The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(33)

A cold rush of fear went up my spine.

“Sweet Morrigan . . .” I murmured as I stood, rooted to the sands.

A second dummy had one eye painted solid black with a red line running vertically through it, like a scar.

Sorcha . . .

But the one figure that had been subjected to the most brutal attacks—the one that still had weapons buried in it, bristling from head and torso—had been made to look as though it had eyes painted in dark rings of Aegyptian-style kohl.

“Cleopatra,” I murmured, backing away.

Then I spun on my heel and ran back toward the tunnel, head down . . . and slammed into the armored breastplate of a legion soldier. My heart almost leaped out of my chest in fear, and I uttered a strangled cry.

“Fallon!”

The legionnaire reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, and it took me far too long to realize that it was Quintus. Elka was about four steps behind him, hurrying down the tunnel to catch up, her pale complexion flushed from exertion.

“Thank the gods!” she exclaimed. “We were coming to find you and—”

“He’s dead!” I blurted. “Elka, Quint . . . Caesar is—”

“I know.” Quint’s face beneath the brim of the helmet he wore was grim and gray. His usually bright eyes had gone flinty. “The whole city knows by now.”

“Where are the vigiles?” I asked. “The constables? Why aren’t they abroad in the streets to keep order?”

“For whom?” Quint asked. “Caesar’s dead. Caesar’s friends are in hiding. And Caesar’s enemies had better be.” He glanced up at the sky, to where the sun had hidden his face behind a thick pall of overcast. “I give it three hours—maybe less—before Rome starts to tear herself in two . . .”

He trailed off as Elka brushed past him into the arena, her steps faltering as her gaze took in the sight of the defaced dummies. She walked up to one on the end that bore long, straw-pale ropes draped over its head like braids. I hadn’t even noticed that one, but it was clear who it was meant to represent. When Elka looked back at me, I saw that her face had gone white.

“Sons of Dis,” I said. “I saw them earlier.”

She looked back at the figures—her gaze fixing bleakly on the mangled one with the kohl-heavy eyes—and I saw her come to the same conclusion that I had: It was common knowledge that Cleopatra held court on the shores of Lake Sabatinus, consorting with the gladiatrices of the Ludus Achillea. Pontius Aquila could kill two hated birds with one stone . . . more than two. A whole flock.

“We have to get back to the ludus,” she said. “We have to warn them. The lanista and the queen—”

“We won’t be going anywhere,” Quint interrupted her, “unless we make it to the Porta Flaminia on the north wall before they close the gates of the city and we’re trapped inside with all of this madness. Let’s go.”

He reached out and took Elka by the wrist, and together we ran through the tunnel and back out into the street. But Quint’s mention of the gate had knocked some of the sense back into my head.

“Wait!” I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. Toward the walls of the Ludus Flaminius where they rose up, high and topped with jagged stone, just beyond the theatrum.

“Fallon—”

“I’m not leaving the city without Cai.”

As fearful as I was for Cleopatra and my sister—all my sisters at the ludus—there was no earthly way I would forsake Cai in the midst of the gathering storm. Had I said anyone else’s name, I suspect Quint might have just thrown me into the back of a cart and spirited me out of the city regardless of my protests. As it was, he exchanged a glance with Elka, who gave him one of her stoic Varini shrugs. She knew I wouldn’t leave. And, really, I think she already knew he wouldn’t either. It was Cai—his friend too—and Quint wasn’t the type to ever abandon his friend. If I knew anything about him after what we’d all been through together, it was that.

He put up his hands. “All right,” he said, pulling off his helmet and raking fingers over his military-short hair. “All right. But we have to do this fast. There’s no telling what will happen in the next few hours.”

“Is it really going to be that bad in the city?” Elka asked, frowning. “Leaders die every day.”

“Caesar wasn’t just a leader to most of these people.” Quint shook his head, his expression mystified, as if he couldn’t quite believe that the man he spoke of was actually gone. “He was a god. For good or ill. And he was the only thing—the only man—capable of keeping that pack of vultures who call themselves senators from shredding not just the city but the whole of the Republic to pieces like a felled deer carcass.”

“What do you honestly think is going to happen, Quintus?” I asked quietly.

The look in his eyes as he turned to me made my blood run cold.

“Honestly, Fallon?” he said, putting his helmet back on and tightening the chinstrap. “I don’t know. But I can tell you this: Whatever it is, I’d much rather watch from a good long distance. Atop a good high hill . . . surrounded by a good stout fence.”





IX


WHEN WE REACHED the Ludus Flaminius, the lanista himself was at the gate along with three of his men, hastening to haul the heavy doors shut. Quint shouted for them to stop.