CHAPTER ONE
I wanted to celebrate.
Behind me, the sounds issuing forth from the crowd were deafening. The entire arena vibrated with the fervor of those who had watched the day’s festivities. People vied for my attention, for a look from me, a smile, even a scowl. Some women even flashed their breasts at me, and though I was not interested in the fairer sex in that manner, I appreciated the sentiment.
They were all celebrating my victory. Celebrating me.
I had won. I was that much closer to being the champion of Rome.
My throat dry and coated with the dust of the arena, I turned away from the body of the man that I had just killed. As I rejoined the group of men who were my brothers in our ludus—the training school for gladiators—I focused instead on my triumph. Though I had not had a choice to become a gladiator, I had chosen to embrace the life that I had instead of chafing against it. Yet I still felt a twinge in what was left of my soul when a man fell to the kiss of my sword.
I could not dwell on that, or I would go mad. So as the few men who I allowed to call me companion patted my hard back and boasted raucously of my prowess in the arena, I grinned and took the skin of water that was pressed into my hand, dumping it over my head instead of drinking deeply.
The cool, slick wet ran in rivulets down my skin, refreshing and reviving. Reaching for another full skin, this time I drank, the water clearing my throat and wetting my mouth. It helped to rinse away the bitter taste left behind by what I had just done, and helped to remind me of who I now was.
I would never win the battle between the two emotions, forever warring as they were inside me. I knew that I damned myself with every life that I took, and I hated myself for that. At the same time, I knew that I had had no choice, and I also felt pride over my fame, which had been hard won.
I was no longer the trembling young girl who had been sold into slavery by her family. I might not have had freedom, but my life was better than many who did.
“Easy enough to kill a Gaul.” As I spoke, I bared my teeth at Darius, who was the closest thing that I had to a friend in the ludus. A massive man, he was more than twice my height, and his coal dark skin shone with the perspiration from his own bout with death as he swatted my ass with a hand the size of my head.
“We are not all so easy to defeat, you know.” A Gaul himself, Darius was the only man in the ludus who was permitted to touch me, a right that had taken him a long time to earn.
His overtures of friendship toward me had been greatly helped by the fact that he had arrived at the ludus after I had. In my mind, he was separated from those who had done me so wrong.
The others knew better than to try to touch me, which was something that had taken me a long time to convince them of. Most of them liked their testicles best where they were, hanging heavily between their legs, so they now let me be.
The corner of my mouth quirked up in a smile. This light touch was Darius’ way of saying that he was proud of me. The man who had just fallen to my sword had been highly ranked in the city of Rome, and only the best, the fiercest, had ever had a hope of making him fall.
I did my best to embrace the thrill of the victory, and to swallow down the bitter taste that my actions had left in my mouth.
“Tonight we feast, my friend.” I hooked an arm casually around the massive muscles of my friend’s own limb, wishing very slightly, not for the first time, that I was his type. “I shall use my winnings to buy us wine and fruit.”
The iron gates that led onto the arena sands were hauled open, feet away from us. The next men to face each other were forced onto the expanse of sand, one looking ready for blood, the other green with nerves. I felt a pang, deep inside of me, for the man who had so clearly not yet come to terms with his fate.
Then the gate closed, preventing the gladiators from fleeing the sands. I closed my eyes briefly, banishing the sight of the one man’s fear from my consciousness. Deliberately I moved farther away from the gate, farther into the space that ringed the arena and was closed to the public.
My friend followed me. Turning until we faced each other fully, Darius tucked a strand of my tangled honey hair behind an ear. His hand came away slick with blood, and I clapped my own hand over the appendage.
My hand came away bloody, too. I scowled at the smear of red on my hand, not liking that my opponent had gotten in a blow, no matter that it was the only one and that it was naught but a scratch.
I could not accept even a small hit from an opponent. I needed to focus on being untouchable, unbeatable—on the sands and off.
I poured the last of my water over the blood that stained my hand. It dripped onto the leather of my subligaculum—that brief leather garment that was wrapped around my body—and I grimaced at the red that now streaked my clothing.