Azarion contemplated his new cellmate, seeing what the guards didn’t—an unsteady shimmer surrounding her, like rain spilling over the surface of a polished shield. It blurred and wavered, finally fading under his continued scrutiny until her true self was unmasked.
She wasted no time assuming her role. Nimble fingers worked the ties at her high collar, loosening them so that the outer tunic gaped to expose more layers of cloth, and below those, a threadbare shift. The single candle in the cell flickered over waxen skin and the slight curve of her breasts above her binding as she lowered the garment from her shoulders.
He came away from the wall, darkly amused at her stoic manner. She might be selling him chicken feed for all the eagerness and interest she showed in bedding him. He expected nothing different. She wasn’t here of her own accord, and she’d done this before. He recognized the behavior, had acted in the same manner in similar circumstances. When the struggle only pleased the torturer and made the torture worse, you stopped fighting and learned to endure. To endure was to survive.
He halted her before the shift drooped lower. “Don’t bother,” he said softly. “You heard the guard. The empress will send for me soon, and I want you for something other than fucking.”
Her gaze flashed up to his, and he was struck by the guarded hostility in her eyes. Ah, it was as he thought. She was suspicious and feared him for far more than the threat of physical abuse.
“How many years have you burned at the Rites of Spring?”
It was the nature of people to look away when they lied, but this woman’s eyes remained steadfast. “I don’t understand.”
She possessed a lyrical voice, her accent almost aristocratic.
He closed the space between them. Her breath hitched, and she went rigid, though she didn’t give ground at his approach. Despite its lank appearance, her hair drifted thick and soft through his fingers as he lifted it away from her neck. “Your hair is black, your eyes are brown, and you aren’t as well-fed as these clothes make you look.”
He stood close enough to feel her limbs quake. Before she could escape, he imprisoned her wrist and raised her hand. Under the illusion, her palm was smooth and pudgy, the hand of a merchant’s pampered daughter perhaps. To his eyes, it was slim and work-roughened, and bore a telltale color. “You have green hands, woman. Stained by the sap of the long nettle. I’d wager a herd of breeding mares you’re a Beroe dyer.”
He’d never seen the village of Beroe itself, but it was common knowledge the popular green dye used to color the rugs and clothing of wealthy Kraelians was made there.
A whimper escaped his companion. She closed her eyes, her arm suddenly limp in his grip. He released her and stepped back. He had her. It was time to bargain. An uncomfortable twinge settled under his ribs when she opened her eyes once more and gave him a bleak stare.
“How can you see this?” Her voice had flattened to a dull monotone.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I only see it with you. I’ve watched you for five years. Each year the same woman with many faces walks to the pyre, is burned in the arena, and walks away untouched by the flame, with none the wiser. My people would call you anagacin, spirit of the goddess Agna made flesh.”
Desolation turned to desperation. She clutched his arm. “Please, I beg you. Have mercy. Say nothing. Other lives depend on this deception.” He stared at her, then at the hand gripping his arm, letting his silence play out. It unnerved her as he had hoped. She dropped her hand in favor of curling it into a fist. “I have nothing to offer for your silence.” She admitted this failure between clenched teeth.
“You can give me my freedom.”
Her jaw sagged, disbelief lifting her eyebrows. “What?”
Again, he’d shocked her. “You can change faces.”
“Yes.” The guarded look masked her features once more.
“Tomorrow, after the burning, you’ll come back to the catacombs as Hanimus and unlock my cell door.”
She gave a croak of laughter. “You are mad. We’ll be discovered. They’ll kill us both before you can step outside this cell.”
He hadn’t survived ten years and the savagery of the arena to die in the dark at the hands of guards no more intelligent than their own shit. Death wasn’t an option. Not now. But she didn’t need to know that. “Better dead than held here any longer.”
“Good for you,” she snapped before lowering her voice. “I don’t have that choice. I can’t die. Not yet. Beroe depends on me, on this lie. Find another to help you. I help enough already.” Bitterness poisoned each word.
“There is no other. You’ll do this.” He’d expected her resistance and planned for it.
Her face hardened. Finely cut cheekbones stood out, and though shorter than he was, she managed to stare down her nose at him as if he were one of the filthy puddles dotting the floors.
A subtle shift in the air lifted the hairs on his nape, and he straightened, arms hanging loose at his sides. This woman was no match for his prowess. Still, that inner alarm put him on guard, growing louder when she lifted her hands, palms cupped. Within the cages of her fingers, a blue-tinged flame burned brightly.
She was indeed anagacin—a fire priestess—and watched him with an imperious disdain worthy of the goddess who bequeathed her such power. “I’m not only safe from fire, gladiator,” she said, her fury as hot as the fire she held. “I can burn you to ash where you stand.”
Azarion laughed aloud. No helpless martyr here. She was as fierce and stubborn as any Savatar woman. Her initial passivity was no more real than the illusion of her crossed eyes or plump body. His admiration for her grew, as did his sense of purpose. She’d help him or he’d kill her.
Undeterred by her threat and the flames leaping in her hands, he stalked her until he backed her against the wall near his pallet. Her shallow breaths warmed his neck as he braced an arm on either side of her head and leaned closer to nuzzle her ear. Heat glazed his sides, warning that her fingers still blazed.
She might be as fierce as a Savatar, but she lacked the honed instinct that signaled danger. This close and he could snap her neck before a single hot ember touched his skin.
