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“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Constantine said instead.
His men formed up around her at Constantine’s insistence. The worst part was that she couldn’t see much over their hulking figures. She eventually sighed and looked forward toward the coliseum, which was impossible to miss on the horizon.
“How long does the tournament last?”
“A few weeks,” Constantine explained. “It will start with lower fights within the week. Most of them aren’t mortal. They warm the crowds up. Defeat is usually drawing first blood. They only get more serious if the Doma request it. But typically, the Doma only appear for the main event.”
“The main event is what you’re sending Myron for?”
“Yes. He’s ready. He wanted to try it the last couple of years, but I wouldn’t risk him without proper training. It’s a fight to the death.”
She nodded. “I see. How many gladiators join for that?”
“Depends. A few dozen. More or less.”
A few dozen dead was nothing for countries accustomed to war. She’d killed a few dozen in a matter of minutes during the Battle of Lethbridge. What would a few dozen mean in an arena with people cheering you on? She shuddered. She still had nightmares about the deaths she’d caused at the time. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to do it as sport.
Constantine held a fist up, and his men halted as one. Trained despite what she’d seen in their sessions back in Eivreen.
A large group of men stood outside of the arena, blocking the entrances. Some of them shouted over the mayhem their presence created, but she couldn’t gather what their purpose was.
“Protestors,” Constantine grumbled under his breath.
She craned her neck to get a better look. If she listened closely, she could hear one man’s voice above another.
“End the tournament. End gladiator deaths. End the empire!” He chanted this three times, and then others picked up the last refrain. “End the empire! End the empire! End the empire!”
“Well, that’s going to work,” Constantine said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “This way. They’ll be here any moment.”
“Who?”
But she shouldn’t have bothered asking.
What did she expect from a protest in front of the gladiator ring? What would have happened at home? She knew because she’d been caught in one even more organized and peaceful than these men blocking the entrance. The stamp of guards’ boots against the cobblestone was all the confirmation she needed. Constantine gripped her arm and drew her farther away as men in red-plumed hats appeared before the protestors.
“The Domaran army,” he filled her in.
Tarcus’s stupid hat when he’d arrived at Constantine’s estate made more sense. He had been trying to show strength by displaying the blood red of the Domaran military.
She couldn’t make out the words from the military commander at the front. But she saw the moment their swords swung loose from their scabbards. The distressing cries from the protestors as they pleaded for leniency. A leniency that would never come. She saw it on the soldiers’ faces before anything ever happened.
Screams punctuated the scene as all those near the army fled in terror. Some of the protestors managed to escape the oncoming assault. But the leader stood his ground.
“End the empire!” he shouted one last time before a sword swung through his neck. His head was severed and rolled off into the crowd.
The streets ran red with the blood of those who had deigned to oppose those in charge. Oh, how familiar.
A haze clouded her mind as she floated out of her body. She had been here before. She had endured this once. And here it all was again. And again. And again. She’d never escape.
Constantine must have been trying to speak to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the buzzing in her ears. She’d moved forward. Toward the onslaught. She hadn’t even known that she had been drawn in.
Then, she was in his arms, scooped up and out of the trouble. A minute later, they passed through an arch of the enormous arena and were entering the massive structure. He only put her down on her feet once they were through the worst of it, and her sandals touched the sandy bottom arena.
“What were you thinking?” Constantine demanded.
She hadn’t been thinking. In fact, it had been the opposite of it all. The trauma of the Red Masks invasion and the takeover of her world had left scars on her heart. She hadn’t dealt with them. She’d just pushed them aside for her mission. And all of it had come to the surface at once.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked like a soldier who had just left the battlefield.”
Her eyes were empty when she looked up at him. They were mirrors in that moment. Soldiers who had lost their country, their world, and their hearts.
He frowned. “Who hurt you?”
