We sprinted back out into the yard, Kronos bellowing for the girls to make way. As we neared the arena, I saw the crumpled body of a girl lying in a pool of blood, shockingly red against the white-gold sand. She was the one Sorcha had gifted with the sword and shield with the lion motif at the oath swearing. Her sparring partner, the girl with the serpent shield, stood nearby with a blank look of shock and a bloodied sword.
Lion’s hand still held her sword too. Only it lay in the sand a little distance away from her, the slender fingers still curled around the hilt of the weapon. The sight of it was jarringly wrong.
Thalestris was on her knees, tearing linen into strips and wrapping Lion’s arm as tightly as she could while crimson spurted in time with the beating of the girl’s heart. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and her mouth was open, a low animal-sounding moan coming from it.
“What happened?” Kronos asked the fight mistress as he and I set the stretcher down beside the injured girl. The other gladiatrices stood helplessly in a ring.
“Fools,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “Thought they’d do a bit of sparring with their oath gifts. Neither of them has ever held a real blade.”
Especially not one as sharp as a blade chosen by my sister. Lion and Serpent should have known better. But I’d also seen how very excited they’d been, and I could hardly blame them for wanting to play like giddy children with their new toys. Now Lion would never fight again—if she even survived the injury—and I shuddered to think what Sorcha would do to Serpent.
I glanced at Lion’s severed hand and choked back the bile that rose in my throat at the sight of the gleaming white bone sticking out of the end. I looked away to see Sorcha running from the main house, her face contorted and her hair and robes spread wide in her wake. The avenging Fury.
Serpent went even paler as the Lanista approached.
When my sister stopped in front of her, Serpent burst into tears.
She could have her flogged, I thought, or turned out of the ludus. But then, to my complete surprise, Sorcha stepped forward and gathered her into a fierce embrace. I knelt there in the sand, staring as Sorcha rocked the girl like a frightened child.
Thalestris finished doing what she could for the injured gladiatrix, and then the ludus physician—a quiet, broad-shouldered man named Heron—helped Kronos get the girl onto the stretcher. They rushed her toward the infirmary as I stood there, not knowing what to do.
I felt a sudden spattering of fat raindrops, and then the clouds opened up, pouring down rain in hissing gray sheets. Lightning split the sky, and Thalestris shouted for everyone to get inside, that the day’s practice was cancelled. The arena was deserted in moments. And still I stood there. The rain was almost blinding, reducing the world around me to a circle in the sand—just me, and Lion’s sword, and her hand. In the confusion, the trainers had forgotten it. Not that it mattered, really.
And yet, I couldn’t just leave it lying there. I stripped off my cloak and knelt down in front of the sword and hand. The rain had washed away the blood, leaving the fingers pale and cool. Spreading my cloak out on the sand, I picked up the hand and blade and shifted them gently onto the wool. I wrapped them up as carefully as I could—exceedingly mindful of the sharp edge of the blade—and cradled them like a bairn as I put my head down and slogged through the now muddy pitch toward the infirmary.
As I entered, I could smell the sharp tang of the vinegar antiseptic they used to clean wounds, and my stomach turned over. Lion was lying on a cot, and the neat white bed linens were stained with red. Sorcha sat beside her bed, smoothing the hair back from her pale face, while Heron and his assistant worked to stanch the flow of blood. As I watched, the surgeon wiped his hands on his apron, leaving more red there, and disappeared behind a curtained wall. He returned with a bronze brazier full of angry red coals and a metal bell-shaped tool that had been heated until it glowed.
My stomach didn’t so much turn over at the sight as threaten to hurl its contents back up again. I knew what would come next. My gasp alerted Sorcha to my presence, and she rose from the girl’s bedside and hurried over to me.
“What are you doing here, Fallon?” she murmured urgently. “You shouldn’t be—”
“I brought this.” I pulled back the corner of my cloak to reveal Lion’s hand and held the bundle out toward my sister. “I didn’t want to leave it in the rain,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to do . . .”
Sorcha looked down and then, after a long moment, back up at me. She blinked rapidly and reached out, gently drawing the cloth back over the hand and the sword it still clutched.
“That was honorably done, Fallon,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”
She took the bundle from me and then wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading me out of the infirmary. “Come on,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here right now.”
The screams of agony and the stench of seared flesh drifted down the corridor behind us. Sorcha walked me all the way back to the barracks in silence.