Cai stepped away from his fellow soldiers, his gaze questioning. But he nodded. “Of course, gladiatrix.”
We walked silently, side by side, to the camp entrance, where a ludus guard straightened at our approach and nodded respectfully first to Cai, then to me.
“I need to pay a visit to the weapons tent,” I said to him. “I’ll be brief.”
He glanced at Cai and then moved aside. The dew-wet grass brushed my bare calves as I walked the short distance to the entrance of the tent. The canvas walls glowed golden from the fire within, and I could smell the tang of metal and wood wafting on the night breeze.
“Oro,” I greeted the master smith. “I beg a favor.”
He straightened up from the freshly sharpened spear blade he was attaching to a wooden shaft and grunted a query at me. A genius with metal, he hoarded his words like gold. I lifted a hand to the iron slave collar that circled my neck.
“Please,” I said, an unexpected knot in my throat. “Take this off.”
Oro’s eyes gleamed in the firelight, and he muttered something behind his singed beard that might have been “About bloody time.”
He went to fetch his tools, and Cai stepped up behind me, gently gathering my hair off my shoulders and lifting it out of the smith’s way as he worked. I held my breath, and it was over in an instant. The bolt holding the ring together fell away, and Oro pried the ends of the iron open, sliding it from around my neck.
I let my breath out in a gasp and took the collar when he offered it to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
He waved us away, turning back to the spear he’d been working on. I pushed the tent flap aside, and Cai and I stepped back out into the darkness. The stars overhead seemed brighter somehow.
“Take it,” I said, holding the collar out to Cai.
He wrapped his long fingers around the broken iron circle and looked at me, uncertainty in his eyes.
“Consider it a promise,” I said, wrapping my hand around his. “I understand now why you wanted to buy my contract.”
He shook his head. “I never wanted to own you, Fallon. Only free you—”
“I know,” I interrupted. I needed to explain how I felt in a way that I’d never truly been able to with Mael. “But don’t you see? That’s not real freedom—not for a Cantii warrior. There will come a day, Caius Varro—I promise you—when I will be able to buy my own contract. On that day, if you’ll wait for me, I’ll come to you, and we can be together as equals.”
I smiled up at him and saw in his eyes that he finally understood.
“I’ll wait for you, Fallon,” he said, slipping my iron ring into the leather scrip hanging from his belt. “Forever, if I have to. Although I’d rather not wait quite that long, if it’s all right with you.”
I laughed and was astonished at how good it felt to do that without iron around my throat. I lifted a hand to my neck and felt the circle of calluses left behind, like a phantom collar. Cai reached up and ran his fingertips along my skin, and I shivered at his touch.
“The marks will fade,” he whispered.
I nodded as his hand shifted to slide into my hair, and he brought his face down to mine and kissed me. The kiss thrilled through me all the way to my toes. I wanted to draw him down into the long grass and wrap his arms around me, but I didn’t dare. We were so close to the camp, and even kissing him in that moment was a risk I couldn’t afford to take.
With a reluctant sigh, I pulled away. At the same time, Cai seemed to remember himself and stepped back as well, but I could hear his breathing over the clang of Oro’s hammer, and his eyes were large and dark in his face.
As he walked me back to the camp, I saw a familiar figure standing at the entry. My sister, her arms crossed and her brow knitted in an angry frown.
“Decurion,” she said.
“Lady.” Cai lifted his chin, and for a moment I almost thought he was going to salute. “This gladiatrix needed her equipment tended.”
I choked, and Sorcha’s left eyebrow arched sharply.
“What I meant was—”
Sorcha put up a hand. “Thank you, Decurion. I’ll take it from here.”
Cai nodded and strode off toward the legionnaires’ tent, leaving me to my sister’s mercy. As soon as he was gone, Sorcha rounded on me. I steeled myself for a tongue-lashing, but she paused when she saw my newly bare neck.
“It was Charon’s suggestion,” I said. “He seemed to think my armor would fit me better without it.”
“I see.” Her expression softened into a smile. “Well, Charon is nothing if not insightful. Go. Get some rest, Fallon. You’ll need it.”
If I thought she would have let me, I might have hugged her in that moment. But I contented myself with a shared smile and went to find my tent. For the first time since that collar had been hammered around my neck, I slept through the night without dreaming of escape.
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