“Fallon?” he said. “What is it?”
“Did you . . . speak to Aeddan last night? On the ship while everyone else was asleep?”
I half expected him to laugh or deny it. Why would he speak to Aeddan? But he did neither, and the memory of the conversation clouded his clear hazel gaze. I closed my eyes as I felt my heart sink. It hadn’t been a dream. Not at least that part of it. And now there were only two possibilities. Two answers to fill in the terrible, silent space of Cai’s answer.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
I shook my head and turned away.
“Fallon—”
“No.” I spun back around, anger burning in my cheeks. “Cai. I heard.”
“You heard what?”
“I heard what you said—or what you didn’t say!”
He gaped at me in confusion. “What—”
“You hesitated. When Aeddan told you to lie to me—to tell me that you didn’t love me—so that I’d leave. You didn’t tell him no.”
“That hesitation you heard,” Cai said sharply, “was me trying to figure out how best to explain the kind of girl you are to your tribesman without punching him in the face first. Fallon . . . if all you heard was that hesitation, then you didn’t hear the most important part.”
“And that was?”
“The part where I told Aeddan that he could go straight to a hell of his own choosing before I would agree to such a thing. Understand something, Fallon . . .” His expression was hurt. And more than hurt. Angry. “Something vital. I would sacrifice any chance I ever had at happiness with you if I thought that, in doing so, I would be making your life better or happier. And I’d do it with a smile on my face and a song in my breaking heart. But I will not lie to you. Ever. And telling you I don’t love you is the most flagrant lie that could ever pass my lips.”
I watched helplessly as the hurt in his gaze turned to disappointment. He shook his head sadly, and I was beginning to think I’d made a terrible mistake.
“I thought we had agreed to treat each other as equals,” Cai said quietly.
“Cai—”
“You really don’t trust me, do you, Fallon? When are you going to believe in me enough to accept the fact that I believe in you?”
“I do—”
“Back at the ludus you didn’t even tell me you were hurt.”
“What—” I sputtered. “I didn’t tell anyone!”
“You didn’t tell me.” There was a long pause. “Did you tell Aeddan?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer him. Was he right? Did I actually trust Aeddan more than I trusted Cai? And what in all the worlds did that say about me? That I could confide weakness to the man who’d murdered my first love, but not the man I loved now? Was I that afraid of what Cai would do to my heart if I ever gave it to him fully? My silence spoke volumes, apparently.
“Right,” he said. There was a weary resignation in his voice. A dull, bruised ache.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t handle myself,” I said. “I just didn’t want you to lose trust in me. To think I wouldn’t be able to get us out of there—”
“But I do trust you. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Until I believe it myself.”
He laughed, a mirthless weary sound. “I don’t know that I have that much breath in my body, Fallon.”
“Trust goes both ways, Cai.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Kass, I wanted to say.
But the skiff had returned. And there was no more time for us to argue.
“This isn’t over,” Cai said before Antonia and Neferet stepped ashore.
I nodded and turned to the water, watching as the two of them waded through the knee-deep froth, holding each other’s hands for support. Over the next hour or so, the beach began to slowly fill up with gladiatrices, and there was no chance for us to finish our argument. In truth, I wished it had never started. The uneasy feeling that I was profoundly on the wrong side of it was like a thorn against my skin, and every time I looked over at Cai, I wanted to take his hands in mine and kiss away the angry words I’d flung at him.
But it would have to wait.
Not far from where we landed, there was a river that emptied into the bay. The rich soil it carried down from the hills stained the pale beach sand, marking the place where fresh water met sea, and that was where we would begin our trek up into the forest of pine and cedar and olive trees. The sky overhead was brilliant blue and dotted with puffs of cloud, but beneath the trees, the deep green shadows raised gooseflesh on my arms. The hills rising up ahead of us were silent, and it seemed as if even the birds avoided this place.
My fellow gladiatrices ranged in a loose half circle around me, silent and formidable, faces and limbs marked with war paint. I could feel the designs on my own skin pull tight and tingle as I moved, and I shivered in anticipation of the battle to come, sensing the same coiled tension in the others. The battle readiness. Even Neferet, who’d sworn off ever picking up a weapon again, had a look to her that made me pity anyone who attempted to test her resolve regarding that oath. She shifted the surgeon’s bag on her shoulder, Leander at her side. He would stay with her, behind any kind of fighting we might encounter, to help with wounded—if it came to that. Knowing she was there with her bandages and instruments and potions made me feel better about what was potentially to come. About the fact that I was dragging my oath sisters into danger to rescue my blood sister. And I refused to even entertain the thought that she might not be there for us to rescue.
Arviragus had forgone the woad, but he didn’t really need it to be intimidating. And war paint would have looked a bit ridiculous on Leander—although the way he handled the blade we’d given him made me think that he’d picked up at least a few tricks, watching us all practice back at the ludus. It was almost enough to bring a smile to my lips as I watched him. The kitchen boy was finally the hero in his own tale, and he seemed determined to make the most of it.
Cai and Quint, for their part, were dressed in full battle garb, scarlet-plumed helmets waving in the breeze off the ocean. The very picture of ruthless legion efficiency. I was used to the stern, soldierly expression on Cai’s face under the brim of his helmet, but it was unsettling to see Quint’s gaze turned so hard.
“Thank you for leading us here, Quintus,” I said, before we set off.