“Be careful out there,” she finally whispered.
Bladesinger blinked in surprise. Looking to Arkades.
“… Aye, Domina.”
“The match awaits, Mi Dona,” the guard captain warned.
Leona nodded, wiping her face. “Very well.”
They were marched through the arena’s bowels, the thrumming clamor of the crowd echoing in the rafters overhead. They reached a large staging area, black stone and an iron portcullis, four broad steps leading down to the arena floor. The sounds of the crowd washed over her and Mia clenched her jaw, eyes to the sand.
“This is the hour,” Arkades said. “Immortality within your grasp. A chance to carve your name into the earth, to honor your domina, and win your freedom. Only one foe stands between you and the magni. A foe who can bleed. A foe who can die.” He fixed each in his ice-blue stare. “You are gladiatii of the Remus Collegium. Stand together, or fall alone.”
Furian nodded. “Executus.”
“Aye, Executus,” Bladesinger murmured.
Mia only stared, remembering what Mister Kindly had told her of Arkades’s words to the Unfallen in his room. Knowing that she was only an inconvenience to this man, a stone to be stepped upon on the way to the magni. He was only using her to see Furian elevated, his ends attained.
All right then, bastard. Let’s use each other.
Mia spoke, her voice cold as wintersdeep. “Executus.”
Leona said nothing more, and the pair left the staging area, the door locked behind them. Furian looked at her sidelong, expression hidden behind his Falcon helm. Bladesinger’s eyes were fixed on the arena as she threaded her saltlocks through her helmet’s crown, slipped it over her head. Hefting a heavy iron shield embossed with a red falcon, she tossed her head, the razor-tipped blades she’d woven at the tips of her locks glinting in the sunslight.
Mia clenched and unclenched her empty hands, shadow trembling, all the hunger and desire and breathless energy she felt when she was near Furian rising to her surface. She didn’t bother grabbing a shield—she was useless with them anyway. Mister Kindly and Eclipse swelled in her shadow, pouncing on the butterflies trying to take wing in her belly and murdering them, one by one.
She knew this would be the hardest fight of her life.
Trumpets sounded, hushing the crowd, anticipation dripping from the very walls.
“Hold…,” Furian said, looking to the guard captain. “Where are our swords?”
“Waiting for us,” Mia answered softly. “Out there.”
“Citizens of Itreya!” The editorii’s words echoed in the quiet. “Honored administratii! Senators and marrowborn! We present to you, a feature bout between the Lions of Leonides and the Falcons of Remus!”
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.
“This match shall be fought e mortium, no surrender, no quarter given! Sanguila Leonides has placed a berth in the Venatus Magni in ante! Should the Falcons of Remus stand the victors, his daughter, Sanguila Leona of the Remus Collegium, shall be permitted to enter her gladiatii in the grand games at Godsgrave, six weeks hence.”
The murmur became a rising swell.
“Entering from the Coast Gate for the Falcons of Remus, we present to you, Bladesinger, the Reaper of Dweym! The Bloody Beauty and Savior of Stormwatch, Crow! And the Champion of Talia, the Unfallen himself, Furiaaaan!”
The crowd came to their feet, roaring in approval. The portcullis drew up, and with a final glance to each other, the three Falcons strode out into the sand, guards marching beside them. Bladesinger and Furian raised their hands in greeting, the crowd bellowing in response, thousands upon thousands. Mia only scowled. She remembered not so long ago, when that applause had thrilled her soul. Now, she knew they cheered not for her, but the bloody spectacle she provided. It mattered not who swung the blade. Only that someone’s neck was there to meet it.
She wanted to be done with this, wanted this bloody gala ended and Duomo and Scaeva gone and a thousand years in a hot spring to wash the blood and stink of it away …
The great island that had marked the equillai track had sunk back down into the mekwerk beneath the arena floor. The sand before them was featureless, off-white, streaked with fresh red.
“Wait here,” the guard captain commanded. “Do not move until commanded by the editorii, or you will be disqualified.”
The guards marched back to the portcullis, and sealed them in.
“What the ’byss is happening here?” Bladesinger muttered.
“Just hold still,” Mia replied. “And brace yourself.”
“Do you know something we do not, Crow?” the Unfallen growled.
“Furian,” she sighed. “The things I know that you don’t could just about fill the Great fucking Salt.”
“Entering from the Tower Gate for the Lions of Leonides, we present a terror from the Drakespine Mountains! A pariah among her own kind, her very name, death in the tongue of the Dominion! Behold, Ishkah, the Exiiiiile!”
A wondering murmur rolled through the crowd, the portcullis in the arena’s northern wall grinding open. Out of the shadow walked Leonides’s silkling, flanked by a half-dozen guards. She was decked in a suit of magnificent golden armor, highlighted with emerald green. A lion’s pelt was draped about her shoulders, its head and great mane fitted around her helm. As the crowd cheered wildly, the silkling strode into the arena. The guards marched back in formation, the portcullis slamming behind them.
Mia stared across the sand to their enemy, dust blowing in the rising wind. Ishkah stood seven feet tall, all gleaming chitin and muscle, her lips painted cloud-white. She sloughed off her lion’s pelt, six arms unfolding like a flower in bloom. Her dark green skin gleamed in the sunslight, those featureless eyes staring down her foes.
“Mother of Oceans,” Bladesinger murmured. “She’s a sight.”
“Just brace yourselves,” Mia said.
“Citizens, behold!” cried the editorii. “Your battleground.”
A deep rumbling sounded beneath the sands, the grinding of colossal gears. The floor shuddered, but Mia’s comrades held steady as a large, wedge-shaped section of the floor they stood on began to rise. Sand cascaded down, Mia looking over the edge into the massive mekwerks below. She smelled oil, sulfur, salt.
Other sections of the sand were moving, the entire arena floor breaking up into a series of wedged platforms. Differing heights and dimensions, the platforms began slowly rotating around the central plinth, spinning, twisting, passing above and beneath one another like the interlocking pieces of some enormous clockface. Furian, Bladesinger and Mia exchanged glances, Bladesinger whispering a prayer to Trelene.
“You can’t say they don’t know how to put on a show,” Mia muttered.
The gobsmacked crowd were cheering for all they were worth. Mia and her comrades were perhaps twenty feet above ground level now. She glanced down again into the arena’s mekwerk guts—to slip off the edge would be to tumble into those great, grinding gears, and be mashed to pulp between greasy metal teeth.