"No," I said sharply. "You're not an animal."
"Am. Can feel it... inside. Clawing. Trying to get out." His breathing quickened. "Have to keep it locked away. Beaten down. Can't let the demon loose again."
"Tarshi, look at me." I moved where he could see my face. "You're not a demon. You're a person. What they've done to you - this is the real evil."
His eyes focused on mine, just for a moment before glazing over again. "They're right. Nothing but a beast. Worth less than adog." His voice cracked. "Try so hard to be... more. To be human. But the demon always wins."
"No," I whispered fiercely. "The real demons are the ones who did this to you. Who torture a man and call it justice."
He coughed, body shaking. "Not a man. Never... never let me be..." His words slurred as consciousness slipped away from him.
I finished cleaning and bandaging his back, covering the wounds with clean cloth to protect them. My hands worked mechanically while my mind raced. I thought about my parents, about what Septimus had told me - that they were traitors who conspired with the Talfen. But looking at Tarshi now, I wondered if they'd seen what I was seeing. Not monsters or demons, but people. People the empire had decided were less than human to justify their cruelty.
Had my parents tried to stop this? Had they died because they couldn't stomach the empire's brutality?
"I'm going to get out of here," I whispered to Tarshi's unconscious form. "I'm going to find out the truth about my family, about what they died for. And I swear by all the gods, I'm going to come back for you. We're both going to be free of this place."
His only response was the shallow rise and fall of his chest. I touched his forehead gently - still burning with fever. If he survived the night, if the infection didn't take him, there was a chance. I had to believe that.
I gathered my supplies, knowing I needed to leave before someone came to check the pens. But at the entrance, I paused, looking back at his broken form in the straw. All my life, I'd been taught the Talfen were savages, demons in human form who destroyed everything they touched. The empire's propaganda painted them as monsters who revelled in deathand destruction, who needed to be eliminated for civilization to survive.
But I'd watched Tarshi these past weeks. I'd seen his quiet dignity, the careful way he held himself to appear less threatening. The patience he showed helping younger gladiators with their forms. The way he endured the taunts and abuse without retaliation - until something had finally broken inside him.
Who were the real savages? The ones who fought to preserve their way of life, or those who tortured a man nearly to death and left him to rot in his own filth?
My parents' supposed betrayal haunted my nights. I could reconcile the knowledge with my memory of the good people they’d been. Maybe Septimus was mistaken, or maybe they had seen through the empire's lies. Maybe they had died trying to stop this endless cycle of hatred and violence.
"You're not alone," I promised the darkness. "Not anymore."
The arena roared in the distance as I slipped away, the sound of humanity celebrating pain and death. But in my heart, something had shifted. I'd always thought my path to freedom lay through the games, through proving myself in the arena. Now I wondered if there might be another way - one that didn't require becoming what the empire wanted me to be.
I would return tomorrow night with more supplies, more herbs. And while I helped him heal, maybe I could learn to see the world as my parents might have seen it - not through the Empire's lens of superiority and hatred, but through eyes that recognized humanity in all its forms.
The Emperor had taken everything from me - my family, my freedom, my future. But he hadn't taken my ability to choose who I would become. And I chose not to be what they wanted: another weapon in their arsenal of hate.
As I made my way back to my quarters, I thought about the festival games, about the "special spectacle" they were planning. How many more would suffer like Tarshi had suffered? How many would die to feed the Empire's need to prove its dominance?
My parents had died as traitors, but perhaps they had died for something worth betraying - a chance at a world where people weren't classified as human or animal based on their blood. Where peace meant more than just the silence of the conquered.
I didn't know if that world was possible. But as I listened to the distant roars of the crowd celebrating violence, I knew I couldn't continue to be part of this one. Somehow, I would find a way out - for both of us.
19
The damp chill of the underground cage seeped into my bones as I lay on my stomach, trying not to move. Every breath sent fire across my back where the whip had carved its fury. The infection burned worse than the original flogging, and I knew without treatment I wouldn't survive to fight in the arena again. Perhaps that had been the point.
Soft footsteps approached - too light for a guard. I tensed, then relaxed as Livia's familiar scent drifted over me. A familiar scent of leather from the arena, the medicinal herbs she brought to treat my wounds, and her own sweet spicy scent that had mybody responding in undesirable ways. I swallowed and tried to ignore it as she quietly turned the key in the door of my cage.
I blinked as the light of the candle filled my cage, and looked up to see her illuminated in the doorway. I loved these nights she snuck down to see me. In the arena, she was incredible - all leather, steel and blood, her brown eyes flashing with determination and rage, but these stolen nights had shown me another side of her. A softer side. Now she wore only a thin shift that clung to her body, the laces parting down the front, dipping between her breasts in a tantalising way that had me craving her in my dreams when she'd gone. Her long dark hair hung in a messy braid over one shoulder, and her feet were bare on the straw. She smiled at me as she entered, and I sat up, wincing at the pain as my skin pulled across my back.
"How are you feeling tonight?" Livia said in a low voice, as she moved around to inspect my back with the candlelight.
"Fine," I muttered.
I felt the smack of the linens she carried on the top of my head, and rolled my eyes.
"Better, but the skin's feeling tight, and it itches like Inferi."
"That's good. Itching and tightness usually mean it's getting better. It doesn't look as inflamed," she observed. "But then it's hard to tell without daylight. Maybe tomorrow you could-"
