The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(46)
Beneath the training-ground portico, I could see a group of men sitting in carved wooden chairs, speaking in low tones, aristocratic heads bent together. Dignitaries and lanistas from other ludi invited for the occasion, they would be entertained with a lavish feast in the ludus guest residences afterward. I recognized one of the men who stood there, the one with the silver hair and hawkish features that they had called the Collector. He’d tried to purchase Elka and me at the auction, and had stormed off after being outbid by the Lanista. He looked even more unhappy now than he did then, and he seemed to be actively trying to avoid another man in the gathering.
I’d seen enough of his stone likenesses scattered around Rome to guess his identity from his torchlit profile, but even if I hadn’t, I would have known him instantly. Here was a man who wore power like a cloak, effortlessly, comfortably. The thrill I felt at having been chosen to swear the oath conflicted with the raw dread of knowing just who, exactly, I was swearing my oath to. Gaius Julius Caesar, proconsul of Rome, the great dictator himself, had come to the ludus to attend the oath swearing of his newest crop of thorny wildflowers.
At his side sat a woman, Caesar’s mistress—although none dared call her so out loud—the Aegyptian queen, Cleopatra. Her slender frame was draped in the soft folds of a snowy-white cloak, the hood pulled up so that I couldn’t see much of her face. But when she laughed at something Caesar said, it sounded like the chiming of silver bells. I found myself craning my neck to try and catch a better glimpse of her, wondering what kind of woman could so enthrall the most powerful man in the world.
Standing off to one side of the aristocratic gathering were several soldiers, Caesar’s praetorian guard, and Caius Antonius Varro, dressed in full ceremonial armor. Our eyes locked for a moment, and the ghost of a smile curved the Decurion’s lips, softening his angular face. For a moment, I found myself frozen in his gaze. What did he see when he looked at me standing there, surrounded by my fellow gladiatrices? Did he still see the wild-eyed slave girl from the ship? Or did he now see me as the warrior I’d always known myself to be?
But then my attention was ripped away from him as, with another blast of the war horn, she appeared: the Lady Achillea, lit by the red-gold flames of the torches, driving a war chariot through one of the far archways.
No.
Not the Lady Achillea.
Sorcha of the Cantii.
My sister. Returned from the Morrigan’s halls.
XVIII
THE FLAMES OF THE TORCHES flared wildly in a gust of night wind, turning the dark air crimson. There was a tremendous roaring in my ears as all the blood rushed from my head, and I thought I might faint. Sorcha of the Cantii stood tall in the war cart, holding the reins steady in her hands. My sister was alive.
The practice arena spun in dizzying circles all around me as Sorcha drew the horses to a stop in front of us and stepped down from the chariot platform. Gone was the Roman garb of Lady Achillea—the stola and palla, the crested helmet. She was dressed instead in the traditional garb of a Cantii war chief, wearing a forest-green cloak fastened with a massive silver brooch at her right shoulder. I wondered giddily if the statue of the goddess in the courtyard didn’t look upon her with raw envy.
She was magnificent.
It was almost exactly how I remembered her from the night she rode out of Durovernum for the last time—to face the Roman legion on our very own soil. She was still as beautiful as I remembered, slender and lean-muscled, with her bronze-gold hair spilling over her shoulders to tumble in loose waves down her back. Something I didn’t remember was the pale streak of silver that ran through her hair above her left eye, which seemed darker than her right. Thin blue lines, painted in woad—the bright blue paste we used to mark the warriors of my tribe—swirled across her cheeks and forehead. A sword, carved with a triple raven, was sheathed on her hip. It was identical to the one Charon had taken from me that first night after my capture. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, if only to drive away the memory of the morning I learned she was dead.
My sister wasn’t dead. My sister would never die. My sister was a goddess.
Sorcha guided the horses with an expert hand as they drew her war cart in a slow circle around the oath takers, who all stood together with heads held high, shoulders back, and eyes fixed fiercely forward as if searching out the next adversary, the next challenge, the next target.
“Target or weapon, Fallon . . . Choose.”
Her voice echoed in my head.
And what did you choose, Sorcha? How did you come to this?
With a sudden shock, I remembered Olun the druid’s prophecy: that I would share the same fate as my sister. And here I was, having followed her footsteps all the way to Rome to accomplish just that. In that moment, I would have whispered a prayer to the Morrigan to ask for her guidance, but I suspected she was too busy laughing at me to have heard.
I glanced at the ranks of the gladiatrices and saw that more than one of them wore an expression that was almost worshipful. Over the years I’d grown up mourning her, my sister had clearly inspired these girls. I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat.
Sorcha stepped down and reached into the chariot, drawing forth a bow and quiver. Wordlessly, she presented them to the student named Tanis at the end of the row. The girl dipped her head in respect and took them, her eyes shining. I’d seen Tanis practicing with Ajani and suspected that, in time, she had the potential to become just as good.