The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(23)

“You didn’t get those in the arena today,” I said.

“No. I didn’t get them in the arena at all.”

I frowned up at him. “Where?”

“The mess hall.” He shrugged and racked the blades, fetching two small, rough linen towels from a stack on a wooden shelf so we could wipe the sweat from our faces. “The baths. The corridors . . . Ex-legion soldiers aren’t exactly the paragons of popularity among a crowd of ex-Gaulish warriors.”

I felt my blood begin to boil again at the injustice of it. What Cai had done to help me had also been in the service of Caesar. And Caesar had rewarded him by throwing him ignominiously out of the legions and into the pits of the Ludus Flaminius to fend for himself—a stag surrounded by a pack of wolves whose daily routine was to face off against each other on the sparring pitch.

“I suppose that’s part of what’s got me thinking about my destiny too,” Cai continued. “And why the Fates saw fit to give me this particular bit of perspective.”

I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of his Fates and his ludus-mates, but closed my mouth when he reached for me. I stepped toward him, and we clasped hands, the familiar feel of his rough, calloused palms sending a shiver through me, and I suddenly felt like maybe I wouldn’t mind so much being one of those wealthy Roman ladies who didn’t come to the Ludus Flaminius to fight with the gladiators.

There was less than a breath separating us, and I reached up to pull his bruised, beautiful face gently down toward mine. It was strange, being able to tangle my fingers in Cai’s hair for the first time, instead of just being able to brush my hands over the short, bristly military cut. And the stubble that was closer to being a beard on his chin and jaw was softer than I expected. But his lips were just the same as I remembered, firm and soft at once, pressed hungrily against mine as if we could make up all the lost months in that moment if we just never let go of each other.

I wonder if we would have, if we hadn’t heard a loud throat-clearing coming from the enclosure archway. Cai released his hold on me. Visibly gathering his patience by taking a slow breath in, he turned toward the young man who stood there. His reddish-brown hair was tied back in thin braids, and he had his arms crossed over his broad, scarred chest. He looked only mildly apologetic for the interruption.

“Sorry,” he said, lifting one shoulder. “Just passing by and thought you might want to know the ludus guards are on their way back. Me, I couldn’t care less, but they’ll be wanting a privacy fee if they find you two, uh, thusly engaged. And their rates are nothing short of exorbitant.”

Cai sighed and nodded at the other man. “Thank you . . . again.”

I recognized the man. He was the one who’d stepped up to Cai’s side in the arena. He grinned at me, his gaze sharpening. “Aren’t you . . .”

“Fallon,” I said. “And yes. Thank you for the warning.”

“Fallon, or is it . . . Victrix?” he asked. Then he pushed away from the wall he was leaning on and walked toward us, stopping a few paces away to nod his head in a little bow to me. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, lady.”

I smiled and shook my head. “I’m no more a lady than either of you two are lords. We’re all just gladiators, after all.”

“Fallon, this is Acheron,” Cai said before the other man could argue with my assessment. “You, uh, knew his brother.”

I looked at Cai. “Who . . . ?”

“Ixion.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. Ixion had been one of Pontius Aquila’s men. A thuggish brute who’d thoroughly enjoyed imprisoning me in Tartarus, the abyssal prison cell at the Ludus Achillea. He’d enjoyed it rather less when I’d escaped and cut his throat so that I could rescue my sister gladiatrices.

Acheron was staring at me. “You knew my brother?” he asked. And then lifted a hand before I could answer. “Of course you did. I can see you did.”

I nodded. “He . . . used to be a fight trainer at my ludus. When I first arrived there.” All of which was true. Sorcha had dismissed him soon after, though, for being far too rough with the girls, and that was how he’d wound up working for Aquila—in a position where he could give free rein to his sadistic side.

“What did he do to you?” Acheron asked.

I blinked at him. “Why would you think—”

“Ixion does something to everyone he meets. Trust me. I know. Except . . .” His gaze narrowed as he looked at me and he tilted his head. “Huh. I get the impression that you, maybe, did something to him.”

I don’t know what, exactly, he’d seen in my face in that moment. But I wasn’t about to tell him that I’d killed his brother. I kept my mouth shut and said nothing.

“Never mind,” Acheron said with a shrug. “Whatever it was, I’m sure he deserved it. I’m also sure he probably deserves worse. It’ll happen one day. One day, my dear brother will cross paths with someone he can’t beat into submission. I only want to be there when it happens, just to see the look of surprise on his great, ugly face.”

Acheron would be forever disappointed in that wish, I thought, because I had been that someone. I turned away from him, back to where Cai was looking at me, his expression veiled. I’d never told him explicitly that I’d been the one to kill Ixion that night; for all he knew, that task had been accomplished by Aeddan, not me, as we’d attempted to escape.