26. Drusilla #3
“That’s far too easy to be in this section of the maze,” she mutters to herself.
The other thing that worries her is how nothing stands in her way.
Nothing visible, anyway . By all accounts, she could walk through to the next section unencumbered without even answering the riddle.
Which means something unseen waits for her.
And now she knows that getting the riddle right doesn’t mean she’ll be allowed to move forward unscathed.
Sighing, she offers, “Fire.”
A low, hissing sound emanates from the ground.
She blinks, and a section of the floor spanning the width of the path cranks open, shooting up a wall of fire from within.
Warmth blasts her face, drenching her in sweat.
Not one bit of space has been left for her to skirt around it, and she has no idea how far down the path the flames go.
She steels herself. There’s no going back now, and the only way forward is through it.
You survived molten dragon’s fire—you can survive this.
Launching off the balls of her feet, she sprints through the flames. They lick up her arms and legs, the heat not as uncomfortable on her skin as she expects.
Luckily, the fiery wall barely stretches an arm’s length, and the small holes in the floor close up again once she’s on the other side.
Leaning against the wall, she gulps in air, her blood racing through her veins. The ghosts of the scars left behind on her hands and arms by the Viverna ache with the memory.
She breathes deep, focusing on the movement of her chest to calm herself as best she can.
Settled once more, she moves on, hoping she’s close to the end but knowing she’d be a fool to get her hopes up.
The longer she walks without a new challenge to face, the warier she becomes, and she opens her senses up to the arena.
The sounds of metal clashing sound nearby, while screams of agony travel clear across the maze.
The crowd still roars through the stadium, cheering at times and booing at others.
She can’t mark whether the cheers are allied with triumph or defeat.
Finally, she turns a corner and comes to stand before a man so tall he casts a shadow. A red mask covers his face to match his robes, and he appears to carry no weapon. He watches her from his position in front of a wall, with nowhere else for her to go.
This is the end. She approaches him until she’s barely out of his reach.
He shifts on his feet. “Everything that matters in this world ends with me. What am I?”
She tempers her reaction at that voice; she recognizes it from the other night, when he was leaving the brothel—Sacerdos Matteo, from the Imperium. Wariness sharpens her senses as she tries to figure how many different ways this could be a trap. Too many.
“ G ,” she answers, confident.
He shakes his head. Cold dread trickles down the back of her neck.
“That is incorrect. The answer is A , for omnia.”
Fuck. The Phaedran word for “everything” is omnia. She should’ve known when he said “everything that matters in this world”; coming from a Phaedran, the Imperium is all that matters.
She swallows, her breaths coming out short. “What happens now?”
He chooses not to answer her; instead, he reaches behind him and lowers his arm. The sounds of mechanics moving beneath her rattle the ground.
Before she can think to move, the floor beneath her gives way, taking her feet out from under her.
Swallowing the scream clawing out of her throat as she falls, she reaches out for the edge—she barely catches it, her fingers scrambling to find purchase on the loose dirt.
Glancing beneath her, only darkness pervades.
Panic sits heavy inside her chest, making it difficult to breathe.
She puts all her effort into staying out of the pit below her and glances up.
The sacerdos stares down at her, his mask discarded. Remorselessness deadens his gray eyes, his thin lips a single line beneath his hooked nose.
“The gods forgive you, my child, for all that you’ve done.”
Dru bares her teeth and growls in frustration, unable to think of something to say in return. He leaves her to her fate, his robes trailing behind him while she struggles to stay up. She hisses at the pain of her short nails breaking on the hard ground until she can no longer hold on.
She drops down into the near-darkness.
But she doesn’t fall for long. Her feet land on the hard ground, the impact forcing her to her hands and knees .
The distinct odor of cold, wet stone and blood surrounds her. She breathes in shakily, blood running down her shins from her skinned knees. Once her eyes grow used to the soft torchlight, she raises her head to take in her surroundings?—
—and finds herself less than an arm’s length away from a lion.
Heart galloping inside her chest, she scrambles away, her back swiftly hitting the wall behind her. The lion lunges, snarling, but the thick chain around his neck prevents him from getting close enough to strike at her.
She can barely believe her own eyes. The bard was right. If she lives to tell him about it, he’s going to be insufferable.
She gets to her feet, keeping one eye on the beast. At this distance, she’s safe from him— for now —while she figures out where the sacerdos trapped her.
Glancing up, the opening in the ceiling has closed again, leaving her with only the flames from the torches lining the circular stone room.
Otherwise, the walls are completely bare.
A few bloodied and mangled bodies litter the floor, crimson soaking the ground at her feet.
I’m not the first one to fall into this trap .
Though whether these competitors got their riddle wrong like she did, she’ll never know.
A rounded stone pillar at the center of the room stretches its full height, with half a dozen untouched spears pinned to it, and a thick link chain soldered to it to keep the lion in place.
Once her eyes fully adjust to the dark, she recognizes the shape of a rounded wood door across from her. Hope blooms in her chest. All I have to do is get there ? —
The black glint of a large lock hanging between the door and the wall stops her. Of course it’s locked. Sighing, she regards the lion again, knowing what she’s going to find: the key attached to the collar around his mane.
“Fuck,” she mutters aloud. The lion growls, baring his sharp, yellow teeth.
She knows little about these oversized cats.
They come from the southeastern territories of the Imperium and are used as entertainment for the Phaedran elite.
They’re notoriously nasty and difficult to control when untrained.
Given he would’ve had to travel by boat to get here, like the bard said, he’s unlikely to be wild.
She’s glad she thought ahead.
Unsheathing her blade and holding it between her teeth, she unloops the short whip from around her waist. She hurls it to the side and slaps the wall with the leather, the sound echoing around her.
The lion hesitates and stumbles back. She grins around her dagger.
With the beast on the defensive now, she takes a step toward him, smacking her whip on the wall again. He takes another hesitant step back, and she takes two more forward. With the wall out of her reach, she cracks the whip on the ground. It’s not as loud as the wall, but it does the trick.
Shuffling sideways and keeping the beast in her sight, she cracks the whip again and again, guiding the lion close to where she once stood. He takes the direction well, and she’s almost tempted to believe this will work.
With her back to the spears, the closest one finally comes within reach. She fumbles behind her, but the blades clank against each other. One falls to the ground and she stills. The lion’s demeanor changes instantly.
Snarling, he leaps for her, paws extended.
Dropping the whip and the dagger from her mouth in a panic, she picks up the spear on the ground and grasps it.
Taking a knee despite the open wound, she thrusts it up at the lion’s approaching figure at the last possible moment.
The pointed tip impales him through the bottom of his jaw and out of his skull, blood gushing out of his mouth from the mortal wound.
Victory swells in her chest for a moment, but too soon. The forward motion of his attack throws her back against the stone post, slamming her head into it. His reaching claws slice through the flesh of her arms—she cries out, the pain blinding her.
Finally, he stills, the spear in her loosening grip the only thing keeping him from crushing her with his dead weight.
Heart thundering in her skull, she waits until she can breathe right again.
Tossing the lion to the side with trembling muscles, she struggles to her feet. Crimson stains the front of her tunic—the lion’s, she’s certain. Her own warm blood drips down her arms and onto the dirt as she leaves the whip where it lies and retrieves her dagger.
Reaching down with trembling hands and shaky knees, she unclasps the key from around the dead creature’s collar, palming it.
“All that for a fucking key,” she mutters to herself.
Not wanting to chance being left vulnerable, she takes another spear off the pillar, gripping it in the same hand as her dagger, and heads for the door.
The key fits in the lock easily, and she tosses both onto the floor with a clang.
Her entire body feels nothing and everything at once, wearing her down.
Behind the open door, a rounded stone tunnel appears, lit by more flaming torches.
She shuffles down what she imagines to be the length of half the maze, her feet dragging on the ground.
Exhaustion and blood loss drain her of any energy she might’ve had left.
She has no idea if she’ll face any more challenges, but she’s unlikely to survive them if she does.
At the end of the tunnel, another door appears, this one without a lock. Placing her ear to it, the sounds of cheering breach the wood. Dare I hope?
Cautiously pushing it open, intense sunlight streams in, blinding her. She throws an arm over her eyes, then hisses at the cutting pain of stretching her fresh wounds.
Once her eyes grow more used to the light, she finds stone steps before her. Indecision clouds her thoughts. But she can either trudge up them or go back to a room she can’t otherwise escape from.
Stellae, I hope this is the end of the trial.
A few steps up, and the edges of the arena appear. Then the crowd fills in, erupting at the sight of her. Or maybe not . Someone else could’ve made it out too.
Reaching the top and seeing no walls encumbering her, she drops her spear to the ground, somehow still clutching her dagger.
Stumbling to the outskirts of the arena, close to the open maze, she nearly retches, her stomach roiling from the loss of blood.
She braces herself against the wall, hunched over and fighting for breath amidst the cheers.
Somewhere nearby, Marcus calls for her. Her knees begin to buckle beneath her, but she stays on her feet.
“Dru,” he murmurs, blurring before her. “Where have you been?”
Instead of answering, she collapses.
Marcus catches her before she falls to the ground, grasping her arms. She cries out softly from the pain, trying not to draw attention to herself.
“Shit,” he breathes out, placing a bloody but steady hand on her back and waist instead. “This can’t all be your blood—you’d be dead if it were.”
Anger rages in his light blue eyes as she meets them, sparking in the flecks of hazel. “Who did this to you?”
She glances down at the front of her tunic. “A lion.”
“Lion!” he yells, but the crowd drowns him out. “Deodamnatus, the bard was right. They pitted you against a fucking lion ? How?”
She can’t help leaning into him, trusting him not to let her fall. “I got the last question wrong.”
“The everything one?”
“Yes, I remembered the Faithless taught us that one. Which is why I went with the letter G .”
“That was the correct answer,” Marcus says. “At least, it’s the answer I gave.”
Breathing labored, she glances up at him again. He bleeds from shallow cuts on his shoulder and thigh, but otherwise he appears unharmed. “And who told you your last riddle? ”
Marcus shakes his head. “No one I knew.” He squints. “Who told yours?”
She chuckles softly, darkly. “The Imperium’s sacerdos. He even made sure I knew the gods forgive me for all I’ve done before he watched me fall into the lion’s den.”
Marcus’s hands flex their grip on her, jaw clenched tight.
“Come on,” he says, his voice strained. “Let’s get you stitched up.”
“I’m assuming Cato made it out alive,” she says as Marcus quietly leads her along the fringes of the arena and through its arches. They appear to go unnoticed, most of the focus on who she recognizes as Cato, his guards surrounding him. That answers that.
“He did, and with a valiant effort. That’s why the arena erupted in cheers.”
Should’ve known it wasn’t for me. She nods, vision blurring again. “Good.”
When she stumbles, Marcus stops and scoops her up into his arms, taking her dagger from her without asking.
“I don’t need your help.” She squirms in his arms, irritating her still-bleeding wounds. She groans, sucking in a painful breath.
She hears the smile in his voice. “I know you don’t.”