Page 90 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
"I don't know," Taveth admitted, his voice distorted by whatever forces were tearing at his sanity. "The Veyr-sha isn't meant to work on this scale. It might take minutes, or hours, or—"
"Or it might kill you," Tarshi finished quietly.
Taveth's laugh was like breaking glass. "Brother, I've been dying since we found that cursed crystal. At least this way, my death might mean something."
"We'll protect you," Jalend promised. "Whatever you need."
Marcus was already studying the layout with a soldier's eye for tactical problems. "There's an issue," he said, pointing toward the heavily guarded gates that led to the arena floor. "Those passages are kill zones. Even if we cleared the guards here, we'd never reach the prisoners without fighting through a hundred more men. And they could just seal the gates and trap us."
I nodded grimly, seeing the same problems he did. "Overlapping fields of fire, multiple choke points. They've turned every approach into a death trap."
"Then what do you suggest?" Jalend demanded. "We can't abandon those people."
"I'm not suggesting we abandon anyone," Marcus replied. "I'm saying a frontal assault plays to their strengths."
The familiar weight of despair began to settle over our group. We'd come so far, risked everything, only to find ourselves checkmated by simple mathematics. The prisoners were close enough to touch, but they might as well have been on the other side of the world.
That’s when Livia stepped away from us.
She crossed to the racks that lined the wall, her fingers trailing over battered helms, dented shields, blades still stained from old blood. She touched them like she was greeting ghosts. And then she picked up a helm, its crest cracked, its edge scored by a hundred blows.
I knew what she was thinking before she spoke.
“There’s no way through,” Marcus muttered, frustration heavy in his voice. “We’ll be cut down before we reach the cages.”
Livia turned, the helm in her hands, and smiled. Not the smile of a child begging for hope. The smile of a woman who had decided her own fate.
“Then we don’t fight our way in,” she said. She set the helm on her head, the metal catching torchlight like a crown. “We walkin the way we should—” Her voice rang against the stone, steady and fierce. “As gladiators.”
The words hit me like a blade to the chest. Because I remembered. I remembered her first steps into an arena, small and trembling, Tarus’s blood still drying on her hands. I remembered her eyes, too wide, her arms too thin to lift the blade. I had sworn to protect her. And yet here she was, standing tall in bloodstained armour, leading us into the fire by her own choice.
Marcus barked a laugh, raw and wild. “Gods, of course. Walk straight through the front door.”
"They're expecting resistance," Livia continued, her voice steady and sure. "They're not expecting volunteers. Gladiators enter that arena every day—we'll just be seven more."
"Until we reach the centre," Jalend said, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Until the crowds can see and hear us. Then we reveal the truth."
"And Taveth gets his time to work the ritual," Tarshi added.
I found myself reaching for armour of my own, my hands moving without conscious direction. The familiar weight of it brought back a thousand memories—not all of them terrible. I'd found brotherhood in this place, forged bonds that had kept us alive when the world seemed determined to destroy us.
But more than that, I'd watched a broken child grow into the woman who might just save the world.
One by one, we reached for the armour. I strapped on a scarred breastplate, its weight dragging me backward and forward in time at once—chains rattling, sand swallowing blood, the roar of thousands demanding death. But this time was different. This time the weight didn’t break me. It steadied me.
I looked at Livia again. She adjusted her sword strap, helm shadowing her face, and for the first time I saw not the child I’dtried to protect, not the comrade I’d bled beside, but the leader who might bring an empire to its knees.
Then I understood. We weren’t just going back into the arena. We were reclaiming it.
“We fought once because we had no choice,” I said quietly, fastening the last strap. My voice carried in the silence, picked up by the others. “Now we fight because we choose to.”
Livia lifted her chin, and for a moment, in the dim torchlight, I could almost believe she was crowned already—not in gold, but in iron, blood, and fire.
I would have followed her anywhere. Into the sand. Into the fire. Into the jaws of death itself.
We were gladiators again. But this time, the Empire would not be entertained.
This time, the Empire would burn.
