The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(27)

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.

No. Not a sword. A wine cup.

And his hair and beard were grown wild and tangled, his face lined with defeat. But his eyes. They hadn’t changed. They burned with an intensity that made it feel as though Arviragus could look right through me and deep into my soul. And why not?

Arviragus was dead.

At the end of Caesar’s Quadruple Triumphs, the mighty Roman general had paraded the proud Gaulish chieftain through the streets of Rome, so that all the people of that great city could marvel and jeer at the most fearsome of Ceasar’s adversaries. I remembered Sorcha telling me how then, after the spectacle, Arviragus would be taken away and strangled out of view of the mob. A small mercy, that, I thought at the time. Leaving the last shreds of his dignity intact . . .

And yet, here he was. Watching me keenly through hard, glittering eyes as I struggled to make sense of the moment. When it seemed he was sure that I was fully conscious, he grinned at me and raised the wine cup in a mocking salute.

“Ave, Victrix,” he said, in a voice of gravel and rust. “All hail the conquering hero.”

“I don’t feel very heroic,” I murmured.

“Quite right. So you shouldn’t.” He turned and spat in the dust. “You didn’t see this coming? Neither you nor your sister? I thought I taught you better than that, bright little thing . . .”

My head swam dizzily.

I felt the heat from a shaft of sunlight falling on my face . . .

I heard laughter and looked up to see a vision of my sister, lithe and lovely and young as a dappled fawn, holding out her hand to help me stand. She grinned down at me, her freckled face framed by a cloud of flyaway hair, and in her other hand she held a wooden sword. The laughter I’d heard was low and musical and came from the handsome young man with auburn braids who sat on a stump, watching me and my sister fight.

He stood and walked toward us, stopping to pick up my sword where it lay in the grass. It looked like a tiny toy in his great hand as he bent down to give it to me. “Better,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

“But I still lost,” I grumbled, snatching the sword from his hand with my baby-chubby fingers.

“And why is that?” he asked.

“Because . . .” I frowned, thinking hard about how my sister had beat me. “Because I started watching her sword . . . ?”

“Good!” Sorcha beamed at me. “You’re learning.”

Young Arviragus nodded, pleased, even though I’d been defeated. “Bright young thing!” He tousled my hair. “While the weapon does one thing at a time, the wielder does many. And they will tell you what they’re doing—and what they’re going to do—but you must pay attention. To their feet, their shoulders, their eyes . . . That way, you’ll always know what’s coming. In a fight, you always need to look six, seven, eight moves in advance. Remember that. And remember this—it’s never over until your enemy is dead at your feet. Never—”

“Ha!” I barked a baby battle cry and ducked under his arm, catching Sorcha by surprise and slapping her sword out of her hand with mine. She yelped as I jumped to tackle her, and together we fell to the ground, rolling and laughing and play-pummeling each other with our fists as Arviragus cheered both of us on . . .

The memory faded.

I found myself back in the dank gray confines of Tartarus, with a ghost.

“Sorcha let herself grow soft,” Arviragus said in a ragged growl.

“She didn’t—”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

My throat closed on a sob and I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t find the words to deny it. My heart ached for the sister I’d found after so many years only to lose again. I shook my head sharply to banish my fevered delusion, but that only made the walls swim before my eyes. Arviragus stayed put.

He sighed and drank from his spectral cup. “You, though,” he continued. “I thought you had an edge that would keep. Did the adoration of the crowds go to your head, little one?”

“If it did, it’s your fault,” I snapped, in no mood to be lectured by a delusion. “You were the one who told me to charm them. Beguile them. Seduce the mob, you said.”

“That’s the thing about seduction, Fallon.” Arviragus leaned forward, the wine stench rolling in his wake like fog. “Never get seduced in return.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “What else did I say?”

I struggled to remember the advice he’d given me that day. It seemed so very long ago . . . Ah. Right. “Be brave, gladiatrix,” Arviragus had counseled. “And be wary. Bright things beget treachery. Beautiful things breed envy. Once you win Caesar’s love, you’ll earn his enemies’ hate.”

Hate. Or desire. I hadn’t listened. I’d earned both, and there was nothing I could do about it now. “Go away, old man,” I muttered. “You’re dead.”

He laughed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “But you are.”

“Are you here then to guide me to the Blessed Isles?”

“Eh? Oh no.” He paused in the middle of drinking to wag a finger at me. “You’re not wriggling off the fishhook that easy. The Morrigan’s not done with you yet, bright little thing. Not by half. So if I were you, I’d start thinking of a way out of this mess you’ve got yourself into.”