It was deep, but hardly wider than a dime. He wiggled his fingers and was glad to see the tendons were unharmed. It would leave a nasty scar, but he’d live.

“How did it happen?” Amber asked.

Cade shrugged. “A javelin, I think.”

Amber leaned forward, taking a closer look. “Was it another species on the leaderboard? Did Abaddon have you fighting another round while you were away?”

Cade stared at her. “No…,” he said slowly. “You know about this. I got it in the battle. Quintus got hurt too.”

He pointed at Quintus’s arm as he did so, only to slowly drop his finger. Quintus’s arm had a puckered scar. No wound.

“But it’s bleeding,” Amber said. “You’d ha—”

She trailed off.

“How long have I been missing?” Cade whispered, realization hitting him like a sledgehammer.

Amber took his hand and brought it to her lips.

“Six months,” she said.

CHAPTER

32

Cade was numb. He said little as they led him, wrapped in sackcloth, to bed. Ignored their questions, their hugs and touches.

And now he lay on a cot within the storeroom, among renewed piles of broken weaponry, wood planks, and other detritus—and not the commander’s bed where he had slept all those months before.

The contenders had been given the room for their quarters, as the barracks were full of Roman soldiers. It had a door they could lock behind them, which gave them some comfort from the unknown dangers of time-lost soldiers.

It was a long, dreamless sleep. Cade woke twice, only to chew down jerky, use the toilets, and have his wound cleaned and stitched by the Roman physician. But each time he returned to bed, a black, numbing exhaustion robbed him of the ability to talk, listen, or respond.

He was in a fugue state. Almost out-of-body, his consciousness floating beyond as his friends coaxed him with questions or spooned food into his mouth.

It was hard to return. To let himself wake up. Acknowledge the great task ahead of him, and learn of what had transpired while he had been away, frozen in time by Abaddon in some cruel trick.

Six months had been stolen from him. Months he could have spent with Amber and his friends, with no timer hanging over them, no struggling for food and survival. The Romans seemed to have no trouble cultivating food in the orchards, or catching fish and small game in the jungles.

Abaddon had given him no respite. Those glorious, empty hours alone on the spire had been traded for a goodbye. He knew, one way or another, he would have time to make peace with his friends. To say what needed to be said, even if he could not tell them why.

With his arrival had come the Codex. There was no timer yet. No terrible danger hanging over them yet. Even so, he knew as soon as he woke, the game would start again.

The Romans might rule here. But Cade was the player.