by Grace Draven
She thought of Azarion, a slave of the Empire who embraced its brutality to survive. His people clashed with the Kraelian army outside Kraelag’s walls and died in the fields outside the gates.
Another voice spoke up, this one from the original Flowers brought to the capital. “The Empire is more afraid than everyone thinks. Afraid of the horse clans, so it will sacrifice more of us.”
An idea took shape in Gilene’s mind, inspired by a resolve as cold as the magic inside her burned hot. Enough. She’d had enough. Enough deception, enough guilt, enough bitterness. She would no longer protect Beroe’s cowardice, not even for the family who took her for granted and accepted her fate long before she ever did. Her gaze slid over the crowded cell, packed to the walls now with terrified women and children whose only crime was to be born as citizens of an empire that would see them die agonizing deaths.
She made shushing noises until the quiet murmurs of conversation halted and she could be heard by all while speaking in a softer voice. “Who among you knows anything about these catacombs? Such as a way out that isn’t through the main passage?”
Gilene had always walked out of the maze of hallways through the main entrance, but she’d been one woman with the benefit of an illusion spell to aid her. Getting a large group of people out without being noticed required another plan.
Bird Woman raised her hand. “I do. There’s an even lower level than this one that can be reached through a storage chamber. It’s from when the first capital stood, when it was still just a fortress. Three tunnels lead outside the walls. Two are impassable, full of rubble. The third is narrow, and you have to crawl in places, but you can get out of the city that way.”
One of the other women spoke, her tone and expression both hopeful and suspicious. “Are you certain?”
A shadow passed over the shade speaker’s features, a grief blunted but not gone. “My father was once a Pit gladiator imprisoned in the catacombs. He told me.”
Gilene wondered whether such knowledge had been passed on while the woman’s father was alive or if she spoke to his shade the way she’d spoken to Pell’s. “If I could get us out of this cell, could you lead everyone to the tunnels and out of the city?” At the other’s nod, a spark of hope ignited.
“You don’t have a key!” one not-so-helpful voice chimed in.
“No, but I know of a way to get it. We’ll have to work together, and I’ll need one of you to scream as loud as you can.” Her gaze settled on the woman whose shrieking had brought the guard and his threats in the first place. She bowed her head and hunched her shoulders, doing her best to make herself as small as she could.
“That will bring the guard back,” another woman said.
Gilene nodded. “I’m counting on it.”
A tall woman, of similar height to Gilene, sporting vibrant red hair streaked with gray, stepped forward. “I’ll do it. The gods know I’ve had plenty of practice with that worthless husband of mine.” She grinned.
The woman who warned of the guard’s return frowned at Gilene. “Why don’t you scream instead of her? This is your idea.”
“I don’t have a strong enough voice.” And she needed it in working order to invoke her illusions. She glanced at the redhead. “Scream as loud as you can. When the guard arrives and demands to know who’s making noise, I’ll say it’s me.”
“What will you do?” Bird Woman stood in front of her now.
“What I should have done a long time ago.” Gilene gestured to the hallway beyond the cell’s bars. “Which way to the tunnels?”
Bird Woman pointed straight down the hall. “Two cells past these and then to the right. A short passage leads to a row of storerooms. At least it did then. The last one takes a person to the tunnels.”
“Is it guarded?”
Bird Woman paused, as if listening. “No.”
Someone in the crowd protested. “We’ll die if we try to escape!”
Bodies moved out of the way until Gilene had a clear view of the frightened speaker, a young girl, no more than fourteen. She stared at Gilene, face pale with terror.
Gilene wished she could offer something more encouraging to buoy the girl’s courage. But there was only hard truth to cling to if they had any hope of making it out of the catacombs alive.
“We will die if we don’t try. If we stay in this cell and do nothing, we won’t see the sun set today.” The girl blanched even more and whimpered. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.”
The redhead came to stand next to the shade speaker. “What do you want us to do?”
Gilene’s heart beat hard in her chest. Fear, resolve, even a sense of relief. These women and children might survive today. She would not, but she would die knowing that at this Rites of Spring, she helped people to live instead of to die.
“Remember your instructions,” she said. “Most important, back well away from the door, no matter what.” She pretended not to see the curious looks those peculiar words inspired. She turned to Bird Woman and the redhead. “I’ll get the key. Once I have the door open, lead the others to the tunnels. I’ll take up the rear and hold off any guards who might give chase.” She didn’t have much hope they’d follow her next directives, but she had to try. “If you face a guard or guards at the storerooms, you will have to kill him. He can’t get away. You can’t just injure him. He’ll warn others. You kill him. Or them. Whatever it takes.”
The redhead’s stare raked her. “And you plan to guard our backs? By yourself? You don’t look like a warrior. How do you plan to hold off a couple of Kraelian guards?”
Magic burned under her palms, eager, waiting. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Gilene glanced at the movement of the shadows created by the sunlight spilling across the wall. It grew brighter with each passing moment. It wouldn’t be long before midday arrived and a retinue of guards came for the sacrificial tithes. She nodded to the redhead, whose first shriek made everyone wince and clap their hands over their ears. The small children and babies, frightened by the noise, added their voices to the cacophony.
The woman even rattled the cell bars for emphasis, all the while wailing at the top of her voice, “Let me out! Let me out! I’ll die in here! Let me out!”
As Gilene had hoped, the guard who had threatened them earlier returned, rounding the corner of the corridor, his face savage, the whip already half-unfurled. Gilene waved the women back and took the redhead’s place at the bars. She lowered her head and whispered a spell under her breath before raising her head again to meet the guard’s furious gaze. Shocked gasps rose behind her.
What had been simple rage instantly changed to feral lust. Gilene’s illusion spell had done its job, transforming the plain mask she wore to a visage of breathtaking beauty, even through the layer of grime covering her.
She rattled the bars as the redhead had done. “Please,” she cried out in her most plaintive tone, hoping to coax him closer. “I can’t stay in here. Just a moment in the hallway. I’ll do anything.”
He couldn’t unhook the key ring off his belt fast enough, fingers fumbling as he cursed his clumsiness. “A moment, no more. And I’ll put that mouth of yours to better use than screaming me deaf.”
The whip unfurled at his side as he unlocked the cell door and pulled it open. His bleary-eyed glare swept the cell’s occupants. “The rest of you stay there and keep quiet.” With that, he grabbed Gilene’s arm and yanked her out of the cell, slamming and locking the door behind her.
Several gasps echoed in the hallway, and Gilene prayed no one would give away their plan. She had kept her part of it mostly secret for just that reason. She stumbled after him as he led her toward the center of the corridor, the grip on her arm unyielding. He finally stopped and turned to face her.
It took every bit of control she possessed not to lurch away from him. She’d helped cover cesspits cleaner than this man. He
didn’t let go of her arm but dropped the whip to free his other hand so he could unlace the placket at the front of his breeches.
“Aren’t I lucky that the stupidest one in the cell was also the prettiest. Too bad you’ll burn later, but I’ll make good use of you now.”
The startled squeak he emitted when she suddenly stepped closer to him would have made Gilene smile if her skin wasn’t threatening to peel itself off her bones and flee of its own accord. This close, and his reek nearly made her pass out. She rested her hands on his shoulders and smiled into his eyes.
“Today you will burn with me.”
The fire had surged against the cage of her will for so long now, it needed no coaxing to surface. She simply let it go, and the magic of flame burst out of every pore, enveloping her and the guard in a conflagration that doused the floor, ceiling, and walls around them in a tight radius before roiling back toward its source and its victim.
The guard died instantly, that surprised squeak the last sound he made before Gilene’s fire immolated him in a flash of heat and light, leaving him nothing more than a pile of ash and charred bones at her feet once the flames died around her. She bent to retrieve the key ring, glowing hot but not yet melted. To any other but a fire witch, the metal would have fused into her palm.
Gilene blew gustily on the key ring to cool it before kicking aside the cremated ruins of their jailer. She cast her illusion spell once more, returning to the nondescript appearance the other women recognized. They pressed themselves against the cell’s back wall as she drew closer.
She had felt nothing except triumph when she killed the guard, but the sight of her cellmates’ terror made her cringe. “I mean you no harm,” she assured them and held up the smoking key ring. “You must hurry if you want to get out of here.”
She used the still-hot key to open the lock and swung the door wide, stepping to the side so as not to block or intimidate the fearful women. The shade speaker and the redhead were the first to walk across the threshold, both encouraging the others to follow. They were an interesting pair standing together, the fragile-looking bird woman with the big eyes that saw the dead, and the statuesque redhead with the fearsome gaze that reminded Gilene a little of Tamura.
The shade speaker waved them all out, gave Gilene a low bow of thanks, and hurried away toward the passage she claimed led to the tunnels. The red-haired woman paused. She, too, gave Gilene a quick bow. “May the gods remain merciful to us all this day, fire witch. Thank you.”
A sudden thought occurred to Gilene, and she caught the other woman’s arm. “If . . . when you make it out of the city, and if you face the steppe warriors, tell them you are all of Beroe. That Azarion Ataman keeps his promise.” At the other’s confused expression, she shook her arm for emphasis. “Just do it. Don’t forget.”
The redhead’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t coming.”
“Not yet. Remember, I need to stay behind and take care of any guards so you can reach the tunnels in time.” Gilene offered a rueful smile. “And now you know how I can hold off Kraelian guards by myself.” She gave the woman a light push. “Go on. You can’t linger.”
She watched until the last woman disappeared into the passage’s clot of shadows. If fate was merciful, they would escape the city unharmed to return to their families. If it wasn’t, they’d die in those narrow spaces or beneath a hail of Savatar arrows. Gilene had either saved them from death in the Pit or sent them all to their deaths beyond Kraelag’s walls.
The ash and bone pile that had once been a man was now nothing more than a soot mark on the floor’s wet stone, trampled by the feet of fleeing women. The bones lay scattered in every direction, and she took a moment to kick them all into a corner where none could see them unless they actively searched.
The catacombs’ hush thrummed in her ears, occasionally broken by the cheers of the crowd as they enjoyed bloodshed with their breakfast in the arena above her. Gilene ventured farther down the corridor’s run, past the empty gladiator cells to the stairs leading to the street level and another less squalid passageway dominated by arches and columns.
Kraelian guards called it the Last Journey or the Last Walk. Gladiators marched down its length, prepared to fight to the death, and the Flowers of Spring were carted the distance in a cage pulled by horses. At its end, a pair of gigantic doors stood closed and barred, guarded by Kraelian soldiers. On the other side, the roofless arena known as the Pit, with its baying spectators, waited.
Scuttling noises at the end of the hallway sent her sprinting to a shallow alcove, where she squeezed herself into its space.
A pair of guards appeared, their shadows stretched across the walls where the torches cast sickly coronas of light. They paused, and from her hiding spot, Gilene clearly heard two sharp inhalations.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Those fucking cunts got out somehow!”
A second voice joined the first. “Where’s that fucker Molt? I’ll kill him if he’s drunk in a corner again!”
The sound of running feet warned her they drew closer. Gilene held her breath and stepped into the hallway. The two guards almost stumbled in their surprise. She darted past them, into the passage the women had taken earlier.
“Catch that bitch!”
She reached the hall’s end before it forked in two directions, and waited. Her pursuers rounded the corner, their features promising murder when they caught her. Magic surged through her, a beast leashed on a fragile tether. For a second time, Gilene set it free.
Torches, mounted on either side of the hallway’s entrance, flared bright, their flames stretching toward Gilene as if pulled by a lodestone. At a hand gesture, flames exploded out of the torches, white-hot flares erupting off the twisted wicks as if they’d been dipped in draga blood instead of tallow.
Fire danced in mimicry of Gilene’s hand motions, filling the tunnel with a bestial roar. The guards shouted and turned to run, only to be cut off by a barricade of flame. A final slash of her hand through the air, and the fire consumed the two men in one bright gulp, leaving nothing behind but soot.
Torches guttered and died, plunging the hallway into a thick blackness scented with the caustic odor of cremation. Gilene leaned against the passage wall with a shudder. The urge to retch almost overpowered her. She clenched her teeth against the impulse and pulled the neckline of her tunic up over her nose to breathe. After days in the company of slavers and guards who didn’t care whether the Flowers of Spring had food much less a bath, she didn’t smell particularly sweet, but it was better than the sting of charred human flesh in her nose.
She allowed herself a moment to shiver in the darkness before straightening away from the wall. The Pit awaited her.
No one stopped her as she ascended the stairs from the catacombs to the Last Walk. She wore the illusion of an old male servant. It stood her in good stead as she navigated her way past armored guards, the occasional blood-splattered gladiator, and the beast masters transporting half-starved wolves and big cats to the upper levels. There, the condemned creatures were kept until sent into the Pit. Her heart stayed lodged in her throat, certain someone like Azarion would see past her spellwork and call out a warning to others that something strange was afoot.
She shuffled along until she came within sight of the great doors that opened to the arena. She waited for a lull in traffic before darting behind a stack of wine barrels. From this vantage point, she could watch the doors while staying hidden.
A beast master with his bevy of apprentices and servants surrounded a wagon loaded with a large cage that housed a monstrous bear. The creature paced in the confining space, emitting the occasional roar as it hurled its big body against the bars. Pity for the unfortunate animal strengthened Gilene’s resolve. Animals in cages, people in cages, all to satisfy the Empire’s unending bloodlust.
Enough, she thought. Enough.
She noted the g
arb the apprentices wore—rust-colored robes with a yellow insignia patch sewn at the shoulder. The patch denoted at which training school the apprentice studied and his rank among the students.
Gilene abandoned her illusion of the old man for that of an adolescent boy dressed in the apprentice’s robes. She waited until the bear wagon stopped at the doors before leaving the shelter of the barrel stack.
The guards unbarred the doors and heaved them open to reveal the colossal expanse of the arena, with its screaming crowds and blood-soaked sand. The wagon rolled forward at the beast master’s shout to the driver. Its entourage walked beside and behind it. Gilene jogged to catch up, playing the part of tardy apprentice but keeping enough distance so the true apprentices wouldn’t notice her behind them. The guards thought nothing of it and waved her through with hardly a glance before pulling the doors closed with a creaking thud.
The crowd’s roar bludgeoned her ears, the scent of gore strong in her nose. A surge of spectators packed the narrow walkways that led to the arena’s seating as well as to the outer ring of hallways encircling the structure where food, prostitutes, and favors could be purchased. Here, it was easy to disappear into the chaos, and Gilene took advantage of it to part ways with the beast master and change her illusion yet again.
Illusion magic wasn’t an endless well, and the effort to invoke and hold another disguise grew ever harder. This, however, would be her last.
The spectators inhaled a collective breath soon punctuated by appreciative whistles when a solitary woman of startling beauty crossed the bloodstained sands toward the platform built of dried kindling and the bodies of the dead. Garbed in robes the colors of twilight, with flowers woven in her dark hair, she shimmered in the sun, the epitome of spring.
Gilene didn’t falter under the weight of their avid scrutiny nor stumble as she climbed the grotesque hill of dead men and animals to reach the immolation pillar prepared for the Flowers of Spring set to burn for the crowd.
