Agron's spirits were high. The rain had stopped and his hunt had been good; he and the group had managed to kill three boars on this single trip, and that would feed them for a while, if they were careful. And they would need to be. The wilderness could only provide so much, and with their numbers growing, the rebellion would demand more and more from it. But Agron wouldn't trouble himself with that now. The day was at its peak and Nasir must have been back from his trip to Neapolis.

How happy the Syrian had been to finally be able to do something. Agron knew how difficult Nasir had found being cooped up within stone walls for so long. But as glad as the gladiator was for the other man's new freedom, he was also eager to have him at his side again. Having Nasir too long away from him was a torture he never wanted to endure. He might have gone with to Neapolis but had thought it better to remain and allow Nasir to prove himself without him. The Syrian had protested, but had gone with Otho at Agron's insistence. Agron would give him a welcome home well worth it, though.

The group of hunters filed into the courtyard, hauling their bounty along. Agron was too busy searching for Nasir in the crowd to notice the distinct lack of celebration that usually accompanied the arrival of fresh, just-killed meat. There were no cheers, no smiles or laughs or pats on the back. There were only eyes on them, on him - but he was blind to it all. The only thing he did notice was the red hair of the slave that had gone along with Nasir, Caelia, and that meant Nasir was back, just as he'd predicted. The dark, sad expression on her face had been overlooked.

"Agron!" The gladiator turned and saw Spartacus cutting through the crowd toward him. Agron met him halfway and grinned, clasping the man's forearm in greeting. Spartacus's grip on him was tight.

"The beasts practically skewered themselves on our fucking spears," he said, lifting his free hand to clap Spartacus's shoulder. He laughed and started to pull away, but the other man held fast onto his arm, keeping him there. Agron's gaze dropped to where the two were joined, brows furrowed, and then glanced back up at Spartacus's face. Only then did he realize there was a grave look upon it.

"Brother," Spartacus said in a low voice. Agron glanced at the few other people that stood nearby. Oenomaus, who stared at him with sympathetic eyes. Crixus, whose gaze didn't meet his own. Donar, whose lips were pressed together and set in a grim line and whose body was tense, poised. For what, Agron didn't know. But something wasn't right.

Something wasn't right. "Where is Nasir?" his mouth asked, though where the question had come from, he didn't know. His mind certainly hadn't thought to ask it. Perhaps some part of him sensed the Syrian's absence. Was he within the sanctuary? Hidden from Agron within the temple's many corridors? Agron turned to look, expecting to see Nasir hastening down the stairs, a slow smile stretching lips ready to kiss him.

But he saw no such thing. "Brother," Spartacus repeated, drawing Agron's gaze back to him. "Nasir has been taken."

The gladiator let out a sound somewhere between a laugh at a scoff. A noise of disbelief, or perhaps he just didn't understand. "Taken?" A hint of a grin yet remained at the corners of Agron's mouth, as if he hadn't really heard. As if his brain could not process the information being given.

"While he was in Neapolis. A group of men killed Otho and captured Nasir." The news was given to him gently and in few words but still Agron's mind denied it. Resisted it. Another laugh escaped him in a breath and he looked around again, met gaze after gaze after gaze to maybe find the truth in one of them but soon he realized the truth had already been given to him. Soon Spartacus's words were filling his head, repeating over and over - Nasir has been taken.

The grin slid from Agron's face. His blue eyes were wide and staring, turned to Spartacus but unfocused. Agron could see nothing. He could hear nothing but his own heartbeat pumping faster in his ears. For a moment it seemed as though he'd forgotten how to do anything but stand and breathe, but then he shifted. The movement was small. His head shaking from side to side. And following that, the rest of him reanimated. "No," his voice said, though it sounded far away. "No." His gaze dropped, brow collapsing. "No," he said again. Agron's fingers loosened their grip on Spartacus's arm and the other gladiator was forced to let go as Agron slowly lowered himself to his knees upon the sand. At first, his face only revealed the smallest flash of the agony that had started to crawl through his body like a poison.

The gladiator was so practiced at hiding his pain - the pain he'd felt after his brother's death - that this new torment had to claw its way through the walls he'd built. And when finally it broke through, it twisted Agron's expression into something unrecognizable. A mask of misery that had never been seen there before save the moment Duro had died in his arms. Agron lifted both of his hands and threaded his fingers through his hair, his body rocking forward and back, forward and back. His nails dug in, biting into his scalp, as if that physical pain would somehow overcome all the rest. But it didn't. So he tried harder.

He drew his hand back and brought the heel of it down hard on his forehead once. Twice. He was outside of himself, beside himself, a man possessed. He cared nothing of the crowd that stood silent audience, witnessing this break within him. He cared nothing for anything, not the ache beginning in his head or the rebellion that was now at a standstill. The only thing he could think about was Nasir and what he could have been enduring at that very moment. If he was even still alive. A thing Agron knew was unlikely.

Tears sprang to his eyes. He looked up at the sky with an accusing gaze, as if blaming the heavens for what had happened, but when he brought those eyes back down, they passed over something that reminded him where the blame truly belonged. Slowly, the gladiator turned to the side and found the flash of coppery red. Pretty hair on a pretty head. He would wring her throat.

Agron was off the ground in no more than a second and lunging toward her, hands outstretched. This was what Donar had been waiting for: the moment Agron's pain gave way to fury. The other gladiator grabbed him from behind, wrapped his arms around Agron's chest and held him, stopping him a few paces away from Caelia.

"Fucking bitch!" Agron screamed. He struggled against Donar's grip, feet sinking into the sand beneath him and dragging as he tried to move forward. "You left him to die!" Why should she be back within the sanctuary, not a scratch upon her? Why should it have been Nasir abandoned in Neapolis? He wanted it to be her. He wanted her to suffer it, all of it. He didn't care that she was crying and cowering in front of him.

"He told us to leave!" she said desperately. "He told us to but I went back and I-I saw where they took him!"

Agron only half heard her. His teeth were bared and still he reached for her. So intent he was on getting his hands on her that Oenomaus came forward to assist Donar in holding him back. From that iron grip, Agron would never escape, so Caelia was safe, though not from the gladiator's words. "Whatever harm comes to him," he promised in a low, threatening voice, "will come to you tenfold." A terrified whimper escaped the slave girl and that was when Spartacus stepped in.

"Take him inside," the Thracian said. Agron was dragged backwards through the sand and up the stairs, his eyes never leaving Caelia's face, not until a corner was turned and she was hidden from him. He was soon released from the arms that held him, thrown bodily into one of the rooms within the temple. He rushed Oenomaus and Donar, tried to get past them, but they blocked the doorway. Spartacus came through it soon after, though, and with only a look told them both to leave. Whatever part of Agron was still present, however small that part was, wouldn't try to get past Spartacus. At least not yet. They were left alone.

The gladiator paced across the stone floor, hands sliding through his hair, rubbing his face, curling into fists at his sides. He couldn't keep still. If he was still, his grief would hit him again, curl his body and bring him to his knees once more.

Spartacus's voice sounded. "Apolog—"

"He fucking apologizes," Agron interrupted with a mad sort of laugh. He turned and struck out at the nearest thing - a clay jug filled with water that was thrown across the room, hitting the far wall and exploding into hundreds of little pieces. The crash had somehow been satisfying. it had distracted Agron from what was tearing him to shreds inside. He picked up a chair and struck it against the wall again and again and again until it splintered in his hands. This was the aggression he would have turned on Caelia, had Donar not held him back.

Agron whirled around, setting his wild eyes on Spartacus. "She saw where they took him," he said, tone dangerous. "Tell me."

"You must come back from this madness before—" Spartacus started, but he was cut off again, this time by Agron's forearm pressed against his throat. The German had the other gladiator pinned against the wall in half a second, so quickly that the former champion could do nothing to stop it.

They had been in this very position before, and Nasir had been the concern then, too. "Do not fucking dare to tell me," Agron said through clenched teeth, "what I must do." There was only one thing he could do. He would go to Neapolis, find the place Nasir was being held, and cut through all that stood in his way. And if Nasir was dead, he would make the last moments of all those men's lives the most agonizing they'd ever known.

The very thought of Nasir being dead made that expression of agony break through the rage on Agron's face, but only for a second. It was hidden again soon after. "The Romans have taken everything from me," Agron whispered, and his words shook with anger. "They took my brother and now they have taken Nasir. I will feel their blood on my hands before long." Agron stepped back, withdrew his arm from against Spartacus's throat. "Tell me where he is," the German demanded.

"I will, brother," Spartacus promised. He stepped forward, hands outstretched either to keep Agron at bay or in the hopes that it would somehow calm him. "And we will find him. But we cannot go through the streets of Neapolis killing all that cross our path!"

Agron turned from him and closed his eyes. Spartacus was right. Agron knew this. He knew he couldn't risk getting all of them caught with a rampage through the narrow roads of the city. But he was intent on a bloodbath. He would have that. If the innocent did not come between him and Nasir, they would be spared. But anyone, friend, foe, or stranger, that tried to stop him would be sent to the afterlife, and he would help them there with a fucking smile on his face and vengeance in his heart.

"I leave now," Agron said, turning back around. This time Spartacus would not block him from going. "I will not have him suffer any longer at the fucking hands of those who hold him. Let me pass."

And so Spartacus did, but not before stopping Agron, hand once again clasping the gladiator's forearm. "I am with you," the Thracian said, looking into Agron's eye.

Agron cared nothing in that moment for company or loyalty. He would have taken on an entire faction of the Roman army by himself to hold Nasir in his arms again, dead or alive. But he nodded anyway, only once, and then moved to retrieve his weapon. Every step he took toward Neapolis would harden his sadness into rage, and every Roman that dared oppose him would be victim to it.

And there was no rain to wash away the blood now.