The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(91)

“I fought against Spartacus and his cursed rebels, girl,” Varro hissed. “My legions cut them down like wheat in the fields. You are nothing against the might of Rome—”

“Father!” I heard Cai shout, his voice ragged. “Let go of her!”

But Varro was far too intent on wringing the life out of me to hear his son’s cry. He seemed to notice we weren’t alone in the stable yard only when Cai slammed into him shoulder first, knocking the senator off balance. With a snarl of rage at the interruption, Varro turned and threw me through the air. I glanced off Cai’s armored chest and landed in a gasping heap on the ground. It felt as though my head had been torn half off. The air I sucked into my lungs seared my raw throat, and I lurched up onto my hands and knees, retching hot saliva that pooled on the ground in front of me. The edges of my vision were tinged reddish gray.

I tried to speak Cai’s name, but the only sound I could produce was a rasping growl. When I lifted my head, I saw through my tears that he was standing in front of me, legs braced wide, a sword held in either fist.

“You even fight like one of them,” Varro sneered. “Like a filthy gladiator. A real legion officer would be ashamed.”

“If you’re what’s considered a real legion officer, then I’d be ashamed to bear that title,” Cai said, his face twisting with bitter disappointment and grief. I watched whatever love he still bore his father die in his eyes in that moment.

“You disappoint me, Caius. Your loyalty to that would-be emperor and his gladiatrix whores has twisted your mind.”

“You were the one who pleaded with Caesar for my place as decurion!”

“So you could see for yourself firsthand what kind of monster he is.”

“Caesar doesn’t eat the hearts of his warriors!”

“No, he just turns them into useless lumps of quivering, fearful flesh.” Varro drew the sword that hung from his belt and took a step forward. “Get out of my way, Caius.”

“You know I won’t.”

“Then you’ll die.”

Cai’s father was a head taller than his son, and even though he’d been retired from legion duty for almost as long as Cai had been alive, he’d clearly lost none of his strength or prowess with a blade. But he’d also clearly never fought a gladiator before. Cai had. With two swords, as dimachaerus, all so that he could spar with me.

What I’d learned on the boat, and on Corsica, was that a legionnaire was drilled in such a way that attacks and defensive moves came automatically, without thought. Denizens of the arena were drilled to think on their feet. To improvise and innovate. Varro might have thought it was weakness to fight with such a lack of discipline. I knew, in certain situations, it was strength. Cai knew it too. He knew it so well that his father never even anticipated that, while one of Cai’s blades parried his hard-struck blow, the other was on its way to finding the side gap in his breastplate.

I watched in horror as, without the slightest hesitation, Cai thrust the blade between his father’s ribs. Right to the hilt. Varro’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open in a silent gasp. The sword dropped from his hand and he reached for his son’s face.

“My son . . .” he murmured, his eyes clouding.

“You have no son,” Cai said, teeth clenched in a frightful grimace. “I renounce you, and your name, and your blood. I will not perform the rites for you, old man. I will not put coins for the Ferryman on your eyes. You go to Hades with no issue, no legacy, and no hope to ever walk the fields of Elysium beside my mother’s shade.”

Varro uttered a wordless, strangled sound of protest as Cai pushed him away and then stood, the sword in his left hand dripping red, to watch impassively as his father’s body slumped in a heap on the ground. When Cai turned to me, there was no sadness in his eyes. No more remorse or grief. Only a slow-fading fury.

“Fallon . . .”

He strode toward me, dropping to his knees, to take me by the shoulders.

“Fallon, can you speak? Are you all right?”

I nodded, still retching and gasping for breath. The dark umbra at the edges of my vision made it seem like I was looking up at him through a portal, and I still wasn’t able to talk. But I could stand. And I could fight.

“Give . . . give me my swords, Cai,” I managed finally in an ugly rasp as I staggered to my feet with his help. I could still feel his father’s hands around my throat, crushing the life out of me. “I’m going to finish this.”

“We’ll finish this together,” he said.

He pulled me close and bent his head to mine, kissing me hard on the lips. Then, without a second glance at the body on the ground, he retrieved my swords from where I’d dropped them when Varro had winded me with the pitchfork. He handed them to me, and together, we advanced toward the main gates of the ludus.

Leaving his father, and his father’s hate, far behind.

? ? ?

We headed back to where Quint and Kallista waited with the others.

“What happened to Varro’s men?” I asked.

Quint snorted. “Seems these girls really were spoiling for a fight,” he said. “All of them.”

Damya grinned. “I like them,” she said. “Where’d you find them?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we’re done,” I said. “Let’s go.”