I don’t know how long I stood there, but when I turned to go back to my quarters, there were shadows in the alcoves of the courtyard that hadn’t been there before. One of the shadows stepped forward, and I felt a warning flutter trace up my spine. My thoughts spiraled back to that night in Alesia.
Only these were no brigands.
These were my “sisters.” Or, at least, they would be if I was chosen to take the oath.
Behind me, I heard the sharp crack of a chariot whip, and I understood instantly that Thalestris and the Lanista weren’t the only ones I had to prove myself to. My hand dropped automatically to my hip, but I wasn’t wearing a weapon. I didn’t even have my dagger stuck in my belt. I cursed silently and took up a ready stance, wondering where the first attack would come from.
I didn’t have to wonder long.
Another crack of the whip, and a line of fire licked across the backs of my legs. I fell to my hands and knees with a grunt. A ring of laughter echoed around me, and I blinked away sudden tears of pain trying to see who, exactly, my attackers were. There were four or five of them—it was hard to tell in the darkness as they circled me—and they all wore visored helmets. But I was fairly certain I knew who at least two of them were just by the weapons they wielded.
Nyx and Meriel.
I clambered back up to one knee and staggered forward to avoid the next sting of Nyx’s whip, only to trip over the web of a retiarius net as it slapped viciously against my shins and sent me tumbling back to the ground.
Where I was defenseless.
The girls kicked and punched at me in the darkness, and I curled into a ball to try to avoid the worst of it. I could tell by the way they avoided my head and stomach that the blows they rained on me were designed to bruise, not brutalize. But that didn’t make them hurt any less as I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. I suspected that what they really wanted was to leave me battered and sore enough so that my performance the next day at practice—my last chance to impress the Lanista—would suffer.
Lady Achillea would see me fighting lame and would judge me on my diminished performance—enough, maybe, that I would be sent from the ludus. And I decided, in that moment, I wasn’t going to let that happen. Stay or go, it would be on my merit or the lack of it, not because of some petty ambush by girls who thought they were better than me.
They weren’t.
Beneath the laughter and taunts, I heard a guttural, animal howl of protest. It was me. My voice. As it rose in volume, I pushed myself up off the sandy ground and shook off my attackers. Their circle fractured, and I sprinted past two of them toward a pair of torches set in a sconce on the courtyard wall. I grasped the flaming brands and spun back around, wielding the things as if they were my dimachaerus blades.
“Get away from me!” I snarled as I spun circles of flames in the dark air, batting the whip away from me and almost setting the retiarius net aflame. “Stay back or burn, you jackals!”
One girl screamed in alarm as my torch set her tunic hem smoldering, and she quickly fell back, slapping at the cloth. The firebrands flared and flamed in my hands, trailing smoke and embers in the dimachaerus patterns I’d practiced, as my attackers backed off. When I lunged straight at the girl with the whip, she turned and ran, melting back into the night, the other girls following close on her heels. I shouted after them to come back and face me.
In truth, I was just as glad they were gone.
My arms and legs throbbed as I let the torches drop to my sides.
I squeezed my eyes shut to clear the afterglare of fire blindness. When I opened them again and lifted my head to the cool night breeze, I saw a figure, cloaked and hooded, standing on the balcony above the courtyard, watching me. The Lanista. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was her. I could feel her gaze on me, sharp and appraising. I straightened up, standing as tall as I could, and met her gaze. She stood there for a long moment. Then she turned without a word and disappeared into the darkness.
I ground the torches in the sand, snuffing out their light.
? ? ?
The next day, I hobbled out to the practice yard, where the throbbing, livid bruises on my legs and arms went glaringly unremarked upon. Except, of course, by Elka when she saw me in the armor shed. I could only guess the meaning of maybe half the stream of Varini invective that spilled from her mouth, but I still got the general idea. And I agreed wholeheartedly.
“At least Meriel was right,” I said through gritted teeth as I sat on the bench, carefully buckling up my shin greaves. “I do bruise pretty colors.”
“You hold her down and I’ll be happy to see if she does the same!” Elka spat.
“I don’t even know for certain if it was her last night—I know, I know”—I held up a hand—“of course it was. And Nyx, and probably Lydia and Gratia. I know. But I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me so much as wince today.”
“Like you’re doing right now?”
“Hand me my helmet.” I settled it on my head and lowered the visor. “There. Now no one can tell.”
Elka snorted and shook her head, then held out a hand to help me stand.