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"This is the safest seating," Alexandru said, as we arrived to an archway inside the colosseum. The sudden, not-so-distant uproar of a crowd made it clear we were just outside the stands. The guards on either side of the archway let Alexandru through, leading us to a short hallway, where the sounds of people shouting became louder.
Two guards stood at the end of the short entrance nodded to him, but he stopped walking and turned around to face me. The afternoon light shone against the crown of his hair, shadowing his troubled expression. "Will you be okay on your own?"
Little did he know, I'd been by myself all of this time. "I think I can manage." I gripped my backpack by the side straps on either side of me. "Will you be okay?"
"Well, I am with certain not looking forward to being beaten into the sand by Remus and shamed by thousands of people. But I will get through it, if that is what you mean."
"Now that's the spirit," I said, giving him a playful punch in the arm. Damn, those boulder workouts really did him some favors. "Look at it this way. All those women that will be in the stands filling their necklaces with your blood? I have a feeling they'll still be your fans, even after you lose.'
He grinned a little. "You sound jealous."
"I am," I half-way joked. "Where's my blood-filled necklace?"
"Now you mock my admirers." His grin widened. "It is obvious you are protective."
"I'm just saying, win or lose, they would lick your dirty toe nail if you gave any of them attention." I twisted the hair at the end of my braid, biting back a laugh. "So, you won't be entirely shamed by Rome if you lose."
He shook his head at me, still smiling. "Is this what you imagine my life is? Women begging to lick my dirty feet?"
"Nah. You'd probably be a lot less irritable about your situation if that were the case...."
Alexandru rubbed his thumb over his lip, laughing under his breath. He gave me a long look, before casting a look back at the guards. Then he brushed past me, grabbing my hand as he did so. "Where are we––?"
"Shh." He pulled me back into the stone hallway and pressed me back against the wall.
My breath left me in a small gasp, my vision crowded with his golden armor, just before his head dipped down. His mouth tasted mine in a slow, sizzling kiss that made my head spin. The feeling of his strong hands on my waist, the scent of sweat and oils on his skin, the silken softness of his lips, it was all too much. It seemed all seemed to consume me, drain me, as he pulled away, like some wicked last good-night goodbye
I could hardly meet his gaze after a kiss like that. I looked down at his tanned forearm, how it was normal man's, without any of Death's otherworldly tattoos.
"I must see you after the fight," Alexandru said, his voice slightly rougher, his lips dragging a path up my cheekbone. "Will you stay?"
Stay. It triggered a flash of a gut-wrenching memory. Death eyes had been so large and dim as he lay dying on the floor of the mausoleum. Just stay.
My head lifted, the emotion that I was keeping carefully repressed inside of me threatened to pour out. "I'm not going anywhere," I managed to say evenly.
The corner of his mouth upturned.
"Champion," gasped a male voice, and we broke apart. It was Helvius, the slave we had met upon arriving to the colosseum. He was holding his hand to his nose, blood leaking out from between his fingers. "I have been looking all over for you. I tried to fend them off, but there were too many. They took Cruentas––"
"Who?" Alexandru and I demanded at the same time, snapping into unflinching focus.
"Another gladiator," Helvius said with remorse. "I think it was the fighter you are matched with. "
Outside, in the arena, the crowd roared.
Alexandru's head snapped toward the stadium. He took off in a hard sprint toward the stadium seats.
"Alex, wait!" I hurried after him, out past the guards, the arena and sweltering sunlight opening up in a rush of sensations as an enormous crowd unveiled itself.
Alexandru stopped at the top of stairs heading down into a divider that protected audience on the bottom tier and looked out into the arena, where Remus rode Cruentas around the arena in a grand display, flogging him periodically with a whip.
When I reached him, the rage had overtaken Alexandru's expression terrified me.
Drums continued to roll from musicians in the stands, gates opening up, as an exotic cat came charging out into arena. Men with spears corralled the scared animal, bringing them into a state of panic and fear. When Cruentas rounded a bend, the feline suddenly caught interest in the stallion's retreating form and took off in a full sprint.
"CRUENTAS!" Alexandru roared, his feet skipping stairs with the balance of a cat as he raced forward.
Civilians recognized him, women reaching in desperation to touch him. He moved down the stairs in a blur and launched into the air, his hands gripping the divider between the arena and the bottom tier of onlookers as he vaulted over it with an otherworldly ease. He landed on all fours into the sand.
Moving with vicious intentions, his fist colliding with the face of a guard that had been corralling the other lion, and he snatched a spear right out of the guard's hands corralling the second male lion, as he snatched the spear right out of his hands. The lion shifted its attention from the guard to Alexandru as it prowled toward him with a vicious roar, muscles in its deadly body shifting with each stride. Alexandru kept the spear behind him, the lion circling him once in a dangerous dance, getting so close that its mane brushed Alexandru's armored waist. As if deciding Alexandru was not the threat, the lion suddenly took off in a hard sprint and launched itself onto a guard, mauling him apart un gruesome display that made the crowd erupt in applause.
Now that the second lion was distracted, Alexandru's head snapped toward Remus and Cruentas galloping on the other side of the arena. Remus' head was turned over his shoulder as he laughed at the lion as it took a snap and missed Cruentas' leg by a hair.
My hand went over my mouth as Alexandru unleashed a roar and sprinted over the sand, raising his powerful arm back with the spear. Momentum gained, he threw his arm across his body and launched the weapon across the entire length of the arena. I watched in horror as the trajectory of the weapon soar straight for Remus.
But things quickly changed. Sand flung up in the arena, momentarily concealing Remus, Cruentas, and the spear bulleting toward him. Alexandru kept running forward without fear, deciding at the last second not to hurl himself into the massive sand storm. The crowd covered their faces, crying out in distress as sand threw into the stands with the whipping air.
Suddenly, the lion was tossed from the sand hurricane, its middle impaled by the spear as it flung back and hit the stone wall of the arena, dead.
Cruentas bulleted out from the sand storm next, Remus still sat atop the stallion as he wiped sand from his eyes and punched the air with his other hand triumphantly. The crowd went deafening, while Alexandru's face locked in disbelief and confusion. I understood why. That spear had been aimed straight for Remus, not the animal.
Alexandru turned in a circle, his gaze seeking someone in the crowd, and as I followed, until I spotted Kalace in the stands about fifty feet away form me, right at the edge of the divider wall. I could see the side of his body, how his hand was slightly out in front of him, his fist closing fast as his arm fell, and with it, the sand storm.
"DRU THE BEAST! DRU THE BEAST!"
Goosebumps erupted all over my arms. I stood frozen as the noisy onlooker's chants battling with the roaring of my own blood in my ears. Perhaps I would have been shocked by Kalace's interference, had I not noticed the tall figure standing directly behind Kalace. His hair, blonde but shaved shorter at the sides of his skull, was caked with a dark oily substance, and he wore a long-sleeved black shirt, pants that sagged somewhat off his legs. At my stare, he slowly turned his head and looked directly at me, mismatched green eyes lifeless, vacant against pale, sunken features.
Death.
I hurried down the steps, assertively shoving enthusiastic citizens aside a I flew down the aisle toward him. But by the time I reached Kalace, Death was no longer standing beside him. My gaze frantically looked around. He was gone. I had seen him again, but this time, I hadn't been unconscious.
A hand gripped my arm, snapping me back to reality. "What are you doing?" Kalace shouted over the chaos of the crowd. "You should not be near me! Go!"
But I had to know why I had seen Death's corpse beside Kalace. He had been trying to tell me something. I knew he was.
Before I could respond to Kalace, people jumped up from their seats, my ears ringing from a woman shrieking with joy beside me. Alexandru had somehow knocked Remus from Cruentas and threw his entire body into him, tackling him into the sand.
"Oh, my God," I said, watching a dark side of Alexandru as he pinned the gladiator to the ground, throwing punch after punch into Remus' face. His knuckles stained with red, crimson splattering into his face as he definitely broke Remus' nose. He was going to kill him.
Suddenly Alexandru's hand paused at the top of a punch, his face straining. He looked back at his fingers, his hand crippling inward as veins protruded from his face. He seemed to be fighting against some sort of force, and when I looked back at Kalace, his eyes were unblinking, deadlocked on the arena, and he was chanting under his breath.
I didn't know what to do, but I knew I couldn't intervene.
Remus got his hand free and hammered a bone crunching punch into Alexandru's jaw. Then he landed another punch, knocking Alexandru off of him. Kalace, still warped into his own world, made a small gesture with his hand, and Remus' body lifted from the sand, as though he were rebelling against gravity. His arms flailed out as he righted himself, his eyes wide in surprise. He refocused back on Alexandru, who was clutching his bloodied nose. Remus charged forward and kicked him Alexandru in the face, his head snapping back as he fell back into the sand. He kicked him again and the crowd burst with applauses.
Kalace's eyes rolled back into his head, and he nearly fainted, had I not been there to catch him by the arm. "Ace? Ace!"
Kalace grabbed onto my shoulders as he righted himself, his face visibly shaking, his eyes frighteningly wide and his pupils too large, like he was possessed. "The warrior can win no battles against death blinded by rage. He must live this day to fight another."
The crowd seemed to mute as Kalace stepped up onto the stone divider in front of us, drawing attention of the surrounding persons in our section.
"In sacrifice, great power will rise," Kalace said, and I realized he was eerily talking to himself. His palms pressed together in front of him, his head tilting heavenward. "So is fated by the Three."
Kalace closed his eyes and stepped blindly up onto the divider, my heart lurching as I thought he would plunge straight to his death. His hands spread out on either side of him and breathed in deeply. My heart lurched as he stepped off the ledge, when sand kicked up from the arena and air whipped at his body, appearing to carry him down to the arena floor.
"WITCHCRAFT!" bellowed a man to my right, the word churning my stomach with anxiety.
The two closest gladiator's clashing swords to Kalace were Alexandru and Remus. Remus had watched Ace descending in the arena, his mouth gaping open. And when Alexandru looked back over his shoulder to see the spectacle, I was close enough to see his expression filled with disbelief as well. He shouted something toward Ace and waved him off with his arm, but Ace had other plans and strode toward them both, outstretching his hand. Alexandru's sword flew through the air, ending in Ace's grasp.
A brief look of horror crossed over Alexandru's sweaty features, right before his face pained and twisted in agony. He dropped to one knee, then his other, curling into a ball on the ground.
Remus pointed toward Kalace accusingly, and I could only imagine he had said what was now being screamed from the stands.
"WITCH! WITCH! WITCH!"
"The witch has hurt Rome's Champion!" cried a hysterical woman.
Remus charged at Ace with his sword prepared. Kalace clasped his hands over the hilt of Alexandru's sword and pointed the weapon down toward the ground, and suddenly his entire body vanished into thin air. The spectators gasped, surprisingly the massive gathering had gone almost completely silent. Even the other gladiators fighting in pairs in the arena were enraptured by this moment. Remus stumbled through the empty air where Kalace once stood, smearing the blood dripping from his broken nose as he pivoted back around with wide, panicked eyes. Kalace now stood behind him, his expression almost crazed with anger.
Ace threw out his arm in a violent gesture, sending Remus back thirty feet into the compacted sand. His body rolled across the ground, his helmet knocking straight from his head, and the back piece of his upper armor breaking off as the latches holding the two pieces together snapped on impact. Remus' bellowing cry of agony carrying through the stands as he clutched his shoulder.
With no one daring to get close to him, Kalace took his sweet time getting to Remus, the sword in his hand turning over once in a casual movement. The hot winds picking up once more, along with the monstrous rumble of a sudden dry thunderstorm from above. Kalace seemed to hesitate, his head tilting upward. He looked over at Alexandru, who was writhing on the ground, paralyzed by whatever spell Kalace and put on him. I imagined he was begging Kalace not to do this, I could feel his distress in not being able to intervene.
Kalace turned back to Remus, making his decision. Remus brought up his uninjured hand and tried to crawl back, but it was no use, as Kalace lunged forward and plunged the sword straight through Remus' throat.
It felt as if the only screams I could hear were Alexandru's and my own, the now terrified crowd blending in with an unimportant backdrop. Kalace removed the sword from Remus' twitching body and plunged it down again, blood splattering his face as the weapon carved into Remus' torso next. Kalace dropped to his knees beside Remus, bending over his body. Guards rushed into the arena at once, nearing closer as Kalace stood a few moments later with something clutched in his fist. He turned toward my side of the arena, his body visibly shaking, but whether it was from fear or adrenaline I did not know.
I felt dizzy as I realized what he was holding, a heart. Remus' blood dropped down Kalace's tan arm, staining the sleeve of his once white toga, just before he brought the heart to his mouth and bit into it.
Kalace's body jerked, two arrows piercing his stomach and his shoulder from archers in the stands. Two guards tackled him to the ground in the arena.
BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
Suddenly the whole colosseum exploded in chaos, and I could hardly keep track of what was happening. Civilians dove off the divider in madness and were quickly detained by guards. People started fighting each other in the stands, a chaotic wave of madness, and I thought I might faint from the overwhelm of it all.
Stepping up onto the divider, I didn't think twice as I jumped down into the arena, seeking Kalace. In the midst of everyone being distracted, Malphas had jumped down from the tall divider wall too and hit the sand. Malphas hurried toward Alexandru, who had now gained the ability to move.
But before Alexandru could charge toward Kalace and the guards dragging aggressively across the ground, his father clutched him around the waist, pulling him back against him. I could see the tension in Malphas's arms as he trried to keep Alexandru imprisoned, and I assumed it was so he wouldn't expose himself to the mortals.
The guards were occupied trying to control other civilians, and through the pandemonium, I could see civilians had gone into whatever area was behind the gates leading into the arena and dragged in a tipped over, broken chariot. Five men took matters into their own hands and attacked the guards that had Kalace in custody, before picking up Kalace's thrashing body and tying him down to the wood. The crowd of civilians around me grew as people gathered to watch.
Kalace's head rolled side to side, his eyes unfocused, foam gushing from his mouth. He bloody fist clenched the base of an arrow wedged into his stomach as he howled in agony.
"Hear my warning!" Kalace shouted in delirium, his face pale and sheen with sweat. "These games of blood have consequence! Darkness has risen, no gods from afar can save you! For I have seen the face of death, and he is a god that walks amongst you now!"
"Release me!" I could hear Alexandru cry to his at father, as Alexandru had somehow achieved to drag his demi-god father closer to Kalace in their grapple for control. They were so standing so close to me, and once more I felt like I'd become invisible. "I can save him, father!"
"Listen to me, my son," Malphas commanded, gripping Alexandru by either sides his skull. "Kalace made his choice. Calm yourself, or you will expose us next."
I turned back to Kalace, my limbs shaking from this unfolding memory. Terror gripped my chest as man in a dark brown cloak stalked from the gates leading into the arena carrying a torch. He climbed on top of the broken chariot and stood over Kalace's restrained body, the curve of his hood concealing his face. Kalace jerked against his restraints, his eyes wide as he gazed up at the hooded man, just before the torch dropped from the man's hand.
Kalace's clothes ignited as though they were doused in gasoline. I staggered backwards, his writhing screams as he burned beyond any nightmare I could fathom. Unbearable, was the laughter from some of the monstrous civilians around me, cruelly layered over Alexandru's cries of anguish for his friend, as Malphas forcefully dragged him backwards.
My mind struggled to comprehend what I was seeing, my heart racing so fast that I became dizzy. I realized in delay I fell to the ground, the sun beating down against me, blistering, as if I had caught on fire, too.
"Faith..."
I picked myself back up, crawled, pressed my palms against the hot stone wall dividing the arena from the real monsters. People with faces I didn't recognize blurred past me like hallucinations, feet stumbling over compacted sand.
I kept reminding myself this was just a memory. Ace was alive, he was alive. But my body didn't seem to believe me. Sweat poured into my eyes, my mind a blank slate of panic.
"Faith..."
I spun around, pushing sweaty hair from my face. I trudged aimlessly toward the center of the arena, not a single person casting a glance in my direction. I caught sight of the dark brown cloaked man, the one who had dropped that torch onto Kalace. As he strode past me, his marked hands lifted to lower his hood, and his head happened to turn in my general direction, unveiling the wicked brown eyes of Ahrimad.
I utterly froze, not letting my guard down, even after he was well in the distance. Ahrimad. He was close to Alexandru, watching him, even before they fought to the death. Black splotches stained over the brilliant light of the sun, like a welcomed threat. The world seemed to spin. I clutched my head, squeezing my eyes to shut out the light.
"You shouldn't be here."
My skin prickled at the strong sound of his voice in my head. When I opened my eyes, Death's corpse stood directly in front of me, the blatant shock of his cadaverous features rendering me speechless.
He stalked forward with malevolence in his eyes. Time seemed to slow as instinct clicked in, my palms lifting to strangely protect myself. But my hands went straight through him, as he walked into me in a rush of sensations, knocking the wind out of me.
I shuffled back from the impact of him, the black oil of his blood saturating my fingers. My eyes rolled back into my head. And I was falling, falling out of time, my head striking the ground.
***
WEWWWWW THIS CHAPTER IS A WHIRLWIND OF EMOTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN NEXT????? Don't forget to vote for this chapter and share with your friends!
Things are about to get crazy though, so hold onto your frosting and sprinkles, cupcakes. (I never thought I would resort to this horribly cheesy line, but here we are. And now I want a cupcake.)
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