The fear of the unknown was greater than the hope of it.
The questions of surrender were more terrifying than the prospect of death.
Her lungs burned. She burst through the rapidly closing circle, Felix on her heels. The crowd’s chant slipped to one more familiar.
“Habet hoc habet!”
He has had it.
She positioned herself on one side of Telemachus and Felix mirrored her stance on his left.
“They are calling for your death,” Felix panted. He looked pale, slightly hunched.
Telemachus only nodded with an eerie resignation.
“They will call for ours next.” Adel glanced at Felix. Words that remained unspoken rested between her lungs like hot coals. He met her gaze, and she saw the same reflected in the warm granite of his eyes. Blood streaked his bare chest and marred his stubbled cheek.
“It was an honor—” Felix’s shoulders jerked and he stumbled back a step, face shifting from tenderness to confusion. He blinked and looked down and then she saw it too. The handle of a pugio dagger stuck in his abdomen. The horror took three breaths to register in her mind. They’d had a collapsing gladius but not that.
Felix’s gaze lifted, finding Telemachus and then shifting toward Adel. She suddenly couldn’t breathe. This was not part of the plan.
Save him.His mouth formed the words, but no sound emerged.
Telemachus jolted forward, swinging a fist to deflect the sword arm of the gladiator coming for Felix. Adel followed suit, her sword glancing off the widened swing. She stumbled, regaining her footing and twisting to deflect a second blow. No time to check on Felix. She left him behind as he’d silently begged her to.
Anger and fear coursed through her in equal measure as she surged after Telemachus, deflecting blows. The monk continued to shout for mercy, for a rebellion of peace. Tears rose in her throat. In the corner of her eye, Felix jerked as his knees gave out. He crumpled and she... she could not. Not now, not yet, though she felt her heart ripping free from her chest, bleeding into the sand beside him. She set her jaw. She could not fall apart. Not here, not when—
Telemachus grabbed his arm, redness seeping through his fingers.
“Do not do this!” he shouted. “God offered you mercy. Do not repay it with murder!”
A burn sliced through her thigh. She stumbled and kept on, joined by Gaiseric.
They flanked the pleading monk and tried to fend off the other gladiators, each fighting to win the crowd by cutting down the defenseless giant, bent on saving their lives at the expense of his.
And yet, Telemachus never quieted, never stopped. So neither did she.
Where were the others? Dreda, Tilla, the Hildas—had they fallen? Escaped? Were they locked in a fight for their lives? She and Gaiseric could not defend Telemachus forever. Not two gladiators against dozens. Trash, cups, and chicken bones rained from the stands, cluttering the sand in razor-sharp shards. An amphora shattered against Telemachus’s back.
He grunted and stumbled. “Have you been slaves so long, you’ve forgotten what it is to be free? To make your own choices? God’s mercy is for you, even now.”
A burning sting sliced through the sole of her foot as Adel lunged forward to deflect the gladius of the huge provocator in blue, whose black braids trailed down his neck in the very picture of betrayal.
“Wulfula!” She shouted his name, anger flaring. He was Visigoth. He should be an ally. “What are you doing?”
Wulfula shoved her backward, a cruel smile lifting the edge of thismouth. “Do you think you’re the only one who can win the crowd?” His dark eyes flickered toward Telemachus.
“Don’t.” Cold fear filled her limbs. “He’s trying to end this, to save our lives. Wulfula, please—”
“How I longed to hear you beg.” He let his eyes flutter back into his head, as if relishing the taste of something sweet. “I ended your medicus too quickly, I see.”
“You—” She couldn’t speak.He’dthrown the dagger at Felix? Fury and grief swelled in her chest and there was no time to do anything with them.
Wulfula’s eyes snapped back to hers with a calculated chill. “I said you would need me one day.” And he turned away as he’d said he would, striding straight into the chaos and toward Telemachus.
No time.
Adel raced after him.
