In a flash, he sliced across her throat, blood spraying the air. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, then her body crumpled to the luxurious carpet beneath her.
“Nooo!” I cried out, struggling on instinct against my captors. “Stop!”
While they grappled to hold me, the other one leaned down and curled a fist into Fausta’s silken brown hair then hacked the rest of his way through her neck, lifting her severed head. Bile rose up my throat as he turned to me and walked closer.
“Caesar wants Fausta on the Wall of Traitors. As for you, he has other plans.”
Fury lanced through me like a burning blade. I’d been captured after these filthy fucking Romans had killed my family. I’d been dragged back to this city, sold off and imprisoned, raped, muzzled, and kept like a dog. I’d lost my voice and my will to live, merely existing to serve my master and drift through my days like a ghost. All because of these men.
Then one night, I met a different kind of man. He’d come to me in the temple, my place of solace. My blood had seeped into hisskin, whispering of his goodness. From that moment, hope awakened. Then he’d shown me that life was worth living, and freedom was worth fighting for.
I glared at the murderer standing before me, holding the still-dripping head of my new friend, who’d risked her life to set me free.
“No.” My voice quaked with rage.
The praetorian’s eyes narrowed and he chuckled. “No?”
The other two guards gripping me by the upper arms—their mistake—laughed with him.
Without another word, I bent my elbows and reached high, gouging both captors across the face.
One let me go and yelled in pain. The other hissed, “Bitch!” Still holding one arm, he jerked me toward him and grabbed me by the throat.
But it was too late. I lifted my finger to my mouth as powerful energy vibrated through the room. The metallic taste of blood sang to my soul. My magic didn’t come in a soft whisper, it pounded into the room in a warlike scream.
“Cut off his head!” I shouted to the guard holding my throat.
He instantly let go of me and drew his sword, attacking the leader. Blades whipped and sliced through the air. The scarred one dropped Fausta’s head to the carpet when his comrade under my spell cut a gash across his arm.
“Come to me,” I called, my voice echoing with ethereal magic, a vibration that shook the walls. A figurine crashed and broke on the stone floor.
I didn’t speak to the guards in combat, but to the blood itself. An instinct I’d noticed only once before—that night in the olive grove with Trajan. As the guards whirled and clanged sword against sword, blood flew through the air. I held out my palms, calling it to me. And it came.
Flying directly toward my outstretched palms, the blood obeyed me. Power hummed through my veins and whipped through the air as the guards’ blades sliced one another’s throats, one by one, until nothing was left but the overcharged air and the mist of blood and my frenzied fury.
XXTRAJAN
“It isn’t important, Grandfather,” I told him outside of the senate house. “It’s imperative.”
He studied me, my demeanor grave and serious. A gusty wind passed over us, the sky darkening with an oncoming storm.
“All right then. How do you plan to free him?”
“I’m working on a plan.”
“How did you get in to speak to him at all without being caught?” he whispered as a group of senators passed us.
I waited until they were out of earshot around the corner. “I can’t tell you.”
“Awfully mysterious of you, my boy.”
“I know.”
“You never keep secrets from me.”
I grimaced, saying in a softer tone, “It’s not my secret to tell.” I sighed, thinking of Lela, remembering how calm and brave she was using her magic to get us into the prison to see the Visigoth, Alaric.
Grandfather stared another moment then gripped me by the shoulder. “I trust you, my son. Just be careful.”
