“Pay attention, you fool!” I muttered through a clenched jaw and dragged my focus back to the fight—just in time to see Aeddan charging toward me in a dead run, his two swords flashing. I slammed my own blades back into their sheaths and plucked Aeddan’s spear out of the ground. Wielding it like a staff, I swept it overhead and blocked the blows he rained down on me. Suddenly, a volley of flaming arrows arced overhead, trailing dark crimson smoke. We fought dead center in the arena, right in the thick of it, and Aeddan flinched as one of the arrows punched into the ground beside him.
I took advantage of the moment, ducked low, and rammed the butt of my spear into his side. The breath left his lungs in a whoof as he stumbled sideways, and I followed up with a series of swift, vicious jabs. One of them bit into the large, hard muscle of his thigh, below the edge of the armored skirt he wore. Not deep, but painful. Aeddan’s leg went sideways, out from under him, and he fell heavily to his knees.
The crowd cheered madly.
I raised my blades high up over my head, muscles tensed for the killing blow. Aeddan stared up at me through the grill of his helmet visor, but all he could see was the gilded Victory mask that hid my face. He had no idea whom he was fighting, but I didn’t have that luxury. I stared down into his gray eyes and lowered my swords. Confusion mingled with the pain in his gaze as I reached up and snapped open the buckle on my leather chinstrap, lifting the helmet and visor off my head. My hair fell down around my cheeks, damp and sticky with sweat, and the air was cool on my face.
Aeddan let out a choked gasp as he realized who he had been fighting.
The world seemed to spiral out and away from us.
Time stood still . . .
The world crashed back down on me, and the walls of the Circus Maximus closed in. I was losing the crowd—I could feel their mood souring against me—and I felt a swell of panic. It didn’t matter anymore if the spectacle had been intended as pure pageantry. The mob smelled blood, and would have it. I raised my swords again, and Aeddan went stone-still, staring up at me. The hurt in his eyes washed away, and a calm acceptance took its place, almost as if he had been waiting for this moment.
And I couldn’t do it.
High up in the stands, I saw Caesar stand beneath the crimson canopy and take a step forward. He lifted his arm high, fist clenched. His brow was creased in an angry frown beneath the laurel crown he wore, and my stomach clenched in an icy knot.
The crowd fell silent and held their breath.
This was not the way the spectacle was supposed to end.
And then the war horns sounded a third time, louder and harsher, a strident battle call. Aeddan and I both looked over to see the iron grate at the mouth of a cavernous archway grinding upward. Through it rode a nightmare.
The Morrigan made her entrance onto the field of the battle of Britannia in a chariot black as despair.
Standing on the deck of the chariot behind her driver, Nyx was impressive and terrifying to behold, costumed in black armor with a long cloak tiered and tattered to resemble wings flowing from her shoulders. Her face and limbs were painted with garish blue designs, and her eyes were ringed in thick black kohl. And they were fixed on me.
Her teeth bared in an animal grimace, she suddenly lunged forward and yanked her chariot driver up by the shoulders. She flung the driver from the chariot, seizing the reins herself. With a howl, she drew a whip from her belt and lashed the black horses madly, steering the war cart straight at me and Aeddan, who still lay sprawled on the ground at my feet.
“Daughter . . .” The voice of the goddess shuddered through my mind like thunder—and suddenly I found myself grinning savagely. The Morrigan had not forsaken me. She wasn’t against me.
The true Morrigan had shown herself to lead me to victory.
“Get up!” I snapped at Aeddan, sheathing my swords and thrusting out a hand to help him stand.
“Fallon, what—”
“You’re going to prove to me that I didn’t make a mistake by not killing you just now.” I hauled him to his feet, ignoring the sting from the flesh wound under my armor. “You’re going to help me show these people what it means to be a warrior from the Island of the Mighty!”
Not fifteen feet away from Aeddan and me, one of the swift, light chariots stood bereft of its driver, hitched to a pair of ghost-gray horses. I grabbed for Aeddan’s wrist and ran, dragging him with me. Nyx’s own chariot was almost on top of us.
“Come on!” I shouted. “Move!”
I heard cries of outrage as the crowd realized that we weren’t waiting for Caesar to render judgment. I certainly wasn’t. The mood of the mob was balanced on the edge of a knife—and I knew in that moment that was just where I wanted them. With Aeddan’s help, I would take their outrage and turn it into wild exultation.
“You’d better pray to all the gods that you’re even half the chariot driver Mael was,” I said, grabbing the reins. I leaped up onto the chariot deck and tossed them to Aeddan and snarled, “Now drive for all you’re worth!”
There was an answering gleam in his eyes, and he wrapped the reins around his hands, braced his feet, and shouted, “Hyah!” to the sleek ponies. They bolted into a gallop as he slapped the reins on their rumps.