“My tavernkeeper,” I muttered, collecting my scattered wits. “He’s gone to the legions—I just want him to be safe—”

She waved me back, sinking back into the cushions of her chair as Arius limped out leaning on a spear and the Spaniards took their bows. She sulked as the arena attendants raked the sand, fidgeting and tapping her gold-sandaled foot against the floor, and finally announced she had a headache and it was too cold to sit outside and she was going home at once, and I didn’t even listen to her pouting because all I could think of was Arius.

I trailed her home, changed her dress for a robe, fanned her and massaged her scalp and fetched her barley water and waited in agony until she dismissed me, and then I ran all the way to Mars Street. “Arius,” I panted to the pretty slave boy who opened the door. “Arius.” It was the only word left in my brain.

“I’m sorry, he’s not—wait!”

Arius sat, shoulders slumped and head drooping, in the middle of the infirmary, filthy with dust and bleeding in half a dozen places. He held a wad of rags against an oozing slash on the back of his neck while the barracks doctor fussed around him and Gallus scowled over a writing tablet. A dozen fighters lounged, watching with curiosity or downright satisfaction as the defeated Barbarian was patched back together.

I must have made some sound, because he glanced up. I saw the mess of cuts and bruises the Spaniards had made of his face and all my precarious calm shriveled away. I fell across the room, meeting him halfway, and turned my face against his ripped shoulder when the tears flooded my eyes.

Dimly I heard him slap the doctors away, snarl an obscenity over my head at Gallus, and heave the wad of rags at the snickering gladiators. He couldn’t quite pick me up—pain hissed through his teeth when he tried—but he lifted me until my feet skimmed the ground and retreated into his little unlighted cell. Then he just held me, rocking me quietly in the cold dark while I clutched him and sobbed with all the hysteria I’d promised myself I’d never show him.

“Are you all right?” I mumbled at last against his chest.

“Just bruised.”

“Liar.” I took his hand in mine, kissed the two splinted fingers, ran my palms over the purple bruises that marked his arms and shoulders, felt him wince as I touched his side where the ribs had been broken. “What will Gallus do now?”

“Throw me back in. Prove I haven’t lost the edge.”

“You have lost the edge. It’s me. I make you soft.”

“Sssshhhhh.”

“Games,” I said, feeling the hysterical thread swell inside me again. “Games and games and more games—never-ending games—” My voice cracked.

He kissed me long and desperately, and I swayed against him in the dark, hopelessly loving the hard curve of his skull under his hair, the strong arc of his neck, the strength of his arms. “You lost today,” I whispered. “You’ll lose again, no matter how good you are.”