“Thank you, Cosmas,” the queen said at last.
Lucious watched as the scholar descended back into the crowd of watching nobles. Only then did the king and queen give him their attention. Lucious tried to stand straight. He would not let the others there see any of the resentment that burned through him at the small insult. If anyone else had treated him this way, Lucious told himself, he would have killed them by now.
“We are aware that Ceres survived the last Killing,” King Claudius said. To Lucious, he barely even sounded annoyed by it, let alone as though he were burning with the same anger that flooded him at the thought of the peasant.
But then, Lucious thought, the king hadn’t been the one who had been defeated by the girl. Not once, but twice now, because she’d bested him through some trickery when he’d gone to her room to teach her a lesson too. Lucious felt that he had every reason, every right, to take her survival personally.
“Then you’re aware that it can’t be allowed to continue,” Lucious said. He couldn’t keep his tone as courtly and even as it should be. “You must deal with her.”
“Must?” Queen Athena said. “Careful, Lucious. We are still your rulers.”
“With respect, your majesties,” Stephania said, and Lucious watched her glide forward, her silk dress clinging to her. “Lucious is right. Ceres cannot be allowed to live.”
Lucious saw the king’s eyes narrow slightly.
“And what do you suggest we do?” King Claudius demanded. “Drag her out onto the sands and have her beheaded? You were the one who suggested that she should fight, Stephania. You can’t complain if she isn’t dying fast enough for your tastes.”
Lucious understood that part, at least. There was no pretext for her death, and the people seemed to demand that for those they loved. Even more astonishingly, they did seem to love her. Why? Because she could fight a little? As far as Lucious could see, any fool could do that. Many fools did. If the people had any sense, they would give their love where it was deserved: to their rightful rulers.
“I understand that she cannot simply be executed, your majesty,” Stephania said, with one of those innocent smiles that Lucious had noticed she did so well.
“I’m glad you understand it,” the king said, with obvious annoyance. “Do you also understand what would happen if she were harmed now? Now that she has fought? Now that she has won?”
Of course Lucious understood. He wasn’t some child for whom politics was an alien landscape.
Stephania summed it up. “It would fuel the revolution, your majesty. The people of the city might revolt.”
“There is no ‘might’ about it,” King Claudius said. “We have the Stade for a reason. The people have a thirst for blood, and we give them what they are looking for. That need for violence can turn against us just as easily.”
Lucious laughed at that. It was hard to believe that the king really thought Delos’s populace would ever be able to sweep them away. He had seen them, and they were not some blood-drenched tide. They were a rabble. Teach them a lesson, he thought. Kill enough of them, show them the consequences of their actions harshly enough, and they would soon fall into line.
“Is something funny, Lucious?” the queen asked him, and Lucious could hear the sharp edge there. The king and queen did not like being laughed at. Thankfully, though, he had an answer.
“It is just that the answer to all of this seems obvious,” Lucious said. “I am not asking for Ceres to be executed. I am saying that we underestimated her abilities as a fighter. Next time, we must not.”
“And give her an excuse to become more popular if she wins?” Stephania asked. “She has become beloved by the people because of her victory.”
Lucious smiled at that. “Have you seen the way the commoners react in the Stade?” he asked. He understood this part, even if the others did not.
He saw Stephania sniff. “I try not to watch them, cousin.”
“But you will have heard them. They call the names of their favorites. They bay for blood. And when their favorites fall, what then?” He looked around, half expecting someone to have an answer for him. To his disappointment, no one did. Perhaps Stephania wasn’t bright enough to see it. Lucious didn’t mind that.
“They call the names of the new winners,” Lucious explained. “They love them just as much as they loved the last ones. Oh, they call for this girl now, but when she lies bleeding on the sand, they will bay for her death as quickly as for anyone else. We just have to stack the odds a little more against her.”
The king looked thoughtful at that. “What did you have in mind?”
“If we get this wrong,” the queen said, “they will just love her more.”
Finally, Lucious could feel some of his anger being replaced by something else: satisfaction. He looked over to the doors to the throne room, where one of his attendants was standing waiting. A snap of his fingers was all it took to send the man running, but then, all Lucious’s servants quickly learned that angering him was anything but wise.
“I have a remedy for that,” Lucious said, gesturing toward the door.
The shackled man who walked in was easily more than seven feet tall, with ebony black skin and muscles that bulged above the short kilt he wore. Tattoos covered his flesh; the slaver who had sold the combatlord had told Lucious that each one represented a foe he had slain in single combat, both within the Empire and in the lands far to the south where he had been found.
Even so, for Lucious, the most intimidating part of it all wasn’t the size of the man or his strength. It was the look in his eyes. There was something there that simply didn’t seem to understand things like compassion or mercy, pain or fear. That could happily have torn them all limb from limb without feeling a thing. There were scars on the warrior’s torso where blades had struck him. Lucious couldn’t imagine that expression changing even then.
Lucious enjoyed watching the reactions of the others there as they saw the fighter, chained like some wild beast and stalking through them. Some of the women made small sounds of fear, while the men stepped back hurriedly out of his path, seeming to sense instinctively just how dangerous this man was. Fear seemed to push emptiness ahead of him, and Lucious basked in the effect his combatlord had. He watched Stephania take a scurrying step back out of the way, and Lucious smiled.
“They call him the Last Breath,” Lucious said. “He has never lost a bout, and never let a foe live. Say hello,” he grinned, “to Ceres’s next – and final – opponent.”
CHAPTER SIX
Ceres woke to darkness, the room lit only by moonlight filtering in through the shutters, and by a single flickering candle. She struggled toward consciousness, remembering. She remembered the beast’s claws ripping at her, and just the memory seemed to be enough to summon the pain to her. It flared in her back as she half turned to her side, hot and sudden enough to make her cry out. The pain was all-consuming.
“Oh,” a voice said, “does it hurt?”
A figure stepped into view. Ceres couldn’t make out the details at first, but slowly, they swam into place. Stephania stood there over her bed, as pale as the shafts of moonlight that surrounded her, forming a perfect picture of the innocent noble, there to visit the sick and injured. Ceres had no doubt that it was deliberate.
“Don’t worry,” Stephania said. To Ceres, the words still seemed to come from too far away, fighting their way through fog. “The healers here gave you something to help you sleep while they stitched you back together. They seemed quite impressed you’re still alive, and they wanted to take away your pain.”
Ceres saw her hold up a small bottle. It was a dull green against the paleness of Stephania’s hand, stoppered with a cork and glistening around the