The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(30)

“Where is everyone?” I asked. “What’s the present situation?”

“The ludus domestic staff were allowed to keep to their quarters,” he said. “Aquila doesn’t consider them a threat. But your friends and those two legionnaires are being held all together in the infirmary. Under guard. Aquila has returned to the capital and left Nyx and that brute Ixion in charge, along with a handful of guards. But they’re spread thin between guarding the Amazona gladiatrices and the Achillea ones.”

I nodded, trying to clarify my thinking through the fog of pain that still wrapped around my brain. I could picture Nyx luxuriating in the Lanista’s private quarters, gorging herself on food and wine and lording it over the ludus staff. I didn’t think I’d have to worry much about her.

“What else can you tell me?” I asked Aeddan.

Aeddan hesitated for a moment, his expression bleak. Then he said, “The reason the Tribune has gone to Rome is that he is arranging for a very lavish, very private munera to be held here at the ludus.”

“Like the night at the Domus Corvinus.”

Aeddan nodded. “Only this time, instead of a pair of gladiators fighting to the death, they’ll have their pick of a whole crop of talented young gladiatrices to pit against each other. On the night of the next new moon—when the gods turn their blessed light away from the world—Pontius Aquila will return here with all of his rich, twisted friends, and . . .”

“And the Sons of Dis will bathe in the blood spilled on the Ludus Achillea sands.” My mouth went dry at the thought.

Aeddan nodded, grim-faced.

Without another word, I turned sharply and headed toward the barracks. Aeddan made a grab for me, but I shrugged him off and kept walking. He had to almost jog to keep up.

“Fallon!” he whispered. “I told you—the other girls aren’t in their cells.”

“I know,” I said. “I need my things. I’m not leaving without the others and I’m not leaving without my swords.”

The barracks were deserted. As Aeddan kept watch at the door of my cell, I slipped a clean tunic on over the torn and bloodstained one I already wore, and belted it loosely. I didn’t need anyone to know I’d been wounded. Not until we were well gone from the ludus and there was time for such things. Then I slipped on my boots, trying not to wince as I bent over to wrap the laces around my calves, and refastened my cloak around my neck.

I stuffed my swords, a dagger, and a tool kit into a travel bag. I had few treasured possessions, but I hesitated a moment, looking up at where my oath lamp sat on the windowsill. I picked up the lamp and set it down in the middle of my neatly made bed.

A message to Nyx. And a promise.

I will be back.

She would find it, I knew. She would find it, and she would understand.

I took a last look around the tiny room that had become my world and tried to memorize every small detail. The image of the place wouldn’t fade in my mind, I vowed. I wouldn’t let it. I would return before it had the chance.

That, I swore on my soul and on my swords.





VII




IF IT HAD been daylight, I don’t know that I could have done it. Facing off in an arena against opponents who knew you were coming, who could defend themselves against you, was one thing.

Cutting a man’s throat from behind was another.

But as Ixion’s heavy dead body sagged away from me, I reminded myself that if he had seen me coming, I would be the one lying there, bleeding out into the dusty ground. I didn’t know if the man’s capacity for casual cruelty warranted such an end. All I knew was that, in that moment, the only thing I cared about was freeing Elka and the other girls. And if Ixion’s life was the price for their freedom, I’d gladly carry the debt of guilt for causing it. Never mind that my hands were shaking as I wiped clean my blade on the dead man’s tunic.

“Fallon?” Aeddan frowned at me in the darkness, stepping over the body of the other guard he’d dispatched. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just not used to murder, that’s all.”

“You’re pale and you’re sweating.” He grabbed me by the arm and turned me to face him. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” I jerked my wrist out of his grip and put the tip of my sword up an inch from his nose. “I’m fine,” I said. “And if you even try to suggest otherwise in front of the others, I’ll find it within me to get used to murder.”

He blinked at me and frowned, but stepped back a pace.

We dragged the bodies out of sight and made our way into the infirmary. The long, torchlit room felt like the inside of a hornets’ nest that some very foolish person had thrown rocks at. The very air hummed with a defiance I could feel buzzing against my skin. My ludus-mates were gathered in small, tight groups, and I took the moment before they noticed me to look around, my heart swelling with pride.

They were angry. Not afraid.

And they clearly hadn’t gone quietly to their makeshift incarceration after I’d been hauled away to Tartarus. Elka sported a livid black eye, and there were rust-colored blood splotches down the front of Gratia’s tunic that, judging from her two black eyes, were the result of a broken nose. Others wore an array of bandages, and over on a far cot, I could see the shape of one of the girls lying on her side, covered by a bloodstained sheet.