Ferox closed his eyes. He couldn’t dwell on that now, not with his body exhausted and wracked with pain. For now, all he could afford to think about was the pleasure of her touch and the fact that maybe, just maybe, she loved him too.
24
Asthephysicianwarned,the fever set in the next day. Ferox almost didn’t mind it, as he was bedbound anyway and it addled his mind enough to distract from the pain.
But as the fever intensified over the following day and night, it brought vivid, unsettling dreams—or at least, what he hoped were dreams. Over and over again, he relived the moment he’d drawn his sword across his opponent’s throat. But just as the blood began to spurt, Ferox glanced at the man’s face, only to see it shift and blur into that of Hector. His friend clutched at his bleeding neck, slumping to the sand as the life drained from his body.
Other times, a squadron of red-garbed Praetorians, bristling with armor and weapons, burst into his room and dragged him from his bed. His leg left a bloody trail behind him. As the Praetorians hauled him through the streets, he looked up to find that each had Hector’s face. And not the smiling, kind face he wanted to most remember. It was instead how Hector had appeared moments after death—bloodied, one eye a gaping hole, skull partially crushed.
When Ferox fought, the soldiers held him down. They shifted into the figures of Jason, Velia, and Lea. In his moments of clarity, he realized with relief that those three were the ones with him. Not the emperor’s Praetorians, and not the mangled Hector.
Velia was always there, day and night. She fed him bites of food and sips of water, and cooled him with damp cloths that smelled of lavender. He tried to tell her to leave, that she needed to rest, but either he never succeeded in saying the words aloud or she simply ignored him.
Gradually, the moments of clarity lasted longer and longer. His fever eased, and finally, he woke in the middle of the night not to a terrifying dream, but to the darkened surroundings of his room and the quiet sound of Velia’s breathing coming from somewhere on the floor.
Moving gingerly, he raised himself to a sitting position. His body felt weak—even the minimal effort of sitting up made his head spin—and his thigh ached, but the searing pain of the early injury had faded.
He squinted at the floor beside his bed. He could just make out Velia’s small shape, curled up atop the rugs, a pillow beneath her head.
She stirred. “You’re awake,” she mumbled. Then she was on her feet, a cool hand pressed to his forehead. “You feel better. Let me get you some water.”
“Velia.” His voice was scratchy. He’d once swallowed a mouthful of sand in the arena, and that was exactly how his throat felt right now. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She held out a cup of water to him. “I think you mean, thank yousomuch for taking such good care of me while I almost died from a fever.”
He flushed. Awake for barely a moment and he’d already said something stupid. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you.” He took the water from her and drank deeply.
She rewarded him with a pass of her hand through his hair. He closed his eyes for a moment, luxuriating in the pleasure of her touch, but something less pleasant soon jumped into his mind.
“The…emperor,” he said, voice still raspy despite the water. “Any word?”
Velia shook her head. “Nothing.”
“How long has it been?”
“Nearly a week.”
Ferox lay back against the wall. A week with no word, no order that Ferox be removed from the games. Could he really be that lucky? Had the emperor forgotten, or did he not care enough to punish Ferox for his defiance?
No, Ferox decided. Something was still coming. And when it did…
“We need to talk,” he said.
“You should rest.”
“I’ve been resting for a week.” He held out a hand to her, and she approached the bed, perching on the edge. Her fingers twined with his. “Velia, if the emperor should force me to leave the games…I want you to come with me.”
He couldn’t see much of her expression in the darkness, but he felt her fingers tense. “What?”
He could sense her doubt, her uncertainty, but he pushed past it, laying out the plan that was hazily coming together in his mind. “I don’t have as much money as I’d anticipated, but I still have more than I left here with the first time. Enough to make it to Hispania, buy a bit of land, build a little house. We could plant a field and keep animals. It may be difficult at first, but we can make a life for ourselves.”
“Ferox…” Her voice wavered. “I can’t…Achilles is here.”
“Sign him over to your uncle,” he urged.
She rose from the bed, pacing in the small room. “You’re asking me to leave the ludus. Leave Rome. Go to Hispania with you. Are you asking me tomarryyou?” She spoke the sentence as if it were the most ludicrous thing she’d ever contemplated.
Ferox had not been thinking in such specific terms. All he wanted was her; he didn’t much care about marriage. But he realized she might want the security offered by marriage, a legal promise of protection and care. “Yes, if that’s what you wish.”
