That was the worse of the two options. Mave walked faster, heading to meet her fate on her precious day off. Her now-ruined day off.
Of course it is. I should have expected this, honestly.
Dave called her entry using her full name and then let her in. She moved quickly inside and knelt before the Empress without a word. She barely looked at the room she knew so well - the sky blues and golds. Extravagant and rich. She didn’t even spare a glance for the guests.
“Stunning for her kind, isn’t she?” the Empress commented lightly from her couch. “Put the right textiles on them and they change immensely, the barbarians.”
“She is,” a rich male voice agreed. “I thought you hated their kind, though.”
“I do,” the Empress whispered, running a hand through Mave’s hair. It made Mave’s stomach turn, like it always did. She hated being touched, especially in her hair like this. More times than she could count, someone would grab her hair and yank it. It had been the first way the Empress would punish her as a young female. She’d cut it all off if she could, but the Empress had been less than impressed when she’d done that before. “But this one is special to me. My Champion. Won me the war, then lived in my palace for nearly a century. She hates me so, yet will kneel and let me do with her as I will. She, in a thousand years, has only succumbed to the nasty Andinna temper once. A true testament that their kind can be changed for the better, with time. They don’t have to be brutes or beasts like their cousins, the wyverns.”
“And these two new ones, these males?” another male asked softly. “You’ve never bought more. Most of your Andinna slaves are just attached to the palace. Now you have more gladiators. It’s the talk of the capital.”
Mave registered that. They must be here - and she hadn’t paid attention to the room when she walked in. The new males would have heard her real name then. That was something she didn’t know how to deal with just yet. Normally, the males of the pits hated her at even just the hint of who she was, and these two didn’t. How would they react hearing the truth?
Probably not well, I’m guessing.
“Ah. Members of the Ivory Shadow Mercenary Company. They are unique as well, aren’t they? The half-breed is very interesting in appearance, while the other is just so stoic, so strong. I wonder if their little leader taught them how to behave as slaves, because I haven’t found any reason to punish them yet.” The Empress gave a soft laugh. Mave’s heart skipped a beat at the information. The Ivory Shadows. No wonder Empress Shadra was keeping them to herself. Once the pits broke them, she would have them tortured for information. The Empress held a special hate for that mercenary company. “Well, you wanted to see some of my most prized possessions, Lord. Now, shall we talk business? You have news I need to hear about Anden.”
“Certainly, my great Empress.”
It was nearly evening when she was told to leave, along with the males. In the hall, Dave was waiting on all of them. She ignored Rainev and Matesh, who tried to walk close to her. They had just seen her on her knees for hours, dressed like an Elvasi prostitute.
Mave silently sent a thank you to gods she no longer believed in that the Empress didn’t give her to the Lords from the Empire’s more Northern territories for their use. She had before and watched. Fucking Andinna was a perversion to the Elvasi, and Empress Shadra didn’t partake, but she enjoyed shows, entertainment, and her gladiator Champion provided that. On her feet or on her back.
Mave’s stomach flipped once at the idea of other Andinna ever witnessing it. In a thousand years, she’d been lucky it hadn’t happened yet.
She was lucky it didn’t happen today.
“You should all change back into your normal attire and meet me at the back door.” Dave left them standing at the servant’s quarters in silence.
“Mave,” Rainev whispered. “What was that?”
“We were cattle to show,” she snapped, a spike of anger running through her at the stupid question, and pushed inside the females’ quarters before more could annoy her. What the fuck did they think this was? If I could figure it out years ago as a child, then certainly they should have gotten it pretty quickly.
She just wanted to spend the rest of her final day off in peace.
Change was hitting her delicate world balance too quickly. Now she had others sharing the pain and burden of being favored by the Empress, and they were too interested in her. Much too interested.
And she was much too interested in them, as her own people who actually spoke to her without hate and disgust. She had to make sure it was alliance only, to stay in the training ring, and look like any of the other groups that were built. No real friendships. She couldn’t show she truly was too interested in them, as Andinna, as living beings, or it would be used against her.
I can’t fail at surviving now. Not after all this. One day, I’ll find a way to save everyone and end the pits and the slavery. But, first I need to survive these new additions.
5
Matesh
Matesh was tired of his time in slavery at the end of his second day in the pits. He and Rainev had been captured weeks before and immediately brought to Elliar when their identities had been confirmed.
It had been easy on the road, being a slave and staying focused on survival.
The pits were different. They were dark, and the feelings of the other males were insidious and dangerous. Only to see the sky while being worked to exhaustion, unable to fly away from the pain. Then down into the pits themselves, the dark earthen rooms and tunnels where some grew so narrow that only one Andinna could pass through. Too wet, as well, giving everyone no escape from either being drenched with sweat or melting in the humidity. He wondered if winter was icy and cold, where they all froze slowly, or if Elliar was too far south for that.
It's almost ingenious. We Andinna are from the far north, so of course they made a hell in the calm, cool earth for us.
The palace had not been a pleasant experience, either. They had been called out of training by a human servant, one whose name Matesh didn’t care to remember. Not the one he saw with Mave later on. They had been escorted, accosted, bathed, redressed in ‘proper attire,’ and presented to the Empress for inspection.
“I don’t plan on torturing you yet for the whereabouts of your comrades,” she’d told them. “I’ll wait for the pits to do their job first. So be at ease and stand there. Look good.”
Matesh hated her coldness immediately. So callous, so above them in her tone and attitude. She sat down on the couch and called in that Northern Elvasi Lord, the one who ran the territory of Anden. His homeland. It had made him sick to his stomach to hear about it. The towns were growing. The land wasn’t producing enough food. They needed slaves to help, but those were more mouths to feed. On and on it went for what felt like an eternity. They had talked quietly until Mave was introduced.
The name she was introduced by confirmed everything he had figured up to that moment. Every rumor and whisper. Every piece of propaganda that left Elliar.
“Maevana Lorren, slave of the Empress, Champion of the Colosseum, daughter of the late General Lorren of Anden.”
And there’s the truth I had been avoiding.
She walked in with her shoulders square, in a dress that left nothing to the imagination. For an Andinna, it was a perfect dress, if too expensive, but he figured here it was used to degrade her. The Elvasi didn’t like such sultry and exposing clothing, and she was raised by the Elvasi.
He and his adopted nephew had gotten an eyeful of her in that silver-blue dress. Matesh, in any other circumstance, would have been interested in the body. Maevana had a proportional and cut figure. When she knelt, her tits had nearly fallen out of the dress, which shamefully made his mouth water. It was nearly too distracting, her there like that the entire time when he was supposed to be staring at the far wall.
Mave. Maevana. He could see how she shortened the name. He wondered if she realized she really just butchered it. It just wasn�
�t an Andinna name, not even close. Maybe a Clan name, but not Andinna. She should have picked something else if she wanted anyone to believe it was real.
But there it was, her real name, hanging in his mind. Maevana Lorren, daughter of General Lorren. His only daughter. A prisoner of war who was supposed to be traded back to General Lorren during peace talks where the Andinna gave the Elvasi the trade deals they had always wanted. A concession. A compromise so they could have the babe of a girl back from their enemies with no harm done to her.
He checked out of the Empress’ conversation, unable to stomach more, knowing Rainev would soak up everything and relay anything important later on.
When they were sent out, his eyes fell on Maevana in the hall. Even her ass was nearly completely exposed, showing the place where her leathery tail melded and merged into the skin of her lower back - and more.
Does she have to be so beautiful? It’s hard enough trying to maintain distance when Rainev is pushing to know her, but she’s gorgeous on top of it. Why any male Andinna would be cruel to her when her plight calls to my soul is beyond me.
“You should all change back into your normal attire and meet me at the back door,” a human said kindly. Then he left them standing at the servant’s quarters in silence.
“Mave,” Rain whispered. “What was that?”
“We were cattle to show,” she snapped at him then walked away. They followed, but separated at the male and female servant’s quarters.
Inside the males’ quarters, Matesh released a relieved breath. Damn, that was bad. Not in the traditional sense, like torture. That was something he was anticipating. Rather, the entire event made him feel like an object, an ornament for show. He pulled back on his dirty slave wear and watched Rainev do the same.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, hoping not to get in trouble.
“Yeah. That was weird.” Rainev shook his head as if to clear his mind. “They dressed her…”
“I noticed,” Matesh said between gritted teeth. He had noticed too well how they dressed her. “She is the real Maevana. No doubt. If Luykas were here, he would say the same. Alchan would want to ignore her existence, but he wouldn’t deny it either.”
“I figured that out when the human gave her name,” Rainev retorted. “What does it change?”
“Everything.” Matesh sighed. “The males in the pits obviously know as well. You do know the full story, don’t you?” He hadn’t been Rain’s history teacher growing up. He hoped it hadn’t been missed in his education, even though the female was a sore spot for most.
“General Lorren’s baby daughter, just old enough to flutter and glide, went out to play,” Rainev recited softly, dutifully, to prove his knowledge. Matesh only listened, in case he needed to correct anything. “She and her mother were being kept in a safehouse near the General, but the location was secret. He didn’t even visit them - not often, anyway - to protect them. He and his two older sons were busy fighting the war. She left a trail back to her safehouse. Elvasi scouts found it and went in. They murdered her mother, but no one knew what happened to Maevana when they discovered the deed.” Rainev looked up to him. “Then, a message came from the Empress saying she would be willing to end the war for certain demands, and he could have his daughter back. The royal family agreed. The war had gone on too long and casualties were beginning to grow too high. At the trade and peace talks, the Elvasi murdered the General, his sons, and most of his entourage and backup. The girl was there, and watched in horror, or so say some. Some say she was never there, already being whisked back to Elliar.” Rainev looked down to the floor at that point. Matesh knew his nephew did it out of respect for him. “The army was trapped and defeated without any idea an attack was coming. An ambush on a massive scale. The royal family was assassinated, as it was discovered later, during the battle by Andinna betrayers hoping to secure the throne for themselves through the Empress’ endorsement. So ended the Hundred Year War.”
“All because a little girl who wanted to play went too far from home and left a trail.” Matesh nodded to the doors leaving the male servants’ quarters. He’d been there for the battle. So had all of his family, all warriors. He only had one blood relative left now. He felt the ache of loss more at that moment, hearing it all laid out in such a straightforward way. “That girl is now a woman who has spent her entire life in Elvasi slavery and kills her own people on the sands of the Colosseum with a mythic level of brutality.”
“So this changes everything.”
“It does and doesn’t,” Matesh admitted, correcting himself. “We just know now exactly why the males in the pits despise her. Not for rumors of who she could be, but because the Empress makes it known who she is. She rubs it in with Maevana’s very existence, her life, so they all resent her.” She was just a child, though. I can rationalize their anger, but I still refuse to agree with it.
“And she’s our only possible ally,” Rainev reminded him.
“Yes. I don’t like it, but I’ll admit you’re right. She is our only possible ally. It didn’t look, in there, like she’s the Empress’ spy. She’s the Empress’ pet, a status symbol.” Matesh felt a small wave of pride at his nephew’s immediate good feeling about Maevana, his hope in the female over the other males. He’d been right where Matesh had been disinclined to get involved with the female. Now? They really had no one else who knew exactly what they had walked into, except her. “We’ll work on getting close to her, maybe form a real alliance. That will go a long way. She should have a mayara. I can’t believe she doesn’t.” He began to leave the room, considering the implications of a female without a family for so long and how cruel the males in the pits had to be to leave her without any sort of community.
Does she even know what a mayara is? What it means?
When he realized Rain wasn’t following him, he frowned back at his nephew. “Rain?”
“Mat.”
“You have something say?”
“No. Just not sure I’m ready to go back to the pits.”
By the Skies. I should have known.
“Ah.” Mat sighed and waited a moment longer. He was fine letting Rainev have a quiet moment away from the rest of the shit they were in. While Matesh would rather be back at the pits, he could understand why his nephew felt safer here.
They didn’t get much longer, as a male Elvasi guard walked in. “You two, get fucking moving. We need to get you back to the pits.”
“Yes sir,” they both said immediately, following the guard out.
Mat felt bad for Rainev not being able to steal a little time. The pits were going to be rougher - already were - on his nephew. The other males and their leering were trouble, and Rain was small for an Andinna. They can’t have him. I won’t let them. He’s too good for those disgraces to touch him and ruin him.
As they walked back, Mat made a bold move to say something to the female walking ahead of him. Now that he had seen it dressed nicely, he found his eyes drifting down to her ass. He shouldn’t, and hoped conversation would keep his mind from drifting into thoughts of her in that dress.
“Champion. We should train together when you are available.” He moved up beside her, with Rainev staying right at his back to cover him.
“I will meet you for breakfast and we will talk about that,” she answered without looking at him. He noticed she looked up to the sky instead as they continued to the gates to the training area and the pits. Quick glances at the gold and red sunset above them. He couldn’t deny it was a pretty sight. The white marble capital of the Empire, awash in that glow. She looked lovely in it, her wings looking dark red from it and her black hair reflecting it, adding a depth to the messy long cut she had.
“Thank you, Champion.”
“Call me Mave,” she said in the same detached and formal way she did everything else. Such an Elvasi accent. It bothered the hell out of him, but he understood why she would have it. She had been in Elliar since she was only five.
“Of course,�
�� he replied, bowing his head in submission to her. She noticed that and her eyebrows rose slightly.
“And here I thought you would be too arrogant for that,” she muttered, looking away again.
Why would she think that? Well, now that I think about it, I am pretty fucking arrogant. Or so my uncle tells me often enough.
“You’re the Champion of the Colosseum. I’m confident in my abilities, but untested on the sands that I’m about to fight on. You agreeing to train with us is probably the best training we’ll receive.” He was laying it on thick. He had yet to see her fight, and rumors that left the capital were probably wild exaggerations, but he needed her to think he was down for a lesson or two. He was four hundred years older than her, with combat experience from the Hundred Year War and every day since then. He didn’t really think she could teach him a damned thing, but she didn’t need to know that.
“You know I watched you and the mutt practice today. I know how skilled you are, and I don’t think the sands will be your problem. Let’s hope you can protect yourselves off the sands, though.”
Mat raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“If they could and live for it, they would have jumped me years ago and finished me off when I couldn’t protect myself, like while I sleep. Even then, every so often, one gets frisky and wants to take what isn’t his. The pits are more dangerous than the sands.”
Matesh resisted growling at what she had just implied in that damned-to-hell detached voice. An Andinna male raping an Andinna female? Was she serious? He was already worried about the leering at Rainev and what that meant about the situation. Now he was beginning to truly see that the males in the pits weren’t the righteous old warriors they might have once been - or believed they were. The Colosseum and the Elvasi had long broken them, if rape was their intentions toward anyone smaller or weaker than them in their community.
I can’t fucking believe any Andinna would treat their own like this. There’s no reason, none, that she should be able to talk about nightmares in a way that made them seem like her next meal.
The Gladiator's Downfall Page 7
