The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(77)

Acheron was an assassin, I thought. And I’d brought him right into Cleopatra’s house. I cursed myself for being a fool. And then I told myself I could stop being one any time now, as that might help me figure a way out of what was clearly a bad situation.

One that became instantly, infinitely worse in that moment.

I heard the scuff of a sandal and spun around in time to see the jackal god Anubis himself swinging a sword at my head. With a terrified yelp I dropped into a crouch as splinters of stone, chiseled from the pillar by the blow from his blade, cut my cheek. I lurched past my assailant and scurried into one of the smaller altar spaces, ducking behind a stone plinth and trying not to pant with fear. Acheron wasn’t alone. He had the Aegyptian god of the dead with him!

The adversary of the goddess Sekhemet herself . . .

But then, when I risked a glance around the corner of the plinth I hid behind, I saw it wasn’t a god at all. It was a man in a jackal mask. Like the corpse-hook-bearing attendants of the arenas in Rome.

But that made no sense. What was one of them doing here?

What if I was still dreaming?

That had to be it. Not a dream, but a nightmare.

But whether it was or wasn’t, I needed time to figure out my next move. Time and darkness. There was a lit torch in a sconce on a pillar just above me. I reached up and knocked it loose, throwing it into the middle of the reflecting pool and casting that corner of the temple, at least, into darkness. Acheron laughed as the smoke from the doused flames curled up toward the stars overhead.

“What are you going to do in the dark?” he called out. “They took your weapons. And you, stupid girl, you let them. Sekhemet is a goddess of bloodshed and battle. She would never have relinquished hers so readily. You shouldn’t have either.”

He had a point. I couldn’t imagine the Morrigan ever demanding unarmed worship—the very notion seemed counterintuitive for a battle goddess. Maybe it had been some kind of test—one I’d clearly failed—and now this was the consequence of that failure.

“Do you know what made me a good gladiator, Victrix?” Acheron’s voice floated through the dim air. “Do you?”

When I kept silent, he answered his own question.

“I like to watch men suffer,” he said, and laughed.

By the sound of his voice, I could tell he was still over near the statue. I didn’t know where Acheron’s accomplice was, but I took a chance and made a dash for another lotus pillar at my end of the pool and threw that torch into the pool as well. I heard a grunt of annoyance from somewhere off to my right. The jackal man was near . . .

“Like I watched your soft-hearted decurion suffer,” Acheron continued, “every time the letter-bearers came round to the Ludus Flaminius . . . with no scrolls addressed to poor Caius Varro.”

No scrolls? But I’d sent letters weekly. “One of the advantages of being the lanista’s trusted lackey. I got myself assigned to mail duty and amassed quite a little collection of love tokens meant for some of the other lads.”

“You bastard . . .” I hissed.

The anger that bloomed in my chest was almost enough to make me step out into the open to confront him. But that’s what his taunts were designed to do. I knew that. So I darted, instead, for the next pillar over and snuffed out another torch.

“I even thought about keeping those scrolls of yours tucked away instead of sending them back to you . . .” He laughed again, and it was an ugly sound. “Almost opened one up once or twice just to amuse myself—see what kind of sweet words I was keeping away from Varro’s pretty eyes—but it was actually better imagining how you felt every time one returned to your hands, the seal unbroken.”

“Why do you hate me so much, Acheron?” I asked, creeping around an altar covered in offerings—small stones carved in the shape of the scarab beetle, a sacred symbol to the Aegyptians. I whispered an apology to Sekhemet and scooped up a few of them in my hand. “Why did you? We’d never even met—”

“A man doesn’t suffer once he’s dead,” Acheron snapped, his voice turning hard and cold. “And you, Victrix, killed the one man in all this world I wanted to suffer the most. Didn’t you? Blood of my blood spilled by your hand.”

Ixion . . .

His brother.

I’d cut that evil bastard’s throat at the Ludus Achillea, and Acheron knew it. He’d known all along that Ixion was dead, and somehow he knew that I was the one who’d killed him. But how?

“Acheron,” I said, “I’m sorry—”

“No, you’re not!” he cut my apology short with a snarl. “And why should you be? I should know better than anyone—Ixion was a soulless monster. You think I got all these scars in the arena? No . . . he was a monster, and you cut his throat. And that was a far cleaner death than he deserved.”

I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was moving, stealthily, silently . . . unlike his jackal accomplice, he must have taken off his sandals. His casual, languid pose over by the statue had been a feint, but I listened keenly to his voice and knew he was on the move.

Hunting me . . .

“I don’t understand,” I called out, intent on keeping him talking. “Ixion tortured you growing up together and you’re angry he’s dead? He—”

“Taught me!”