Carved in the stone, just as Ashlinn promised. A single name among the thousands. The name of a slave who purchased his freedom, and yet remained by her father’s side afterward. Darius Corvere’s right hand. His majordomo. A man who would have been with his justicus as he prepared to march on his own capital. A man who would have been with her father until the end.
Andriano Varnese.
“… it is true, then…”
Cold ice in her belly as her fingers traced the name in the stone.
Ashes and dust in her mouth.
The Red Church had a hand in her father’s capture. The rebellion’s failure. Why else would the name of her father’s majordomo be carved here on the stone? How else would a general and his justicus be captured in the middle of ten thousand men?
All this time, she’d been training in a den of murderers to avenge herself on the men who’d executed her father. Never imagining for a moment that the murderers she trained with played a role in that same execution.
And all at the behest of the man she wished to murder most of all.
Ash had spoken truth.
All of it. Everything.
Undone in a moment.
“O, Goddess,” Mia breathed.
She looked to the statue above her. The sword and scales in her hand. The jewels sparkling in her robe, like stars in the still of truedark. Those black, pitiless eyes.
“O, Black Mother, what do I do now?”
*
The crowd was thunder.
It reverberated through the stone around her, echoed on the sweat-slick walls. Dust drifted down from the wooden beams above, the rumble of thousands of feet, the tremor of their applause, the deafening peals of their adulation all around her, crawling on her skin and vibrating in the pit of her belly.
Mia had never heard anything like it in all her life.
She stood in the holding cell beneath the arena, peering out through the bars to the sands beyond. Matteo stood beside her, dark eyes wide in wonder. Sidonius paced up and down their little cell, like a caged beast longing to be unleashed. Or perhaps, longing to run. Mia looked at the word COWARD branded into his chest. Wondered what exactly he’d done to earn it.
“You ever attended a venatus, little Crow?” he asked.
“My father would never allow it. He thought the games were barbaric.”
Sidonius looked out to the mob and nodded. “A wise man.”
“Not that wise…”
The wagon ride from Crow’s Nest to Blackbridge had taken almost a week. As ever, Mia, Matteo and Sidonius had been kept apart from the true gladiatii, and none of them deigned to speak a word to her. They’d been well fed, however, and perhaps out of some sympathy for what was to come, Butcher had refrained from pissing in any more dinners. After six turns, they’d arrived in the shadows of the Drakespine Mountains, and rolled into the sprawling metropolis of Blackbridge.*
Now, they waited under the city’s great arena. The first exhibitions were under way—public murders sponsored by the local administratii. Mia watched as the sands were baptized with blood, convicted criminals and heretics and escaped slaves being executed e gladiatii, whetting the crowd’s appetite for the bloodshed to come.
The Blackbridge arena was huge, elliptical, four hundred feet long. It seated at least twenty thousand people, the sunslight kept off the crowd by moving mekwerk canvases overhead. The stalls and bleachers were packed, folk traveling from miles around to witness the blood and glory of the venatus. Mia could see vendors selling salted meats and wine. Wives sitting with husbands, children riding on their parents’ shoulders for a better view.
Nothing brings the familia together like a nice afternoon of slaughter.
As common chattel, Mia and the other recruits were scheduled to fight first. The Winnowing was always a bloody spectacle, and the editorii always tried to put on a good show for the mob. But the crowd still favored bouts between their heroes over the mass slaughter of nameless wretches, no matter how impressive their murders. The bouts featuring true gladiatii would be fought afterward, once the Winnowing was done.
Staring out at the blood-soaked sand, Mia felt herself trembling. The long-forgotten sensation of fear was swelling in her gut, turning her legs to water. The absence of Mister Kindly and Eclipse was a gnawing emptiness. An almost physical pain. She gripped the bars to still her shaking hands, cursing herself a coward.
You fought to be here. All this, your design. And now you stand there, trembling like a fucking child …
She pictured Duomo and Scaeva presiding over her father’s execution in the forum. The baying crowd, howling for her father’s blood. Looking out into the arena seats, she saw those same faces, that same awful delight. The same kind of people who cheered for her father’s death.
But not for mine, you bastards. This is not where I die.
She curled her fingers into fists.
I’ve far too much killing to do.
“Recruits,” came a voice.
Mia turned, saw Executus at the cell door. Instead of his usual leather armor and whip, he was dressed in britches and a fine doublet, set with the red falcon of the Familia Remus and the golden lion of the Familia Leonides. His long gray hair was braided, his beard combed—if not for the scar slicing down his face and the iron leg, he might have been mistaken for a wealthy don out for an afternoon’s sport.
“Now is the hour,” he said, his voice grave. “Death or glory awaits. It shall be for you to decide which is given, and which received.”
Matteo spoke with a trembling voice. “What shape will the Winnowing take?”
“The editorii will announce once you are in position. But no matter the challenge, the way to victory is always the same.” He gave a soft shrug. “Don’t get killed.”
Matteo looked ready to spew his mornmeal all over his sandals. Sidonius was pacing again, running his hand over his stubbled scalp. Mia shifted her weight, one foot to another, sick to her stomach.
The executus looked among them, and for the first time, Mia thought she saw the tiniest hint of softness in his eyes.
“Every gladiatii once stood where you stand now,” he said. “Myself among them. No matter what you face on those sands, fear is the only enemy in your path. Conquer your fear, and you can conquer the world.”
He placed his hand on his chest. Nodded once.
“Sanguii e Gloria. I will see you after the Winnowing as blooded gladiatii, or by the Hearth when I go to my eternal sleep. Aa watch over you, and Tsana guide your hand.”
Arena guards in black armor marched into the cell, escorted Mia and the others down a long corridor. She heard trumpets signaling the end of the executions. A roar echoed above their heads in response. Through the walls and beneath her feet, Mia heard the creak and groan of metal on metal, the grinding of mighty gears.
“What is that?” Matteo whispered.
“Mekwerk beneath the arena floor,” Mia replied. “The editorii control everything that happens on the sands from the underbelly.”
“You know an awful lot about the venatus for a girl who’s never attended one,” Sidonius muttered.
Mia tried to smile mysteriously in reply, but couldn’t quite manage it for the butterflies in her belly.