The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(34)

“Wherever you have come from,” she continued, “whatever you did, whoever you were . . . forget. Kill your past and bury it deep in the earth of your heart. It will not help you here. It will only shackle you. This place is a sisterhood. These girls are your family. The Lady Achillea, the lanista of this place, is your goddess. And I am your new mother.”

“Couldn’t be any worse than my old mother,” Elka shrugged.

Thalestris shot her a look that plainly said, Don’t be too sure of that.

“There will be an oath swearing at the rising of the next full moon,” she said, “for you and for some of the other girls who are recently arrived. It is a sacred time. And this is a sacred vocation. Do not ever dare to think otherwise. Be proud, and be thankful to the Fates that they have brought you here to become a gladiatrix. Bring honor on this house. Bring honor on yourselves. Win. Be valiant. Now go.”

? ? ?

Honor.

I’d always thought I’d known what that word meant to me. That night, I took my first steps toward learning what the word “honor” meant to a gladiatrix. And I took those steps in a graveyard.

It had been well after the supper hour when we’d arrived, so Thalestris escorted us to the kitchens to gather plates of leftovers from the evening’s meal that we could eat in our quarters. Coming and going, we saw only a few of the other girls in residence. We spoke to none of them. I was glad of it, mostly because I was beginning to feel a bit ridiculous in the wilted, travel-stained remains of my auction costume. They’d stripped us of most of the finer accessories before loading us into the wagon, leaving me with not much more than the tunica and boots. Elka, for her part, didn’t really seem to care—she was far too concerned with balancing the towering heap of meat and cheese and fruit she carried as she walked to really even notice.

Our quarters were small, narrow rooms, barely big enough to hold the straw pallet that served as a bed. There was an open, empty trunk at the foot of it for personal belongings. I had none. No torc, no sword, not even a decent set of breeches or a good warm shift made of well-spun wool . . . nothing that identified me as Fallon. No tokens or mementos of the life I’d led. The loss of my sister’s blade felt like I was missing a limb. And the only thing I had left of Mael was the memory of his kiss . . . and the look on his face in the moment he died.

I kicked the lid of the trunk shut and turned my back on it.

A single candle on the high windowsill cast dancing shadows on the walls as I finished eating. I was sitting on my bed, too exhausted to even undress and lie down for sleep, when there was a knock on my door. It swung open before I could respond, and I looked over to see a tall, slender girl standing in the doorway. She had short, dense hair cropped close to her skull and dark skin. I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen anyone like her before. She ignored my rudeness and simply gestured to the candle.

“Get your boots,” she said. “Bring the light. Come with me.”

Outside in the hallway, I saw that the girl carried a cloak.

“I am Ajani,” she said, holding it out to me. “Put this on.”

I took it with a grateful nod, for the night air held a damp chill. “Fallon,” I said and slipped the heavy wool over my shoulders, pulling the hood up around my face. “Where are we going?”

The whites of her eyes shone in the darkness. “To say goodbye.”

She turned on silent feet and padded down the corridor. I followed, the candle flame sputtering in the breezes that slipped between the pillars. Ajani led me out into the courtyard at the heart of the ludus compound, where a gathering of girls and women stood in a cluster, some of them holding torches, all of them cloaked and hooded. If Elka was there, I couldn’t tell which of the cloaked figures she was. No one spoke. At the center of the crowd there was a funeral bier draped in a gauzy white cloth.

And from the shape of it, a body beneath the shroud.

Six figures stepped apart from the crowd and approached the bier, lifting it up onto their shoulders as if it weighed no more than a sack of feathers. A procession formed behind them as they moved with stately dignity toward the gates of the ludus—which was, on that night, open to the world. I fell in behind Ajani and followed. Once outside the ludus compound, the sky seemed enormous to me. Growing up, I’d been so used to being hemmed in by the trees and forests of the Island of the Mighty. But now I felt small beneath the vast canopy of stars.

Mouse small . . . too small to notice . . .

I slowed my pace, dropping back in the ranks of the gladiatrices until I trailed behind them. If I could lose myself in a hollow and wait until they were far enough away, perhaps I could make a dash for freedom.

And the collar around your neck? How will you outrun that?

The cold metal twinged against my skin.

I might be just a wee mouse outside those walls, but the slave iron marked me as easy prey for an eagle. Runaway slaves were criminals, punished by flogging or branding—or outright death. I was in the middle of a foreign land, friendless and forsaken. Running—at least, running without a plan—would only get me killed. Somewhere over one of the distant hills, a wolf howled, and I quickened my pace to catch up with the others.

We walked for a while in silence. In the distance, I could see the dark shapes of other villas, and everywhere we passed, there were lamps burning brightly in all the windows. I was reminded of all the sleepless Samhain Nights I’d spent growing up in Durovernum, nights when the shades of the unquiet dead walked the earth and the lamps in all the houses burned until dawn to ward them away. Now, I felt as though I were one of those hungry, roaming shades—torn away from the world, but still tethered to it.