Out of the Ashes

by Lori Dillon

  They never spoke of the future—of Dacian’s dreams if he were ever free or of what might happen between them should they be able to see each other outside the confines of his cell.

  And they never spoke of the games or of what might happen when Dacian would have to fight again. The thought was unbearable for them both, and yet, the next games were only days away.

  Time was running out.

  These thoughts weighed heavily on Sabina’s mind as she entered her father’s solar. She approached him warily, not quite certain what she was going to say.

  “Father? I wish to speak to you about the gladiator.”

  Busy tallying the day’s wine sales, her father looked up from his wax tablet.

  “Gladiator? What gladiator?”

  “The Myrmillo from the games Uncle sponsored.”

  Her father looked momentarily confused, then pinned her with a stern look.

  “The one you had Gallus spare? What of it?”

  Sabina ran her finger across the front of her father’s table. What she was about to ask was unthinkable.

  “I was wondering if we could buy him.”

  He stared at her as if she’d just asked him to dump this year’s wine harvest into the sea.

  “Buy him? Whatever for? I have no need of a gladiator.”

  “I do not mean to buy him so that he may fight for us, but so that we may set him free.”

  Her father snorted at the very thought of it. “And throw away good coin? I think not, child.”

  “But he is a good man. He does not deserve to die.”

  He looked at her suspiciously. “How do you know so much about this gladiator?”

  Realizing her error, she scrambled for an explanation. “Only what I have heard others say.”

  He waved his writing stylus at her.

  “Sabina, I know you have a tender heart, but do not grow overly fond of this gladiator.” He sighed heavily, shaking his head at her in the way that meant she would always be a child in his eyes. “I realize you may feel responsible for him after having his life spared, but you cannot save him each time. After all, gladiators die—it is their lot in life. It is best not to get too attached to them.” Her father went back to his figures. “I do not want you carrying on like you did when that cat of yours got run over by the wine cart.”

  “Father!” Sabina ground her teeth in frustration. “I was only five when that happened. And besides, he is not a cat. He is a man.”

  He slammed his tablet on the table, causing her to jump. Pressing both hands on the wooden surface, he rose and leaned over the table until his face was only inches from hers.

  “No, Sabina, he is not. He is like the cattle and fowl slaughtered for our meals. He was born for a purpose, and that is to perform in the arena, not to be your charity case. He is a creature put on this earth for our amusement. You cannot think of him as a man, because he is not.”

  “He certainly looks like a man to me,” Sabina grumbled.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, Father.” She bit her lip, cursing herself for voicing the observation out loud.

  Her father cocked his head and stared at her with an odd look in his eye. He pushed himself away from the table and clasped his hands behind his back, making his protruding stomach stick out all the more.

  “You will be seventeen this year, will you not?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I turned seventeen last month.”

  “Did you? Well, then, it is definitely past time to find you a husband. You will accompany me on my next trip to Rome, and we will find you one. With your lovely face and figure, we should have no problem finding a suitable match, perhaps even a senator or praetor. Your uncle would be pleased at that.”

  “Marriage?” The word stuck in Sabina’s throat.

  “Yes, marriage. As soon as possible, I should think. Seems to me you need something to occupy that busy little mind of yours besides some worthless gladiator.”

  *

  “I asked my father to buy you.”

  Shock seized the air in Dacian’s lungs, turning it to ice.

  “You did what?”

  Did she even realize the risk she took in making such a request?

  “I had to do something. The thought of you here, locked up in this place like an animal…” Sabina wrapped her arms around her narrow waist, “… or in the arena, fighting for your life. I cannot bear it.”

  “What did he say?” He waited, already knowing what the answer was by her forlorn expression, but hoping against hope that it would be otherwise all the same.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “He was so angry that I would even contemplate such a thing.” She paced the cramped confines of his cell. “He started questioning me. I had to lie. If he were to find out that I came to see you, he would forbid me from ever coming again.”

  A hollow, gaping hole punched through Dacian’s chest, as if an invisible hand had reached in and ripped out his heart. What he had long dreaded—what he knew he would eventually have to do, but had avoided until now—had to be done. Though he longed for her friendship and craved the very sight of her, she couldn’t return. Not after what she had done. Now it was beyond dangerous for her.

  “Perhaps it is for the best.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He heard the waver in her voice, the confusion at his cold tone. He steeled himself, knowing what he was about to say would drive her away. He hated to hurt her, but to protect her, he would.

  “This is no place for someone like you.” He straightened and nearly choked on the lie of his words. “I do not want you to come back. I wish to never see you again.”

  She inhaled sharply. He walked to the back of his cell, turning his back on the pain he was deliberately inflicting on her.

  He ran his finger along the mortar between two stones, choosing his words carefully. The desire to see her and the need to shield her were tearing him apart. But he couldn’t let her come to care for him, to feel for him what he was beginning to feel for her. Because if she did, it would destroy her to have to watch him die.

  “When everything in life is pain, then the horror of it is always the same, and it does not seem so bad. But when I have a glimpse of what happiness can be, it reminds me how hopeless everything actually is.”

  He turned to look at her and prayed that she would understand. Every day, the joy of her being here followed by the desolation of watching her leave was killing him as surely as if he stood in the arena without sword or shield.

  “Being with you makes me want something I can never have.”

  She sank down on his bed. “Is there no way out for you? No way for us to be together?”

  He leaned his back against the wall.

  “Only if I can stay alive and win at the games, then I might earn my freedom. But that takes years, and each match I win means another man loses, another man dies. I do not know if I can keep killing, even if it is to save my own life.”

  The color leached from her face. “But you must stay alive.”

  “Why? What life would I have outside the arena, even if I could gain my freedom? You know as well as I that slave gladiators are treated with no more respect than the lowest of whores. I have been trained to kill. That is all I know.”

  “What will you do then?”

  Dacian shook his head, looking off into the distance, anywhere but at her pleading face.

  “I do not know. The last time I was in the arena, I had given up. I was ready to die.” His gaze returned to lock with hers. “But you stopped it. You took the choice away from me just as surely as these walls take away my freedom.”

  Sabina jerked as if he had struck her.

  “I am sorry,” she said, her tone curt. “I thought you would want to live.”

  “And I thought I wanted to die. But when I looked up and saw you standing there, so brave and proud, for a moment I thought maybe there was a reason for me to go on. A reason to fight to live.” He raised his arms,
indicating the confines of his cell. “But then they brought me back here, to these cold stone walls to wait for the next games, the next chance to die, and I wondered again if I should not just give up.”

  “Dacian, no.” Sabina rose to her feet. “Do not give up. Do not ever give up.”

  She reached out and touched his arm. He flinched, like an animal unaccustomed to human contact. He pulled away from her, because he was—nothing more than a caged animal.

  “No matter what happens, I care. I care whether you live or die.”

  “Why?”

  The single word a challenge. He still did not understand it, why someone like her would care for someone like him.

  “Why not? What makes you less worthy than any other man?”

  “I am not like other men.” Dacian snorted, his lip curling in disdain. “You should be with some senator’s son, eating figs and drinking wine. Not locked in a filthy gladiator’s cell with a trained killer.”

  “You sound just like my father.” Sabina stalked a few steps away. “It appears we are both trapped in our own prisons.”

  Something in her voice made him pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father intends to find me a husband the next time we go to Rome.” She fisted her hands at her sides. “I could just scream at the irony of it all. You cannot buy your freedom, and mine is about to be sold.”

  She spun around and waved one hand up and down the length of her body. “Behold, a piece of merchandise to be auctioned off to the highest bidder who can cushion my father’s purse and improve my uncle’s career. Like you, I have no choice in my own fate.”

  He could feel Sabina’s desperation and hopelessness, and it nearly mirrored his own. Even though he hadn’t the right, he wanted to howl at the thought of her in another man’s arms, another man’s bed.

  “So you see, I am just as trapped as you are. I know how you feel. The very thought of being possessed by a man I do not love makes me wish for death, too.”

  Cold rage coiled within him that she would think to embrace so casually that which he faced every day. He reached Sabina in two strides.

  “You know nothing of death.” Dacian grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her. “Not until you have faced it, smelled its breath, and tasted it in your mouth. Not until you have seen fear reflected in another man’s eyes as you spill his life’s blood onto the sand of the arena. You may be trapped, but your prison has gold bars and silk pillows. You sleep on a soft bed and awake each morning to know that you will live another day. You want for nothing in your life.”

  Sabina struggled within his grasp. He knew he was scaring her, but he didn’t care. She should be afraid.

  “Stop it!”

  “You little fool. How can you even begin to think about dying? Long after I have lost my last battle in the arena, you will be secure in your life, happy in your marriage and the children it will bring. You will have everything you could possibly want, living in your fine villa with your powerful husband.”

  “But I don’t want any of that!”

  “Then what do you want?” he growled.

  She tried to pull away from him, but he would not release her. Instead, he pulled her closer until they were chest to chest, and she was forced to look him in the eye.

  “What is it you want, Sabina?”

  “You!”

  She instantly stopped fighting him. They both stood still, frozen by the meaning behind that single word.

  “I want you, Dacian.” She spoke the last words so softly, he wasn’t certain she’d said them at all.

  All the air was ripped from Dacian’s lungs. He found it difficult to breathe, and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears nearly drowned out the thunderous beating of his heart.

  He could not believe the fates would torture him so.

  She leaned into him, so close that he feared she could feel him tremble, that she would know how her words made him want to drop to his knees from the need of her.

  Sabina reached up, gently touching his lips with her fingertips.

  “I want you,” she whispered.

  Dacian groaned and pulled her into his arms. He knew it was wrong, that he should send her away and beg her never to return. But if he never saw her again, if he were to die tomorrow in the arena, at least he could take this one moment with him.

  Bending his head forward, Dacian touched his mouth to the beautiful lips that had just spoken words he never thought to hear. So soft, Sabina yielded to him, opening herself up to the long-dead emotions pouring out from the depths of his soul.

  Unable to restrain himself, his tongue traced the fullness of her lips, then plunged inside to taste the honey of her mouth. Pure pleasure shot through him as her tiny tongue darted out to explore him, too. She moaned, the sound echoing the feelings raging inside his body. He felt her quiver and knew his own body shuddered with the power of the kiss.

  Then the rumbling sound came to his ears, and he realized it wasn’t just her kiss that affected him so.

  The very ground beneath their feet had started to shake.

  Chapter 4

  “By the gods, what is happening?” Sabina cried out.

  As quickly as it came, the trembling stopped. Dust filtered down from the mortar in the stones, dancing in the last beam of light coming through the barred window in the door.

  “I do not know.”

  The door to the cell flew open and crashed against the wall, startling them both. The guard stood outside, his face a pasty white.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I must secure all the gladiators. You must leave now.”

  Sabina looked back at Dacian. Alarm mixed with the simmering fire still dancing in his eyes, and she felt cheated that her time with him had been cut so short.

  She started to leave, then turned back and threw herself into his arms, squeezing him tight. He returned her embrace as if he were holding onto hope itself.

  “I will return. Tomorrow.”

  “You should not.”

  “I know.” She smiled as she darted out the door. “But I will anyway.”

  No bright sunlight blinded Sabina as she left the barracks. Instead, the sky was a dark gray, hinting at an impending summer storm.

  Shouting came from the streets where vendors and merchants had their shops and homes. The tap-tap-tap of small white pellets falling like rain on the cobblestone street puzzled her.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  A man rushed past, knocking her down in his haste. Sabina stumbled to her feet and started to run. She had to find her father. He would know what was happening. He would know what to do.

  Rushing through the crowded streets, Sabina arrived at their villa to find the slaves rushing about, throwing household belongings into sacks and crates. Broken crockery littered the tiled floor, abandoned where it had been dropped.

  Sabina found her father in his chamber, frantically tossing some of their most precious items into a large satchel.

  “Father, what is happening?”

  He looked up, relief easing the creases on his brow.

  “The gods are angry. They are throwing stones down from the skies upon our heads. We must leave the city at once.”

  “Leave?” Alarm traced icy fingers down her back.

  “Yes. Quickly, pack your things. One of the wine carts has been readied and is standing outside. We will head for Rome.”

  “But, Father, it was just the earth rumbling. It has been happening for weeks. Why do we leave now?”

  Her father pointed at the ceiling as if she could see through the clay tiles to the sky above.

  “Look to the sky, Sabina, and you will see the wrath of the gods. They warned us ten years ago when Pompeii was nearly crushed by the moving of the earth. I do not care to be here when it happens again.”

  Thinking of Dacian locked in his cell and her promise to come back to him, Sabina tried to make sense of what was happening.

  “When wil
l we return?”

  “I do not think we shall. We will go to Rome, where it is safe and civilized.”

  Dread seized her. “But we cannot leave Pompeii forever. What of our family and friends?”

  What of Dacian?

  Her father pushed past her, lugging the bulging sack to the main atrium where the slaves were stacking anything of value to be loaded into the waiting cart. Sabina followed quickly on his heels.

  “Can you not see?” He pointed out the open door where people dashed back and forth in the street like frenzied ants. “Everyone is abandoning the city. If we do not hurry, the inns in Rome will be filled when we arrive. Now, go and pack your things. We leave within the hour.”

  She would be leaving Dacian. She would never see him again.

  No. It was too soon. Not when she had just found him.

  Sabina ran to her room and grabbed any item of value, anything with which she might bargain—a silver goblet and tray, her combs carved from mother-of-pearl, the wooden box containing the last of her mother’s gold jewelry.

  Throwing it all into her palla, she folded up the cloth and raced to the front of the villa.

  “Sabina!” her father called out as she darted past his chamber. “Where are you going? The cart is out back.”

  “I have to go to Dacian.”

  He followed her down the hall and grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around.

  “Dacian? Who is Dacian?”

  “He is the gladiator I told you about.”

  “A gladiator?” Anger mottled his sweat-beaded face. “He is not your concern. The guards will take care of them.”

  Sabina remembered the fear on the guards’ faces. She did not have such faith in them.

  Her father shoved her in the direction of the back of the villa.

  “Now, stop this nonsense, and pack what you can.”

  “I have to go, Father.”

  “Sabina, we cannot wait.” Her father pointed at the entrance of their home. “Look, now the streets are nearly covered. Soon we may not be able to get out of the city with the wagons.”

  She looked out the open doorway. The stones fell heavier, their sound muffled by the growing layer of white ash that covered the cobblestones.