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A dull grunt behind her alerted her to a bug-eyed guard with a golden arrow poking out of his neck.
Blood poured from the wound, splattering her robes as he collapsed at her feet. One of her handmaids screamed as an arrow struck the empty seat beside her.
It all unfolded in the space of a heartbeat.
Claudia looked out at the race track, watching first with confusion, then horror, as the charioteers turned on the audience, firing arrows into the crowd.
The entertainment had turned on them.
She heard a missile tearing through the air before Gia jolted against her, shoving her to the floor.
Her face smashed into the ground as the Circus Maximus erupted into chaos.
14. THE PRINCE’S PLOT
Claudia’s ears rang, the edges of her vision feathered.
For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was, who she was or what was happening.
The picture gradually filled in as she recalled, in a slippery thick of sweat, that she was being fired at.
She felt a body pressed against hers.
‘Gia?’
Claudia tried to rouse her, but her eyes were closed.
‘GIA!’
Gia was bleeding from somewhere, knocked unconscious by the bench as they’d fallen, both of them crushed to the ground as people toppled around them, shouting and shrieking and stamping on each other. Claudia could see a wound in Gia’s arm. She reached out to touch it, as ice-cold dread stilled her heart.
Claudia stared at her palms, Gia’s blood running between the creases, just like on the night she killed her brother.
She stood up in a jolt of blind panic, just in time to see an arrow sailing unstoppably towards her. She screamed and twisted her body, covering her eyes on instinct as a loud thwack sounded.
She… she wasn’t hit.
Gasping in ragged fear, she saw the prince standing in front of her, holding his spear and shield. He’d knocked the arrow out of her path, putting his body between her and harm.
‘Run,’ he said.
He was defending her.
‘It’s an ambush!’ trilled Damocles, as another arrow struck a member of the crowd. ‘We must exit, at once!’
‘Everyone, out!’
People in the crowd screamed feverishly, climbing over each other in their haste to escape – particularly those in the benches surrounding the imperial box.
At the same time, a wave of soldiers descended on the track, engaging in combat with the firing charioteers.
Gia was still out cold. Claudia met eyes with Cassius.
‘Help me with her!’ she shouted.
Cassius pulled Gia into a sitting position. Roman and Persian guards formed a canopy above them with their shields. Prince Darius passed her a dagger, which Claudia used to tear a generous strip from her imperial robes. Rectina tied it tightly around the arrow-wound on Gia’s arm, following instructions from Pliny.
Gia began to gain consciousness, murmuring softly, her eyes unfocused as Claudia cupped her face.
