The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(63)

I glanced back toward the corner. “He doesn’t look very fearsome.”

“He will. They will dress Arviragus up and chain him to a stake. They’ll probably get him good and roaring drunk, and then they’ll trot him through the town on a cart decked with the spoils of war and the shields of the fallen.”

“And then?”

“Then they’ll take him to the prison and strangle him, out of sight, where no one needs to see him die like an animal.”

Those words struck me like a physical blow. I had grown up worshipping the handsome, fiery Arviragus. He’d been my hero almost as much as Sorcha, and to see him as he was now, with the fire leeched from his soul . . .

“Caesar asked me to come here to visit him,” Sorcha murmured to me. “As a comfort—someone who knew him as he was, someone to talk to—and so I’ve come every few months for the last four years,” she said. “Sometimes we talk. Mostly he sits there silently and drinks.”

“Why would Caesar ask you to do that?” I asked.

“To remind me that he could have done the same to me—or to Father—if he’d so desired. That he still could.”

I glanced at her, but her eyes were fixed on the figure by the fire.

“But I also think he grew to admire Arviragus,” she said. “Even as he sought to destroy him. My visits are a small mercy, though. Sometimes I wonder if my presence makes it better for him or worse.” She tightened her grip on my shoulder. “Come now. Greet the king.”

The closer we got, the heavier the stink of stale wine. Sorcha crouched down in front of Arviragus and took his hands gently in her own.

“I’ve brought someone to see you, lord,” she said softly. “You knew her when she was a little girl. You taught her swordplay, like you taught me.”

He blinked, just a little, and his gaze searched the darkness in front of him until it found my sister’s face. “Did I?” he muttered, half to himself. “Did I?”

I nodded. “In Durovernum, when I was small.”

His eyes shifted, blinking and bleary, to focus on me.

“Bright little thing,” he murmured.

He beckoned me closer with a clumsy wave, and I knelt before him. His breath was foul, but I could still see—in the angles of his face beneath the tangle of overgrown beard—the hero I’d worshipped as a child.

He squinted at me. “Fallon . . . ?”

I tried to smile at him. “That’s right.”

“She is a gladiatrix now,” Sorcha said.

“Gladiatrix . . .” Arviragus murmured again. He lifted a shaking hand to my cheek. “I’m so sorry, bright little thing.”

“For what, lord?” I asked, my voice small and lost in the dim air.

His words caught in his throat as he answered. “For not making the world a place where you could choose to fight for yourself.”

I glanced at Sorcha, who bit her lip and looked away.

“But you did,” I said, turning back to the Arverni king and remembering when he was a prince—and my hero. “When I was little, you didn’t just teach me how to hold a sword. You taught me that the fight is in here.” I put a hand on my heart, my voice growing stronger. “And that it was up to me to decide how and when to use it. I saw what was left of Alesia. When you surrendered to Caesar, it was because there was nothing left to fight for. But the fight itself was more important than the loss. You will be remembered as a hero, my lord. And that is at least as important as being one.”

Tears spilled from his eyes, and before I could say anything else, he pulled me to his chest, wrapping me in a fierce embrace. When he pushed me away, finally, it seemed as though the tears had washed away some of the fog from his gaze.

“Talk to me, Fallon,” he said. “It has been so long. Tell me of yourself.”

Sorcha retreated to the far end of the room with the guard, leaving us alone for a little while. Arviragus was lucid for most of our conversation—which surprised me, considering the amount of wine he imbibed even in that short time. He asked me how I had come to be in Rome. His eyes flicked over to Sorcha when I told him I was now owned by the Ludus Achillea, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t belabor the point. Sorcha was the only friend he’d had in his captivity, and I wasn’t about to air my resentment in front of him.

When he asked me about the upcoming circuit, I felt the heat of shame creep into my cheeks. The girls of the Ludus Achillea would be competing for a lead role in the Triumphs—the very same celebrations that would see Arviragus paraded through the streets of Rome to be put to death. But the Arverni king was a strategist first and foremost, and he brushed aside talk of his own impending fate to counsel me on mine.

“A role like that’ll carry a hefty purse if you win,” he grunted thoughtfully, scratching at his beard.

“I don’t care about the money!” I scoffed.

“Eh?” Arviragus peered at me through bloodshot eyes. “Why not? Everybody else in the Republic does.”

“I have my honor.” I lifted my chin. “I won’t dress up as some silly spirit of Victory and fight for Caesar like a trained ape.”

“I would.”

I gaped at him.

“I’ve learned a few things over the years, Fallon,” he said. “I told you I was sorry about the world I left behind when I surrendered to Caesar, and I am. You say there was nothing more for me to fight for, and you were right. But you can’t change the ways of the world if you’re no longer a part of it.”