Close, duck, disengage. The Syrian lost patience, lashing forward. Vix parried the first two strokes, ducked the third, and then ran, his feet skimming the sand. Laughter rippled over the Colosseum. The Syrian stopped, crouching again, and Vix fell back into the pattern of his own making. Close, duck, disengage.

“Good,” Arius murmured. “Good.”

The Syrian’s foot wobbled in the sand; he cursed as if he had twisted the joint, and retreated limping. “Get him!” I whispered, but Arius gave a sharp shake. Vix stood back, head cocked to one side, and ducked easily when the Syrian made a leap for him. God, but my son was fast.

The Syrian slashed again, letting Vix dance back. Lunged. Feinted.

“Don’t let him herd you,” Arius said, but Vix took two more hasty steps back and then froze with the marble of the arena wall against his back.

“Vix!” I screamed along with all the other screaming fans, as the Syrian raised his sword.

Vix charged. The Syrian barely had time to correct the blade’s angle before it punched through the strap of Vix’s mail sleeve and bit smoothly through the flesh, through the shoulder and out again.

“Too high,” Arius murmured, whitely.

One more blow through the lung for the slow kill. The Syrian tugged his sword.

Then Vix grabbed it.

He wrapped his hand around the blade piercing his shoulder. Held it there, blood dripping from his hand, and I saw the muscles bunch in his arm. His teeth bared, he held the blade steady while he drove his shoulder farther up toward the hilt.

Not far. Just within arm’s reach.

Just close enough to strike.

Arius nodded professional approval as Vix’s sword flashed up, and the Syrian’s blood jetted out to stain the sand. “Pretty work,” he said as if Vix had just finished a training bout.

I turned and vomited over the ground.

LEPIDA

STRATEGY! In the arena, no less.” Trajan pounded his fist against the railing. “If that isn’t the prettiest piece of blindsiding—There’s a place in my legion for that boy if he ever earns his freedom—”

“If he lives,” I said sourly, but nobody was listening to me.

“I’ll beat you out for him and offer a place in the Praetorians.” Paulinus tossed a coin down at the Young Barbarian, who had reached around with his good arm and tugged the Syrian’s blade out of his shoulder. He stood looking at it for a moment, and then very quietly crumpled up on the sand.

“Oh dear,” I heard Sabina say. Her little rat-narrow face was all pink. “The poor boy.” She folded up into a seizure.

I had no desire to be seen with a jerking, writhing brat. As Calpurnia and Marcus bent over her, I slipped out of the box. In the arena they were rigging a hasty stretcher for the unconscious Vix, and the audience was still screaming approval. Domitian had leaned forward to clap, but Aurelia Rufina looked half-asleep at his side. She never had understood what the games were all about. Surely he’d want my company now.