The Defiant

  The crack of a whip made us both turn back toward the merchant stalls.

  I heard Meriel whisper an oath. And a name: “Nyx.”

  Like winged Nemesis she came, soot-black cloak and midnight armor, thick lines of kohl circling her eyes like war paint. Teeth bared in a snarl, Nyx cracked her whip again. Her eyes scanned the deserted wharf, and she shouted for the vigiles who followed in her wake to cut off access to the docked ships. Another few moments and we would be hemmed in, with no chance of escape.

  I moved to step from behind the crates, but Meriel grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me back. “You walked away last time,” she said. “She’s not going to let that happen again. She’ll kill you.”

  “She can try—”

  “But she won’t kill me,” Meriel said, silencing my attempted bravado.

  “Meriel—”

  “Don’t be stupid, Fallon! Everyone knows—in all the ludus, there was only one fighter you never beat outright. Not without help. Nyx might not be better than you, but she knows how to beat you.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “I’m the closest thing she had to a friend at the ludus. If either of us is going to face her, it should be me. Go,” she said. “I’ll hold her off as long as I can.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Then neither of us is leaving,” she snarled. “Don’t be a fool—go!”

  The sounds of shouting registered from over my shoulder, and I glanced around to see a flurry of activity onboard the ship as the sailors rushed to cast off before the vigiles could reach them. At the rail, Cai and Elka were shouting for us to hurry. And Ajani had another arrow nocked in her bow. I hesitated, turning back to Meriel.

  “Go, Fallon!” she urged again. “They need you on that ship, not me. And the Lanista needs you most of all.”

  “Meriel—”

  “Go!”

  And then she stepped out from behind the crates and calmly strode toward Nyx. With a snarl of frustration, I slammed my swords back into their scabbards. There was nothing to stop me from stepping out with her. Nothing except the thought of my sister. And the boatload of fugitive gladiatrices who’d sworn to risk their lives to help save her. Like Meriel was doing now.

  “I don’t have a problem with you, Meriel.” Nyx’s voice carried to where I was still hidden.

  “Yeah, Nyx,” Meriel answered. “You do.”

  I heard her shout a Prydain battle cry, and I heard the crack of Nyx’s whip. Fighting every urge I had to the contrary, I turned and ran for the ship. The sailors had already cast off the lines, and the vessel was swinging out away from the jetty. I saw the gangplank teeter and fall into the water as the gap between the boat and the wharf widened. The ship rail was lined now with faces—all open-mouthed and urging me to run faster! I put my head down, arms and legs pumping, and when I reached the edge of the stone jetty . . . I leaped.

  I almost didn’t make it. My foot hit the deck railing and I pitched forward, flailing wildly for something to hold on to. And then Cai was there, holding on to me. He pulled me onto the deck and crushed me to his chest. I stood there a moment, the breath heaving in my lungs, before I twisted away from him and turned back to lean out over the railing. Back on the dock, Meriel was still on her feet, still fighting. I’d marveled before at her skill—at how it always seemed like she was dancing with the retiarius gear—and if it was the arena, I would have stood there cheering. Instead, my heart was in my mouth as our boat picked up speed and we sailed away from her.

  When she went down, finally, under a heap of constables, I could only stand there and watch, numb with horror. Nyx was too far away for me to see her face clearly as she stepped away from the downed girl, but I saw her walk to the very edge of the wharf and stare after our retreating ship.

  I imagined her standing there for as long as I did.

  I could feel her staring after me. We had not seen the last of each other, but I knew in my heart I had seen the last of Meriel. And it felt like a stone in my chest.

  “You lose some along the way,” said a voice at my elbow. “It’s not your fault. But you should know, you’ll probably lose more if you keep to this path.”

  I turned to see the ship’s master standing with his arms knotted across his chest, staring at me with dark eyes. Charon the slave trader. The man who’d captured me and sold me, saved me more than once, and now risked everything to help me save my sister.

  “Is it the right path?” I asked.

  “You’re asking the wrong man.” He shook his head. “I’m a slave trader, Fallon. I can speak to the right and wrong of a thing out of both sides of my mouth. It’s how I sleep at night.”

  “They’ll follow us.” I nodded in the direction of the wharf—and the girl—we’d already left far behind. “Won’t they?”

  Charon laughed a little. “They can try,” he said. “But they won’t catch us. Or have you forgotten? I have a long history of leaving ports in a hurry under cover of darkness.”

  He reached out and gently squeezed my shoulder. Then he left me alone, calling softly out to his crew, who bent to his orders and guided us stealthily down the wide black river. The ship sailed on, a dark silent sea creature riding the deeper darkness of the Tiber’s waves. All around us, lamps in windows flickered like fireflies, growing fewer as we left the city far behind.

  • • •

  The vessel was manned by a sparse crew, and so Cai, Quint, Aeddan, Leander, and Arviragus were all pressed into rowing service until such time as we made it out onto the open sea and could unfurl the sails. The girls of the ludus offered to help, but Charon’s sailors were already uneasy with so many females on board, let alone ones who could handle the duties of men just as well as they could. They muttered darkly about women and bad luck, but I wondered if some of them just didn’t want to be shown up by the likes of Gratia pulling at the oars.

  I said as much to her, half-joking, when I found myself standing next to her in the stern of the ship, staring back toward a Rome that had long since disappeared in the distance. Gratia didn’t laugh, but I didn’t really expect her to. Neither of us was in much of a mood for levity. Not after watching Meriel go down.

  “We’ve left a lot of girls behind,” Gratia mused, echoing Charon’s sentiment earlier. “A lot of friends.”

  I felt the dull-edged knife of guilt twist in my heart. “I know. I’m sorry—”

  “No.” Gratia glanced at me sharply. “No, Fallon. You have nothing to be sorry for. I thought Nyx was my friend. I really did. And I’ve lost her too. The fact that she never felt that way about me—about any of us—doesn’t make it hurt any less. What she did to Lydia, to Meriel, those were betrayals. What she’s done to you? Unforgivable.”

  “She thinks I took something from her. Something precious.”

  “Status. Reputation.”

  “Sorcha.”

  “Well, that’s something Nyx should have learned by now. You don’t own people.” She snorted—at the irony, I think, of those words spoken from one slave to another. “Not their hearts, anyway. And if you lose them, then you weren’t strong enough or worthy enough to keep them.”

  I turned to look at Gratia, surprised and a little ashamed that I’d never really considered her disposed toward those kinds of thoughts. Those kinds of feelings. I’d only ever thought of her in terms of her bluntness. Both as a fighter and as a person. I guess I’d always known there was much more to her—to all of the Achillea gladiatrices—than just the skill and will to survive. But when you spent your days facing off in the arena against the same people you broke bread with every morning, there was a natural tendency to reduce them to just that: the block of marble, not the finished sculpture.

  I reminded myself again of what Sorcha had been striving for with her ideas of a Nova Ludus Achillea. A place where we could be more than just rivals. We
were people. Individuals. Creatures of heart and mind, not just flesh and bone, and we deserved a chance to live our lives fully. I wanted that. For me, for Gratia. For all of us. For my sister and my sisters.

  Corsica, I vowed silently, would not be the end of it.

  It would be the beginning.

  • • •

  After Gratia bid me good night, I went to find Neferet, to see if there was anything in her satchel she could give me to calm my stomach and my nerves. I wasn’t the first, apparently.

  “Sea sickness,” she diagnosed, then gave me a cup of water that she poured a pinch of powder into. “Drink this. And then go lie down. It’ll make you drowsy, and maybe a little muddled. So stay away from the ship’s rails, and try to get some sleep.”

  I drank the soporific and wandered off to find a spot somewhere on deck where I could curl up out of the way. Tucking in behind a stack of folded sailcloth near the stern, I wrapped my cloak tight around me and pulled the hood up over my head. The deck had fallen silent, save for the creak of oars and the murmur of the sailors, and they soon lulled me to sleep.

  And fretful dreams. Dreams of home . . .

  “You mean Britannia?” I heard Cai say.

  I tried to answer him, but my head was too heavy and my mouth wouldn’t open. And then I realized he wasn’t talking to me anyway.

  “Durovernum,” Aeddan answered. “You could send her back there.”

  What? No he can’t . . .

  The sounds of the conversation began to drift in and out, like waves on a beach.

  “. . . longer she stays in Rome, the shorter her life will be . . .”

  That was Aeddan.

  “. . . draws down danger like a flower draws bees . . .”

  “. . . go home, back to where she truly belongs . . .”

  Cai’s voice was muffled. His words indistinguishable, try as I might.

  “. . . the life she should have had. The life of a queen.”

  I have the life of a gladiatrix, Aeddan, I thought. The life I want now . . .

  And then I heard Cai say, “I’m listening.”

  What? Why? Don’t listen to him, Cai . . .

  I wanted to stand up and confront the two of them, but the dream wouldn’t let me. I was paralyzed. I could only lie there while they discussed what was to be done about me. Their voices drifted in and out of my ears, shifting and modulating, catching in the sails and echoing off the wind and the waves.

  “. . . with her sister or without . . .”

  I heard myself moan in denial. There would be no “without” Sorcha.

  “. . . a queen . . . want for nothing—”

  “And we both know she won’t go willingly.”

  “She will,” Aeddan said. “If you tell her to.”

  Like hell I will . . .

  “. . . tell her that you don’t want her here.” Aeddan’s voice grew clearer. “That you don’t want her. If you don’t love her, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you. But if you do love her, Caius Varro, then lie to her.”

  I fought against the soft black fog that wrapped around me, pulling me down, struggling to hear Cai’s answer—and how vehement his denial would be.

  But there was only silence.

  And with his silence, I felt my heart crack.

  Then the darkness insisted, and I fell into a bottomless, dreamless well. When I awoke sometime later, my eyes snapped open and I sat bolt upright, glancing around wildly in the predawn gloom, scanning the deck for Cai and Aeddan, but they weren’t there. The only sounds were the creak and splash of the ship. The shushing of the oars. And the echoes of their voices from my dream.

  By the time the sun rose my dream had faded to a tangled, uneasy jumble, and I stood at the railing, staring out at the sea as it turned from deep cobalt to shimmering turquoise and the sky brightened to gold.

  “Fallon?” Cai put a hand on my back, between my shoulders, and I felt my muscles tense at his touch. He must have felt it too. “What’s wrong?”

  I took a breath and turned a smile on him.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just . . . tired. I didn’t sleep much.”

  I wasn’t about to blame Cai for my nightmare. Unlike Kassandra, I wasn’t about to start believing that my bad dream had been brought on by anything more than the stresses of the last few days. And Neferet’s potent soporific. I steadfastly avoided comparing it to the visitation I received from Arviragus in my prison cell. That hadn’t been real either, but it had been meaningful . . . in the end. Not this. Not Cai. I refused to believe that he would plot with Aeddan in such a way.

  “And how was your night?” I asked. “What did I miss?”

  He grinned ruefully and held up his hand, palm up. “Callouses,” he said. “Rowing’s worse than swordplay for them.” The skin of his fingers was blistered in places, raw in others, and I winced on his behalf. “Quint’s overjoyed, because it gave him the chance to go beg Elka to bind his wounds.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Really.”

  “Didn’t work.” Cai shook his head. “She sloughed him off on Ajani, who’s presently taking pity on the poor lad and slathering him in one of her salves.”

  I laughed—only a little with relief—and turned back to lean on the rail, looking around at a vast expanse of nothing. No land anywhere. We were through, out on the Mare Nostrum, and clear of Rome and Aquila’s hunters.

  “It was worth the callouses,” Cai said, grinning at my expression.

  “We did it,” I said, only half believing what my eyes told me. “We’re beyond Aquila’s reach.”

  Cai nodded. “For now,” he said. “Charon’s men might be slavers—”

  “And pirates and miscreants and ruthless whenever it serves them to be—”

  “But they’re good.”

  They were. And so was Cai.

  If I’d been on that galley for any other reason, I could have blissfully lost myself to the warm, fragrant breeze, the splendor of the sea and sky, and the fact that we were the only ship in sight. However Charon and his men had done it, he’d been true to his word. They’d gotten us down the river, past the port of Ostia, and out onto the open sea.

  I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Charon was, after all, a master of stealth and secrets, and he was motivated. He’d once told me that he’d been hopelessly in love with my sister for years. I hadn’t forgotten, and I’d shamelessly used those old affections when we’d plotted our escape. Cai knew it. And he hadn’t objected to the blatant manipulation when I’d suggested he reach out to the slave trader for help in securing transportation.

  “I hope you’re never taken captive again,” Cai said. “I’m pretty sure this little adventure will tax Charon’s goodwill to the limit, and I don’t know where I’d find another boat.”

  “But you would.” I grinned. “Somehow.”

  Cai nodded, but I could see his thoughts had drifted elsewhere. His gaze was distant, focused somewhere toward the horizon where the hills of Rome had long since vanished behind us. I sensed somehow, without even asking, that he was thinking about his argument with Kass, and I felt my stomach clench a bit. I wondered if he’d regretted leaving her behind . . .

  “Cai?”

  “Hmn?” He blinked and looked back at me.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked, realizing what a strange question that might have been, under the circumstances.

  He smiled at me. “Are you here, now, with me?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then everything is absolutely perfect.”

  He kissed me, and left me to go scrounge us something to eat. I rose and stretched and put Kassandra out of my mind. What Cai had said was true—as long as we were together, everything was fine. As I stretched, I felt the pull of the healing skin around my injury, but I no longer experienced any sharp pain with it.
That was a relief. I needed to be in fighting trim for what lay ahead of us. Whatever that might be. The wound on my forearm—the one from Aquila’s demon-forged silver feather—still tingled a bit when I thought about it, but I tried very hard not to think about it. My strength had not left me, and my fingers still clenched into a tight strong fist at my command. I raised that fist in front of my face and stared at my pale-skinned knuckles for a long moment. When I released my grip my fingers opened wide like the wings of a bird.

  “He has no hold on me,” I whispered to myself as I shook the blood back into my fingertips. “My strength is the Morrigan’s strength. She will not forsake me.”

  The sails had been raised and the oars shipped once we’d reached the open sea. They snapped and billowed above my head. There was a water barrel on deck, and I went to quench my thirst, passing Arviragus, who stood at the railing on that side of the ship, staring out at the horizon and lost in thought. I noticed his complexion, already pale from years of imprisonment in his sunless cell, was tinged with a slightly greenish cast. But there was also a new, sharp glint in his eyes, and the way he lifted his head to the freshening wind and gulped at it—like a long-kenneled dog let loose on the hunt for the first time—made me offer a silent prayer of gratitude to the Morrigan for leading me to him in my delirium. He was free again. And whatever else happened, that, in itself, was a gift I’d never expected to be able to give.

  I smiled to myself as I wandered back to settle down on the stack of folded sailcloth I’d slept next to, waiting for Cai to return with breakfast. My stomach actually growled at the thought of food, and I took that as a good sign for my returning strength.

  The other girls were scattered in small groups spread out along the deck. Some of them, I suspected, had never been out on the open sea before. And even for those who had—myself and Elka included—it was a disconcertingly foreign experience. Not just the motion of the ship on the waves, but the fact that the land had disappeared behind us, with nothing to indicate that there was anything but water and more water ahead. I saw more than one fearless gladiatrix glance nervously out over the rolling waves, searching for terra firma.