“I can provide a replacement,” the Empress went on. “If she’s proving not to your . . . taste.”
Think nothing. Feel nothing. “She . . . is acceptable to me.”
“I am glad. You are the Most Honoured Garisai after all. The quarters you were given have traditionally been reserved for the most exalted of champions. In ages past the Garisai were not slaves you see, but free men and women, come to honour the gods with blood and courage. The undefeated would be raised to great status, lavished with all comfort and pleasures, for the gods favoured those who could slake their endless thirst.”
“What happened to them?” Reva asked, watching as a group of five survivors surrounded the man who now held the sword, edging closer as he attempted to ward them off with clumsy jabs, face grey with exhaustion. “Your gods.”
“We killed them,” the Empress replied, returning her attention to the arena as the contest neared its conclusion. The man with the sword hacked down a tall but aged opponent before the others closed in and bore him to the ground, fists rising and falling in a frenzy until one broke free with the sword, immediately turning to hack at his former allies, voicing a feral scream with every blow. The crowd had fallen silent once again and the man’s rhythmic fury reverberated across the ascending tiers, coming to a ragged stop as he finished his last victim and slumped to the sands, weeping, his sagging, barely muscled torso red from neck to waist.
The Empress squinted at the slumped figure for a moment. “One of the corrupt,” she mused, before turning to Varulek. “Make sure he finishes the wounded, then send him to the mint. Hauling sacks of gold and silver for the rest of his days might educate him in the true value of money.”
She reclined, reaching out to trace her fingers through the tresses of Reva’s hair that had escaped her long braid. “The gods,” she said in a reflective tone, “were of no more use to a people willing to embrace a great future, a destiny that could only be fulfilled by unity and unclouded reason. Or so my father once told me.”
“They weren’t real,” Reva said. “Your gods died whilst the World Father endured.” She watched as a pair of Arisai dragged the lone survivor to his feet, pushing him towards the prostrate form of a man with a gaping stomach wound, one hand clutched to his spilling guts whilst he raised the other in a vain plea for mercy. “You built a nation of horrors.”
“And what is your nation, little sister? A perfection of civilisation? I’ve seen it, and I think not. You grovel to a dream scribbled down centuries ago, pursuing your endless quarrel with those who in turn grovel to the imagined souls of the dead.”
“A quarrel now ended, thanks to you.”
“And to you, Blessed Lady. She who speaks with the Father’s voice.” She issued a soft laugh as Reva’s unease deepened. “Oh yes, I can see it. You lied. Thousands followed you here to their deaths, all because of the words you spoke on behalf of a deaf-mute god. And though you have never truly heard his voice, still you fear his judgement.”
She leaned closer, Reva keeping her gaze fixed on the arena and the final man, tottering like an infant as he went from one maimed figure to another. “Let it go, little sister,” the Empress whispered, her tone urgent with honest entreaty. “I can show you so much.”
Reva watched the last of the wounded meet his untidy end before the Arisai dragged the survivor from the arena, suspended between them, head thrown back as he gabbled in a madman’s voice. “I’ve already seen enough,” she said.
The Empress’s breath ghosted across her cheek as she gave a small sigh, pressing a kiss to her skin before leaning back. “I find I must disagree, my lady.”
It took the better part of a half hour for the slaves to clear the bodies from the arena and rake the pooled blood from the sand. The Empress remained silent throughout, her face taking on an oddly vacant cast as she sat with dimmed eyes. Occasionally her lips would move in a silent murmur, her brow creasing in confusion at some inner puzzlement, at times her features tensing into a mask of such sorrowful bafflement Reva found herself suppressing a pang of pity. This thing is mad, she realised. A mad Empress for an empire built on unclouded reason.