Page 17 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
His face went white. "That's not... I didn't..."
"Didn't what? Didn't fuck her last night?" I laughed, the sound sharp and ugly. "I saw her go into your room, Jalend."
"Nothing happened." The words came out strangled. "I sent her away. I was drunk and angry and hurting, but I sent her away because..." He stopped, his jaw working as if the words were fighting him.
"Because what?"
"Because even when I'm furious with you, even when I hate what you've done to me, I still..." He turned away, running his hands through his hair. "God, I'm pathetic."
The admission hung in the air between us, raw and vulnerable. I wanted to reach for him then, wanted to tell him that I understood, that I'd been drowning in the same impossible feelings. Instead, I forced myself to stay where I was.
"You want the truth?" I said again. "My name isn't Livia Cantius. It's Livia Aurelius, and I'm not a noble. I'm not even technically free."
He turned back to face me, his expression shifting from anger to confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"I was sold into slavery when I was a child." The words came out flat, emotionless. I'd learned long ago that the only way to tell this story was to drain all feeling from it. "Along with Septimus. We were taken to a ludus—a gladiator school—in the outer provinces."
I watched his face change as the implications hit him. The horror, the disbelief, the dawning understanding of what those words meant.
"You're lying," he whispered.
"Am I? Look at me, Jalend. Really look." I held out my arms, showing him the scars that crisscrossed my skin. "These aren't from dragon training accidents. They're from years of learning to kill or be killed for other people's entertainment. I was a gladiator."
His anger vanished, snuffed out like a candle flame, leaving a profound, stunned silence in its place. The word hung between us, ugly and sharp. Gladiator. It was a world away from the polished floors and polite cruelties of the Academy. It was the world of blood and sand, of death as sport. The world his kind ruled over.
His gaze dropped from my face to my arms, tracing the silvery network of scars he had kissed and caressed, but was only now truly seeing. He took an involuntary step back, his expression one of dawning horror. I saw the moment the pieces clicked into place in his mind. Septimus and Tarshi—they weren’t just my lovers. They were my fellow slaves. My family. The men I had fought alongside, bled with, survived with.
“All this time,” he whispered, the words ragged. “Everything… your fighting, the way you…” He couldn’t finish, his mind clearly reeling as it re-contextualized every moment we had shared.
“Yes,” I said, the single word a confirmation of his worst fears. “This is who I am, Jalend. Not the lady you were slumming with. A killer. A slave. The monster you saw in the yard today? That’s what they made me. That’s what it takes to survive.”
He stared at the evidence written on my body, his face growing paler. "No. No, that's impossible. You're a dragon rider. You're at the Academy. You can't be..."
"A slave?" I finished. "But I am. Legally, I still belong to the man who bought me for his ludus. Marcus, Antonius, Septimus, Tarshi—we all do."
"The men you..." His voice broke. "The men you've been with."
“They were my family,” I said. “The only family I had. In the ludus, you find people to watch your back, or you don't last a season. We kept each other alive, trained together, fought together. And when the Talfens attacked our town last year, we escaped together."
I moved to his window, staring out at the Academy grounds where I'd spent the past months pretending to be someone I wasn't. "I'd always dreamed of being a dragon rider when I was a child. Even in the ludus, even when hope seemed impossible, I held onto that dream. When I found Sirrax in the pens—when he bonded with me—it felt like fate."
"Sirrax. Your dragon."
"Was supposed to be killed in the arena." I turned back to face him. "Our owner bought him to provide entertainment—watching gladiators fight a dragon to the death. But when I saw him, I couldn’t pull myself away. There was a… connection. He learned to trust me."
Jalend sank into a chair as if his legs could no longer support him. "So you escaped. And then what?"
"We came here. To the capital. The men helped me create the identity of Lady Livia Cantius—a minor noble from a distant province, recently orphaned, with just enough holdings to qualify for the Academy trials." I laughed bitterly. "It took most of our stolen gold to buy the forged documents, but it worked."
"Why?" The question came out barely audible. "Why risk it? Why not just... disappear? Start over somewhere safe?"
"Because there is nowhere safe. Not for people like us." I moved closer, needing him to understand. "Do you know what happens to escaped slaves when they're caught? They're crucified. Slowly. As an example to others."
He flinched as if I'd struck him.
"And Tarshi..." I continued, my voice softening despite myself. "Tarshi wanted more than just survival. He got involved with the resistance movement. People who believe that maybe, someday, we could live in a world where loving someone with pointed ears doesn't make you a criminal. Where having children doesn't mean watching them sold into slavery."
"The resistance." His voice was hollow. "You're part of the group that bombed the festival."
