25. Marcus
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MARCUS
M arcus knocks softly on the door of Valente’s home.
Fog always clings to the coast early in the morning this time of year, sticking to Marcus’s skin pleasantly.
Having stopped in the middle of his run, sweat drips down his temples and his bare back as he stands outside, waiting.
Not a soul walks the streets at this hour, with night only just lifting for the day to begin.
To Valente’s dismay, he stops here at least once a week near the end of his runs. Although, it’s not normally this early.
Finally, the lock slides back, and the door creaks open. Val blinks sleep from his hazel-gold eyes, leaning against the threshold to support his tired body.
“Marcus? Good gods, do you have nothing better to do than wake me at this hour?”
“No, I don’t,” he murmurs. “Apologies if I disturbed your wife and children.”
A tired smile stretches across his face. “Luckily, my children sleep like the dead these days, if they come home at all. My wife, however, will expect recompense for this. ”
Marcus returns the smile. “Anything she wishes.”
“Don’t tempt her with an offer like that—she might take you up on it.” Val steps aside and wordlessly gestures for Marcus to come in. Marcus obliges.
Valente’s home bears a similar resemblance to all the residences provided to Marcus’s guards by the crown: small and simple, with the living spaces downstairs and the sleeping quarters upstairs.
Val’s wife has eclectic taste, with some of her own glasswork perched on the carved-out shelves, the walls still painted with drawings from his children when they were younger.
Marcus sits down at the table in their kitchen. “Did you find out anything useful after I left to follow Blaise the other day?”
Val joins him, pouring them both a cup of water from a pitcher.
“About Blaise specifically? No. But some of those Phaedran soldiers seemed to know beforehand about the pairings we saw in the first trial and used that information to hedge their bets. They spoke about a specific one that I didn’t realize until the final match of the day was about the man who went up against King Cato. ”
“But that man was Durevolian,” Marcus argues. “How would Phaedran soldiers know him?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But a few of them spoke about the man as if he were the sure thing, that he would have an edge over whoever the last competitor was.”
“How deep does the Imperium’s influence go?” Marcus mutters, more to himself than to Val. He gulps down the water and gets to his feet.
“There’s more,” Valente says. Marcus continues to stand, gesturing for him to continue.
“A few of the other guards have heard whispers of secret meetings among the more restless citizens of Anziano. Based on the information I was able to gather, they might try something today or tomorrow, but I’m not sure what. ”
Marcus recalls the act of rebellion during the lottery ceremony. He should’ve known that wouldn’t be the end of it. But without any solid intel naming specific people or meeting places, he’ll have to wait until something happens to take action.
“Keep your eyes and ears open. I doubt I’ll have another chance to follow Blaise, but tell me if you notice anything else warranting suspicion.”
He nods. “I will.” Grinning sleepily, he says, “Dru looked good out there in the arena. Much more capable than you led me to believe.”
Marcus clears his throat. “I didn’t notice.”
Val watches him carefully. “Yes, you did. You can’t lie to me.”
Marcus snorts. “I’m going.”
“Good,” Val calls after him. “Leave me to sleep until after the sun rises for once.”
When Marcus returns, Cato and Dru haven’t come out of their chambers, despite breakfast waiting for them. They must still be asleep . Which isn’t odd for Cato, but it is for Dru.
Once he bathes and takes his time getting dressed, he finds both of them sitting at the breakfast table. They’ll likely spend most of the day strategizing the next trial: what the Durevolians call the labirinto di enigmi.
Cato appears to be in better spirits after the horrors he faced yesterday. Arm wrapped snuggly in a new bandage, he’s in the midst of explaining the second blood trial to Dru when Marcus takes a seat at the table. He can’t help noticing their bloodshot eyes, their faces long with lack of sleep.
“After the third or fourth blood trial—our scholars continue to argue which is more accurate—the queen introduced the labirinto di enigmi, or maze of riddles. She had the structure built beneath the floor of the arena over the course of the next few years.”
“How does that work?” Dru asks. Marcus nearly smiles at the concentration pinching her face .
With her thick hair braided over her shoulder today and a simple blue tunic hanging across her shoulders, she continues to be the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen.
He blinks, unsure what brought that particular thought to his mind. Perhaps I didn’t get as much sleep as I’d hoped either.
Cato cocks his head to the side. “Would you let me finish?”
Dru puts up her hands in silent acquiescence, then devours a hunk of salted bread, chasing it with an entire cup of water.
“Each participant enters the maze from a different vantage point, their task to answer the riddles in order to find their way out again. Around each corner, a new challenge faces them. It could be some sort of physical test, but more often than not, it’s a riddle.
If the competitor gets it right, they move on.
If not, something terrible comes for them. ”
She swallows her bite. “How can we possibly prepare for something like this? There are an endless number of questions they could ask.”
Cato shakes his head. “They’ll all be riddles—riddles an educated person should have no problem solving.”
Marcus looks at Dru as she opens her mouth. “I know what you’re going to say.”
She huffs, and he realizes she’s going to say it anyway. “This is unfair, Cato. The slaves from the Imperium—even the servants from Anziano—won’t possess the education needed to properly think through these riddles. They’d have to know them outright, which is just as unlikely.”
Cato sighs. “I agree, but there’s nothing I can do about that. We can’t get rid of an entire trial because a number of people won’t succeed. That’s the whole point of it: to weed out the weak.”
“Besides,” Cato continues before she can argue the point, “getting it wrong doesn’t automatically mean they’re dead. It simply means they’ll have to get through the maze using their physical strength. ”
Dru crosses her arms. “I suppose. What about the riddles themselves? Any idea what they might be?”
He takes a bite of his soft-boiled egg. “Both gamemasters have been tasked with coming up with the riddles themselves, some seen in past trials, others completely new.”
She grabs an orange from the bowl and digs a short nail into the peel. “Any chance we can get a copy of that list?”
“What of the map your father told me about?” Marcus interjects. “The one of the maze partially drawn by some the royal proxies.”
Dru and Cato share a look he can’t decipher. What’s going on with them today?
She swallows a slice of orange. “Isn’t that cheating?”
Marcus laughs. “Says the woman who just asked for a list of the riddles.”
Dru pauses. “Fair enough.”
“The map, if it even exists, is worthless,” Cato says with finality, and Marcus doesn’t push the subject. When Cato’s father told him of it, it sounded like the ravings of a man losing his mind anyway.
They spend the next part of the morning trying to come up with possible riddles. But Marcus finds himself too distracted to concentrate. Watching Dru with Cato, he sees how much she cares about what happens to him, to Marcus. Even the other participants. But not herself.
The Dru he knew, the one he trained, wasn’t selfish. But neither was she altruistic, like this Dru has so far proved to be. She kills people who deserve it with little remorse, but she treats everyone else as if their lives matter more than hers.
Regardless, she’s become the woman he always knew she could be.
Yet she’s still different in so many ways.
And despite these differences—or perhaps because of them—he finds himself falling for her more and more each day.
It’s not something he wants to think about as often as he does, but he can’t help himself.
Seeing her in the arena yesterday, being the master of her own body, taking what she learned from him and becoming someone to be reckoned with… It’s no wonder she’s on his mind more than ever before.
When she’s not looking, he studies the gentle slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, and the long length of her dark eyelashes.
The hard muscles of her arms and legs, too, present a distraction for him.
When he knew her over six years ago, she hadn’t been training long enough to build them up yet.
Now she’s an unstoppable force, smart, cunning—and willing to do whatever it takes.
The bard walks in through the palace doors then, bringing down the mood of the entire room. Marcus diverts his attention away from her.
The king looks over from his conversation with Dru and smiles warmly, clapping his hands. Cato, apparently, is more than happy to see him.
“Jove! What news do you have for me?”
“I honestly keep forgetting his name,” Dru murmurs to Marcus.
He cracks a grin. “Me too.”
“Not as much as I’d like,” the bard admits, placing his lute carelessly on the table.
“Ambitus and Blaise haven’t been in the sharing mood.
But I overheard a few of the more affluent Phaedrans lamenting this morning about how they wagered rather large bets on the man who tried to murder you yesterday. ”
“That’s old news,” Marcus tells him, curious how the bard came upon the information Val only just relayed to him this morning. Perhaps he is decent at spying.
Cato glares at Marcus. “Well, it’s new to me.”