I want to scream. To rage. To tear something apart.
The Senate promised the rumors were unfounded, but they were wrong. They missed something.
It takes all of my willpower to tamp down the rage thatthreatens to split me in two as I look at the pain etched on Amara’s face. An all-consuming need to hunt the Tusku traders responsible for this roars to life. Dark thoughts follow. Violent thoughts.
Is Gaius keeping her as a slave?He must be.
I lean forward and grip my thighs, resisting the urge to reach for her hands. “And you believe you will be executed for helping me? Is that what you meant?” I ask, working to keep my tone even and controlled despite the fire burning beneath my skin. She has done nothing wrong, and yet she faces death? My rage continues to build despite my attempts to calm it. It is out of control. A creature of its own making. Violent and limitless.
End them,something whispers in the back of my mind.
“I broke the Magistrate’s laws by helping you, and I didn’t do it quietly,” she says, picking at the dried blood on her hands.
I need to do something. Anything. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Amara stares up at me from where she’s knelt on the floor. A tearing sound rends the air as I remove the corner of the bedsheet. I hardly register the pain as I reach for the cup of water on the table. My entire being is focused on her. On her pain. Her fear.
“Give me your hands,” I say gently as I wet the fabric.
“Why?” she asks, even as she offers them.
I place her right hand on my thigh and cradle her left in my palm. “You were picking at the dried blood. It looks uncomfortable.” I begin to wipe her hands, and somehow, the simple act seems to calm some of my rage. “Why did you not correct me when I said I thought you would lose yourjob?” The fabric turns a light pink that deepens with each stroke.
“I don’t know.”
“Were you going to let me think you were here by choice?”
Her hand tightens on my thigh, and I force my breathing to remain steady.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she says. “I was told everyone knows we’re slaves, and that if I escaped, the people who live here would skin me alive for sport.” She speaks almost casually, but a muscle in her jaw tenses with every pause. “I thought all of the gladiators were in the same position as the nurses: slaves. But then you told me who you were, and I … well, I don’t know. I thought you had to know I was a slave.”
“And you still chose to save my life?”
“That was before I knew who you were,” she says in a small voice. She is uncomfortable with that truth, but she told me anyway. This is good.
“Who told you everyone knows?” I ask, dragging the scrap of cloth between her soft fingers.
“The Magistrate. But I didn’t just take his word for it. All the guards know. Solta knows. The people who come through here to bet on the gladiators know. None of them care. And a while back, the Magistrate brought someone here on a tour or something.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “He kept calling her ‘my Queen’ and made us bow to her. She knew, so I thought everyone must know.”
Queen.It takes everything in me to keep my face neutral and unaffected by that sickening detail. She can’t possibly mean my mother.
Amara’s eyes flick up to mine, searching for a reaction.
Who else would Gaius call ‘my Queen’?
No. It is a ridiculous accusation. Impossible. My mother may not have been a kind ruler, but she was an honorable one. She only visited this place once. For her own Obligation.
“You must have misunderstood,” I say.
Amara looks at me long and hard, her lips downturned in an apologetic frown as if she knows what I am thinking. “I don’t think I did,” she says.
“Well, you must have, because no one who carries the title of ‘Queen’ would know anything about this … this slave trade.” She may think she knows what is going on here, but her claims are wrong.Sheis wrong.
“Vexar, the slave trade isreal,” she says, as if that is what I am disagreeing with. “The other people on that ship didn’t end up here, so they had to have gone somewhere. I … I don’t know how long I was on the ship, but I think I was one of the last people released. I don’t know where everyone else was taken, but it wasn’t here.”
I feel sick.
“Well,” I say, “if they are not here, I am certain they were taken outside the bounds of the empire.” I take a deep breath and start to clean her other hand. “Why were you so eager to risk your life to save mine? Was it because of what the Magistrate told you? Because you had no hope?”
“In part.”
