“’Byss and blood, that’s hot.”

Mia sighed, closing her eyes and sinking further down into the steaming heat. The water closed over her head, sounds of the bathhouse momentarily muted, all the noise of the world falling away.

She hung there in the dark and the warmth, enjoying the sensation on her aching muscles. The last two weeks had been spent training under the blazing suns with Furian and Bladesinger, and the trio were no closer to learning to fight together as a unit. Knowing the silkling would give no quarter, Arkades was showing no mercy in the circle, and Mia ached in muscles she never even knew she had. She was black and blue all over, and growing more frustrated with Furian by the turn.

Holding her breath beneath the water, she floated weightless. She was reminded for a moment of Adonai’s pools, and blood walks from the Quiet Mountain. Thinking of Solis, Drusilla and the others. The role they’d played in her familia’s fall.

What were they doing right now? Helping Scaeva secure his fourth term, no doubt. Rolling in their coin like hogs at trough. But the consul, and thus the Ministry, must be growing impatient at her lack of progress recovering Duomo’s map. How was Mercurio fending them off?

Not for the first time, she realized what a risk her old mentor was taking for her. Thinking of it, she found herself ashamed she’d ever thought Mercurio might betray her. She missed him, truth told. Missed his counsel, his smoker’s growl, even his bastard of a temper. But soon enough, she’d be back in Godsgrave, standing on the sands of the arena. She’d see him then. And after, when the deed was done.

Presuming I don’t get murdered at Whitekeep first . . .

Mia surfaced with burning lungs, shrouded in steam. Blinking the water from her eyes, she was greeted by the sight of Wavewaker walking into the bathhouse. The man was gleaming with sweat from his turn’s training, dusted with dirt and grime from the circle. He was singing a duet called “Mi Uitori” all by himself; the female’s lines in falsetto, the male’s in his traditional baritone. Stripping off his loincloth at a suitably dramatic noooooooooote, he stepped into the bath and Mia gave him an impromptu round of applause.

“Too kind, Mi Dona,” the big man bowed.

“Quite a set of pipes you’ve got on you there.”

“I studied at the feet of the best.”

“Were you really an actor in a theater?” she asked, head tilted.

“Wellll,” the big man said. “I worked in one, on the door. In happier turns. I always wanted to stride the stage, marveling the crowd, but . . .” He shrugged at the walls around them. “’Twas not to be.”

She looked the man over with a critical eye as he reached for the soap. Wavewaker was a daemon on the sand, a little undisciplined perhaps, but strong as a bull. She’d wager those hands of his could encircle her throat easily, crush her skull if he squeezed hard enough, and she could no more imagine him wearing tights and mumming in some pantomime than she could imagine herself sprouting wings.

“Let me guess.” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t strike you as the theater type.”

“Forgive me,” she chuckled. “But not at all.”

“You’re forgiven,” Wavewaker grinned. “My father said much the same. He raised me in the art of steel, you see. Taught me from the time I was a boy how to break men with my bare hands. He intended me to be an honorguard of the Bara, like his father before him. Called me a fool when I told him I wanted to be a thespian. The suffi hadn’t named me ‘Stagestrider,’ after all. But I didn’t fancy the thought of being told what I could or couldn’t be. So I tried anyway. It was my dream. And one best dreamed awake.”

Mia found herself nodding, admiration budding in her chest.

“So I traveled to the City of Bridges and Bones,” Wavewaker continued, with dramatic flair. “Found a troupe who’d take me in. A little theater called the Sanctuary.”

“I know it!” Mia gasped, delighted. “Down near the Nethers!”

“Aye,” Wavewaker smiled broad. “Grand old place. I had no training, so they started me slow. I was only standing the door and cleaning up after shows at first, but it was still magikal to me. Listening to the great old dramas, watching poetry float in the air like gossamer, and scenes come alive before the crowd’s wondering eyes. That’s the power of words: twenty-six little letters can paint a whole universe.” Wavewaker’s voice grew wistful. “They were the happiest turns of my life.”

Mia knew she shouldn’t open her mouth. Shouldn’t let herself know more about the man. But still . . .

“What happened?” she heard herself asking.

Wavewaker sighed.

“Aemillia, one of our actresses. She caught the eye of a some rich man’s son. Paulus, his name. The dona made it clear she was uninterested in his affections, and I was forced to see him off a few times after he’d had too much goldwine, but that wasn’t so unusual. It was a rough part of town. All was going well, really. The troupe was making coin, crowds were growing. I’d studied hard, and was set to play my first role in one of the productions—the Magus King in Marcus and Messalina, do you know it?”

“Aye,” Mia smiled.

“It was the turn of my maiden performance. But it seemed even after Aemillia’s refusals and the drubbings I gave him, little Paulus wasn’t used to taking no for an answer.”

“Rich men’s sons often aren’t,” Mia said.

“Aye. I found the bastard backstage after dress rehearsal, trying to force himself on Aemillia. Her costume torn. Her lip bloodied. You can guess the rest. Father taught me from the time I was a boy how to break men with my bare hands, after all.”

Wavewaker looked down at his sword-callused palms.

“But he was a rich man’s son. It was only the testimony of my fellow players saved me from the gallows. I was sold into bondage instead, the price of my sale paid to Paulus by way of compensation for the broken hands I’d gifted him.”

“Four Daughters,” Mia breathed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, love,” Wavewaker smiled. “I’m not. State I left him in, he’ll never place those hands anywhere without invitation again.”

“But this is the price you pay?” Mia waved to the stone walls, the iron bars.

“A man must accept his fate, little Crow. Or be consumed by it. As gladiatii, our lot is better than most. A chance to win our freedom. Sanguii e Gloria, and all that.”

“But it’s not fair, Wavewaker. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Fair?” The big man scoffed. “What Republic are you living in?”

Shaking his head and smirking as if Mia had said something funny, the big man kept on soaping himself like all was right in the world. Mia reached for another perfumed bar as Bryn and Byern walked into the bathhouse, stripping off their loincloths and kicking their sandals loose. It’d been their turn to train down by the equorium, and Mia could smell the sweat and horse on the pair of them at ten paces.

“Ah, our brave equillai,” Wavewaker smiled. “The twin terrors, unequaled on the track, welcome. The Crow and I were just discussing the theater.”

“Four Daughters, what for?” Bryn scowled, sinking below the water.

“I knew an actress once,” Byern said, his voice wistful.

“What, that sugargirl who’d come through the village in the summers?”

“She wasn’t a sugargirl, sis, she was a thespian.”

“If she tugged you for beggars, she was a sugargirl, darling brother.”

Byern glanced at Mia and Wavewaker. “She’s talking rot now. Smearing my good name to make me look bad. I’ve never paid for it in my life, and the lass in question was as at home on the stage as a fish in water, I assure you.”

“The only acting she did was pretending that she fancied you,” Bryn scoffed.

“Respect your elders, pup!” Byern said, splashing his sister in the face.

The twins engaged in a brief water fight, Mia and Wavewaker backing away across to the other side of the bath so they didn’t get caught in the crossfire. Byern dunked Bryn’s head below the surface and she punched him in the stomach. The pair retreated to opposite corners, Bryn raising the knuckles at her brother and scowling.

“Are you two done?” Wavewaker asked.

“Aye,” Bryn said. “No, wait . . .”

She snatched up a bar of soap and bounced it off her brother’s head.

“Ow!”

“Now I’m done.”

“One turn,” Wavewaker declared, once hostilities had died, “when we’re out of this hole, I’ll take you all to a proper theater. Show you some culture.”

“Daughters know some of us could use it,” Bryn said.

“Keep it up, and I shall see you before the magistrate for slander.” Byern warned, splashing his sister again. Bryn retaliated with a sweeping arc of her hand, a great scythe of water hitting her brother and Wavewaker in the face.

“Sorry,” she smirked.

“O, you will be,” the big man replied, wiping his chin.

Wavewaker curved his massive hand and slung a shot of bathwater right into Bryn’s eyes. Byern stepped in to defend his sister, slapping water back and catching Mia in the crossfire. The girl joined in, and soon all four were going at it, fierce as whitedrakes, splashing and cursing and laughing. Wavewaker slung Mia clear across the bath into Byern’s bare chest, grabbed Bryn in a headlock, and proceeded to dunk her below the surface as she kicked and flai—

“What in the Everseeing’s name goes on here?”

Mia slung her sodden hair from her eyes, looked up to find Magistrae standing at the bathhouse door, hands on hips. She was dressed immaculately as always, long gray braid swept over one shoulder. Her voice bristled with indignity.

“You are gladiatii of the Remus Collegium, and here I find you, caterwauling and fooling like a pack of brats. This is how you honor your domina?”

“Apologies, Magistrae,” Wavewaker said, releasing Bryn’s neck. “A moment’s jest is all. The weather grows hot and the turns long, and—”

“And there are only a handful of those turns left before the Whitekeep venatus, and from there, the magni,” Magistrae snapped. “Do you know what it will cost your domina if you fail? The shame she will endure? Perhaps you think it wise to spend your time jackanaping, but were I you, I would set mind to the games, and what awaits you all if this collegium falls.”

The smile on Mia’s face died, the momentary joy she’d felt evaporating. The gladiatii hung their heads like scolded children. It was true what the magistrae said, and all knew it—if the collegium failed, they’d probably be sold off like cheap meat, and only the Everseeing knew who to. New sanguila perhaps, but more likely to Pandemonium. All their lives hung in the balance.

Maw’s teeth, it had been grand to forget it all for a moment. But Mia clenched her jaw. Hardened her resolve. She was growing soft here. Not physically—under Arkades’s training, she’d grown harder and fitter than she’d ever been in her life. But letting herself grow close to her fellow gladiatii was a mistake. Likeable as they might be, the men and women in the collegium were only pawns on a board. Pawns that would likely be sacrificed before she got to the king.

These people are not your familia, and not your friends, she reminded herself.

All of them are only a means to an end.

“Harder.”

Leona braced her palms against the wall and pushed her knees into the mattress, head thrown back. Furian had hold of her waist, his grip slippery with their sweat, her whole body shuddering with every thrust of his hips. The bedframe shook from the force of it, stone dust drifting off the wall and down to the floor.

“Harder,” Leona groaned again.

Her champion complied, bucking like a stallion. The dona reached back, clawing his skin, urging him deeper as he took a handful of her auburn hair and pulled her back, further onto his burning length. Leona closed her eyes, rocked to her core and quivering, mouth open wide.

“Fuck me,” she breathed.

“Domina . . .”

“O, Daughters, yes.”

“Domina, I can’t . . .”

“Yes, finish it,” she gasped. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

Furian slammed himself home a few more times then dragged himself free, his whole body rigid as he spent himself across her buttocks and back. Leona hung her head, fingernails digging into his skin, biting her lip to stifle her cry. Breathless, she collapsed facedown onto the bed, purring like a cat.

The Unfallen lowered himself down beside her, chest heaving, his body drenched. Though the bed was small, he took care not to touch her—it seemed the dona had little taste for postcoital affections. Leaning his back against the wall, he licked his lips and sighed, heart pounding.

“A fine performance, my champion,” the dona murmured.

“Your whisper, my will,” he replied.

Leona chuckled, rolled over onto her back. Wriggling her hips, she arched her spine and looked up at the man above her.

“Four Daughters, I needed that,” she sighed.

“No less than I,” Furian said. “I’d begun to suspect you’d forgot me.”

Leona cooed, smoothing his long dark hair away from his face, running her fingertips down his rippling abdomen. “Did you miss me, my champion?”

“It has been weeks, Domina.”

“No need to fear, lover,” the dona smiled. “Ever I’ll return.”

“Until you find favor in another?”

“Another?” Leona’s lips twisted. “And who would that be, pray?”

“The Savior of Stormwatch,” he muttered with mock theatricality.

“Ah,” Leona sighed, rolling her eyes. “We arrive at spear’s tip. But I’ve no taste for women, Furian. And even less for jealousy.”

“You fight her on the sands beside me,” he muttered. “As if she were my equal. But she has no honor. She has—”

“She has a victor’s laurel,” Leona said. “She has the favor of the crowd. And she has one-third the key to unlock the gates of the magni for us.”

“I can best your father’s silkling alone, Domina,” Furian growled. “I need help from no one, least of all some conniving slip that my enemy has already defeated.”

Leona sighed. Rising from the bed, she gathered up the sheet and casually wiped his seed off her skin.

“This conversation bores me.”

Furian reached out his hand. “Leona . . .”

“Leona?” The dona glanced up sharply. “You forget yourself, slave.”

“O, slave, aye,” Furian nodded. “Until you’ve a thirst again. And then it’s all ‘lover’ and ‘my champion’ and honeyed words until you’ve had your fill.”

“And you complain so bitterly at the time?”

“I’ve a mind to be more than just your stud.”

“And what more would you be?” Leona asked. “You may stand a champion in the arena, but other laurels, you’ve far from won. I am domina of this house. Think not that simply because I bed you, I hold you in my counsel. Or that when command is given, I do not expect it to be obeyed.”

“When your nightmares wake you from your sleep, do you think I comfort you because I’m commanded to do so? Do you think I hold you because—”

“You overstep, Champion.”

Furian pressed his lips together, anger darkening his brow. But he spoke no more. Looking at him a long, still moment, Leona’s face softened. She sank down onto the bed beside him, pressed her hand to his cheek.

“I care for you,” she murmured. “But I cann—”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Champion?”

Leona’s eyes widened as she recognized the voice.

“Almighty Aa . . . ,” she hissed. “Arkades!”

Furian rose off the bed, his face running pale. “I thought he was in his cups?”

“He was! Passed out in the dining room, dead to the damned world.”

Another knock. “Furian?”

Leona searched the room desperately. The shrine to Tsana. A small chest. Wooden swords and a practice dummy. Nowhere to hide. Finally, the dona of the house dropped to her knees. Crawling under the bed with Furian’s aid, she drew her legs up and hugged them to her chest. Satisfied she was out of sight, the Unfallen tied his loincloth and opened the door.

Arkades stood on the threshold, his face blotched from drink. He was swaying slightly, goldwine thick on his breath as he looked the champion up and down.

“Apologies,” he said. “Were you asleep?”

“Only resting, Executus.”

“Mmf.”

Arkades shouldered past and limped into the room, his iron leg ringing on the stone, click, thud, click, thud. He looked about for somewhere to sit, finally thumping down on the bed. The straw mattress sagged under his weight, Leona smothering her cry as it smacked into the back of her skull and bounced her head off the floor. Cursing under her breath, she hunkered lower, like a disobedient child hiding from her parents.

Arkades sniffed the air, raised an eyebrow, his voice thick from drink.

“Stinks in here.”

“The heat, Executus. Saai crawls closer to the horizon every turn.”

Arkades wrinkled his nose. “I’ll have a word to the magistrae. That soap she’s got you using smells like a woman’s perfume.”

Furian’s eyes widened slightly, and looked to the shadow below the bed. The executus didn’t notice—pulling out his trusty flask and taking a long pull. He offered it to the Unfallen, who declined with a silent shake of his head.

“Mmf, good man,” Arkades said, stowing the drink away. “Makes you soft on the sands.”

“But it makes you forget the blood that stains them, too,” Furian replied softly.

Arkades nodded, almost to himself, a faraway look in his eyes. Staring down at his hands. Up into the Unfallen’s dark stare.

“I like that about you, Furian. You see. You understand. The pain we endure. The red rivers we must wade through.”

“On our way to glory.”

“A heavy weight.”

“I welcome it. If it brings me victory.”

Arkades scoffed softly. “I like that about you, too.”

“Forgive me . . . But do you need something, Executus?”

Arkades sighed and shifted his weight, the sagging mattress pushing Leona into the floor. The dona was breathing soft and thin, chest pressed hard to the stone, panic on her face. If she made a sound, if her executus discovered her there . . .

“I need you to stop working at odds with the Crow,” Arkades replied, slightly slurred from the drink. “I need you to fight beside her, not against her.”

Furian scowled. “That girl is on every tongue this nevernight, it seems.”

A blink. “ . . . What?”

“She is a liar and a cur, Executus. Her glory is undeserved.”

“How can you say so?” Arkades frowned. “Aa’s cock, I hold no more fondness for her than you, but you saw her fight at Stormwatch. Her victory over the retchwyrm—”

“Was steeped in treachery. She is not a victor, she is a thief.”

Arkades sighed, reaching for his flask before he caught himself. He stood, unsteady for a moment, Leona sighing in relief now she could breathe again. Regaining his balance and limping around the room, Arkades motioned to the walls around them.

“What do you see?”

“My domina’s house,” the Unfallen replied.

“Aye. The walls that shelter you, the roof that keeps the suns off your back. Know you what will happen, if we fail to secure berth at the magni?”

“I need no aid besting the silkling, Executus,” Furian growled, bristling. “And I will not fight alongside an honorless dog who steals what should be earned.”

“Because you’d know all about being an honorless dog, neh?”

Furian’s eyes grew wide. “You dare—”

“Spare me your indignity,” Arkades growled, raising one callused hand. “You forget I was the one who found you, brought you here. I alone know where it is you came from, what it is you did to find yourself in chains.”

Furian glanced to his bed. The figure lurking beneath it.

“That was many a turn ago,” he said. “I am that man no longer. I am a god-fearing son of the Everseeing, and a gladiatii who lives to honor his domina.”

“You live to honor yourself,” Arkades replied, shaking his head in exasperation. “To prove yourself better than the man you were. And I see to the heart of that. But say not that you fight for your domina. If you truly thought for one moment of Leona, if you felt one drop of what I feel for h—”

Arkades blinked and caught himself. Swaying on his feet. Glancing up at the champion, Executus cleared his throat, rubbed at bleary eyes.

“You have the skill and the will to see us all the way to the magni, Furian. I did not pluck you from the mire to redeem you from the sins of your past. I did it because I see in you a champion, just as I was. You can win your freedom. Walk among us as a man once more, not the animal you were. But those who stand for nothing die for the same. And if you stand only for yourself, you fall alone.”

“Stand for myself?” Furian repeated, incredulous. “I stand for these walls!”

“Then prove it,” Arkades growled. “Fight with the Crow, not against her. And when the silkling is bested and our berth assured, when you face the Crow in the grand games e mortium, you can prove yourself the man I know you to be.”

Arkades placed one hand on the champion’s shoulder.

“Or fall alone,” he repeated. “And bring this house down with you.”

Executus swayed like a tree in a storm, the grip on Furian’s shoulder more to steady himself than prove a comfort. But though the goldwine hung heavy on his breath, though he could barely stay upright, it seemed he’d aimed true.

Furian clenched his jaw. But finally, he nodded.

“I will stand with her at Whitekeep,” he said. “But in Godsgrave, she dies.”

Arkades nodded, limped toward the door, click, thud, click, thud, turning at the threshold to look Furian over once more.

“Perhaps before? Who can say?”

Executus smiled, closing the door behind him. Furian stood still, listening to the sound of his limping tread fade down the hallway. Sinking to his knees, he offered a hand to Leona, helped her drag herself out from under the bed. Once standing, the dona snatched her hand away from his, dragged her dress over her head to cover herself. Indignity written in every movement.

“So,” she glared. “You’d disobey my command to fight beside the Crow, but Arkades speaks a handful of words and you see the right of it?”

“Domin—”

“You told me you were a trader before this,” she said, fixing the champion in her glittering blue stare. “A merchant.”

“I was,” Furian replied.

“Arkades did not make it sound so. He named you animal. How many sins can a simple merchant accrue, that he fights so fierce to redeem them?”

The Unfallen made no reply.

“What did you do, Furian?” she asked. “What lies have you told me?”

The champion only stared at the trinity of Aa on the wall, refusing to meet her gaze. She stood there long moments, searching his eyes, looking for answers. Finding only silence. And with a disgusted harrumph, she turned, stomped toward the door. Listening for a moment, she tore it open, almost heedless, and strode out into the hallway, slamming it behind her.

The Unfallen slumped his shoulders and softly cursed.

Sitting on the bed, he saw Leona had left her underslip behind. Gathering it up in his hands, he stared at it for long moments, lost in thought. Running his fingers across the silk, the lace. Inhaling her perfume. And finally, he bent down and stuffed it under his mattress, hiding it in the shadows beneath his bed.

The shadows where a not-cat sat and listened.

Trying terribly hard not to roll his not-eyes.

“ . . . sigh . . .”