She needed to know their story. They were too far from the norm, and that had her curious and very worried.
She watched their entire training in silence, ignoring the stares and comments of other gladiators as they moved around her or did their own thing. Their habit of gossiping was, in her mind, one of the reasons they didn’t get as good as her. She didn’t waste her time like any of them. Can’t gossip if there’s no one who will gossip with me.
These new two didn’t either. They ignored those who stopped and watched, including her, and just continued without a word except to talk about form here or there. They joked once or twice in the middle of combat.
She watched them until the lunch bell rang. Then they acknowledged her.
“Like what you saw?” Matesh asked her without preamble. She let her eyes drift over his chest. He’d thrown away his shirt during training, revealing a broad chest and thick arms full of the black Andinna ink their people could earn. It was swirling, strangely delicate in some places, hard lines and sharp angles in others. She hit the line of his own new gladiator skirt, the pteruges, and went back up to his green eyes. He had an arrogant smirk that annoyed her, one so bold that it showed off one of his sharp canines. “Like what you see?”
Yes.
“No.” She turned around and walked away, back down the stairs to get her lunch. She was seated by the time they came down into the chow hall. She had liked what she saw, until he gave her that arrogant, knowing smirk. She didn’t like that. Too much arrogance, which normally led to a quick death in the pits.
Rainev sat down first at the table and she glanced at him. He still didn’t appeal to her, though she was curious to why his warrior markings were the same color as his wings and horns. He didn’t have nearly as much done as Matesh, but just having any made him impressive to her in a way.
“Why is your ink blue?” she asked. If they would be nosy to her, she would be nosy back.
“The tatua?” Rainev frowned at her. She noticed he dropped to a whisper to say it. “It naturally matches the color of the recipient. Black for all Andinna, since you all have black features, but for us mutts, we’re different and it presents differently. It’s normally done with Andinna blood magic, by a Blackblood that’s trained in the art…”
“You didn’t know that?” Matesh said, an astounded confusion coming from him as he sat as well. “It’s only real ink if there’s no Blackblood available to do it and those are normally redone by a Blackblood later if one becomes available.”
How the fuck would I know? “Tatua?” She’d never heard the word before.
“It’s the Andena word for the markings. They’re normally done through a blood magic ritual. Sure, ink works, because other languages don’t have an exact word that means this.” Rainev waved over his face. “Not all are for warriors. They are granted at certain points in life by family or friends. Respected members of the community oversee it…”
I have no family or friends. And there’s no respect in this community.
“It’s why you having a plain face is odd, as I’m sure you know,” Matesh said, eating from his bowl without hesitation this meal. “By your age, you would have at least been given the Rites for adulthood, which are on the face. They represent that you’ve been accepted by the community, a member of our people. Andinna should never have a plain face by…how old are you?”
She swallowed on the bitterness that flooded her mouth. It wasn’t these two that had denied her this. The marks, the knowledge of them. “One thousand and four years old.”
“Damn, you got me by about seven hundred years,” Rainev said, chuckling. Then he sobered as something passed over his face. “Shit. How long have you been in here?”
“Since I was barely five. Well. No. I’ve been in Elliar as a slave since I was five, but I’ve only been in the pits since just before my maturity at one hundred.” She’d been a slave since a time she could barely remember, and even then, only flashes. She didn’t look at either of them now, staring down at her bowl. Her appetite was lost.
Why did I tell them that? Why are they easy to talk to?
“Do you know what a Blackblood is?” Rainev asked softly. “The Andena word doesn’t translate to Blackblood. Blackblood is a foreigner term, really, something to say in Com-”
“I know what a Blackblood is,” she bit out. She didn’t like that he immediately jumped to thinking she was totally ignorant. She knew what Blackbloods were because she was one. An untrained one, but she had been born with the ability to use Andinna blood magic. She knew only a handful of things in Andinna, tiny pieces she could remember from her distant childhood. The Andena word, Odlura, was one of them. It was also one word that had no real translation to Common or Elvasi. Everyone just used Blackblood instead. “Doesn’t matter. No magic can be used with these.” She tapped the collar on her neck. It itched her skin underneath a little, but she didn’t scratch at it.
“Okay…” Rainev leaned away. He cast Matesh a worried glance that she tried to ignore.
She ignored them for the rest of the lunch meal and didn’t follow them to watch the afternoon training. She was consumed in bitterness and hurt, a wave of it that she couldn’t shove down and lock away. The other gladiators didn’t even see her as Andinna. She didn’t know about the tatua and hadn’t been offered them by the other males because she wasn’t an accepted member of the community or their people at all.
If only they knew that I wish I could change this. That I’ve tried before to free them all from this.
She nearly threw her bowl at the dwarf this time, who didn’t just grumble, he growled. She was feeling particularly nasty and snarled back, baring her long canines, to remind him that without slave collars, she was the dominant species.
“You’ll get killed one day, girl. We’re all just waiting for it to happen. One day you won’t walk these tunnels like you own them because you’ll be in a grave,” the dwarf said in a thick accent that she never could place.
“Then grow some balls and kill me, dwarf, like you did your wife,” she challenged. The dwarf looked away in shame, unwilling to hold her glare. She walked away from him, shaking her head in disgust. She was a slave for reasons beyond her own control. He’d committed the crime that had him banned to this hell. How dare he judge her?
As she went back to her rooms, Dave, the human servant, caught up to her. She wished she saw him on happier occasions, since he was genuinely nice to her, but he only ever brought bad news. She looked down at him, but didn’t break her step. “I bring summons,” he whispered to her. “The Empress has demanded your presence.”
Damn. The Empress needed her on her day off of all days. This happened rarely. Normally, Mave was only required to be near the bitch on the month’s day of ‘games,’ the fights. “Do you know why?” She didn’t stop moving as she spoke, making Dave work to keep up. She was taller than him and had longer legs.
“No. I only received word to retrieve you.”
“I’m clean. I just need to change into my armor. I should be quick.” The faster she got ready, the less the servants were beaten for her being slow. The Empress would hurt people if she dragged her feet.
“She wants you in…something about a dress.” Dave gave a worried, nervous chuckle. “Do you own any dresses?”
Mave stopped walking. Fuck. This was a show, not a private moment with the Empress.
“I don’t, but I know where to report to get what she wants.”
“So you’ve done this before.”
“Several times. All before you were born,” she said, turning around to walk the other way. She didn’t need to go back to her room now.
Dave scrambled to keep up. “So…what’s this about?” he asked curiously.
She wished she had any of his naive curiosity. She had lost the naive part a long time ago. She still had the curiosity, since it would never abate, but she couldn’t allow herself to be naive. It was a recipe for trouble.
“Normally a foreign dignit
ary from a country that doesn’t enslave our people will come to visit the Empress, and she puts on a show for whoever it is. A show that she thinks she put the Andinna in the collars we deserve, while the visitor is wrong for letting our people roam free,” she explained. He would hopefully tell his successor in twenty or thirty years. This hadn’t happened in over a century, so the humans had lost this part of their education.
“Ah.” Dave gave a scholarly nod. She was annoyed with Dave at that. She normally was. He could be very kind, something she appreciated when it didn’t turn into pity, but then there was scholarly Dave. When he wasn’t trying to pity her, he was treating this entire thing like a history lesson, since she remembered things that the Elvasi Empire wiped from history so current short-lived people didn’t know it. She hoped the next human who walked the tunnels wasn’t such a character.
Kind, but annoying. Dave in three words.
She walked up the training grounds to the exit of the pits. The males all stopped and watched her, curious, but she didn’t look back to see who was watching her so carefully, so intently. She looked up to the guards at the top posts, the ones who opened the gates and waited.
“She’s been summoned by the Empress,” Dave called out for them. The Elvasi Captain gave a crude affirmative gesture and signaled for the gates to open. Two guards walked out and moved behind her, ready to stab her in the back if she tried to run for it when the gates opened. They would escort her and Dave all the way to the center of the capital, to the Empress’ palace, then hand her off to castle guards.
She watched the big gates creak open just enough for the small party to walk through. They wouldn’t risk any gladiators running for it without an entire unit on standby, like the day before for the new arrivals.
Mave walked slowly now, to enjoy having the sky over her as long as possible. The streets of Elliar, capital of the Elvasi Empire, were not safe for an Andinna, but she wasn’t going to rush to leave the sky unless the guards forced her to. It wouldn’t be long. The walk from the Colosseum to the palace was a short one, the two megastructures having been built close together eons before as the central pillars of the city. Everything in Elliar radiated out from them in a circle, to walls that closed the city in and kept intruders out.
Even if she escaped the guards right now, she would need to get out of the walls, and that was where most slaves failed in their escapes, including her.
The sun was high and the city bright from it - crowded, as well, as the markets bustled and bounced with action. Most ignored her, but the children saw her and waved at the Champion of the Colosseum until their parents told them to leave her alone. The slave. Good Elvasi children did not talk to the slaves.
“I heard she eats people!” one boy-child said brightly, fascinated by her.
His mother slapped the back of his head. “Stop or I’ll let her eat you.”
Mave only kept walking, a dark shape in the white marble city. The only colors in the city were the tarps of the market, vibrant and chaotic. The city was restored and cleaned regularly, to keep the Empire’s crown jewel looking as new as the day the Elvasi people built it, millennia before she was born. There was no one alive who was a part of the original construction, including the long-lived races. To the short-lived races, the city had existed since the beginning of time, always there, looming over the plains and forests of the Empire.
It was a towering city as well. Everything was so high, in rigid and clean lines. It rose around her so much that she didn’t have much of a view of the sky. It made her feel tiny. In a sense, it was just as confining as the pits. If the pits weren’t her prison, then Elliar surely was.
At least I can look at the sky without being worked into exhaustion. Though that doesn’t change the fact that I wish I could burn it all to the ground.
The palace came in sight and she knew others were impressed by it. She wasn’t. The palace was bland to her. All white, just like the rest. It had four towers marking four corners of its own walls to protect it from the rest of the city. Inside those walls was a pristine garden the Empress liked to stroll through. Mave had been through it countless times. The main entrance of the walls would take her down a path to the central building, which opened up into the massive throne room - another thing Mave knew others were impressed by, but she hated. There were wings, like the residential area where all royal family members and Lords and Ladies who were in favor held rooms.
The palace would go first, for sure.
They went in a side entrance, though, since she was a slave to be presented. Their escort led her and Dave down a rocky path through the guard to a tiny wooden door.
She stopped at the slave entrance of the palace and waited while one of her escorts knocked on the door. The door opened and she stepped in, immediately getting backhanded by a guard. Blood filled her mouth and she could taste the power in it. She’d heard tales of trained Blackbloods; a powerful Blackblood could slaughter these guards with such a tiny amount. If she were trained, she could use her own spilled blood and do great and terrible things to the guards in front of her. If she were trained and not wearing the slave collar, that was.
“You coming to play, huh?” he sneered.
Not with you. You wouldn’t like it much if I did, anyway.
“She’s been summoned by the Empress,” Dave explained quickly. She knew he was trying to stop further damage from happening to her. She gave him fifty percent odds of succeeding. Sometimes the threat of the Empress worked, sometimes it didn’t.
“Damn. Not today then. Go on.” The guard waved her away, disinterested again. He couldn’t beat her too roughly until after she was seen by the Empress. She hoped this guard wouldn’t be at the door post when she left.
Dave and Mave were left to walk alone to where she knew she needed to be. In the servants’ quarters, she went to the female wing, leaving Dave at the door.
“Ah. You need to be dressed for the Empress, I guess.”
Mave stopped and turned to the old Andinna woman who spoke. A gray-haired, tired woman. She handled menial tasks for the servants in residence at the palace. Mending clothing, washing it. She was indifferent to Mave - a blessing, since most Andinna openly despised her for what she was.
“I do. A dress, though I do not know which one or what color she would prefer today.”
“I have something. I was told to make it several weeks ago. Now I see why.” She waved for Mave to follow her to a backroom. “Gladiator, what do you think this is about?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. She considered, for a moment, gossiping with the old woman. Tell her about the two new males, Rainev and Matesh. She ended up remaining silent as the old female, who never shared her name with Mave, pulled out a new elegant gown in a silver-blue.
“I should have known it was for you. Matches your eyes perfectly, I see.”
Mave wouldn’t know. She hadn’t seen her own reflection in a true mirror in a very long time. Only hazy, distorted broken reflections in the sides of metal, like blades, or the rippling, hard to discern surface of her bathing pool.
“Strip,” the old woman ordered, still holding the dress. “At least you are clean. That’s a blessing.” Mave dropped her clothing in silence. “I will put those away here until you are done, then you can have them back. I wish to have the dress back as well, unless the Empress orders otherwise. That way it can be put away and kept clean in case you need it again.”
“Of course.” Mave stood naked and held out her hand. She could put the smooth dress on by herself. The old female handed it to her, dropped simple sandals in the same color on the floor, then grabbed Mave’s other clothing. With that, she was gone, leaving Mave alone.
It was the most she ever saw of the older female. She had started working in the position four centuries before and never moved to do more than she was asked. Mave knew it was just another survival tactic and didn’t fault the old female for it.
We’re all just surviving in this pretty white hell.
Once that was done, she grabbed the sandals and slipped into them, tying the ribbons up her calves. Feminine was what the Empress was aiming for, it seemed. It wouldn’t work. Sure, Mave could dress and play the part in a way, but the scar on her face was a sign of brutality. The scars on her arms and legs were signs of hardship and violence.
I’ll never be pretty. I’m not sure why she keeps trying this.
She met Dave back out at the entrance to the female quarters. He blushed at the sight of her and she looked down for better inspection of the dress. It nearly left her tits falling out and her nipples were visible through the fabric. The Empress had dressed her indecently, then. The Elvasi certainly didn’t appreciate sexual clothing like this, preferring things to be left into the unknown. This left nothing to question. The back had been on purpose. They were dressing her like a whore, a prostitute. To appeal and make others want and drool for her, even as they hated her horns, tail, and wings.
“Don’t,” she whispered to the human. “Don’t entertain that thought.” She would not ever fuck a short-lived race or a servant of any race who sent her to the places where she was hurt worse than on the sands or in the pits.
He nodded and said nothing in return, looking away as quickly as he could. They walked in silence until Mave stopped and looked at him patiently. He avoided her stare.
“Where are we going, Dave?” she asked. She had stopped them there for a reason. One staircase led to the Throne Room, while another led to the residential suites, including the Empress’s.
“Residential. Empress Shadra wishes to see you in her drawing room.”
The Gladiator's Downfall Page 6
