Page 4 of City of Secrets and Shadows
I could leave him here. It would be easy – justified, even. He had tried to kill me. Would try again if given the chance. Without him, there would be no one to poison Livia against me with whispers of my ‘savage blood.’ No one to watch me with suspicious eyes, waiting for me to reveal my ‘true nature.’
Just Livia and me, and our dragon. Free to seek whatever future awaited us beyond the desert.
I looked down at his unconscious form, studying the face that had sneered at me so many times across the ludus dining hall. Even in unconsciousness, there was strength in the hard line of his jaw, the scar that bisected one eyebrow – marks of a fighter, a survivor. The same qualities that had drawn Livia to him, despite his flaws.
A memory surfaced: Livia’s face softening when she spoke of him, the quiet affection in her voice despite their arguments.How she’d challenged him, pushed him to be better than his prejudices. How devastated she would be if I returned without him, if she knew I had left him to die.
“Damn you,” I muttered, knowing I couldn’t do it – couldn’t hurt her that way, even if it meant keeping my greatest enemy at my side.
Even like this, helpless and hated, there was something compelling about the man. The same fire that burned in Livia burned in him too – different, colder perhaps, but just as intense. An unrelenting will to survive, to fight, to protect what was his. In another life, we might have been brothers-in-arms instead of rivals.
With a resigned sigh, I gathered our scattered supplies, slinging both packs over one shoulder, then I hoisted Septimus’s limp body over the other, surprised at how light he seemed despite his muscled frame. All that lethal speed and skill, temporarily silenced by my hand.
Protecting him felt wrong, like nurturing a viper. But for Livia, I would swallow worse poisons than this man’s hatred.
The gate loomed ahead, its charred frame a dark outline against the star-filled sky beyond. I paused in its shadow, shifting Septimus’s weight and looking back at the burning town that had been our prison for so long. The arena was nothing but a smouldering skeleton now, its sand forever stained with the blood of those who had died for entertainment.
The desert stretched before me, silent and endless under the cold light of the moon. Somewhere out there, Livia waited with our dragon, her eyes fixed on the horizon, watching for our return.
I adjusted my grip on the man who would gladly see me dead and started walking toward the only thing we both agreed was worth saving.
2
The dragon’s scales were warm beneath my palm, like sun-heated stones at the height of summer. I traced the ridges along its neck, marvelling at how something so powerful could feel so alive under my touch. Its massive head turned slightly toward me, intelligent eyes reflecting the distant fires of the town we’d escaped.
“They’ll be back soon,” I murmured, though I wasn’t sure if I was reassuring the dragon or myself.
The night stretched around us, vast and silent save for the occasional cry carried on the wind from the burning town. I paced the small clearing where we’d landed, my boots crunching on the coarse desert sand. The wind had begun to pick up, whistling through the sparse, twisted scrub that somehow managed to survive in this harsh landscape. In the far distance, dark clouds were gathering on the horizon, obscuring the stars.
I kept my eyes fixed on the eastern path where Tarshi and Septimus had disappeared. They should have returned by now. The knowledge gnawed at me, sharp like hunger.
I’d never been good at waiting. In the arena, waiting meant death – hesitation was a luxury no gladiator could afford. Yet here I stood, useless, while the two men I — while they risked their lives for supplies we all needed.
“This isn’t right,” I told the dragon, who watched me with unnerving focus. “I should be with them.”
The creature made a low rumbling sound deep in its throat that wasn’t quite agreement but wasn’t disagreement either.
I knew what Marcus would say if he were here. “Patience was never your virtue, Livia.” Gods, I could almost hear his voice, that infuriating blend of amusement and condescension that made me want to kiss him and kill him in equal measure.
But Marcus wasn’t here and I couldn’t understand why. Why hadn’t he taken the chance himself? The question burned like acid in my chest, mixing with grief and rage until I could barely breathe through it. He could have come with us. Should have come with us. Instead, he’d chosen to remain in his gilded cage, too afraid to run, too invested in the false promise that Drusus might one day grant him freedom through loyal service.
Drusus. Even thinking his name made my skin crawl with remembered violation. The ‘noble’ citizen who bought and sold human lives as casually as horses. Who had forced Marcus to watch, chains holding him immobile, while he took what he wanted from me. Who had broken something fundamental in both of us that night, turning our love into something shadowed by shared shame and helpless rage.
And still, Marcus had stayed. Chosen the devil he knew over the uncertain promise of freedom.
“How could you?” I whispered to the storm, tears mixing with rain on my face. “After everything he did to us. After everything we survived together.”
The dragon shifted behind me, sensing my distress, but I waved it away. This grief was mine alone to bear. Perhaps itwas fear that held Marcus back – not of death or capture, but of a world he no longer remembered how to navigate. Twenty years in the ludus had worn away whatever life he’d known before. Or perhaps it was something darker, more insidious – the slow poison of slavery that convinces the caged they deserve no better, that the walls that imprison them also protect them.
I had loved Marcus with a desperate, clinging love born of shared suffering. Had trusted his promises, his tender touches, his whispered plans for our future beyond the arena. Had allowed myself to believe that there was still some bond in this world that slavery couldn’t corrupt.
But he had chosen Drusus over me in the end. Chosen the familiar chains over the terrifying freedom we’d dreamed of together. And that betrayal cut deeper than any blade I’d ever faced in the arena.
“I would have carried you if I had to,” I told the empty air, my voice breaking. “I would have died trying to save you.”
Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the desolate landscape, and in that moment of clarity, I made a silent vow. I would not surrender to fear, would not forget what freedom meant. And when I returned to the Imperial City I would remember what Marcus had forgotten: that some chains are forged in the mind, stronger than any iron or steel, and perhaps his had bound him too completely for even love to break. But it would be so much harder without him. Without my Marcus. Tears fell finally, and I leaned back against my dragon friend, drawing comfort from its solidity.
In the quiet darkness, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to imagine possibilities beyond survival – revenge for my village, justice for those I’d lost. The face of the Imperial commander who had ordered the slaughter rose unbidden in my memory – a face I would never forget, a debt that would be paid in blood.
