Page 76 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
"It's one thing knowing I was a gladiator," she continued, her voice getting smaller. "It's another thing entirely to watch me murder someone in cold blood."
The vulnerability in her admission broke something inside me. She'd been protecting me, just as I'd been trying to protect her.We'd both been so afraid of losing each other that we'd lost each other anyway.
"Livia," I said, taking another step closer. "Do you think I care about that? Do you think I care what you've had to do to survive?"
She looked up at me, and I could see the war playing out behind her eyes—love and hurt and anger all tangled together.
"I don't know what to think anymore," she whispered. "I don't know who you are."
That cut deeper than anything else she could have said, because it meant I'd failed completely. In trying to protect what we had, I'd destroyed the very foundation it was built on.
"I'm the same man who held you when you had nightmares," I said desperately. "The same man who taught you to swim, who stayed up late with you talking about how we would set things right in the world. I'm the same man who loves you more than his own life."
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Not at first, but later?” she asked again, her eyes wide as I looked down at her. “When you knew me, knew you could trust me.”
“Because then I loved you, and you told me you loved me. And I was ashamed.”
“Of me?” Her eyes flashed in annoyance, and I fought the urge to smile.
“No, of me. Of who I was. Of who my father was. I was ashamed.”
She looked up at me and shook her head.
“You can’t help who you were born to.”
“I know that,” I said. “But I stood by and watched as he bullied people, had people beaten, imprisoned, even killed. I learned early on that my father held no affection for me, and as long as the bruises could be covered, he never held back, even with his own son.”
I sighed, reaching for her hands. She let me take them, and I pressed them against my heart. “Before the battle, I tried to refuse the promotion. I said I would not be part of this genocide. My father led me down below the palace and showed me the hundreds of Talfen prisoners he already held in pens there. He told me there were many more places like it all over the city. Men, women, children. All crammed into cells barely fit for animals. He told me that if I refused the promotion, if I didn't play my part in his grand spectacle, he'd have them all executed immediately. Not in the arena for show, but right there in the dungeons, forgotten and unmourned. My submission, my acceptance of the promotion was the price I paid for their lives.”
"He would have killed them all." She turned to face me then, and the devastation in her eyes nearly brought me to my knees. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? That your father would have murdered hundreds of innocent people just to punish you for defying him."
I nodded, unable to trust my voice.
"Gods," she breathed. "What kind of monster raises a child to believe that? What kind of father uses mass murder as leverage against his own son?"
I watched her process this and saw the conflict playing out across her features. The revelation didn't excuse what I'd done, but it explained it. It gave context to the impossible position I'd found myself in.
"So you accepted," she said finally.
"I accepted. And I hated myself for it every single day." I brought her hands to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "I told myself I was buying time, that maybe I could find a way to save them. But mostly I was just too much of a coward to watch them die for my principles."
"That's not cowardice," she said fiercely, and some of the ice in her voice had thawed. "That's... that's impossible. No one should have to make that choice."
"Shouldn't they?" I asked bitterly.
I watched the blood drain from her face as the full horror of what I'd just told her sank in. “The prisoners… they’re the ones he plans to kill at the games, aren’t they?”
I nodded. “When I didn’t return from battle, he must have assumed I was dead. I thought he would keep his word, but with me seemingly out of the way, he just doesn’t care.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "Children, women, elderly—it doesn't matter to him. They're all just props for his grand spectacle. But if this plan works, we can stop him, Livia. We can save them all and stop this war."
"You're the son of the man who destroyed everything I ever loved."
"I know," I said, and the words felt like glass in my throat. "And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make amends for that. Starting with helping you end his reign of terror."
She took a deep breath, then reached up and touched my cheek, her fingers tracing the red mark she'd left there. "I'm sorry I screamed at you."
"I deserved it.”
One corner of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Yes, you did.”
