogs, Oberon, and you fix this, because I swear to god, if you get her killed, you will go home without a wife too."

He blinked. "Dagmara—"

"I don't give a fuck what it says in our marriage contract," she said, tightening her grip, "I will find a way."

Her fingernails dug into his skin; the severity in her gesture, in her words, sent a chill through his body. Oberon swallowed, the sound audible in the lengthening silence.

She let him stew beneath her glare for a beat, her next words hissed through gritted teeth. "Now you get your ass over to Karkarros and get the rest of our damn sponsor money— I don't care if you have to get on your knees and beg." Even when she released him, the feeling of her fingers still seemed to burn. "You hear me? Don't even speak to me until you send her something worthwhile."

He nodded hollowly.

True to her word, Dagmara didn't wait for him to answer before she left as quickly as she'd come. With her exit, the dread came flooding in, washing over him in waves of aimless wrath, pitiful self-loathing. For a minute, he let it overtake him, bracing himself against the stall door as he struggled to keep his head afloat. Her words played over and over in his head long after she was gone, as if the memory of them were permanently imprinted on the walls, splayed across his own haggard expression glaring at him from the bathroom mirror.

'I swear to god, if you get her killed, you will go home without a wife too.'

The two of them, they've never met a hurdle they couldn't jump hand-in-hand. Hell, the shit they've faced together would've left most couples in bitter, ugly tatters. She may have said she didn't blame him for Bell's death, but clearly that wouldn't be the case with Venatrix. I would too, he knew.

The possibility of losing them both wasn't something Oberon was capable of imagining.

Before he could even release a drawn-out breath, his cellular chimed from his pocket. Instantly, tension re-ratcheted up his spine; Oberon pulled it out, almost afraid to look. An exhale of relief passed through him when he saw the notification only calling him for an interview; it quickly dissipated when he checked the time slot— this evening.

"Fuck!" In a fit of frustration, Oberon slammed his head against the stall, as if the blooming pain could somehow disperse the building hysteria and force him to think straight.

It only made his head spin even more. When his vision cleared, his eyes landed on a pair of polished white shoes half-shielded by a large vase in the opposite corner of the bathroom. Similarly white-clothed legs grew upwards from them, belonging to an ashen-faced Avox with a hand towel draped over her arm. Her eyes flicked towards Oberon's for a half-second before defocusing.

They're watching. They're always fucking watching.

Shoving down the rising embarrassment, Oberon fixed the Avox with a scorching glare. "You heard nothing," he hissed.

He stalked towards the exit, but not before catching her silent nod of acquiescence. It wouldn't be enough to keep her from tattling to their overlords, he knew, but there was nothing Oberon could do about that.

It started with an 'H'. The Seven girl's name.

Feverishly, Venatrix racked her brain as she trekked across the grass-covered rock. Viper and Patience followed closely at her shoulders, Shannon picking up the rear; the downhill slope kept them a few paces apart, interspersed with shrubs and trees as they crept across the increasingly steep mountainside.

H-something. Hannah? Helen?

She'd torn her apart without a second thought; now she couldn't even give the girl the decency of remembering her damn name. Hestia? Hesmina? Hesperia? No, that's my grandma's name; I would've remembered that. She knew the others; Paprika. Starling. Zavian, though she'd begrudgingly allowed Viper some of the credit for his death. Twenty percent, at max.

(And with startling clarity, Venatrix realized she never found out the name of her first. She never even bothered to ask.)

Does it matter? She shouldn't be thinking this.

But better the names, or her father's note?

Venatrix pushed both thoughts away, blinking when she noticed that her feet had come to a stop along with her mind. The others halted behind her, a question in their body language. Ahead of them, the rocky ground they'd been traversing cut to an abrupt edge, a sharp outcropping that allowed Venatrix to gaze out into the valley below. Beyond, snow-capped mountains stretched endlessly into the horizon, different from home but similar enough to tug lightly at Venatrix's heartstrings. In the absence of foliage to cover them, wind whipped sharply at her face, tugging at strands of hair and the fur pelt of her cloak alike. The toes of her boots brushed against a clump of purple-flowered fronds clinging to the crest of the crag; her eyes fixed on the plant.

Heather… That was it, Heather.

Her eyes flickered shut, a crisp breath huffing through her nose. It had been so easy to kill her, so thoughtless. The memory of the instinct hovered beneath her skin, a twitch in the fingers that lay over the pommel of her sword; with that in mind, it really was incredible that outliers ever managed to win.

Another gust of wind tugged her eyes open, downwards; the jagged valley filled her sight, bringing her train of thought back to the present. A small tributary wound through the rock beneath them, too far away for anyone to access without first tumbling down some fifty meters of sheer rock. No doubt Ochre and his Tens had given up quickly here.

To the right, Venatrix knew the rest of the river forged behind the wall of rock they inhabited, flowing opposite the direction of their path. Whether by coincidence or intelligence, the rest of the tributes had bolted off that way; she'd sent Percy and the others to follow the scent, content to let them have their head start while the hovercrafts picked up the bodies.

They never came.

Instead, some sort of semi-humanoid winged creature swooped down from the skies, plucking each body in its arms before disappearing into the sun. Venatrix and her allies had turned to watch, staring open-mouthed at the trail of shimmering heat left in its wake. "What the fuck," Viper had murmured.

"Whatever that is, I don't want to see it up close," she'd said in response before dragging them back to the task at hand.

Now, Venatrix stood silently, facing the impossible descent. Strange thing to put so close to the Cornucopia. They hadn't even been hiking for an hour before they'd reached this cliff, though she doubted the Gamemakers did anything without reason. While she pondered which way their quarry could've gone, she lingered by the brink, hand still hovering over her sword in some measure of reassurance.

"Great place for someone to fall to their death," Viper quipped, coming up to her shoulder.

"Don't try it."

He huffed in laughter, his telltale smirk making its appearance. "So… mind telling me what that was?"

"What what was?"

He quirked a brow. "Your plate…?"

Venatrix huffed a breath through her nose, shrugging.

"Oh, come on," Viper scoffed.

"I know as much as you do." Boots shuffled across grass as Patience and Shannon joined them at the crest. "I've got no say in what the 'Makers do or don't do," Venatrix reminded them. She paid no heed to the Four girl's skeptical side-eye, instead extracting the instigative six-sided die from her token pouch.

It felt wrong to keep it, but even more so to leave it lying at the foot of her pedestal.

Now, though… This wasn't something she could allow to keep dragging her down. And it would; Venatrix could practically feel Starling's accusing eyes tracking her from beyond the veil as she clutched the token in her fist. In a smooth movement, she drew her arm back and tossed it into open air.

As she watched it fall, something in the air itself flashed — glitched, even. Venatrix blinked; the die abruptly changed direction, clattering back against the rock in its downward cascade.

"Well." Viper huffed in surprise. "Would you look at that."

So this really is the boundary, Venatrix thought. Nobody ever said the arena had to be centered on the Cornucopia. If this way was blocked off, that could only mean one thing. "I think they want us to follow the river."

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A/N: Sorry this took so long, Dagmara had a lot to say.. I think Oberon should get yelled at more. This one surpassed the previous chapter (21) for highest number of times the word "fuck" was used bjhbvhd (24 times, if ur curious). This is my favorite statistic to keep track of (:

Anyways, hi I'm back in the ANs! I disappeared for the Drama ok bjfvbh. I will be posting the lineup of the fallen when their faces appear in the sky (so next chapter, most likely, though I have put it on the blog), but I just want to thank my filler submitters again for your children ! Most of them did end up meeting their ends at the Bloodbath, but this story really is the better for each of them ;-; Next chapter sooner rather than later, I hope ! We're getting into the good stuff c: See you then !

- Nell