The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(26)

Aquila’s gaze burned into me. “Did you feel the strength of her rage,” he hissed, “the surge of her divine madness, flow from her body into yours?”

I looked away.

“It was a great gift she gave you. You felt that, I know. You had to have.”

What I’d felt, in that moment, was sorrow. Regret.

And nothing else?

I fought silently to deny the memory and lost. My first kill—my only kill—was the woman who’d called herself Uathach. The “Terrible One.” Everyone else had called her the Fury, and she had, in her dying moments after my swords had pierced her heart, pressed her hand to my breast—to my heart—and whispered words meant for my ears alone.

“It’s yours now,” she had murmured. “Thank you . . .”

She’d smiled. And then she was gone.

I’d tried to convince myself that I never truly understood what she’d meant. But I did. I knew exactly what she’d had given me. Death. Her death. My life, fueled by that victory, had hurtled forward from that moment on with all of the Fury’s mad will to live free or die wrapped around me like invisible armor. She had given me a terrible gift even as I had relieved her of a terrible burden. Or was it the other way around?

“You understand,” Aquila said. “I knew you would. You and I were meant to find each other, Fallon. I’ve known it ever since your sister first spoke of you. It was as if I felt the brush of feathers against my cheek.” He lifted the silver feather and ran it down the side of his face as he spoke, and I shuddered, repulsed by the wolfish hunger, the bloodlust I could see lurking in his gaze. “I know you were responsible for the death of a young warrior of your tribe. Maelgwyn Ironhand? His brother, my gladiator Mandobracius—I believe you knew him by the name of Aeddan—told me the story of what happened that night.”

The night my life had collapsed into a bottomless black pit.

“You’re wrong about me,” I said. “Didn’t Aeddan tell you that it was his blade that ended his brother’s life?”

“Because of you, yes.” He nodded, smiling. “You are a harbinger.”

No. I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. Aquila was lying . . .

“And your sister now dead too. It seems that anyone who loves you, Fallon, is fated to die. I’d have a care for that decurion who seems so fond of you—”

“Shut up!” I snarled, lunging for the bars, my hands reaching to claw at his face. “Shut your evil mouth—”

He caught me by the wrist and held me there, his grip surprisingly strong.

“That auspicious night,” he hissed, “that spilled a brother’s blood drove you to this place. To this moment. To me. Don’t you see, Fallon? Your goddess has laid out your fate’s path to lead right to the doorstep of my god. Dis and the Morrigan are kindred. As are we.”

His smile turned poisonous and he drew the edge of the feather across the soft, white underside of my forearm. It was razor-sharp, and blood welled up, seeping from the curved lines he traced, lines that formed the symbol of a feather on my skin. I gritted my teeth and clamped down on a hiss of pain. When he was done marking me, Aquila let go of me, and I snatched my arm back, cradling it to my chest.

“You’re mad . . .” There was a tremor in my voice.

“Am I?” He laughed, tucking the feather away in the folds of his cloak. “What fate, then, drove Aeddan to my ludus? You were there the night he ended Ajax’s life. You bore witness. He is my strongest gladiator.” Aquila tilted his head. “And what about the Fury? I’d watched her fight for years. Undefeated, undefeatable . . . until you, Fallon. Victrix. Achillea didn’t have your strength. She never did. That is why your goddess cursed her to fall under the wheels of a chariot whereas, in the same arena, performing the very same act, she gave you wings.”

Would that she had, I thought. I would use them now to fly away from this whole horrid nightmare.

“Fight for me, Fallon!” Aquila suddenly gripped the bars and thrust his face close, as if he would squeeze between them into my cell. “Win for me.”

A chill crept over my skin. Aquila’s words were a dark mirror to the conversation I’d had with Caesar in his villa, the day he’d chosen me as his Victory.

“I will never fight for you,” I whispered, my mouth gone dry as dust.

“Then you will never leave this cell. And that would be a great pity. Think long on your decision, my dear. And when I come to ask you again, have a better answer. For both our sakes.”





VI




THE LIGHT CREEPING in through the tiny cell window shifted and changed as I huddled against the wall, drifting in and out of awareness. Beneath the torn strip of cloak I’d wrapped around my torso, I could feel that the skin surrounding my wound had grown tight and hot. But the rest of me was cold, clammy, shivering . . .

“Bright thing . . .”

I struggled to open my eyes. The voice was quiet.

Faraway sounding . . . familiar. I squinted, but everything was blurry.

“Wake up, bright little thing . . .”

The smell of stale wine filled my nostrils.

“Arviragus . . . ?” I blinked in confusion.

The mighty Gaulish chieftain the Romans called Vercingetorix sat on his haunches on the floor of my cell, waiting for me to wake. For a moment, I thought I saw him in the glory of his youth. When he’d visited my home of Durovernum and taught me how to wrap my child’s hands around the hilt of a sword. His mane of auburn hair spilled over his shoulders, and a neatly trimmed beard framed his handsome face above a thick gold torc that circled his neck. He held a sword in his hands, and the hilt glinted in the pale wash of light through the window.