“Where were you born?” Mat leaned on the door frame, crossing his arms.
“In Kartan, the free city.”
“We know Kartan. A lot of Andinna settled there after the war, though most moved on to the mountains outside of the city. How did you get caught?”
“I was a sailor, if you would believe it. The ship was hit by the Empire, and I, along with the other three Andinna on board, was taken - and everyone else was let go.” The male sighed. “It was a long time ago. I was healthy enough to get into the fields for about fifty years, getting stronger. Then my owner sold me on the market here in the city. A Lord saw a chance for a new fighter, someone young and capable. Here I am.”
“I’m sorry. Well, my name is Matesh and you are…” Matesh held out his hand, realizing this male was open and honest. He’d been holding back on this for weeks. He looked like Rainev meeting a new friend.
“Varkan,” the Andinna answered, clasping Matesh’s forearm near the elbow in a true Andinna handshake. It was a good sign. “Well, knowing you two are good, I’ll leave you be.”
“You too. Be safe.”
“My only fight is later in the week. I’m staying out of everyone’s way.” Varkan backed away, waving, then went further down the hall. He turned back once. “Feel free to meet any of the other guys too. We’ve all been hoping. We were admittedly worried when you and the other one showed up, but we’re over it.”
“Thanks. Will do,” Matesh said, closing the door when Varkan left his view. He turned to Rain, raising his eyebrows. “We have more allies than I thought.”
“I had a feeling about those guys being not so bad,” Rainev admitted. “But Mave doesn’t trust anyone here and we only ever had a chance because of these.” He tapped his ear tag. “It would be good to have others watching out for us, though. If that’s what they intend.”
“I agree.” Mat nodded as he sat down on her cot. “Did you see her up there?”
“It was hard to miss her,” Rain muttered, sighing. “I felt everything the Empress wanted me to feel, but so much more too, ya know? Mave has a presence to her. One that defies the Empress at the same time.”
“Really?” Matesh frowned at him. He hadn’t gotten that. He’d been enchanted by her, how strong and beautiful she was there. He should have known Rain would get something else from it.
“She shines too dark to be ignored.”
“Shines too dark?” Matesh wondered what his nephew was poisoned with. What the hell is he trying to say? That makes no sense.
“She’s all black wings and dark armor, and cold, detached stare. The Empress can’t outshine her because she’s too dark in comparison. A slave should disappear, but Mave doesn’t. She stands out. She draws eyes to her and not to the Empress. She shines too dark.”
“That…is a very good way of putting it,” Matesh agreed. He hadn’t considered that.
It suited their Champion.
The day was drawing to an end when they went back to the gates of the Colosseum. There, Mat saw her, ready for her coming fight.
“Mave,” he called, ignoring the other males who glared to him as he pushed through them. Rain followed, and they met her next to the guard who would let her onto the sands.
“Do you know what fight I’m about to have?” she asked softly.
“Just an experienced warrior. You don’t have anything too crazy until the chimera,” Rainev answered her. “We know you can do this.”
“I’ll be fine. Are you going to watch?” She looked between them.
“We’re going to stay right here, watch you prove victorious, then hit dinner and get some rest. You’re not losing us for the rest of the day,” Rain explained, smiling.
“Good.” She turned away and the gate began to open. Matesh was surprised the guard didn’t even give a warning. She just walked out onto the sands, into the harsh light of the dying sun, without another word. When she met the other gladiator in the middle, he bowed to the Empress, but she didn’t. She refused to even look at the Empress.
Defiant. She wouldn’t give the Empress what she wanted, not on the sands.
Matesh had never been so attracted to a female in his life.
“So disrespectful,” the guard mumbled, shaking his head.
Mat loved it. Damn, it was a glorious thing to hear the crowd boo their Champion, the best fighter on the sands, the only female. And she couldn’t even be bothered to bow to the Empress who had thrown her in hell to begin with.
Mave wasn’t even close to broken. She was so far from broken. No, in this hell, she’d been forged into the strongest steel, a cold steel like her eyes, strong enough that nothing could break it.
“This is going to be so good,” Rain mumbled, grinning.
The fight was called. Mave pulled her blades and met the other fighter in a brutal dance of steel and shield. She weaved and taunted, looking for weaknesses. The other fighter stood no chance against the aggressive onslaught that had been unleashed on him.
“She’s much faster than you,” Mat whispered to Rain.
“Shit. The sands slowed me down, but you can’t tell with her. She’s just as fast out there as she is on solid ground.”
“Exactly. Want to bet she was holding back in training?”
“I can promise you she was,” Rain mumbled, now narrowing his eyes at the spectacle.
Mat wanted to laugh, but he also saw why the other gladiators hated her now. She made a mockery of them. She refused to bow to the Empress but wasn’t beaten for it. She was forced to stand in the Royal Box in the shade, but hated it. She was female and fast, the sands not causing her a lick of problems.
She was born for war, he thought. It manifested on the sands, the only place where she wasn’t the one on the bottom. The only place where she had a say in everything that happened to her. The sands were her refuge. She hadn’t been concerned by her fights because she was too stubborn to lose, and in a world where she had nothing, she had everything out there. Power and control. Things denied to her for her entire life.
She cut his head off in the end. It rolled across the sands, stuck in a face of shock. The crowd lost its mind, so rough above them that dirt and dust fell from the ceiling. She just walked away from the body and towards the gate. The Empress began a speech for the crowd, but Mave just locked eyes with him and left the sands.
“By the Skies,” Rain whispered in awe. “Well. You’ll need to teach me how you keep your speed on the sands.”
“Just lots of time on them,” she answered. “There’s no area for a training equivalent. You just learn how to place your feet and build your leg muscles so that you can push out faster and faster each time you’re out there.”
“Fine,” Rain muttered. She gave a small smile, one of the rarest things in the pits.
She should smile more often. It looks good on her. I need to find a way to bring it out more.
They walked together to the chow hall, where gladiators boasted about their fights. The day had opened with a large mock battle. Forty males had died and those who walked away were living it up. Those who walked away without any serious injuries, anyway. There were ten males being tended up in the training area, having survived to walk off the sands. They would get some care, paid for by their owners, then be removed from the pits.
They ate quickly and after such a day, Matesh held a decent amount of hope that they would all make it through. He looked at her and Rain talking over the ins and outs of the sands. Like her smile, the light in her eyes was a rare thing. She looked to him and gave another small smile.
Aggravating female. She had beautiful eyes and a stunning smile. He knew it went deeper than that.
She had a beautifully strong soul too.
15
Rainev
Day four of the games, and Rainev was tired. They all were. Every gladiator in the pits that had fought was tired of the overcrowded nature of the pits, tired of the obnoxiously loud city around them, the crowds above knocking dust and dirt down on
them.
Mave was the only one in the group who wasn’t showing the exhaustion, but he could see it in her eyes. They were a little dimmer than normal and she was less likely to hold conversation. Not even Matesh taunting her was getting a rise out of her.
“She won’t call me today,” Mave finally whispered at breakfast. “She said she needed a break from my presence yesterday, so I’ll be watching from down here at the gate with you guys.”
“That’s great. I’m sure it’ll be a load off your shoulders,” Rainev said, grinning. “We can drink some cool water and wait for our fights together.”
“The schedule is weird today too, so that might be part of it. You have a midday fight today. The chimera,” Matesh reminded her.
Rain groaned. He had forgotten that was today. “Remember to stay away from its business end,” he added.
She gave him a look that questioned his intelligence. “And which end would that be? The side with two heads, the lion and the goat, or the side where a snake comes out of its ass?” Mave’s tone held no humor, but Rain couldn’t stop a snort of amusement anyway. “Do either of you know where these things come from? And how the hell do they get here?”
“Mythos,” Matesh answered. “A set of islands in the middle of endless ocean. They are the home of the Fauna as well. They’re places where people say gods once walked and touched the earth before leaving to create their own peoples elsewhere. All pantheons originated there, some claim, but even the Elvasi and Andinna, for all the years we live, have forgotten the real origin. Some traders and pirates are brave enough to make the trip. It takes them months to get there, and the entire round trip? Said to take years if the weather is fair for sea travel - and it never is. They capture a few things and bring them back for show, but no trade routes are established.”
Rain saw her eyes light up with the new information. Then they dimmed.
“Mave?”
“I thought about how much I would like to see that one day,” she admitted. “I never will, but it was nice to think about for a moment. Then I remembered where I am. Then I remembered why I don’t bother to think about these things.”
“Big sister…” he whispered, keeping his voice low enough that it was private. “If anyone deserves to travel the known world of Hellios, it’s you.”
“No, but thanks for trying.” She smiled weakly at him. It wasn’t her genuine smile, just a sad attempt at it. “Come, let’s go to the gate. Matesh…your fight today will be a hard one.”
“I thought the last three were hard,” Matesh replied, temper flaring in his voice. Rain didn’t like Mave’s tone, though.
“You’ll be doing executions,” Mave said softly. “Change in plans. The Empress wasn’t pleased with your fight yesterday. I heard her talking about it.”
Rain watched any good mood drain from Matesh’s face. He already hated having to kill all his opponents on the sands, and now this. Rain knew his uncle hated the waste of life. It was a perversion of the warrior ways of the Andinna to just slaughter without cause like he had to do here, especially when he’d been constantly told that his fights weren’t to the death.
“Hard,” she repeated. They began to walk out of the chow hall, leaving their bowls on the table. None of them wanted to fight through the crowds to return the bowls to the dwarf. “You have two options. You can make it quick and grant them peace easily, or you can break them free and give them a fighting chance…On a day like this, I would make it quick. Those people out there are going to get enough blood sport. You don’t need to give it to them. They will die anyway. They know why they are there. They will not hate you for it.”
Rain’s chest felt like it was going to cave in. How is he going to handle this? I’ll need to make sure he knows he can talk to me.
“Rain, you’ll be fighting a gryphon, right?” She looked at him next and he nodded. Today was a day for beasts. “We’ve talked about this. It will fly above you, looking to land on you and make it swift. Be ready, and when it flies into the sun, that is when it will dive. You’ll be blind, so be careful.”
“Of course,” he promised. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know.” She finished walking with them to the gate. Matesh was immediately called forward to start the day with the executions.
Rain couldn’t watch. He knew Matesh would be different after this. He knew it would weigh on his bodrya, weigh on his soul, but Rain didn’t want to watch the weak Andinna slaves, the humans, and the handful of Clan die to swift cuts to the throat from Matesh.
He glanced at Mave. She watched every single slice. He could see the slight flicker of her eyelids, the closest thing to a wince he’d ever seen from her. Not even she could tolerate this with a perfect mask.
It took too long. Rain looked up and saw they had brought out more to be put to death, and he wanted to vomit. He’d witnessed death, he’d dealt it, and he’d seen an execution before, but this was like lambs to slaughter. They were chained, with a metal collar around their necks that held the chain leading to the manacles on their wrists. Their ankles were all roped together so the group had to shuffle along together.
These are my people, dying for nothing. I should be able to witness this. I need to let this mark me like it’s marked Mave and now Mat. I should witness this for them, dying out there.
So he watched like Mave - not able to hide how much it shook him like she could, but he watched. He saw how Mat’s face was stone cold. His posture was stiff. He watched the first die. Matesh didn’t let himself hesitate.
He killed another.
And another.
And another.
When he was finally let off the sands, he looked drained, even though it hadn’t been physically taxing. Rain reached out to him as the gate closed but Mat jerked away and went to the water. He watched his uncle chug down water, shove it back to the human slave then vomit, to the jeers of other gladiators. Matesh only drank more water, ignoring them. The other fight was called before Matesh came back to them, closer to the gate.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m better. That was…harder than I thought it would be,” he answered, looking down to his hands. “They told me their crimes.”
“Many are bread thieves or something small like that,” Mave said softly. There was a desperate pain in how she said the words. “We can get away with murder here in the pits sometimes, but they can do nothing. Nothing at all, not even feed themselves.”
“Yeah.” Matesh looked up, his eyes haunted by what he had just done. Rainev had no words for his uncle. Nothing could lighten the blows to his soul he had just had to bear.
They watched fights from there in silence, not rooting for anyone. There was nothing enjoyable about the games. They watched because there was nothing else they could do. They watched to honor those who were out there dying to each other.
Then Mave was called.
“Champion! Are you ready?” The guard looked to her and she nodded, resigned.
Rainev looked up to the sky as she walked away from them and sent a prayer to all the Andinna and Clan gods. Mostly the Andinna ones. They would hopefully hold their daughter in safety. Keep my illo amyr in your care. Please.
She went out alone, and Rain knew she would meet no opponent. She again didn’t bow to the Empress. A pit was opened in the middle of the Colosseum, engineering that Rain would have marveled at if it hadn’t been bringing death with it.
The chimera was massive. He could liken it to a gigantic bull in size. At its shoulders, it was as tall as Mave. She was dwarfed by it, looking up at the angry beast as it jumped from its pit and the doors closed underneath it quickly, slamming. It landed with a solid thump.
Even the crowd was silent. There were Elvasi and Andinna who went their entire lifetimes without seeing a beast from Mythos. He surely never had - only pictures. The chimera were said to be one of the more angry and fearsome things from those strange isles. Rainev always was glad that no one knew how to breed them in capti
vity. To have them on the mainland, the continents, was a terrifying thing.
The lion head roared at Mave, who smartly took a step back from it. That brought screams of terror and excitement from the crowd. Rainev just hoped she walked out of this alive and the damn thing stayed on its chain for the fight. If it broke free, it would be chaos.
She pulled her blades as it charged her.
Rainev held his breath.
She rolled from its first swipe, getting underneath it and stabbing upwards. It went to crush her as both heads screamed and roared in agony. She rolled out and ran for another area of the Colosseum as it bled. It tore after her, swiping when it was closer.
It was like a cat-and-mouse game. It pounced and she dodged, looking for an opening on its softer underbelly. It swiped and she moved, trying to stay away from teeth and claws.
Finally, it learned, having been stabbed too many times in the stomach. Rainev knew that she could just keep moving - it would slowly bleed out - but he also knew the risk to her was too great for that. It was getting angrier, and that served no one.
It leapt further over her and the tail’s snake head tried to get a bite of her. Rainev didn’t know if it had or not, but he did see the snake head go flying, lopped off by a quick upward slash from her.
The chimera’s goat and lion heads both made awful noises at that. The beast spun, its dead tail now spraying blood over sand and the crowd, making people scream in pleasure and excitement. It jumped for her one more time. She again rolled underneath it, and this time, she was able to drag one of her blades along its tender stomach, opening it up. She didn’t move in time and the body collapsed on her.
The screaming of the crowd slowly went quiet when she never came up.
Rain’s heart was beating too hard. No one spoke in the pits. Mat was breathing hard, leaning in to try and see her.
Where is she? Please don’t be crushed. Mave? Big sister?
Then she pulled herself out from underneath the dead beast, covered from head to toe in blood and gore. The crowd didn’t boo her victory this time. It cheered wildly. Again dust and dirt was kicked down on them. For once, Rainev held no ill will for the crowd, like he had on previous days. He and Mat, even other gladiators, were cheering for her.
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