The Valiant

  “What?” He backed off a step, frowning. “She drugged you? Tell me what happened.”

  I did—at least I tried to—in halting, disjointed phrases, piecing together the events of the night leading up to the brutal entertainment and the death of the gladiator. Then I drifted into silence, drawing a hazy blank on what had happened next.

  “Why would one of your sisters from the ludus do such a thing?” Kassandra asked.

  “Because Nyx wants Fallon off her game.” Cai looked at me. “You’re her only direct competition for Caesar’s Victory in the Triumphs.”

  I barked a laugh. “Then she’s gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. Achillea told me yesterday that she’s withdrawing me from consideration.”

  “What?” Cai was dubious. “Why would she do that? You’re the best she has.”

  “She’s overreacting,” I said. “Someone’s been trying to frighten me. Nothing more than harmless pranks, but Achillea thinks they’re real threats.”

  “What kind of pranks?”

  “Trashing my room and ruining my things, leaving bloody feathers on my pillow. Yesterday there was a raven—”

  Suddenly the brain-numbing fog vanished, as if blown away on a stiff breeze. The protection it had offered me from the horrific memories of that night vanished with it. The image of the raven statue in the foyer of the Domus Corvinus bloomed like a black flower in my mind, its wings spread wide, its cruel beak open in a frozen shriek. I remembered the silver feather in the dish of the scale. The dead gladiator on the altar in the catacombs . . .

  “Fallon!” Cai reached out as I swayed on my feet.

  “What is it?” Kassandra asked. “What’s wrong?”

  The words came rushing out, breathless and frantic, as I told them about Aeddan and his fight with the gladiator Ajax. How he told me he’d been trying to find me ever since that night back home. I told them about running, hiding . . . and finding the vaulted underground chamber. My voice grated as I described the robed men in the masks with the scales.

  His heart . . .

  I closed my eyes and came to a gasping halt. I could almost hear the sounds of them eating his heart, and the bile rose in my throat.

  Cai and Kassandra exchanged a glance, and Cai looked as if he thought I was still dosed.

  “Did you see anything like that?” he asked Kassandra. “A gladiator fight or . . . or the rest?”

  She shook her head. “My hostess sisters and I were restricted to one of the courtyard salons while we were there. And they never keep us long at these parties—we cost too much—just until everyone is drunk enough not to notice our departure.”

  “And are you absolutely sure of what you saw in that chamber, Fallon?” Cai asked. “It was dark, and you weren’t in your right mind.”

  “You don’t believe me. Neither of you.”

  Kassandra shook her head. “No! No . . . it’s just—”

  “Ridiculous? Outlandish?” My voice climbed hysterically upward. “The idea that there were a bunch of madmen eating a dead man’s flesh? Is that so much more of a stretch to believe when the evening’s entertainment was watching two men fight to the death? Is this what kind of city Rome is? The so-called beating heart of the civilized world? Ajax’s heart wasn’t beating anymore, I assure you!” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

  “I understand.” Cai put up his hands and shared another glance with Kassandra. “Do you know whose house it was?”

  Again Kassandra shook her head. “They never told me.”

  “It was called Corvinus,” I said. “Domus Corvinus.”

  Cai winced and squeezed his eyes shut. “Pontius Aquila.”

  I nodded, even as I felt the blood drain from my face. Aeddan hadn’t lied, and Sorcha had been right. I was being hunted by the Collector.

  Cai didn’t seem convinced. “Aquila is a hard man,” he said. “Even cruel at times, if his reputation is to be believed. But he’s also the Tribune of the Plebs. A respected citizen. He’s not a . . . a barbarian.”

  “Are you going to tell Caesar?” Kassandra asked quietly.

  “Tell him what?” Cai rounded on her. “That a runaway gladiatrix—a runaway from his ludus—out of her head on mandrake-spiked wine was witness to a munera? At what, from the sound of it, might as well have been a Bacchanale?”

  My heart sank with the truth of his words,.

  “Those kinds of revels—not to mention the ritual Fallon speaks of—have been outlawed in Rome for decades,” he continued. “I’m sorry. No one would believe you, Fallon.”

  “I believe her,” Kassandra said quietly.

  I looked at her. “You do?”

  “I believe a lot of things most people don’t,” she said. “Because I hear the secrets most people keep hidden. When people have so much money that they can do anything, buy anything, be anything, then they start to look around for the things money can’t buy. Strength, courage, nobility . . . they see it in others. And they want it.”

  Cai nodded in reluctant agreement. “The men”—he looked at me—“and women who fight . . . they become like gods. Like Hercules or Aneas or the Amazon warrior queens of legend. They’re worshipped and coveted—and, eventually, destroyed. The mob will build you up only to tear you down. But the ones like Aquila who see themselves as masters of the arena? They will ultimately seek to devour you.”

  “I wish you didn’t mean that quite so literally,” I said in a choked whisper.

  Cai put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  For the first time, I truly believed him. Kassandra went to fetch me a cloak to stave off the early morning chill so that Cai could take me back to the Achillea town house. As we left, she gave me one last warning.

  “Please, Fallon,” she said. “Be careful. Your world, I think, could prove far more dangerous outside of the arena than within it.”

  Out in the street, Cai paced silently at my side.

  “I grew up with him,” I said.

  Cai stopped and looked at me.

  “Aeddan. The gladiator—Mandobracius—the one I spoke of. He was the brother of a boy I loved back home.” My voice was quiet, muted by the stone walls of the houses that lined the narrow street. “His name was Mael, and I was going to marry him. Aeddan and Mael fought over me and . . . and Mael died. Aeddan killed him.”

  Cai’s arms were around me suddenly, and I felt my tears soaking into the fabric of his tunic. I hadn’t realized I was crying.

  “I tried to stop him. . . .” I took a breath to steady my voice. “I ran after Aeddan, and that was how the slavers found me.”

  “Fallon, I’m sorry.”

  “I meant to tell you . . . I did.” I looked up at Cai. “But I never thought I’d see him again. Only he’s here now, in Rome, and I—”

  “Fallon.” Cai smiled down at me, tightening his grasp. “You’re the Fury Killer. He can’t hurt you now. No one can.”

  I tried to smile back, but I knew that it wasn’t Aeddan I was afraid of hurting me. When the time came, I would face him again and I would fight.

  No. I was afraid of Cai hurting me . . . of him walking away.

  But he didn’t. For a long time, we stood in the laneway with Cai’s arms around me. He didn’t question me; he didn’t judge me. He didn’t leave me. He just brushed the tears away until they stopped running down my cheeks.

  XXVII

  I RETURNED TO THE DOMUS ACHILLEA with my head and heart bruised from the horrors of my night at the Domus Corvinus only to find that Elka had been flogged.

  Caius had distracted Kronos at the gate while I slipped into the town house courtyard. Once inside, I made my way up to the room I shared with Elka, passing through corridors that were deserted and silent. I found Elka lying facedown on her cot, the bare skin of her shoulders and back crisscrossed with lash marks still seepin
g blood. Ajani was with her, carefully applying salve to the wounds.

  I was horrified. And furious. “She had no right!”

  “She had every right.” Elka’s voice was muffled by the thin pillow she lay on. “She owns us. We broke the rules.”

  “I broke the rules!” I almost shouted. “I made you go with me—and where’s Nyx? I’ll kill her!”

  “Nyx is down in the laundry this morning,” Ajani said in a flat voice, “serving out her own punishment.”

  “In the laundry?”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “For pilfering food from the kitchens last night, of course. Her only crime, it seems.”

  When the girls of the Ludus Achillea had been roused from their beds, Ajani explained, my absence did not go unnoticed. Neither did the fact that Elka—who didn’t even remember how she’d gotten home—was still intoxicated from Nyx’s evil brew. The domus staff were rounded up and questioned, the ludus guards were turned out into the city to hunt for the fugitive—me—and the gladiatrices were banished to their rooms and, in Elka’s case, punished.

  She had told Sorcha the truth about what we’d all done—as far as she could remember it—but then Nyx had argued, protesting that the only place she was guilty of sneaking off to that night was down to the larder to pilfer a late snack. The kitchen boy confirmed having seen Nyx raiding the pantry. He’d received ten lashes for not reporting the theft. I wondered what Nyx had traded in return for that little lie. The only other person who could confirm or deny what had actually happened was Nyx’s lapdog Lydia.

  “Lydia crawled trembling to the Lanista and told her how she’d heard you and Elka planning to escape,” Ajani said, her lip curling in disgust as she covered Elka’s shoulders with a square of linen bandage. “And how she’d been too afraid to do anything about it—because you, of course, had threatened to cut out her tongue if she did.”

  I didn’t even know how one would go about cutting out a tongue, but I vowed, upon hearing Ajani’s story, that I would learn.

  I’d been willing to believe that Nyx had truly had a change of heart. That we were sisters, like she’d said. Like we’d oathed. I ran a shaking hand over my face. My skin felt too tight, stretched across the bones of my skull, and the inside of my head was full of sheep’s wool and hobnails. Mandragora was truly awful stuff.

  Ajani stood, wrapping up the leftover bandage. She left it and the pot of salve on the little table. With all the other girls confined to their rooms, she was taking a risk even being there, but I was grateful. “That’s my own magic,” she said, pointing at it. “My own herbs. Better than anything Heron has, but don’t tell him I said so. Keep the cuts clean and lightly wrapped. Tell her she cannot fight before they’re fully healed.”

  “I’m fighting in the Triumphs,” came the muffled protest.

  “You’ll scar.”

  “Don’t care.”

  Ajani rolled her eyes and made an emphatic gesture in Elka’s direction. I thanked her, and she hugged me before wishing me good luck with the Lanista and ducking out the door. I closed it behind her and leaned on it heavily. I felt like I’d been trampled by a team of oxen, and I could only imagine how Elka felt, with the mandragora aftereffects on top of what must have been scorching pain from Thalestris’s whip.

  “What happened to you last night?” she asked.

  I shook my head, not even sure where to begin. “It’s a tale long in the telling. Rest, and I’ll tell you the whole story later.” I reached over to gently smooth a wrinkle from her bandages. “I’m so sorry, Elka.”

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No. You’re right,” I said. “It was Nyx’s. And I’m going to kill her.”

  • • •

  I found Nyx alone in the laundry, shrouded in steam and the astringent stink of lye soap. She was hanging on to the pole that spanned across the tops of the huge wooden tubs, her tunic tucked up in her belt and her legs boiled-lobster red as she stamped her feet up and down in a soup of hot gray water full of dirty linens.

  She didn’t notice me walk through the door. I skipped a formal greeting and went straight for trying to drown her in the tub.

  I used my shoulder to hit her from behind square in the middle of her back, and she fell face-first into the water. I tumbled in after, reaching for her neck so I could hold her head under, but she thrashed and flailed, slipping out of my grasp. I grabbed a length of sodden linen and slapped it hard across her torso, knocking her over. She fell back, cursing and sputtering. I saw her eyes go wide behind the curtain of her dark, dripping hair as she realized who it was that had attacked her.

  “You deranged bitch!” she screamed at me. “What in Hades are you trying to prove?”

  “That if you want to get rid of me so badly,” I shouted, “you’ll have to do it yourself!”

  She retched out laundry water and clambered to her feet. “What are you talking about, you lunatic?”

  “I know now why you convinced me to go to that house last night,” I said. “Did you also nail that poor bird to my door just so we could have something to bond over?”

  “I told you I had nothing to do with that.”

  “I know all about Pontius Aquila—”

  “You don’t know anything,” she sneered. “Aquila is deluded if he thinks you worthy of his collection. You’re nothing but a naive little barbarian who got lucky in a fight. You don’t deserve to call yourself a gladiatrix. You never will.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “You don’t belong with us!” she screeched.

  Her eyes were red and streaming, and I didn’t know whether it was from tears or the acrid wash water, but the raw agony in her voice brought me up short. I stepped back, sloshing through drifts of clinging laundry, to steady myself on the edge of the tub. My burst of rage was spent, and all that was left was the ghost of mandrake wine and a deep weariness.

  “She’s not your sister,” she said, her voice ragged. “Not anymore. She’s mine!”

  I grew still. “What are you talking about?”

  “Achillea.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Before you came, I was her favorite. I’ve always been her favorite, because I’ve always been the best. Now it doesn’t matter how well I fight. Now she barely even looks at me when I’m in the arena. Because of you. Victrix. The Fury Killer. Everyone thinks you’re so perfect. At least Pontius Aquila respects my skills.”

  “Really. Is that why he’s using you to get to me?” I asked.

  She glared at me, murder in her eyes.

  I shook my head. “How did you even know I was Achillea’s sister? Did Aquila tell you? Is he your real master, Nyx?”

  “Shut up,” she snarled. “My loyalty lies with the Ludus Achillea and it always has. More than yours.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I heard the Lanista talking to Thalestris about it.” She pushed the dark hair back from her face and wrung the wash water from it. “About you. And how desperate she was to protect her poor baby sister from all the big, bad monsters in Rome.”

  “Like the monsters I saw at Domus Corvinus last night?” I said. “Do you know what they do down there in the catacombs? Do you know what happened to the gladiator Ajax?”

  “I know he lost.” Her expression was cold and pitiless.

  “They butchered him—”

  “I don’t care!” she shouted, covering her ears. I think she knew, or at least suspected, Aquila’s true nature—she just didn’t want to admit it. “One day it will be me fighting in those houses on the hill, living in luxury and treated like a goddess. Just as well as that ungrateful fool Mandobracius.”

  I was sickened by Nyx’s idea of what we were and sick at heart to think that the night before I’d clamored for a man’s death for the sake of entertainment. That wasn’t what being a gladiator—or a gladiatrix—was
supposed to be about. No matter what the mob thought, we were better than that.

  I was better than that.

  All of the righteous fury drained from me as I stood and climbed out of the laundry tub. I no longer wanted to make Nyx suffer. I figured she was suffering enough without my help, even if she didn’t know it. I left her there with her rage and hatred and her deluded lust for glory.

  “I’m not your enemy, Nyx,” I said over my shoulder. “I won’t be.”

  “From the sound of it, you have more enemies than you can handle, gladiolus,” she called after me. “I don’t even think I have to fight you anymore. I can just sit back and watch as others tear you to pieces.”

  • • •

  I went back to tell Elka everything that had happened, but Sorcha flung open the door to our room before I could get a word out. I braced myself for the beating she would give me, but then she was across the room crushing me to her chest in a fierce hug.

  “Thank the Morrigan,” she whispered into my hair. “I thought they’d taken you from me.”

  After a moment, Heron entered, carrying his leather satchel full of medical supplies.

  “Ajani took care of her already,” I said as he strode over to Elka’s cot.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Heron grumbled, peeling back the layers of linen bandages with a brisk efficiency that somehow didn’t even draw a flinch from Elka, who actually managed to roll an eye at me. Heron muttered to himself and unstoppered the little clay pot and sniffed at the salve. Then he stood without opening the satchel. “Whatever Ajani salved the wounds with, I want her to make me up a batch.” He glanced back at Elka. “I’d say she’ll sustain no lasting damage that would keep her from the arena. Alternatively”—he shot Sorcha with a disapproving stare—“you could simply refrain from flogging the academy’s assets.”

  Then he was out the door and gone.

  Sorcha stared after him, unfazed by the rebuke.