Madoc closed his mouth. “Yes. Dominus.” He added the title of respect, though it pained him to do so. The Divine in this city cared little for anyone who didn’t have the Father God’s gifts. Not even Petros bothered to attend the fights he ran in South Gate. The upper class normally didn’t dirty their hands in the Undivine districts.
The trainer pulled his hood over his head. “Good. Then you know where to go.”
The villa on Headless Hill, a plateau in Crixion’s wealthy Glykeria District, so named by those who looked up at it. Everyone knew where Lucius lived and trained his fighters. You could see the stone walls and the glimmer of his turquoise-studded insignia all the way from the quarries.
Though Madoc wanted no part of the risks involved in fighting real gladiators, he couldn’t help the smirk pulling at his lips. Lucius’s top trainer had been at this fight. The man thought he was good enough to see the biggest sponsor in the city, to fight on his god’s behalf in official arena matches against their enemies during wars. At Headless Hill, he’d be given all the food he could eat, and go to parties that went late into the night, with wine and games and girls.
While others like him—pigstock—continued to suffer.
His grin faded.
“Thanks for the offer, but Lucius will have to find someone else.” The words were as dry as dust in Madoc’s throat. The trainer’s mouth twisted with impatience, but before he could berate Madoc for declining this rare opportunity, a shrill whistle filled the night.
Madoc blinked, and the trainer was gone.
Panic raced through his blood. Outside the stairway, more silver and black glinted from the edge of the crowd—centurions flooding the streets to stop the riot. If Madoc waited around much longer, he was going to find himself locked up in a legion cell.
His feet hit the stone, one sandal clapping against the street while the other bare, callused foot absorbed every bump and rock.
From the front of the alley came a shout of surprise, and Madoc lifted his eyes to find a centurion on horseback blocking the path. The crowd before him shifted, turning back the way they’d come. Spinning, Madoc tried to go with them, but soldiers pressed from the other side. The hard, metallic clang of their gladius knives against their shields streaked a warning through him moments before the ground quaked, then lifted to block the nearest escape.
Fear raced down Madoc’s spine. The centurions were using geoeia to corral the crowd.
Cutting sideways, Madoc dived beneath the damaged wheel of a broken cart shoved against the side of a stone building to the right. Tucking his broad frame against the splintering wood of the axle, he watched the other runners disperse, escaping or caught by the legion. Soon, Madoc could hear the clap of hooves against the street. A centurion on horseback was coming closer. Even in the low light, it wasimpossible that Madoc would remain undetected. His right shoulder stuck out from the back of the cart and his legs were too long to tuck beneath him.
The darkness was his only ally.
Keep going, he willed the soldier.Keep going.He knew of people the legion had taken. They never returned. If he was caught, and the centurions learned he had been one of the fighters, what would they do? He knew, better than most, that prisoners were often shoved into training arenas as fodder for real gladiators.
Instead of being sponsored by Lucius, he’d be ground to dust by the fighters Lucius chose.
Keep going.Madoc willed it so hard his vision wavered.
The soldier passed, his black and silver regalia muted by the starlit sky.
A hard exhale raked Madoc’s throat. He waited until the horse and rider were out of earshot and the centurions no longer beat a warning against their shields. Until the street went quiet.
An alley across the road caught his eye, and he slipped out from beneath the cart and sprinted toward it. As he ran, his feet sloshed through puddles of stagnant water and the waste of emptied chamber pots from the apartments above. Keeping to the twisting alleys, he carved a path through South Gate toward the Temple of Geoxus, where he was supposed to meet Elias.
As in the other four Undivine districts, the houses and shops here weren’t soaring visions of marble, gleaming with gold leafing and wrapped in gems. Simple brown brick apartments lined the streets. Beggars slept on corners. Even this late at night, children dug throughrotting garbage for bits of food to calm their twisting bellies.
They had Petros and his impossible taxes to blame. It didn’t matter that being born with the gods’ power was a chance of fate—that geoeia was often, but not necessarily, inherited from one or both parents. When the Divine held the power, the Undivine paid the price.
A chill crawling down his spine, Madoc took the final turn out of South Gate and into Market Square, an area where Divine and Undivine mingled. An open-air temple protecting the giant bronze statue of their Father God towered high above the empty street. In a few hours, vendors would fill the square, selling clay gladiator dolls and silver and black banners alongside food and textiles, but for now it was still, lit only by the beaten copper streetlamps.
Madoc’s remaining sandal caught a raised stone on the street and tore the leather strap. With a curse, he took it off and tucked it into the back of his belt. Now he didn’t even have the coin to replace it.
Maybe he could sweet-talk Cassia into fixing it tomorrow. She would, after she smacked him upside the head with it. She had informed Madoc and Elias on more than one occasion that she did not have the time or patience to coddle giant babies.
With a resigned sigh, he headed for the corner where an olive seller sold his wares during the day. Elias always chose this place to meet because he liked the look of the merchant’s daughter.
“Took you long enough.”
Madoc turned to find the scrawniest stonemason ever to live jogging across the street. As he approached, a grin dimpled his right cheek, half hidden by his shaggy black hair.
Relief broadened the smile on Madoc’s lips, masking the fear thatprickled beneath his breastbone. Now that he was with Elias, Madoc realized just how close they’d been to getting pulled apart.
“I had a few stops on the way back,” Madoc said. “Had to get a drink. Picked up some pickled bull testicles from the South Gate market for Seneca.”
