“You—you were the only one?”

“A few others lived. I don’t remember.”

His throat felt thick. “Why?”

“Better to be dead than alive when the Romans came crashing in with their swords. Better to leave them with a thousand corpses rather than a thousand captured rebels to parade in chains past their Emperor. Better to be dead than a slave. That’s what they decided, when they all went home and killed themselves.”

“But you . . .”

“A Greek merchant bought me. He gave me the name Thea; taught me to read and write. He was kind, really. Most of my masters were kind. It hasn’t been a bad life.” Her voice was even.

“The blood?” Looking at her blue bowl.

“My people have an old proverb.” Lightly. “ ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ And blood for blood, because I should have died with the rest of them; I should have been brave like my sister and fallen on a knife, but I ran like a coward and I’ve been paying back in blood ever since. Is there any wine left?”

“No.”

“Pity.” She levered herself up, grasping at the wall. Like a priestess carrying a sacrifice she picked up the bowl and swayed out the door. Arius, only slightly steadier on his feet, ducked after her. She was kneeling by a camellia bush, draining the bowl out into the earth. He stood by awkwardly, feet planted apart for balance.

“There.” She rose too quickly, staggering, and he caught her by the shoulder before she fell. The light of the distant lamps revealed that she was tall, the top of her head level with his eyes, and as angular as a doe. The point of her shoulder was sharp under his hand.

“Good luck to you tomorrow.” She offered a smile. “I’ll be watching.”

Her eyes were black, dilated too far. He’d seen them before, those eyes. The same brave desperate gaze—on the Amazon he had slain in the arena. A nerve prickled along the back of his neck.

Careful.

“Good night,” he said roughly, and left her.

THEA

THE next day, when it seemed too bright and glaring to believe that the previous night had ever happened at all, I watched Arius kill Belleraphon.

It was brutal, stomach-turning, utterly unforgettable. He strode out quietly, dwarfed by Belleraphon’s strutting, preening elegance, and then launched an attack of such savagery that my knees buckled in the stands. Belleraphon’s grin slid away as his shoulder was laid open; he began to fight in earnest, but it wasn’t enough. Arius’s sword took the top half of his shield, took another wide cut out of his ribs, took half the fingers on his left hand. Belleraphon’s dancelike grace was hewed away a piece at a time, cut down to raw desperation, and even that wasn’t enough. He wavered, a broken, bleeding thing, and he died on Arius’s sword.

The Colosseum rose with a roar, stamping for him as they had stamped only last week for Belleraphon. They screamed, they shouted, they wept, they tore gold from their fingers and silver from their purses to rain down on the solitary figure in the sand. Men cuffed tears from their eyes and swore he was the god of war come on earth to walk among men. Women tore their stolas to bare their breasts, sobbing that they would love him forever. In the Imperial box, the Emperor nodded approval. Arius threw his sword into the sand, and they shrieked their love for him.