“I always thought I would one day die on a battlefield because Olun told me that I would share the same fate as you!” I said. “I thought you lost the fight, Sorcha. We all did. We thought you were dead and that Caesar only decided to release Virico after the other Prydain kings sued for peace.”
“That’s what he wanted you to believe.” A thin, crooked grin bent her mouth. “But the truth was that Caesar had already agreed to release Virico long before.”
“Why would he ever do that?” I scoffed.
“Caesar had sent a message to me secretly,” she said. “He is a brilliant commander in the field, but he’s also a shrewd opportunist in his civilian life. He already owned massive stables of gladiators and made rich sums of money off them. That night, when he saw me, a woman of the Cantii fighting on the battlefield as fiercely as any man, he saw the opportunity to birth a new phenomenon: female gladiators.”
I didn’t know why my sister ever would have agreed to such a thing.
“We made a deal, Fallon,” Sorcha said, sensing my unasked question. “My life for Virico’s. My servitude for his freedom. Virico would live—and live free—and you would grow up with our father there for you.” She nodded down the lane toward Arviragus’s prison. “You see what captivity does to the soul of a man like that. I couldn’t let that happen to Father, so I made a deal with a demon. I’d do it again.”
She lapsed into silence. For the rest of the journey back to the ludus, I thought about Arviragus and Virico and the sacrifices my sister had made—and continued to make—for me. Was it possible I had been so wrong about my own sister? I needed to find a way to make amends.
On my way to my barracks cell, I cut across the deserted practice yard of the place that had somehow become my home. As I reached the center of the sand circle, I felt a strange, dizzying sensation and heard the sound of wings beating overhead.
I looked up, and the sky was clear. Empty.
But in my mind, a throaty voice whispered, “Daughter” and “Victory.”
I felt my cheeks flush.
“Freedom.” I’d begun to worry that the Morrigan had turned her favor from me. But her voice in my head told me she was still with me, and it seemed she had a message—one that I finally understood.
Arviragus had been right: The role of Victory carried with it the promise of a substantial purse, but it had never even occurred to me that I would find a pure use for filthy Roman sestersii.
Sorcha had taken me to see the Arverni king so that she could show me one truth. But the Morrigan, I suspected, had sent me there so that Arviragus could teach me another. The hazy fog of an idea began to take solid shape in my mind. There was a chance, however slim, that I could redeem myself in the eyes of the goddess and my sister and make something worthwhile out of the whole great mess I had made for myself.
I remembered how Sorcha had bargained with Julius Caesar, and I thought that maybe—just maybe—there was more than one way to deal with a demon.
XXIII
THE DAY BEFORE we were due to begin the journey that would take us to our first destination on the circuit tour, Kronos knocked on the door of my quarters and told me that I had a visitor waiting for me in the small garden courtyard. Before I could ask him who it was, he’d gone. But I could think of only one person it might be.
Caius.
As much as my heart skipped a beat at the mere thought, I wasn’t sure I was up to another argument with him, and so I almost didn’t go. But I did, and when I stepped into the cool tree-shaded yard, I was surprised to see that my visitor wasn’t Cai but Charon the slave trader.
To say I was surprised would have been an understatement.
My former captor, the man who’d stolen me from my home and then sold me into slavery, sat on a marble bench beneath the branches of a fig tree, carving one of the ripe purple fruits into slices. He popped a slice into his mouth and stood when I approached, a smile lighting his face. He cut another slice of fig and wordlessly offered it to me on the blade of the knife.
I took it and sat on the bench facing him.
“Gladiatrix,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”
I regarded the slave master coolly. “Is it?”
He laughed softly. “You are her very mirror, Fallon.”
“Whose?”
“Your sister. Sorcha.” He reached for another fig from a low-hanging bough. “She was extraordinary in her arena days, and I understand you’re following closely in her footsteps.”
“Who told you that?”
“Caius Varro. Your sparring partner.” Charon grinned at me. “His father, the senator, entertained me at his domus in the capital two nights ago. I politely inquired as to why the lad was wincing with every breath.”
“I see.” I bit into the sweet flesh of the fig and tried to keep my expression neutral.
“He seems to believe that you’re not very happy with him at the moment,” he said. “Pity, seeing as how Caius just received orders that he’s to escort Caesar’s gladiatrix corps on the circuit tour. You’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
There was that skip of my heartbeat again.