by Camilla Monk
Under me, the platform was spinning. Everything was—the sea of togas and dresses watching us in silence, the leather and brass of Clearchos’s armor, Victrix’s blood. They were swirls of color dancing before my eyes. White, red, black… blue. A door vomited Western Legionaries at the other end of the arena, but my legs wouldn’t move. My entire body was paralyzed as Gemina’s dead body slowly cooked in the cauldron before my eyes.
Once they saw that the execution had been carried out, the praetorians found their bearings again and closed in on Irius. I registered Nicephorus’s breathless trill shooting from the imperial lodge. “Now boil Silverlegs too!” I looked up at him through blurry eyes, numb. The Overseer’s hand rested on his small shoulder. The hand of Aus, I thought. I cried inside my mask, because I was so tired, and we were in hell.
I wanted to give up, let them kill me so it’d be all over and the arena would stop spinning around me and inside my head. But somewhere in the silent crowd, someone wouldn’t let me. A high-pitched cheer arced above the amphitheatron, a child’s voice. “Run, Silverlegs!”
I shivered.
Emboldened, a man’s deeper timbre echoed the command. Then another. Another, and the Overseer’s soldiers stared up at the tier in confusion as the forbidden cry spread like fire through the Palican crowd and became a deafening heartbeat. Run! Run! Run!
Run.
“Run!” Irius’s powerful roar ripped through my daze, one with the uncontrollable cheering crashing down on me from the tiers. I think Nisephorus bawled for them to shut up, before the amphitheatron’s archways vomited indigo tunics sent to silence the berserk crowd. They spilled, struck with spears and swords the immense beast that wouldn’t relent. The throng colored red as it fought and kept chanting. Run! Run! Run!
Victrix. I needed to get back to my feet for him, and for Nerie. I felt it returning to me, the lighting in my legs that I needed desperately. I sprang up, lifted by the crowd’s chant, and jumped down from the platform. I let Silverlegs’s cold fury take over and pummel my fear into submission as I assessed the battlefield. One century marching toward us across the arena, with shields—no point in trying to engage them alone. Six praetorians still standing. Clearchos, staring up at the Overseer, like a fucking dog. I wanted his head; I wanted it so badly the need thrummed in my forehead and hurt, but revenge would have to wait. Victrix and Irius couldn’t.
My feet dug in the sand, finding the arena’s wooden floor underneath, and I blazed toward the praetorians. One bold arm raised a gladius to stop me. I cut it at the elbow and sent it flying to the ground in a cloud of fresh blood. Visceral pleasure smoldered in my gut when the soldier staggered back and screamed in agony. Watching in horror, his five companions became four when I flitted between their clumsy blades and wheeled around to slice the inviting pulse of a throat. Meanwhile, Irius’s blade struck behind a knee. Red splattered and shimmered as the disarticulated limb gave way under the wailing praetorian.
“Take Victrix!” I yelled to Irius. “Under the hypogeum, to the cells!”
I sensed a flicker of doubt in Irius’s eyes as he wrestled Victrix to his feet and hooked an arm around his bloodstained waist to support him. My heart squeezed at the sight of his ashen cheeks and empty eyes. He had to live. A blade clashed against mine. My eyes darted to Irius. “Go!” I roared. “Trust me!”
Victrix’s feet dragged in the reddish sand, barely able to support him as Irius hauled him toward the hypogeum. Indigo and silver crept at the edge of my vision as a row of shields closed in behind them. Was it too late already? I shoved my adversary away, long enough to parry a silvery blur coming from my right. That one carried a dagger in his sword belt; I crouched low to pull it from its scabbard and plunged it into his armpit, angling the short blade to his lung.
His gladius fell from his hands as he sucked in a gasping breath and gurgled out blood. A smooth backflip got me rid of the fifth one as my greaves smashed his chin up into his upper jaw, turning teeth and bones into a gravelly pulp. I landed in front of the last one, my back to him. His blade flew up, and he probably saw the glorious instant he’d kill Silverlegs before a thunderous crowd. What he should have seen was the dagger spinning in my fingers, right before I jabbed it deep into his eye socket through the mush of his eyeball and brain.
I was racing toward the gate before he even hit the ground. A few men had split from their century to go after Irius and Victrix while the rest of the unit formed a tight hedge barring access to the hypogeum. And Clearchos? My eyes darted around fast. Beyond the wall of indigo shields, I glimpsed black and gold. Shit, he was in there already! Ahead of me, a graying centurion bellowed, “Spears up!” as he saw me hurling toward his unit.
I held my breath and gave myself up entirely to Silverlegs as I leaped. Constanter wasn’t strong enough to pit herself against a hail of spears, and not mad enough to catch one midair even as the tip of another sliced past her arm and drew blood. But the fearless other half of me could. I found leverage on a poor cunt’s shield, and for this, his only reward was the spear I held, plunged into his gaping mouth and down his throat. The centurion yelled for his men to stop me, even as I flew over their heads. They maneuvered around, bogged down by the weight of their shields, by their clumsy feet skidding on the still oil-slicked floor.
I landed on the flat head of a capstan, to the sound of steel singing loud under the vault of the hypogeum. Clearchos and Irius were fighting near the stairs leading down to the cells, two gods of death dancing with each other while around them, the Overseer’s men circled in like vultures. Victrix lay curled on his side near the stairs, trying to get to his feet with a rasping sigh.
The soldiers saw me; the painted moons on their shields whipped around. The eyes of the wolves stared at me, round. Frightened, too? Standing atop my perch, I gazed down at them and saw nothing but a meal on a plate. They’d been well taught: they moved in tight formation, braced behind their shields. Blade pressed to the right edge to thrust and guard simultaneously. I didn’t have time to play with my food; I needed to get to Victrix. Past them. I scanned the room, flicking through my options. There were ropes, pulleys, discarded weapons… the threatening sheen of oil on the wooden floorboards. And a fuming brazier not two feet away from the capstan I stood on.
Ten pairs of eyes went wide with realization when the soldiers saw my foot kick to the side, to topple the brazier onto the glistening floor. Flames spilled like a vengeful rising sun, engulfing them. If only they could fly, I thought, as their indigo tunics caught fire on their back, and I leaped over their screams of anguish to catch a length of rope dangling from a pulley. I swung above the inferno, inhaled it as the air grew thick with the stench of burning oil and roasting flesh. Wherever Gemina’s soul had traveled, this world or the next, I hoped she could see their agony, and that the fire kindled her furor like it did mine.
When I landed on one knee near Victrix, Clearchos saw me. He broke the clash, backed away from Irius, and circled toward his son. “He stays with me,” he stated, flipping his blade menacingly. “And you two die here.”
“Like Gemina?” I asked, advancing toward him.
His lips quivered into a sneer. “We were always meant to destroy each other. She knew it from the start.”
At his feet, Victrix found the strength to get to his knees. Blood trickled from his side, drop after drop, each pat thunderous in my ears. “I’ll… I’ll fucking kill you.” He wouldn’t, not when his palms pressed to the floor could barely support him. But his determination clawed at my heart
“I’ll do it for you,” Irius said flatly, clenching tight fists around the hilt of his sword.
Clearchos extended his arms, beckoning us into this final dance. Irius lunged first, his blade high. Clearchos would have to parry in the same fashion, and the next move would be mine, a killing stab into his open left flank. I bent my legs, ready. I never saw Irius’s feint coming, and Clearchos didn’t either, as the attack he expected became a feral shove. He
staggered back toward the wall of flames slicing the room in half, reaching out reflexively to retain his balance. Irius grabbed his hand, and I saw the flicker of hope in Clearchos’s eyes. He thought his dog had returned to him after all. But Irius clamped his fingers around Clearchos’s wrist, pushed his weight forward, and shouted, “We’re going to hell together!”
They tumbled together through the curtain of flames, just before a flaming platform crashed behind them, trapping them in the center of a blazing ring. Victrix crawled toward them, his eyes wide; I dashed past him toward Irius, pure rage thrumming under my temples. I wanted past the flames, deeper into this suffocating nightmare, to see Clearchos die with my own eyes.
“Get back! Save Victrix!” Irius barked.
I froze mid-step as I watched him struggle to his feet. Clearchos’s shadow pounced on him, and steel clanged. They’d fight to the end, all the way down this road to hell. “Save him!” Irius yelled again as Clearchos’s blade bit his thigh and he staggered back. His plea reached inside my rib cage, wrapped around my heart, and it felt as if the sparks of Silverlegs’s hate were crackling away from my skin. I was able to think again. I remembered the oil still steeping my own tunic, which would set me ablaze if I tried to cross the flames. I remembered Nerie, who might still be alive somewhere in the depths of the hypogeum.
I ran back to Victrix. “I’m taking you out of here,” I promised.
He tried to push me away, his hands reaching in vain for the father he was losing. “No… we have to…”
But there was no strength left in his arms to stop Clearchos, and his breath came in croaking gasps. All around us, flames licked upward to the ceiling, slithered to the stairs. Run, Silverlegs. I hauled Victrix on my back and ran, barreled down the stone steps and into the Hypogeum’s prison, now a tomb for the Overseer’s prized gladiators. Some of the doors lining the walls were ajar, the prisoners long gone. Freed by the only person in here who had the keys, I realized.
“Nerie!” I called, my shout ricocheting against the walls of the silent room.
Worm-eaten wood creaked. Relief exploded in my veins as one of doors slammed open and he crawled out. He’d waited for us, hidden in the only place the guards wouldn’t think to look. His own cell.
He scrambled up, rolling panicked eyes at the smoke pouring from the stairs. “Gemina… she’s dead?”
“Clearchos killed her,” I said, taking his hand. “And we’ll join her soon if we don’t get out of here!”
His head flicked to the open well. His nostrils flared as he tried to control his breathing. His eyes traveled from the torrent of water rushing at the bottom of the hole to Victrix’s prone form. He shook his head urgently. “Constanter, he won’t make it! He can’t swim.”
“I’ll carry him!” I yelled obstinately.
“And you’ll both drown!” Nerie roared back. A distant part of me realized he’d never bared his teeth to me like that. I was seeing Nerie’s anger for the first time.
But I couldn’t listen. I hooked my hands under Victrix’s armpits to drag him toward the well. I would not fail him like I’d failed Gemina and everyone else. He had to make it. There was no time, no room for doubt, when flames licked between the ceiling’s wooden beams and smoke filled our lungs with each breath.
In my arms, Victrix’s head lolled in wan refusal. “Don’t… Get out of here… birdshit.”
“I am,” I hissed. “With you.”
He reached for my hand, and, with some effort, guided it to rest on his wound. His gray eyes looked up at me, strangely calm in the midst of chaos. Under my palm, blood flowed in a continuous ribbon, thick and warm. My chest tightened unbearably as I understood the words he wouldn’t speak.
A whisper reached me, like a distant echo of the voice I knew, void of any anger, of any strength. “Come closer, birdshit; I can’t see you…”
“I’m right here,” I said softly, leaning over him.
He blinked a few times, his eyes glistening. His hand twitched and rose slightly to touch me, but the goal was too far; it fell back at his side. His lips worked, mouthing silent words. He tried again, a barely perceptible murmur escaping his lips. “Just one… Silverlegs.”
There was a weight crushing my heart, an ache in my throat that I couldn’t swallow. I fumbled with shaking hands to undo the leather lace holding my mask, and I bent down, so close his fingertips could reach my cheek at last. Maybe he saw my tears, felt them rolling down his fingers, or maybe he couldn’t feel anything anymore already. His lips tasted of blood, and they were cool and dry against mine, but they parted one last time, so his soul could travel through my breath, escape in this first and final kiss.
When I drew back, I saw that his eyes had stopped seeing. I stroked his eyelids shut. He looked more peaceful in death than he had ever been in life. I hoped he would join Gemina in the afterlife and forgive her at last. And I hoped he would keep a little hate for Clearchos, let it burn forever like a curse and never flicker out. I knew mine wouldn’t.
A tentative hand brushed my shoulder. “Constanter,” Nerie urged, darting a panicked look at the well. Down below, waves surged and crashed, a black syrup specked with gold, reflecting flames above our heads. Live or die. Choose.
I licked salt at the corners of my mouth. Fastened my mask back on. “We jump,” I ground out.
I took one last look at Victrix as the room burned around me. It would be his Piraeus, and he deserved the honor. At my side, Nerie kept chanting “I can do this. I can. I can,” as we knelt together over the well and the roaring current underneath. I closed my eyes in a slow exhale. My hand fisted a fold of Nerie’s tunic, and I plunged us into pure darkness and pure ice.
42
Somehow, I thought I’d float. Swim and conquer the Utur. Victrix would have laughed and called me stupid… I just didn’t think the cold would seep into my tunic so fast, that the waves would beat me up so hard. I didn’t think I would let go of Nerie, drift, and choke in absolute darkness for so long.
I didn’t think that in the absence of time and light, my fear would become despair and swallow me whole.
43
“Constanter! Constanter!”
I blinked through the pearls mottled light blinding me. Red and white. Scarlet pines. My mouth was dryer than sand, but the rest of me was soaked to the bone and freezing cold. Water sloshed around me as I tried to make sense of my surroundings, and the voice calling me.
Nerie.
“Nerie!” I coughed out a little water that trickled down my chin and collected in my mask, my senses whipped awake at last.
I lay on the bed of a shallow torrent, tangled in driftwood. My eyes fluttered closed again. My head hurt too much, and I’d seen too much red over the past few hours. No more… I writhed to free my upper body from the rotten branches and looked around for Nerie. A daub of indigo shivered at the edge of my vision. My chest tightened in relief. He was alive, waddling on all four to the shore, but his eyes were set on a point somewhere behind me, wide and unblinking.
I craned my neck to follow the direction of his gaze. It took far too long for my eyes to fully focus, and when they finally did, I realized that the tunic I had stolen from one of Palica’s gladiators for Nerie was the only speck of blue in what was otherwise an ocean of red. And it wasn’t just the scarlet pines, but the shields and tunics too. Shit… My hand clawed underwater for my scabbard instinctively. But it wasn’t ten shields surrounding us, or even twenty.
My fingers froze on the hilt. That… was an entire cohort of Lorians.
•♦•
After I got out of the water, there was a tribune, a man of maybe thirty with pockmarked cheeks, who wanted me to kneel. I didn’t. My mind and body had never been so weary, and in truth, I didn’t care much to live or die here. But I wouldn’t kneel, so his men punched me in the stomach until I did.
They took my armor and my sword. When a legionary reached for my greaves with greedy hands, I kicked his fac
e with all the strength I had left and felt his jaw crack under my heel. It was something, one final spark of dark pleasure. A fist connected with my temple. I thought of those huge mallets priests sometimes used to hit ritual shields to produce a deep, vibrating noise. They took my greaves while my skull thrummed and sung like the shields. They didn’t touch my mask, because the tribune wanted to make sure everyone would know he’d captured the invincible Silverlegs.
After that, I vaguely remember that they clasped irons around our wrists, chained us to the back of a cart, and told us to walk or die here. Nerie’s voice filtered through the darkness. He told me to get up. I thought of my days back at the mine, all that time running in the pit. The sun. My body wasn’t ready to die just yet, so I struggled up and dragged my feet to the beat of the cohort’s heavy footsteps hammering the earth.
They took us east down a trail running above the Utur, through a misty drizzle that glistened on our skins and cloaked the scarlet pines in a pale shroud. A hundred feet below in the ravine, water heaved and carried logs and branches downstream—useless trash drifting away from Palica… just like me. I tried to close my eyes, but I saw Victrix’s ashen face behind my eyelids instead. The metallic taste of our only kiss lingered in my mouth and I thought I might cry. My eyes did ache, but not a single tear came.
A whisper flitted through the dismal fog in my head. “Do you think Clearchos died?”
I glanced at Nerie, wobbling at my side in a state of stupor that seemed to supersede fear itself. I figured he was just numb from too much pain inside out, like I was.
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
Nerie treaded in silence for a while, until he said, “I heard her scream.”
At last, my vision grew cloudy, and I felt a sob building at the back of my throat, waiting to shatter my words if I spoke. I didn’t reply. I just walked.