by Nhys Glover
I wasn’t sure it was a compliment to be called an optimist. Was I an optimist?
No. I was a pragmatist. I lived the life I was given. I accepted my lot. Or I had up until the last few months. Something had changed for me since our victories in the arena and in that hole in the ground. I had changed. I had stopped seeing the barriers that kept me stuck on a path others made for me and begun looking for ways around, over or through them to what I really wanted for myself. Like making my way up through the collapsed, burnt-out floors of that insula. It had been an impossible barrier. But I had found us a way out, or close enough for Accalia to do the rest. No, my brothers and Accalia had done the rest.
Maybe that was the source of my optimism. The realisation that I didn’t have to do it all myself. I had found the way through well enough to allow the others to do the rest. Maybe there was a way we could make that work in our lives. Maybe freedom was the start or maybe it wasn’t, but for now I had the woman I loved in my arms, and I would live to fight another day.
I leaned down to kiss Accalia again, before saying what I didn’t think I’d ever fully put into words before. “I love you, little she-wolf, with everything I have inside me and with everything I am. And I always will.”
AUTHOR’ NOTE
No record exists of the location of the gladiator schools before the fire. As most congregated around the amphitheatres and we know there were two on the Field of Mars, it is safe to assume they existed there. As much as was possible, I have tried to remain historically accurate, although there is no record of anyone ever breeding and training gladiators for the arena as Corvus does. But who knows? The information we have is limited and sketchy at best. Although we do know that rich men did own troupes of gladiators, much as today they own race horses or football teams.
As I write this, Orion is coming to an end. The hectic pace of the adventures had left me quite exhausted. Or maybe it’s getting the historical details accurate. Who knows? All I can say is that Orion is as exciting as Talos and not long away.
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