The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(39)

I swallowed the tightness in my throat. Arviragus alive was a comfort I hadn’t expected. Not after everything that had happened. “Did Cai tell you of . . . ?”

“Sorcha?” The sorrow in his gaze was a deep as his compassion. He nodded. “I have made sacrifice to the goddess for her safe journey.”

He held my hand quietly until the storm of my grief passed over me again and I was able to look him in the eyes once more.

“What madness led you here, Fallon, of all places?” he asked.

“You did. You were my madness.”

I explained how his apparition had goaded me from my cell and, later, led me through the streets of Rome, and Arviragus shook his head in wonderment. “The Morrigan’s will is a very strange thing sometimes,” he said.

“Strange, perhaps,” Cai said. “But in this case, fortuitous.”

I looked up at him.

“I doubt we would have made it past the city at all if we’d kept to our original plan,” he explained. “The vigiles were already looking for us within hours of us coming to this place. They would have most likely caught up to us on the road south to Neapolis if we’d stayed that course.”

Vigiles, I thought. Rome’s watch guard. “News travels that fast?” I asked.

He nodded. “We must have missed a saddle or a chariot. Or one of the guards rode bareback to send word. But word has definitely reached the local constabulary. They’re said to be on the lookout for a band of escaped renegade gladiatrices from the Ludus Achillea, led by none other than Caesar’s darling Victrix herself. And as we all know—”

“The Roman mob has not forgotten Spartacus,” I said with a sigh.

“You’ve been branded a rebel and the leader of rebels.” Cai shook his head in disgust. “That makes you a political liability for Caesar. It’ll take a while for word to reach him of that, but when it does . . .”

“How do you know all this?”

“I have a friend, remember? One who is privy to the secrets of the city. And its men of power.” Cai poured another cup of watered wine and handed it to me. “I sent word to Kass about what had happened and asked her if she had any insights into our situation.”

Kassandra, I remembered. She had been kind to me—rescued me, really—on more than one occasion. A brothel slave, she was also a secret informant for Julius Caesar. A dangerous profession—in both respects—but she somehow managed to navigate that world with grace.

“What did she have to say?” I asked.

“She gave me the political lay of the land, and we’re in more trouble than I thought.” Cai sighed bleakly and I waited for him to continue. “There is a deep unrest brewing in the Republic, Fallon. The Optimates—the men Caesar is fighting right now—and the Populares, the ones who support him in this war . . . they are the public face of the conflict. The two major factions in the power struggle that everyone sees and knows. But, according to Kass, it is the Sons of Dis and those like them who are the monstrous visage lurking beneath.”

“The blade cuts both ways,” Arviragus mused. “The political climate is the very reason why men like Aquila suddenly feel they have the kind of agency to promote things like the Sons of Dis and get away with it. Public perception is everything to the Roman mind.”

Cai nodded. “And people like you and Sorcha, Fallon—the champions of Caesar, his stars of the arena, and favorites of the plebs—you’re only pawns in a much greater game here. A distraction and a bargaining chip, both.”

“And in Aquila’s twisted mind, a source of arcane power,” I said, looking down at my arm, where the cuts he’d made were healing, slowly becoming the thin white scars I would carry so long as I lived. “Let’s not forget that.”

Cai shifted uncomfortably at the thought, but nodded. “Yes,” he said. “In his mind. And the minds of his followers.”

“And now Sorcha’s dead because of it,” I said, crushing the renewed swell of agony that saying those words caused me. “Forget Aquila’s sick agenda. Even if he were to vanish from the earth right now—and what a pleasant thought that is—the way things stand, we’re going to have to find a way to clear our names. All of us. Or we’ll all live as fugitives for the remainder of our days. Numbered as they are.”

“We’ll find a way,” Cai said. “Don’t worry about that now.”

“Aye. You will.” Arviragus reached out to squeeze my hand, his expression one of commiseration. But I saw in his eyes just how likely he considered that possibility. “In the meantime, you’ll need your strength back. I’ll go scare up a bite for you to eat.” He nodded at Cai and left us alone.

We sat silently for a while, just sitting and staring at each other, and then Cai reached over, taking my hand in his.

“You gave me quite a scare, Fallon,” he said.

“I gave myself one.” I smiled at him wanly. “Several, in fact. I thought I was going to die in that cell.”

“But instead you found a way out.”

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t. Aeddan found me and led me out.”

I could see a wealth of things in Cai’s face that he wanted to ask me about that, but he confined himself to just one question. “Do you trust him?”