The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(56)

The woman made a choking noise of assent. It sounded as if he was physically threatening her. I thought to make a noise—a cough or a shoe scrape on the gravel, as if I’d just now come walking up the path—but then I heard the woman bid Aquila good night, albeit a little hoarsely. I pressed myself against the side of the grain shed, fearing that they would find me eavesdropping. I feared for the girl they spoke of, the one Pontius believed was his.

I wondered if it might be me . . .

Don’t be ridiculous. I gave my head a stern shake.

What Cai had said to me earlier was certainly true—I wasn’t the only girl who could swing a sword. And so far, in my brief time at the Ludus Achillea, I hadn’t done anything to distinguish myself. I was nothing more than a green little gladiolus in the eyes of Sorcha’s dignified guests.

Girls like Nyx and Meriel were the ones who caught the wealthy patrons’ eyes, not me. Not yet. Still, it was good to know that Sorcha and Cai hadn’t exactly been exaggerating the Roman propensity for secrets and double-dealing. I heard the voices moving on, growing faint in the distance, and I let out a slow breath.

Let the ludus owners and their lanistas backstab and bargain. I cared only for bed and sleep and maybe a dream or two. I smiled wearily as I loped down the path back to the barracks. I hoped my dreams would be good ones, because in the morning, it was back to the basics of sand and sweat and the sword.

But this time, it would be as a gladiatrix in my own right.

Not just a maybe, a someday.

A would be, I vowed.





XXI



MY FIRST DAY as a gladiatrix began with the stench of blood.

“What happened?” I asked fight master Kronos as he elbowed his way through the girls gathered at the edge of the practice pitch. The smell curdled the honeyed porridge in my stomach that I’d only just wolfed down.

“Accident” was his brusque response in passing. “Need a stretcher.”

I turned on my heel and ran after him to help. Just inside the equipment shed, there were several canvas stretchers hanging on the wall.

“Take an end,” Kronos grunted at me, lifting one off the storage hooks.

We sprinted back out into the yard, Kronos bellowing for the girls to make way. As we neared the arena, I saw the crumpled body of a girl lying in a pool of blood, shockingly red against the white-gold sand. She was the one Sorcha had gifted with the sword and shield with the lion motif at the oath swearing. Her sparring partner, the girl with the serpent shield, stood nearby with a blank look of shock and a bloodied sword.

Lion’s hand still held her sword too. Only it lay in the sand a little distance away from her, the slender fingers still curled around the hilt of the weapon. The sight of it was jarringly wrong.

Thalestris was on her knees, tearing linen into strips and wrapping Lion’s arm as tightly as she could while crimson spurted in time with the beating of the girl’s heart. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and her mouth was open, a low animal-sounding moan coming from it.

“What happened?” Kronos asked the fight mistress as he and I set the stretcher down beside the injured girl. The other gladiatrices stood helplessly in a ring.

“Fools,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “Thought they’d do a bit of sparring with their oath gifts. Neither of them has ever held a real blade.”

Especially not one as sharp as a blade chosen by my sister. Lion and Serpent should have known better. But I’d also seen how very excited they’d been, and I could hardly blame them for wanting to play like giddy children with their new toys. Now Lion would never fight again—if she even survived the injury—and I shuddered to think what Sorcha would do to Serpent.

I glanced at Lion’s severed hand and choked back the bile that rose in my throat at the sight of the gleaming white bone sticking out of the end. I looked away to see Sorcha running from the main house, her face contorted and her hair and robes spread wide in her wake. The avenging Fury.

Serpent went even paler as the Lanista approached.

When my sister stopped in front of her, Serpent burst into tears.

She could have her flogged, I thought, or turned out of the ludus. But then, to my complete surprise, Sorcha stepped forward and gathered her into a fierce embrace. I knelt there in the sand, staring as Sorcha rocked the girl like a frightened child.

Thalestris finished doing what she could for the injured gladiatrix, and then the ludus physician—a quiet, broad-shouldered man named Heron—helped Kronos get the girl onto the stretcher. They rushed her toward the infirmary as I stood there, not knowing what to do.

I felt a sudden spattering of fat raindrops, and then the clouds opened up, pouring down rain in hissing gray sheets. Lightning split the sky, and Thalestris shouted for everyone to get inside, that the day’s practice was cancelled. The arena was deserted in moments. And still I stood there. The rain was almost blinding, reducing the world around me to a circle in the sand—just me, and Lion’s sword, and her hand. In the confusion, the trainers had forgotten it. Not that it mattered, really.

And yet, I couldn’t just leave it lying there. I stripped off my cloak and knelt down in front of the sword and hand. The rain had washed away the blood, leaving the fingers pale and cool. Spreading my cloak out on the sand, I picked up the hand and blade and shifted them gently onto the wool. I wrapped them up as carefully as I could—exceedingly mindful of the sharp edge of the blade—and cradled them like a bairn as I put my head down and slogged through the now muddy pitch toward the infirmary.