The Defiant

  “And the Sons of Dis will bathe in the blood spilled on the Ludus Achillea sands.” My mouth went dry at the thought.

  Aeddan nodded, grim-faced.

  Without another word, I turned sharply and headed toward the barracks. Aeddan made a grab for me, but I shrugged him off and kept walking. He had to almost jog to keep up.

  “Fallon!” he whispered. “I told you—the other girls aren’t in their cells.”

  “I know,” I said. “I need my things. I’m not leaving without the others and I’m not leaving without my swords.”

  The barracks were deserted. As Aeddan kept watch at the door of my cell, I slipped a clean tunic on over the torn and bloodstained one I already wore, and belted it loosely. I didn’t need anyone to know I’d been wounded. Not until we were well gone from the ludus and there was time for such things. Then I slipped on my boots, trying not to wince as I bent over to wrap the laces around my calves, and refastened my cloak around my neck.

  I stuffed my swords, a dagger, and a tool kit into a travel bag. I had few treasured possessions, but I hesitated a moment, looking up at where my oath lamp sat on the windowsill. I picked up the lamp and set it down in the middle of my neatly made bed.

  A message to Nyx. And a promise.

  I will be back.

  She would find it, I knew. She would find it, and she would understand.

  I took a last look around the tiny room that had become my world and tried to memorize every small detail. The image of the place wouldn’t fade in my mind, I vowed. I wouldn’t let it. I would return before it had the chance.

  That, I swore on my soul and on my swords.

  VII

  IF IT HAD been daylight, I don’t know that I could have done it. Facing off in an arena against opponents who knew you were coming, who could defend themselves against you, was one thing.

  Cutting a man’s throat from behind was another.

  But as Ixion’s heavy dead body sagged away from me, I reminded myself that if he had seen me coming, I would be the one lying there, bleeding out into the dusty ground. I didn’t know if the man’s capacity for casual cruelty warranted such an end. All I knew was that, in that moment, the only thing I cared about was freeing Elka and the other girls. And if Ixion’s life was the price for their freedom, I’d gladly carry the debt of guilt for causing it. Never mind that my hands were shaking as I wiped clean my blade on the dead man’s tunic.

  “Fallon?” Aeddan frowned at me in the darkness, stepping over the body of the other guard he’d dispatched. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just not used to murder, that’s all.”

  “You’re pale and you’re sweating.” He grabbed me by the arm and turned me to face him. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” I jerked my wrist out of his grip and put the tip of my sword up an inch from his nose. “I’m fine,” I said. “And if you even try to suggest otherwise in front of the others, I’ll find it within me to get used to murder.”

  He blinked at me and frowned, but stepped back a pace.

  We dragged the bodies out of sight and made our way into the infirmary. The long, torchlit room felt like the inside of a hornets’ nest that some very foolish person had thrown rocks at. The very air hummed with a defiance I could feel buzzing against my skin. My ludus-mates were gathered in small, tight groups, and I took the moment before they noticed me to look around, my heart swelling with pride.

  They were angry. Not afraid.

  And they clearly hadn’t gone quietly to their makeshift incarceration after I’d been hauled away to Tartarus. Elka sported a livid black eye, and there were rust-colored blood splotches down the front of Gratia’s tunic that, judging from her two black eyes, were the result of a broken nose. Others wore an array of bandages, and over on a far cot, I could see the shape of one of the girls lying on her side, covered by a bloodstained sheet.

  I felt my knuckles crack as my fists knotted at my sides.

  At the far end of the room, Cai and Quintus—male and military and therefore, presumably, the only real threat—were shackled and chained to a stone column.

  I understood why the infirmary had been chosen as the place to gather the girls together. The barracks had dozens of cells, but multiple entrances and no locks on the doors. Here, though, there was only one door, and the windows were high and too small to climb through. And there were plenty of beds, along with Heron the physician to tend any injuries the girls had sustained. He was there now, crushing herbs in a mortar and muttering to himself. And he was the first one to notice me as I stepped further into the room.

  “Fallon!” he exclaimed, and set the mortar down with a clatter.

  Cai’s head snapped up and his jaw dropped in surprise as our eyes met for a brief moment. I held up the key ring so he could see it, rattling the keys, and he smiled that slow smile I’d grown so fond of and missed so much. But before I could move to unlock him and Quintus, Elka was across the room and grabbing me by the shoulders, grinning savagely.

  “I knew it!” she said. “I knew you’d find your way back.”

  “I didn’t. Not without help, at least . . .”

  Aeddan moved out from behind me, and everyone else went statue-still. I glared pointedly at the black feather-crested helmet he still wore. He winced and reached up to remove it. Tucking it under his arm, he said, “The main house is still quiet, but we should make haste . . .”

  Aeddan’s words trailed off as he realized Elka was staring at him, the fire in her eyes gone ice-cold. She took a single step forward. “What is he—”

  “I’ll explain later.” I put a hand on her shoulder, forestalling any immediate violence, but Elka’s hands were clenched in fists and stayed that way. “Right now, we have to figure out how to get out of here. All of us.”

  I left her standing there facing Aeddan, the two of them engaged in a silent battle of wills, as I made my way over to Cai and Quint, murmuring greetings to the other girls as I went. I fumbled through the keys and, finding one that looked like it would fit, turned it in the shackle locks. The chains fell away, landing in a rattling heap on the floor. Quint nodded his thanks, and Cai reached out for me, drawing me into an embrace—but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. He nodded, taking it to mean that there would be time for that later, but in reality I just didn’t want him to know I was hurt. I couldn’t afford either affection or sympathy in that moment if I was to stay strong and keep from breaking like a dry reed.

  I turned back to the others as they crowded around, asking questions.

  “This is madness, Fallon . . .”

  “Where have you been?”

  “What’s going on? Was there really a rebellion?”

  “Why are we being kept locked up?”

  “Is the Lanista really dead?”

  I held up my hands, swallowing hard against the knot in my throat at that last question. “All I know for certain,” I said, “is this: Pontius Aquila has taken control of this ludus. And that means he’s taken control of us. If we stay.”

  “If? What do you mean, ‘if’?” Damya gaped at me. “We’re prisoners!”

  The girls all fell silent, and Cai took a step forward.

  “Where are the guards, Fallon?” he asked quietly.

  We locked eyes for a moment. “Indisposed.”

  Ajani nodded decisively. “Then now’s our chance.”

  There was a loud murmur of assent from all the others.

  Almost all the others.

  I looked toward the one silent corner of the room. “Tanis?”

  The other girls turned to where the young archer leaned against the wall, her arms crossed and her mouth in a tight line.

  “You’re coming with us,” Ajani said, stepping forward to put a hand on her fellow archer’s shoulder. “Aren’t you?”

  Tanis shrugged out
of her grip. “We’re no safer out there than we are in here.”

  “That’s not true,” I said.

  “First you want to leave and now you want to stay,” Gratia said, her lip curling in disgust. “Which is it, gladiolus?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want! What any of us wants—it never did. Don’t you get that?” Tanis looked at Gratia like she was simple in the head. “We’re not free. We were stupid to think that we ever would be. Who cares how he took over the ludus?”

  “I care,” I said. “He murdered my sister.”

  The words dropped from my mouth like stones down a well, cold and dark and echoing. The room went silent for a moment, and then Tanis shook her head.

  “You don’t know that,” she said. “What if he was telling the truth? About the rebellion attempt? We’re not all pure and good here, Fallon. No matter how much you like to think we are.” She glared around the room, the heat of her gaze lingering on Meriel and Gratia and a few of the other girls. “Any one of us could have—”

  Meriel took a swing at her, and the room erupted into a chaos of shouting. Until Aeddan finally stepped forward, imposing in his black cloak and armor, and drew his sword. “Shut up!” he snarled. “All of you.”

  “Aeddan!” I pushed toward him through the tangle of girls. “Put that sword down or someone’s going to get hurt!”

  That someone was probably going to be him. The girls surrounding him might not have been armed, but they were the embodiment of strength in numbers. I just wished Tanis could see that.

  With a huff of frustration, Aeddan slammed his sword back into its sheath. “If you stay here, you will die,” he said.

  “It’s a ludus.” Tanis kept up her sullen argument. “Dying’s pretty much the point, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I said. “Fighting is the point. At least, it was. Pontius Aquila is different.”

  But some of the younger girls had begun to frown and shift uneasily. I couldn’t blame them. All they knew—really knew—about the situation was that something had happened to the Lanista, and a rival ludus owner was now in charge of the academy. Nyx had gone on to fight for him, and Nyx had been one of us. How bad could it really be? I realized, then, that I was the only one of the Achillea gladiatrices who understood just how dire the situation was. Cai and Aeddan knew, but I’d never spoken to any of the other girls about the horrors I’d encountered in the Domus Corvinus. I hadn’t even told Elka. I’d never wanted to relive those memories.

  “Fallon is right,” Cai said, stepping forward. “And so is he.” He nodded at Aeddan. “Pontius Aquila is a respected citizen. He is the Tribune of the Plebs and an influential politician. He is also mad and dangerous. And utterly ruthless.”

  Even Tanis went still at that.

  “The arena games aren’t just sport to him,” I said, my voice ragged in the sudden silence. “They’re . . . rituals. Twisted blood rites. He belongs to a secret society of men who stage private munera where the fighters are nothing more than sacrifices to a dark god they call Dis.”

  I looked up to see Elka’s gaze fastened on me. “How do you know this?”

  They all stared at me, wide-eyed and skeptical, waiting for some kind of an explanation that would make sense of what Aeddan was saying. I took a breath and told them all what I’d experienced after Elka and I had been lured by Nyx to the Domus Corvinus with the promise of an evening of harmless—if forbidden—fun. It had turned out to be quite the opposite. “Forbidden” in reality was more like “outlawed,” and “fun” translated horribly as “nightmare.”

  I told them what I’d witnessed in the catacombs of the palatial house that night while the rest of the party guests carried on, reveling in the thrill of a gladiatorial duel that had proved salaciously lethal. The guests didn’t know that the loser of the bout was taken away and laid out on a marble slab, like a sacrificial altar to a dark god. They didn’t know that his chest was split open like a roasting carcass, his still-warm heart torn from the cavity and weighed on a golden scale. And they most certainly did not know that, after that, it was consumed by masked men who called themselves the Sons of Dis. Devoured in a bloody, horrifying ritual. But I knew. I’d seen it happen with my own eyes.

  Dis, I’d later learned, was the dark incarnation of the Roman god Saturn—ruler of the Underworld, a pitiless deity who could grant his worshippers strength and power but would only be placated with blood. As I told my friends the tale, Aeddan stood at my side, his face pale and his jaw tight, nodding confirmation of everything I’d said.

  “They . . . ate the heart of the man you killed?” Tanis asked, one hand creeping up to cover her own breastbone.

  Aeddan nodded.

  Heron ran his fingers over his beard, regarding Aeddan with scholarly detachment. “And yet, you still fought for Aquila,” he said.

  Aeddan met the physician’s gaze with an unblinking one of his own. “At the Ludus Saturnus. I did. Until he made me a member of his elite guard.”

  Heron nodded, and said nothing more. The girls stared at Aeddan with varying expressions of wariness, curiosity, and revulsion. I had my own ideas as to why Aeddan had stayed in close proximity to Aquila. He wasn’t a slave. Even if he wasn’t welcome in our own land, he still could have left at any time. But if he had, he wouldn’t have been at the Ludus Achillea now. And I’d still be locked up in Tartarus.

  I turned away from him to find Elka staring at me.

  “I had no idea,” she said. “That night . . . after I lost track of you. That’s . . .” She trailed off, unable to put into words what she was thinking.

  “Evil,” Neferet finished her sentence for her. “What they did was evil. In Aegypt, when we die, Anubis, the god of the dead, carves out our heart and weighs it against Ma’at, the feather of truth.”

  My hand went to the wound on my wrist—the one Aquila had carved with his feather—and a shiver of dread ran through me, scalp to sole.

  “But Anubis is a god,” Neferet continued. “And only a god has that prerogative.”

  “Aquila thinks of himself like that,” Aeddan said. “He thinks the heart of a warrior gives him strength. Power.”

  Ajani stepped forward. “The hearts of these warriors”—she gestured to the girls gathered around—“will not give him power. We will give him nothing but pain.”

  • • •

  When I’d told Aeddan that I wasn’t leaving without the others, I think I knew that the likelihood of all of us escaping was a remote possibility. The Amazona girls and their guards outnumbered us, and unless all the luck and every benevolent god who chose to turn an eye on our plight was with us, some of us simply weren’t leaving the ludus that night.

  “I wish you good fortune, Fallon,” Heron said, pulling me aside after we’d come to a mutual decision to take our chances outside the ludus walls. “But I can’t come with you.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why not?”

  He led me over to the figure lying on the cot and lifted the sheet. Lydia lay beneath it on her left side, her shoulders seeping blood through the bandages Heron had applied. She moaned quietly and her eyelids fluttered, but that was her only response. The skin on the right side of her face, where the lash of Nyx’s whip had scored, was split to the bone. Heron had done an admirable job of sewing her up with neat, tiny stitches, but Lydia would carry a livid scar for the rest of her life. The cot beneath her was stained with the blood from her wounds.

  In spite of myself, I felt a twinge of pity. I quashed it as best I could.

  “As you see, Lydia isn’t going anywhere,” Heron said. “Not anytime soon.”

  “Leave her behind then,” I said.

  “Fallon,” he chided me gently. “You know I can’t do that. I swore an oath to care for the girls of this ludus. Even the ones who might not entirely deserve it. Aside from the soft-tissue wounds, her cheekbone is broken. Without the poppy dr
aughts I’ve administered, the pain would be overwhelming. If I don’t keep her in a stupor for the next few days at least, she’ll howl herself mad.”

  “What if I . . . what if we need you?” I asked.

  My own wound—the one from Nyx’s blade—had begun to throb again beneath my cloak, and I clenched my fists to keep from putting a hand to my side. If Heron realized I was hurt, he would have done whatever he thought he needed to—for my own good—to keep me in his infirmary. Even if it meant alerting Aquila’s guards.

  “I can take care of it,” Neferet said. “Of us.”

  I looked back and forth between them. Heron frowned, clearly torn. But then he nodded and walked swiftly over to a long cupboard. He took a bulging leather satchel down from a shelf and handed it to Neferet. “I pray you won’t need it,” he said. “But if you do, this should see you through most injuries or illness.”

  Neferet took the bag solemnly, as if it was filled with precious treasure. She looped the strap across her shoulder and gave Heron a swift, spontaneous hug. The physician’s usual dour expression crumpled slightly as he squeezed his eyes shut and returned the embrace.

  “Go,” he said, pushing his apprentice to arm’s length. “Remember what I’ve taught you: that in medicine, sometimes this”—he tapped her chest, just above her heart—“is a wiser physician than this.” He tapped her forehead.

  She nodded, her dark eyes wide and unblinking in her small, serious face. “I will strive to honor your teaching.”

  He snorted. “I’d be happy if you just strove not to let any of your comrades turn septic when they get hurt. Because as sure as the sun climbs the morning sky, they will get hurt.” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  I ducked my head and turned away. Of course, he didn’t know that I was already in need of Neferet’s ministrations—once we got somewhere safe—but he knew that I was endangering the others. And when it happened to one of them, it would be my fault. And my responsibility.