Page 41 of Rise of a Fallen Man

There hadn’t been time to paint a proper official portrait of the bride and groom. Instead, the artist appeared to have joined the two existing individual pictures simply by linking their hands.

Dressed in her formal attire, the princess wore the same dignified expression she had in all her official portraits. The prince was staring straight ahead, with his arm bent and his bride’s hand resting on it.

I tried to steer my feelings away from the matter. There was nothing I could do and nothing I could change. I just wished I could feel nothing too.

On the outer edge of the city center, I paid for the ride and said goodbye to the teacher and her family, then found the address that Regit had given me.

The door to the warlock’s place was at the end of a deep stairwell of an old decrepit building that housed a storage facility for broken carriages and horse tack. It felt like I was descending into the depths of the afterlife when climbing down the narrow, crumbling stairs.

No answer came when I knocked. I slammed my fist into the door harder, refusing to leave without the tea and ointment that Regit needed.

“What do you want?” finally came in a rasping voice from behind the door.

“I heard you perform certain body modification surgeries,” I said carefully.

Warlocks might not be well skilled in magic, but their ignorance often made them even more dangerous, like a child with a sword they didn’t know how to use. It didn’t hurt to be polite, at least until I had a good reason not to be.

The small window in the door opened, and a wrinkly face appeared in the rusty frame.

“Maybe I do,” the old man said, squinting at me.

“I came from a client of yours. You haven’t finished your job.”

A quick wave of reflection momentarily obscured his features. He attempted to close the window, but I shoved my hand against the shutter.

“All I want is for you to honor the agreement you made with my friend.”

He darted a frightened glance at my hand, pausing it on my ring. “You’re from the arena.”

“Yes. You operated on a gladiator—”

He brought a finger to his lips, cutting me off. After peeking over my shoulder at the staircase behind me, he stepped back from the window. Next, I heard the lock on the door clink open. It took several more clicks and clanks, as there must have been several locks and chains, before the door finally opened.

A stale, musty smell drifted from the dark space inside.

“Come in,” the warlock ushered me through the door, then promptly closed it behind me. “No need to chat about my business out loud, where everyone can hear,” he muttered grumpily.

“I wouldn’t be here at all if you conducted your business properly,” I said, taking a look around the dwelling.

Despite the warm summer day, it was cold inside with a hint of moldy moisture in the air, but the metal stove in the only room remained unlit. The tiny, cramped place with a packed dirt floor and low ceiling was illuminated by a single candle on a rickety table next to an open book and a collection of glass vials.

The old man drew a tattered blanket tighter around his hunched shoulders. “I do my work well. The surgery was a success. Your friend will please all his women once he heals.”

“How can you be so sure about his healing when you abandoned him with no means to manage the pain or to bring down the swelling after your spells?”

He shuffled over to a chipped wooden cabinet and opened one of its many drawers.

“I didn’t abandon him. I made it all the way to the gladiators’ quarters last night. They never let me in and refused to pass to my patient the ointments I brought for him.” He took out a paper wrapped bundle from the drawer and glared at me from under his bushy gray eyebrows. “But you don’t believe me, do you? Of course, what would a handsome gladiator like you know about the way warlocks are treated?”

I’d only had to deal with one other warlock before, and that was a quick and painful encounter I didn’t care to remember. But I was no stranger to being treated like dirt.

“I know more than you think.” I stretched my hand out for the parcel he was holding. With my other hand, I reached into the leather purse on my belt. Another significant difference between a slave and a gladiator was that I got paid regularly now. “Here.” I offered a coin to the warlock. “For your trouble.”

He shoved the parcel into my hand but shook his head, refusing the coin.

“It all has already been paid for. I just couldn’t deliver it.”

“It’s not a payment, then.” I placed the coin on the table, next to his short candle. “Get yourself some wood for that stove and a few more candles.”

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