Kristoff picked his head up and rubbed a calloused hand over his eyes, a bit stiff and groggy but surprisingly well-rested. He saw that he still held Anna's slender hand, and that she still hadn't moved. He looked up and saw Sven enter the room with an armful of implements. "How long was I asleep?"
"Not long enough," Sven muttered.
"Sven…"
"Alright, fine. A day."
"A day? A whole day?! How is that even possible?"
"I have no idea," Sven whistled innocently, tucking a small glass vial back into his toga.
Kristoff gave him a hard look, but let it pass. He looked back down at Anna, squeezed her hand gently. She squeezed back, and he rubbed his thumb soothingly over her knuckles. "Wait, what?" She actually moved! "Aeris?" he implored, tucking a lock of her coppery hair behind her ear.
Sven hurried over just as she opened her clear blue eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and winced as she sat up. Kristoff gently helped her. "I've felt worse," she gasped, throat raspy from disuse and abuse. Kristoff couldn't help but smile.
"Drink this," Sven ordered, pressing an earthenware cup to her lips, and she did. The water was warm and tasted strongly of honey, salt, citrus, sulpher, and willow bark.
"Thank you," she said, her voice sounding better already. She looked up at Kristoff and saw relief, concern, and so much more brimming in his amber eyes. She wanted, oh how she wanted to sink into those depths, to wrap herself up in him and just let go. But she knew she couldn't. Not anymore. Not ever, probably. Wrenching her eyes away was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. "Thank you," she repeated, "but you better get out of here."
"Wait, what? Why?!" Kristoff demanded.
"Because it isn't safe."
"This is my infirmary, little Aeris, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon," Sven said, giving Kristoff a very pointed look.
"Fine, then let me up," she said, sliding her legs off the table. "I'll draw them away."
"Like hell you will!" Kristoff growled, refusing to let go of her hand.
"What, think I can't handle myself?" Anna bristled, tugging at her hand.
"That's not the point!" he exclaimed. "Who are they? What do they want?" Kristoff pleaded for answers. "Talk to me, Aeris. Why are they after you?"
Her shoulders sagged and that same haunted look ghosted over her bruised face. The one that made his heart clench tightly in his chest. The one that made him fight the urge to gather her up into his arms and never let her go. "It doesn't matter anymore," she shook her head.
"It matters to me," Kristoff murmured as he drew her hand up and wrapped it in both of his. "I can't help you if I don't know what we're dealing with."
She looked at his hands holding her trembling one, because she knew she'd lose her resolve if she looked him in the eye. "This isn't your fight," she breathed.
"I don't care."
After the debacle on the training grounds the Lanista ordered the lorarii to the pit, where he had little trouble incarcerating every last one of them. Standing head and shoulders taller than every man there, leaning on a spathea longer than his leg while flanked by a dozen fully-armed kept the bloodshed to a minimum.
The one surviving lorarus from the botched attack proved the most useful. The rest either blustered and bargained for their lives, or sobbed pitifully. Every single one of the lorarii were convinced to betray the ludus, bribed or blackmailed by the head Lorarus himself.
"Why should I believe you?" the Lanista demanded harshly.
"Because I was one of the ones being blackmailed," he replied simply. "I have no loyalty to that mentula you're torturing in the other room."
"What do you expect will happen if you cooperate?"
"A clean death," the man shrugged. "At this point that's all I've got business hoping for."
The Lanista nodded, and gestured for him to continue telling his tale.
"We were ordered to kill the gladiatrix as quickly and painfully as possible. Some tried attacking her in the pit or the dining hall or the bathing chambers. Some even tried poisoning her food."
"Why? On who's orders?!"
"We weren't told who or why, just ordered to do it. There was gold to be had for the ones who managed to kill her. Enough gold to wipe away our debts AND buy an estate in the countryside. Who were we to say no to that kind of freedom?"
No more questions were asked, and the lorarus was led away. The Lanista sat thoughtfully for a long time, then stood and walked to the next cell. The thick wooden door muffled the prisoner's agonized wails, which burst forth when the old Rudiarius opened it to enter the room. Inside, the former head Lorarus hung naked from a pair of iron hooks in the ceiling driven through his feet, while two cadaverous men used rusty pugiones to slice narrow strips of skin off of his thighs, back, and abdomen. A brazier sizzled below him every time a drop of sweat or blood or worse fell into the coals.
The Lanista strode over and grabbed a fistful of hair, yanking the wretch's head up. "You forgot your place and gave orders behind my back, landīca. Well, now I grant you the power you so desperately craved. You're in command of this situation. This goes on until you give me the name."
The broken man wept and babbled incoherently. The Lanista let his head drop. "Fool. Between these two and my physicians, I can keep you alive for months. Use the power I've given you. Give me the name of the ones who ordered you to betray my ludus and murder my gladiatrix!"
His weeping stopped, replaced by a low, slow laugh that crept up in pitch and intensity until he cackled insanely. The Lanista spat in disgust and turned to leave. He stopped dead when the condemned man shrieked out the last name he expected to hear.
"We… West… Westerguard! WESTERGUARD!"
"I don't care…." Kristoff said.
"You should," Anna replied, strengthening her resolve. They're depending on me to keep them safe, even if they don't know it. "This is bigger than any of us, and I can't control it anymore. The lorarii failed earlier today, but others will come tonight, and they will kill anyone in their way."
"The Lanista took steps. All the lorarii were removed." Kristoff explained.
"A-all of them?" Anna exclaimed.
"All of them," Sven confirmed. "Three days ago."
"Wait, what?!"
"They did quite a number on you, little Aeris," Sven explained. "You've been unconscious for three days."
"No…" she whispered hoarsely. She looked at both men, eyes wide with panic. "No no no three days? They'll be here any moment then! You have to go, now!"
"Who's trying to kill you, Aeris?" Kristoff all but begged. She shook her head, refused to speak. "Anna, please…"
"It's the General," she finally answered. "General Westerguard."
"My ears are burning," a smooth voice mocked from the doorway. The General stood there, dressed in royal armor he didn't deserve, while a dozen of his House legionaries flooded the small room. Outnumbered four to one, they didn't struggle when they were pinned down with razor-sharp pila poised to strike at their vitals.
Once his men secured the room the general sauntered in, tucking his gauntlets behind his belt. The Lanista hurried in after him, but one look at the room kept his tongue in check. Hans gestured, and his decanus ordered two legionaries to circle the old Rudiarius with their pila at the ready. The big man bristled angrily, but kept his peace.
"I have to admit, my dear," Hans walked over to loom over Anna, "I'm very put out at your inability to die."
"Likewise," Anna grated.
He casually backhanded her across the mouth. Kristoff growled low in his throat, but Anna stilled him with a raised hand. Hans continued as if nothing happened. "Imagine my surprise that you're not only still breathing, but a full-fledged Gladiatrix. You!" he sneered. "The training here must be amazing!"
Anna's eyes darted to Kristoff, trying to ignore both his puzzled look and Hans' acidic barb. "Why are you here," she demanded.
"The little Anatonia is now a big Gladiatrix, and a crowd favorite in the arena! Unbelievable!" he mocked. "The people love you," Hans' fists clench at his side, jealous. "They certainly like you better as their beloved gladiatrix than as the spare Imperial Princess."
The room went deathly silent. Kristoff stared at her in disbelief. Sven's jaw dropped. Even the Lanista looked shocked.
"They didn't know?" Hans laughed derisively. "Oh that's rich! How telling that you mongrels fail to notice high blood among you. She must be as good at concealing the truth as she is concealing her fighting prowess."
Anna looked to Kristoff, silently imploring him to understand. Her eyes widened as his face slowly shut down and closed her out. Her eyes slid shut in despair. She fought back the urge to crumple, to howl, to rage, to show any emotion whatsoever. A single tear betrayed her efforts. "What do you want, Hans," she demanded stonily.
"I want what's rightfully mine. I want the throne. I want the mob's adoration. And I want you dead. I can achieve all of this by fighting you in the arena tomorrow."
She blinked. "You want to fight me, in the arena, tomorrow."
"I can see it now: my men and I, resplendent in our royal armor, giving the mob an amazing spectacle for the ages. And when I drive my gladius into your pretty little heart, they'll love me more than their own Emperor. Taking the throne will be child's play after that."
"I've been out of your way for three months and you still aren't Emperor?" Anna taunted. "Told you you're no match for Elsa." He hissed and slapped her again, the crack of his hand echoing in the small room. Kristoff inhaled sharply, and the decanus pressed his pilum more firmly against his ribs.
"Wait, you AND your men, against her alone?!" Sven objected. "That's not a spectacle, that's an execution!"
"That's the idea," Hans smirked.
"She's injured. She's in no condition to fight at all, let alone by herself!"
"Hmm," Hans canted his head thoughtfully. "I don't want to risk the people not buying it and withholding their approval. The mob is known for being fickle like that. So I'll fight the barbarian as well." He pointed at Kristoff, who narrowed his eyes dangerously at the auburn-haired general.
"Leave him out of this," Anna snapped. "He's just a gladiator. Your fight's with me."
"He's the top Gladiator of the upper class. He was the crowd favorite until you came along. I'm sure the small-brained dirt grubber will be pleased to see me end you, for all of ten seconds before I gut him as well. I do like it when men die happy, and I'll take his glory as well as yours. The mob will love me more than their own mothers!"
"You can't kill both of my star gladiators, my Lord!" the Lanista finally spoke out.
"I can and will do whatever I damn well please, old man, and I will not tolerate disobedience from anyone, least of all a former slave!" Hans snarled. "You will keep your low-born tongue leashed or I will pull my patronage and crucify you and your entire family!"
The Lanista backed away a few steps and bowed his head, shamed.
Satisfied, Hans turns back to his men. "Take them away. Lock them up and stand guard on their cell. I don't want them to escape, and I do not want anyone to kill them before I do."
Kristoff walked silently into the cell, impassive as he was bound to a wall. Anna struggled the entire time it took the decanus and two legionaries to bind her arms behind her and shackle her to the opposite wall by her neck. She snarled insults at them, pulling at her restraints as they took the torch and exited the tiny cell, sliding the bolt home with an echoing cthunk.
The cell was indeed small. Kristoff could stand and almost brush his fingertips against opposite walls, if he weren't chained to one of them. Rotten bits of straw moldered on the hard stone floor. Silvery moonlight streamed down through a narrow window high on the wall, illuminating Anna while leaving Kristoff obscured in shadow.
Anna twisted and pulled at her restraints, rattling the chains until they pulled tight. Kristoff said nothing. She backed off, gulped air into her bruised lungs, then redoubled her efforts against the shackles. The metal collar bit into her neck, but she ignored it as she strained to break the chain or at least loosen her arms. The metal did not so much as budge. Kristoff didn't respond. She thrashed about for several minutes more, ignoring the blood weeping from the numerous new wounds, her arms bent back behind her at an awkward angle, the chains keeping her from moving more than halfway across the floor. She dropped her head, panting heavily. She turned, crawled back away, and collapsed in a shuddering heap against the wall. And still Kristoff remained silent.
She's the princess. He thought, trying to make sense of that insane impossibility. She is the princess! All these months, and she lied to me! That thought cut him deeper than he cared to admit. I'm just a game to her! Just a sick joke!
As incensed as he was, he couldn't help but recognize the similarities between her lying in a heap against the wall now, and the time three months ago when the gladiators were fighting over her. Only this time instead of being tangled in a net, she was chained to the wall with her hands bound behind her. She certainly can't seem to keep herself out of trouble, he thought fondly, then viciously squashed the fondness.
"So you're the princess," he deadpanned.
"Not impressed, I take it," the lump curled up against the wall deadpanned right back at him. "It's fine, most aren't."
"Is Anna even your real name?
"My full name is Anatonia Ustrina, but that's a mouthful. Anna shortens it, but I told you you could call me Aeris." Only those closest to me call me that… "Nothing's changed."
He snorted. She sighed sadly.
"Why?" he asked softly. "If you're the princess, why spend so many months playing gladiator?"
"I wasn't playing," she huffed as she pulled herself upright and leaned wearily against the wall. "And I'm not the princess. I'm a princess. My sister's the Princess. The one everyone cares about, anyway," she explained. "We actually encouraged that thought," she laughed mirthlessly. "The less I was seen, the easier it was for me to protect her from assassins or upstart suitors."
"That doesn't explain why you're still here, or why you were even here in the first place."
Anna hung her head, shame staining her cheeks crimson. "One of those suitors was more than just an upstart. He outflanked us, and it was all my fault. He used me to get to my father, and to my sister. So he had the clout and the audacity to have me permanently removed."
"Westerguard."
"Yeah," She barked out another humorless laugh, "I wasn't supposed to survive those lions."
"But you did. So why stay?"
"I took a risk," she shrugged. "If Hans thought I was dead, I figured I could move around more freely, undermine him from the shadows. But I was too restricted. Had too many eyes on me, and I had no access to the outside for an entire month until I earned the tiro."
"Most take at least six."
"I had help," she smiled shyly at him. He said nothing, and she couldn't see his face so her smile melted away. "Anyway," she sighed wistfully, "that wasn't working, so I changed plans. I tried getting messages out, but that didn't work either. If I could get my father's or my sister's attention in the Imperial Box, then I could get them to denounce the General for what he's done. But I've yet to see them there. Either of them! It doesn't make sense! If anything had happened to either of them, even we would've heard about it!"
She rubbed her eyes against her knees, fiercely determined not to cry anymore. "And then the lorarii started attacking me, and I hadn't come up with a new plan yet. Guess I don't have to now," she said bitterly.
He studied her, trying to process everything she'd told him. In its own way, it made sense. Each decision she made, as brutal as they were, fit into her overarching drive to protect her sister and kill the General. He could grudgingly accept that, even admire it. But there was one thing that didn't add up. One thing that didn't fit neatly into her plans…
"You said I was just a gladiator," he said, a bit of heat finally coloring his voice. "Is that all you think of me?"
Anna lifted her head from her knees and glared at him incredulously. "Of course not! How could you even think I would think so little of you?" she demanded, leaning forward. He remained silent in the shadows. "You've been my trainer, my friend, for months! We've shared every meal, guarded each other's backs, slept in the same cell, hell we even bathed together! I lo-" she swallowed hard, then sighed, angry at her own cowardice. "I only wanted to protect you from Hans. I had no right to involve you in this. Any of this. It isn't your fight."
Kristoff stared at her thoughtfully as she retreated back to her wall. "Ten years ago the Roman Legions destroyed my village," he said softly, his voice unnaturally monotone. Anna flinched, hunching lower against the wall in shame. "Their general and his staff were in parlay with our elders. They drew their peace-bound swords and slaughtered everyone. I watched as they ran my father through, slit my mother's throat. They burned our homes, and captured all of the children. Those too young to march were beheaded. The rest of us were brought to Rome as slaves. The boys were sold to whoever would buy us, the girls were taken and never seen again.
"Sven and I were sold to the ludus. We swore to each other that we would protect each other, and do what we needed to do to escape or earn our freedom, and to return to our home. Revenge on the general who murdered our people would also be nice. But for Sven's sake I'd do without revenge."
Kristoff drew a deep breath. "The General's name was Marius Westerguard." Anna gasped. "Yes, the same name," he growled, eyes glinting even in the shadows. "So don't think this isn't my fight too."
He watched her as she crawled back towards him, to the limit of her restraints. She looked up into his shadow-darkened face, and her expression ensnared him. It was the same haunted, guilt-ridden countenance she wore the very first time he saw her. But this time it warred with a deep, aching longing and a savage, implacable resolve. "I don't care what I have to do, but I will see you free of this place," she swore to him. A single tear escaped her eye, tracing a path down her bruised, freckled cheek. "You'll have your revenge, somehow. Then you and Sven will be free, and free to l-leave." She stuttered a bit, tripping over that last word. She hung her head, her coppery hair hiding her face. "I will make this right by you," she whispered fiercely. "I swear it on my mother's soul!"
He blinked, taken aback by her vehemence. He felt the thick bands of hatred enveloping his heart shudder and crumble before this tiny slip of a princess chained to the wall in front of him. She had her father and sister to protect, which she tried to do even while trapped in the ludus fighting for her own life. She had her own reasons to hate the Westerguards, very good reasons. Yet even with the weight of the empire on her slender shoulders she vowed to help him above all else. He still didn't understand why, but he started to understand that 'why' may not matter.
Without realizing it, he moved to the center of the cell, as close to her as his restraints would allow. He could see her face, eyes closed, tears gently falling, looking as if she had lost everything that held meaning to her yet still struggled to fight on. So much strength, so much fire! He couldn't resist her even if he wanted; she pulled at him like a lodestone. He leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears. When she unknowingly turned and leaned into his feather-light caress he captured her lips and kissed her long and soft and slow. His heart pounded in his chest when he felt her lips move against his, returning the kiss with equal fervor.
The moonlight cast the tiny cell in a silvery ethereal glow. It glinted on the dull metal chains that held them apart, a physical manifestation of the impossibly enormous gulf that lay between them. She, an imperial princess born to help rule the largest empire in the world and he, a captured slave from a distant land, forced to fight and kill to survive. But in that one moon-drenched moment, after months of breaking down barriers carefully tended by both, they reject the impossible and reach out for their hearts' desire.
They reluctantly pulled back for air, and Kristoff couldn't help but smile at how her eyes were screwed shut, afraid to open and find this all to be a dream. Eventually she did open her eyes, wide as saucers, and he felt himself drown in the naked longing swirling in her azure depths. "I don't understand," she breathed through kiss-stung lips. "I'm everything you hate, every wrong you've endured."
"I could never hate you," he murmured as he brushed his nose against hers. "I just tried. It didn't work."
"But I lied to you."
"I understand why now," he replied softly, resting his forehead against hers. "I didn't tell you the whole truth either."
"But… I'm one of them."
"I don't care," he smiled gently. "I've seen your heart. There's more courage and honor in you than anyone else I've ever known."
"But-" he cut off her objection by slanting his mouth over hers again, nipping at her bottom lip and soothing it with his tongue. She shuddered, pressed herself closely to him, parted her lips and delved into him.
"But I didn't follow your advice," she breathed between searing kisses. "I got distracted," he blazed a trail down the slender column of her neck. "I didn't focus on staying alive." He nipped at the cluster of freckles dusting the junction of her neck and shoulder, just below the metal collar of her restraints, making her moan low in her throat.
"Neither did I," he groaned into her neck, sending jolts of heat coursing through her veins. She found his mouth again, claimed it again, as they both struggled against the shackles keeping them apart. But in that moment escape was not on their minds.
"Kristoff…" she hummed into his mouth.
"Hmm?"
"We may die tomorrow,"
"That's the life of a gladiator," he mused, ghosting his lips behind her ear.
"True," she hummed, trailing kisses along his stubbled jawline. "But if it is our day to die…"
"Yes?"
She leaned back and gave him a feral grin, "Let's make sure that spurio dies first!"