The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(23)
Pontius Aquila’s gaze swept unblinking down upon her like she was a beggar in a back alley. Beneath contempt. I winced, sensing what would likely come next. Lydia seemed to sense it too. She was shallow, but she wasn’t stupid.
She took a step back, eyes darting side to side, like a cornered animal.
“Nyx, my dear friend . . .” She turned her pleading to the girl who’d spent their time together treating Lydia more like a lackey than a dear friend. “You know I’m just like you. I’m on your side! Tell the Tribune—”
That was as far as she got.
The crack of leather echoed across the yard.
Lydia screamed and dropped to the ground as Nyx’s whip caught her on the side of her face and blood poured onto the sand from between her fingers. I saw Gratia clamp a hand over her mouth as, between one breath and the next, the whip cracked again as it sliced across Lydia’s shoulders, rending the fabric of her thin linen sleeping shift and drawing an arc of bright blood. She shrieked again in agony, and before I’d really thought about what I was doing, I put my head down and ran at Nyx.
When she’d been at the ludus, Nyx had been very good at dishing out punishment with a chariot whip. It seemed she’d gotten even better at it in the intervening months. But that was with a target more than an arm’s length away. In close quarters, it was a useless weapon. If Nyx couldn’t get a windup, she couldn’t crack the whip to devastating effect, and that was what I was counting on. I ducked under her arm and tackled her to the ground.
I’d thought only to keep her from killing Lydia. I hadn’t anticipated what would happen next: Nyx went utterly mad. I heard her growl like an animal as she thrashed beneath me. She brandished the heavy butt end of the whip like a club and caught me on the side of the head with it. Stars burst in front of my eyes, and I reeled back. Nyx was on her feet in an instant. The whip in her hand cracked again, the lash slapping viciously into the dirt beside me as I rolled frantically, half-blinded by the blow to my head. I tried to crawl, but Nyx slammed the whip across my back like a truncheon. Then again. And again.
How many nights had she lain awake, dreaming of the kind of revenge she would take on me for that moment in the arena? The moment when I’d ruined her life. I’m sure that’s how she’d framed it in her mind.
I’d thought, at the time, that I’d been trying to save her life.
Did you really? a voice in my head asked, muted by red fog. Or did you just want the satisfaction of seeing Nyx driven out of the one world she’d ever known? The only life she’d ever thrived in?
Nyx didn’t give me time to answer my own silent question.
A kick from her hobnailed boot lifted me off the ground and drove the breath from my lungs. I heard Cai shout and then the dull thud of a landed punch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two of Aquila’s men dragging him back, semiconscious and struggling. My pulse roared in my ears. Nyx’s boot made contact again, this time with my shoulder. I think she’d been aiming for my head, but the kick went wide—a glancing blow, but still another burst of blooming pain. I clenched my hands into fists full of sand and threw it in her face, reaping curses—and a momentary reprieve—as my reward. It was enough so that I could scramble up to my knees and ready myself for her next attack.
But my only weapons were my fists. I made what use of them I could, and felt her nose crumple beneath my knuckles as we brawled. I’m not even sure she noticed. The blood flowed, painting the lower half of her face in a red mask.
“Where is my sister, damn you, Nyx?” I panted, grasping at the front of her tunic.
She grinned at me through red-painted teeth. “On her way to meet the Goddess.”
“What happened to her?” I demanded, hauling her closer.
A mistake.
“Did you know I never actually killed anyone in my time as a gladiatrix?” Nyx hissed, ignoring my question. “I’m starting to think that was an oversight . . .”
I’d been so focused on her whip, I’d failed to notice the short, sharp dagger she carried in her other hand. I don’t think anyone else saw it either, but the shock of the knife blade piercing my side was like a sudden, heavy numbness. The icy-hot sensation that followed told me I was in trouble as I sank backward onto the ground. I expected Nyx would finish me off there and then. But, suddenly, I heard more shouting and looked up to see one of the black-clad Amazona guards hauling Nyx away—kicking and struggling, snarling through bared teeth like a rabid animal.
Pontius Aquila strode forward and backhanded her across the face, knocking some of the battle fury out of her. She glared up at him, panting.
“Control yourself, you wretched girl,” he snapped. “Or you’ll never see the inside of the arena again, and I’ll assign that one’s prodigious fate”—he jerked his chin at me—“to someone who deserves it.”
That was enough to snap Nyx out of her rage completely. What was left behind in the expression on her face told me everything about her in that moment. When I’d first arrived at the ludus and Nyx had discovered the secret of who I was—that I was the long-lost sister of the Lady Achillea, the woman Nyx had devoted her mind and heart and considerable martial skills to since the day she’d been chosen to swear the oath—she’d been bent on my destruction. Not my humiliation, not my dishonor—my death. Achillea had been her hero. Her surrogate mother. Someone to aspire to emulate and make proud. And I had taken that away from her, just by showing up.