The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(35)

“So they finally worked up the guts to do it,” Cai spat, disgust in his voice.

It didn’t even matter to him that Caesar was the reason he was in that dismal, lightless hole, fighting daily for his life. Even after his time at the Ludus Flaminius, Cai bore his commander no ill will. And now he never would. Caesar was dead.

“There was no courage in what they did,” I said.

Cai shook his head. “I didn’t say courage.”

“You’re right about that,” Quint agreed. “Both of you. More like they finally managed to cobble together a plan. And not a very good one either. They had luck or the love of their black god Dis on their side, that was all. As I understand it, Antony would have been there in another minute with Caesar’s praetorian guard and they could have stopped the whole bloody clot of them. Brutus, Cassius, Casca . . . bastards all.”

“And who else?” Cai’s eyes narrowed.

“Too many to name,” I said as I found the right key, finally, and jammed it into the heavy iron lock. “But . . . I saw Aquila. He was there, with a knife. Only he . . . he wasn’t one of the killers—he was there, but hiding. Hanging back until all the others had fled. And then . . . he . . . he knelt beside the body and dipped his dagger blade in the pool of Caesar’s blood.”

I felt my stomach roil, and I couldn’t go on. The image of Aquila hovering ghoulishly over the body—like a carrion crow on a spent battlefield—was just too fresh and horrid.

“Filthy coward,” Cai said, as I swung the cell door open and he ducked his head, stepping over the threshold. “It must have been like watching a dream come to life for him. He’s hated Caesar since the day they first met, and he’s been prodding men like Cassius and Casca—all those who held a grudge against Caesar, real or imagined—toward this for years.” He shook his head and looked at Quint. “But Brutus . . .”

“Yeah. No small surprise there,” Quint said.

Suddenly Caesar’s words to me—about Sorcha and the perils of blind loyalty—came roaring back like a cruel jest. I remembered how he’d said it had been a mistake for her to trust Thalestris, her primus pilus at the academy and most loyal friend. Or so she’d thought, right up until Thalestris’s complete betrayal.

“Trust,” Caesar had opined to me on the matter. “A noble, useless, frequently terminal affliction of your people, my dear. Achillea trusted Thalestris. She allowed her greatest enemy to get close enough to stab her in the back, Fallon. That’s what blind trust does.”

And yet, for all his wisdom, Caesar had fallen victim to that same affliction. In the most literal fashion possible. The irony was almost too much to bear—along with the grief. But that would have to wait. I told Cai about what I’d seen in the theatrum and the implicit threat it posed from the Sons of Dis to the queen. To our friends . . .

“I have to get home,” I said, trying to quell the surge of panic that crawled up from the pit of my stomach again at the thought. “Back to the ludus. I—”

“I know.” Cai gripped my shoulder. “And I’m coming with you.”

“Of course you are,” Elka said, glancing from Cai to Quint. “You both are. Now can we please get out of this place? That rat followed us down here, and now he’s staring at me.”

We started back the way we came. It hadn’t occurred to me—to any of us—to keep our voices down, and so all of the other gladiators in earshot had their faces jammed up against the bars of their cell doors as we passed, expressions ranging from elation to fear to mild curiosity. For them, a regime change might spell either catastrophe or just business as usual. I kept my gaze focused in front of me. They weren’t my concern. I had my own folk to worry about.

“Hey!” one of them hailed me as I approached. “Girl!” He thrust an arm out between the bars of his locked cell door, his grasping hand spread wide and reaching, fingers like claws. “Princess!”

That made me stop in my tracks. I turned and peered into the darkness and saw that it was the man I’d spoken to the first time I’d visited Cai in this awful place. Yoreth. A member of my very own tribe—a warrior in my father Virico’s royal Cantii war band.

“It’s me,” he said. “Remember?”

“Yoreth . . .”

“Yoreth, yes.” He nodded vigorously. “The key, yeah?” He reached for me again. “Give me the key . . .”

I blinked, my eyes focusing on his arm. On the serpent tattoo that spiraled up from his wrist all the way past his elbow, knotting and coiling in twisted, familiar patterns. I’d seen those marks before. Whatever—whoever—else he was, Yoreth was also the retiarius fighter from the Theatrum Pompeii. He’d worn a helmet that day with a full face visor but, looking at him now, I recognized his tattoos. Yoreth was the one who’d led the other gladiators in the fight against Cai.

The one who’d almost killed him.

So he was treacherous—and that, in itself, was enough to make me extremely disinclined to help him—but Yoreth had done more than just dishonor a fellow gladiator. Yoreth was a liar. And it was his tattoo that told me both of those tales. I looked up from his arm into his eyes then, with the bars of the cell door between us.

“Princess . . .” he said again.