She hissed and drew back but couldn’t go far with the operating table at her back. “That stings.”
It did. It stung. No matter what he did, the evil kept coming. The strong oppressed the weak. And he was left to clean up the aftermath. When would it end? Holding her chin with the crook of his index finger, he drew the rag slowly from her temple to her jaw, erasing smears of blood and revealing small cuts in their wake. The gesture was more a caress than the dispassionate touch of a medicus simply doing his job. Seeing her battered, forced to stitch her wounds over and again—it turned his stomach the way his job had never done before.
“I hate this,” he whispered.
Her gaze flickered to his. “Being a medicus?”
“Seeing you like this. Them using you like a beast.”
Her shoulders went rigid. “They love me.”
A flash of anger drew him back. “This isn’t love, Adelgard.” He threw the rag to the ground with a wet snap. “It’s slavery. They treat you as they would a prized animal—worse. You’re locked in a cell, denied the freedom to walk in the outside world, have a home and family of your own—”
“You think because you are a medicus that you can fix everything,” Adel growled, shoving him backward. She took a step toward him, her fists pressed against his chest. “I don’t need a family. I can provide all I need with my own two hands. And at least Rome cares for me.”
“Subjecting you to continual pain and injury isn’t care.”
She shrugged, her voice dropping. “And yet, here you are, waiting to fix me.”
“Because they only make money off you if you aren’t dead.” He ran a hand through his hair, the sudden urge to make her see reason overpowering his discernment, his gentleness.
She swallowed and lowered her chin. “Stop it.”
“No. They don’t care about you, Adel. Not really.”
“I saidstop.” Her words emerged tight and fragile as blown glass.
“Why do you think Ignacio brings you and the others wine in the evenings and during the fights?”
Her lips trembled, voice cracking. “It is only—”
“It is opium, and who knows what else. To keep you under control. To keep you from feeling your pain so you can continue to fight and line Blandus Albus’s coffers. They will drug you and use you up until you have nothing left to give, and then they will cast you aside for a new star.”
Like the flick of a finger to fine glass, his words left her shattered.
He might as well have plunged a dagger through her chest too. How could he say such things? How could he know? He hadn’t witnessed a single one of her fights. Didn’t know how the crowd roared her name.
“Jovan said he would make me a magister.” Adel spoke through gritted teeth, pain ricocheting through her head. Out loud, the promise sounded flimsier than it had in her mind. And yet she clung to it like a lifeline. If she didn’t have that, what was left?
“A magister?” Felix repeated.
“Yes. Perhaps a doctore one day. I am close...”
The breath left his lungs in a way that seemed to pain him. “Look around, Adelgard. Do you see any female magistri?”
She forced her chin up a notch. “I will be the first. No one is as good as I am.”
“That is true.” Felix gave a nod. “But I’ve known Jovan my whole life, and he would never make a woman a magister. He is only using you.”
She lifted her chin, eyes beginning to burn. “He is not.” The words turned to ash in her throat and left her choking. Because she knew it was true. She’d known all along and yet . . .Tears stung her raw face, loosening the strength in her knees. She reached back and gripped the edge of the table behind her, clawing for proof, however fragile, to disprove his claim.
“My image is painted on the sides of buildings across the city. They parade me to dinner parties, embroider my name and face onto bags, etch it into glass—”
“And Jovan reaps the benefits.”
“Stop.” She clenched her fists, struggling to suck in a breath.
Felix had always been gentle, kind, until now. Was it his Romanness that made him ambush her like this? Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d built, cracked beneath his words, threatening to crumble. And yet, deep inside she knew he told the truth, and the truth was—
