“Lay a hand on her and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
The voice sent a shudder through him. It was Adel’s, and yet, it came from behind him rather than from the woman cradled in his arms. He looked up.
Adel stood over him, expression fiery and trembling. The gladius shook as their eyes met.
“Felix?” She whispered his name in a voice that broke. “I thought you were gone.”
“I said I wouldn’t abandon you.”
She let out a shuddering breath and dropped to her knees beside him, the gladius ringing against the sand as it fell. Tears dripped from her chin as she bent over the form in his arms, brushing the pale brown hair away from Berit’s young face, twitching in agony.
“Shhh, Berit, I’m here. I’m here.”
The girl’s lips shook as she tried to smile, her gaze going glassy. Adel choked on a sob, pressing her forehead against the girl’s as her shoulders shuddered with apology. “I’m sorry.”
“I’msorry,” Felix murmured. Warm blood trickled down his stomach, but he felt it on his hands. “I should have known they would do something like this.”
Adel shook her head, words muffled against Berit’s hair. “You did know,” she whispered. “You said all along that they do not love us. That they only love the blood we spill while they watch.”
“I thought for certain...”
“Nothing is certain in the arena. Only death.” She raised her head, the wide, angular planes of her face etched in sorrow. “Listen to them cheer, Felix. It is over. We tried, and we failed.”
The voices from the stands were deafening. Spectators on their feet, fists raised overhead. Any hint of compassion they’d felt a few moments before, drowned in the blood of the arena. It pressed on the air like a physical weight, as if the old gods and demons of Rome had convened here to suffocate every hint of light. What could one do against a force like that?
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places...The words came to mind clear and sharp as one of Felicia’s kitchen knives, followed by a single command:
Stand.
A roar cut through the din of the arena, wounded and furious.
“What are you doing?”
Felix’s chin lifted. The voice was familiar and filled him with equal parts dread and hope.
“You would celebrate a victory given to you from God—by murdering each other?”
A hulking figure in a plain brown tunic pushed up from the sand near the gate of life and rushed toward the battle, arms flung wide.“Stop this!”
“Telemachus,” Adel breathed at the same moment Felix realized it too. “He’s unarmed—he’s going to get himself killed.” She was on her feet in a moment, scooping up her scutum and sword.
Felix gently lowered Berit’s still body to the sand and scooped up his own weapons.
Adel was already running. He stood and followed, pressing his shield arm against the spears of pain in his side.
Telemachus reached the first pair of gladiators, a dimachaerus locked in a flurry of flashing swords against a scissor with an iron arm.
Felix ran faster. What was the man thinking? Did he mean to shout at them like an old woman on a stoop?
Telemachus dodged the plate-shaped blade and wrenched the scissor back by his unarmored arm, spinning him away and throwing him to the dust. He rammed a shoulder into the dimachaerus in the next moment, sending him reeling and off-balance.
“You are playing into their hands!” he roared, flinging a hand toward the stands. “Do not feed their bloodlust.”
Sand slipped beneath Felix’s feet as he skidded to a stop beside Adel, who dropped into a stance behind Telemachus, ready to spring if the dimachaerus made a move.
The opposing gladiator regained his footing and turned toward Telemachus, flicking his wrists and swinging his double swords in menacing circles at his sides.
Telemachus stood his ground. “Refuse to fight. Show Rome it does not own you. A Christian empire ought not revel in such things. In blood and death and gore. You must refuse to fight.”
