The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(79)

Home . . . No . . .

A wave of fear and fury washed over me at his words. I tried hard to ignore the sensation, concentrating instead on just the sound of his voice. I threw another scarab over near the private devotee shrines and heard the scrabble of Intef’s sandals—and then a muffled curse as the priest slammed his shin on one of the low altars.

“Do you hear me, Victrix?” Acheron continued, his tone growing angrier. “I’ll join them once I’m through with you here. I’ll put my feet up by your dear old papa’s great roaring fire. And I’ll toast to his severed head hanging on the doorpost. Isn’t that the way you barbarians like to celebrate a victory? That’s what Yoreth always said . . . I’ll drink your old man’s beer and laugh while the Collector and his loyal Sons gather up all your pretty warrior friends and neighbors and send them packing back to his ludus. Endless, peerless fodder for Pontius Aquila’s munera.”

The water of the reflecting pool was warm, but I suddenly felt ice cold.

“Are there any more like you back home?” I remembered that vile, drunken senator at Octavia’s party had asked me.

There were. Of course there were.

So very many pearls to gather.

And that was where Pontius Aquila had gone. I didn’t think that was what Caesar had meant when he’d told me—when his shade had told me—that he’d leave the conquest of the Island of the Mighty to others. But without Caesar to stop him—without anyone to stop him—the Collector had gone to enrich his collection. If he couldn’t have me, he would take my folk . . . and he would make them suffer. As Acheron had said: fodder for his munera.

I have to do something, I thought.

But first, I had to survive the night.

Suddenly, a torch flared in the darkness. Intef knew where everything was in the temple. He must have found an unlit torch to thrust into the dying coals of the brazier at the far end of the pool. He scuttled around, setting fire to offerings and braziers and anything else that would produce any amount of light. I had only moments to act before he or Acheron found me. I slipped silently back out of the pool at the far end. The water that ran from my limbs made no sound as it pooled on the thick woven rugs laid on the tiled floor. I remained undetected, but I was weaponless—Intef had seen to that, stowing my blades safely out of my reach in the anteroom and leaving me with only empty scabbards and a whetstone in my belt pouch.

As sullen orange light from the flames began to fill the temple, I reached into the pouch. Without blades to sharpen, the whetstone was basically useless—the most I could do was keep it in my fist to hit my assailants if one came close enough—but at least that was something. But then, as my fingers closed around it, my knuckles brushed something colder than stone . . .

Acheron found me in the same moment as I found the jagged iron key his brother, Ixion, had turned in the lock of my Tartarus prison cell. One of the few things I’d carried with me from the Ludus Achillea when we’d left. As Acheron’s hand descended with bruising force on my shoulder, spinning me around, my fingers closed on the heavy iron key, on its ugly clawlike contours. A hideous grin split Acheron’s face as he lifted Pontius Aquila’s bloodstained blade high above me . . .

I lunged upward, the Tartarus key clutched in my fist like a dagger.

And I drove it straight through his eye.

With a cry of agony he dropped Aquila’s knife, and it clattered across the tile floor. Acheron clutched weakly for the key jutting obscenely out from his eye socket before toppling backward and hitting the surface of the reflecting pool with a splash like a thunderclap. His copper-hued braids floated out like river weeds, and I dropped to my knees at the water’s edge, watching as his body sank in a swirling red cloud to the bottom.

The breath left my lungs in a sob of relief, but then I looked up to see Intef standing only ten paces away from me, a smoking torch held tightly in one fist and a curved sword held in the other. His features were still hidden from me by the jackal mask he wore, but I heard him snarl like an animal as he took a step forward.

His second step faltered.

And as a sword’s point seemed to suddenly sprout like a flower from the center of his naked chest, he fell to his knees in front of me. As he pitched forward onto his face, I looked up to see Cai standing there, a second blade in his hand, staring down impassively at the dead priest like an avenging god.

“Cai!” I screamed. I leaped up and ran to him.

“Fallon . . .” He wrapped his arms around me so tightly that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

When he let me go, I looked back and forth from him to the dead priest at our feet. There was something sticking out from beneath his body. Something shiny . . . I reached down and picked up the silver feather. The symbol of the Sons of Dis. It used to terrify me. But now? Now it just filled me with anger. And determination to put an end to the evil that had wrought it. I tucked it into my belt pouch, in place of the Tartarus key.

“How did you find me?” I asked quietly.

“I didn’t. I followed him.” He nodded at the body in the water. “Acheron skulked out of the palace not long after you left with this creature.” He nudged dead Intef with his foot.

“Why? Why did you follow?”

“Remember what Caesar said about blind trust?” Cai smiled ruefully. “Apparently his advice somewhat belatedly stuck with me. I never fully trusted Acheron. And I’ve never trusted a priest—of any kind.”