“I don’t know,” she muttered, still dazed by the figure. “Eight? Ten?”
“Something like that. Compared to hundreds of male fighters. A skilled female gladiator is a thing of great rarity. And thus, great value.” He drummed his fingers on the surface of his desk. “Come back with forty thousand and we’ll talk.”
There seemed to be nothing further to say, so Lea trudged from the office, closing the door behind her.
Forty thousand. It could take years to earn that much from her winnings. Only a few weeks remained of the emperor’s games, and Lea was scheduled for one more match. And now, with her injury, her chance of winning was far smaller. Games would happen with much less frequency after this set finished, so her opportunities to earn the money she needed would diminish.
A hopeless weight pressed down on her. Maybe she should abandon her dream of freedom. Take the money she earned, spend it on whatever she wished. Stop saving every coin. Liveout her life, for as long as the gods granted her, as one of the city’s best female gladiators.
No. She wouldn’t give up so easily. She wanted a different life for herself, the life she and her mother had dreamed of together. They used to whisper of it in quiet nighttime moments, how one day they’d have a little cottage by the sea with orchards and vegetable gardens and maybe even a cat. A peaceful life where they belonged only to each other.
Her mother had not lived to see the fulfillment of that dream, but Lea knew her mother was still keeping an eye on her from the afterlife. She’d be so disappointed if Lea simply gave up. So for her mother’s sake, Lea would keep trying.
Later that day, Lea sat on a bench in the shade, scowling at the gladiators training in the sunny open space before her. She wished she could join them. She’d experienced forced rest before with other injuries, and she hated how helpless it made her feel. At least this arm wound didn’t have her in bed all day, like the time she’d broken her leg.
Maybe she could jog a lap or two…but as she shifted, contemplating the idea, her wounded arm gave an extra-painful throb. She should be resting. Especially after she overexerted herself yesterday punching Achilles.
“Glowering like a thundercloud doesn’t make a wound heal any faster, you know,” the newly retired gladiator seated next to her on the bench said. “Trust me, I’ve tried it.” Ferox jerked his chin down at the bandaged wound on his thigh.
Lea shot Ferox a sidelong glare. “I don’t like sitting around doing nothing. It makes me…itchy.” Inactivity felt foreign to her. As a child, she’d been put to work in some capacity as soon as she was old enough to take orders. Even after being sold to Lucullus, her days were filled with endless training, sparring, stretching, and the like.
Ferox shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Doesn’t hurt to enjoy some rest now and then, even if it’s forced on you.”
“Spoken like an old man.” Ferox was thirty, the oldest among them. And he’d been in far too good a mood since reconciling with his beloved Velia yesterday. He didn’t even seem that bothered by his wound, which the ludus physician warned might leave him with a permanent limp. His match yesterday had been his last, and now he would occupy his time as a trainer.
Yesterday’s fight was as close as she’d ever seen Ferox come to death, and she was selfishly glad she’d never have to watch him risk himself again. It had brought up memories she wished she could forget—their friend Hector’s brutal death in the arena two years ago. It was one thing to lose a friend. It was quite another to watch him be slaughtered while twenty thousand people cheered. That helpless grief would never fully leave her, and freeing herself from this world was the only way to ensure her own death never inflicted that on anyone.
A shout distracted her from her grim thoughts. “Lea!” Velia’s voice rang out over the training ground as she scurried over to them, dodging a pair of sparring gladiators. “There’s amanin your bedroom!”
Several nearby gladiators stopped and stared.
Lea shot to her feet, wincing as she jostled her arm. “Thephysician,” she corrected loudly. “The physician is here to see me.”
Ferox gave a low, rumbly chuckle.
If he hadn’t been wounded, Lea would have kicked him.
“Velia said she saw this fancy physician with you yesterday, and apparently he’s…how did she put it? Devastatingly handsome?” Ferox asked. “Is he really?”
“Interested, are you?” It was easier to trade jokes than admit that yes, in fact, Kallias was extremely appealing, in a way that seemed like it shouldn’t be allowed for a mortal man. She recalled the silky darkness of his hair, the amber sparkles in his eyes, and her cheeks heated.
Maybe her memory was exaggerating his good looks. Maybe she’d see him again today and notice some imperfection.
Velia slid into the spot on the bench Lea had vacated. “I’m afraid there’ll be no devastatingly handsome physicians for either of us,” she said with exaggerated regret. “We only have eyes for each other now.”
Ferox wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her close against his side.
“I’d better go,” Lea said. Best to leave Velia and Ferox to their newfound bliss. “Mustn’t keep the fancy physician waiting.”
She turned and trudged toward the barracks building.
As Velia said, Kallias was indeed inside her bedroom. Her memory, unfortunately, hadn’t betrayed her, and he was just as handsome as she remembered.
Nyx, the ludus’s infamously ill-tempered cat, surveyed Kallias from atop the small table that rested against the wall. Kallias was in the middle of unpacking items from his bag. As his handapproached the table to put a small clay container down, Nyx let out a low growl, flattening his ragged ears, and the physician snatched his hand back.
“I see you’ve met Nyx,” Lea said as she closed the door behind her.
“Is that the creature’s name?”
