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Constantine put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re shaking. What is going on?”
“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “Don’t you remember him?”
Constantine glanced back down at the two competitors in the arena as they squared off. Recognition slipped into his face. “He’s Iris’s latest pet.”
“Yes.”
“And you know him from before.”
“Yes,” she choked out.
“You were on the same battlefields.”
She closed her eyes. That was the truth and so very far from reality. “Yes.”
Constantine sighed. “And you love him.”
She met his gaze with all the pain in her expression. “We left our world together, but time works differently. He’s been here longer, and somehow, he got entangled with Iris and Augustan. I didn’t know how to find him or get to him. And I can’t fight him.”
“Gods is right,” he grumbled. “You think he’ll win?”
“The whole thing,” she said easily. “He taught me everything I know.”
He pursed his lips at that. “Well, not everything you know. I’ve worked with you.”
She laughed hollowly. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I’m finally beginning to put some of your pieces together.”
“I can’t kill him. I should drop out.”
“You can’t,” Constantine growled. “It’s not possible.”
“Then, I’ll refuse to fight.”
Kerrigan loved Fordham. She couldn’t live her life without him. She’d never survive a fight with him, and her heart couldn’t survive killing him.
“We’ll figure it out,” Constantine said. His hand was firm on her shoulder. “I have been in your position. I chose not to sacrifice my wife for the cause of the entire army. We will figure this out.”
His words brought her back down to earth. Her knees buckled, and she took her seat once more. The fight had begun, and Fordham worked with methodical efficiency as he dismantled his opponent with the quiet fortitude that was his trademark. Evander and Constantine winced next to her as they watched each of his impossibly good moves bring the man to his knees. Arrogance reined in every single swing of his blade. The shadows didn’t even lick at his hands, as they so often did when he was fighting. They were carefully leashed away, but he didn’t need them. And the princeps had known that he was good enough without it to win. So had Kerrigan.
So, she was unsurprised when the man tumbled forward off of Fordham’s blade. The crowd was silent a beat too long as Fordham was declared the winner. Then, they burst into raucous applause, whooping and hollering for the new victor.
Kerrigan was on her feet again before Constantine could stop her. He’d never let her go. Not with the state she was currently in. For the first time, Fordham was within distance, only a hundred feet below her. She couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Not for anything.
Constantine shouted as she melded into the crowd, disappearing before he could grab ahold of her. She wasn’t leaving for good. She would go back with Constantine. Unless there was some miraculous way for her and Fordham to get out of this together, then she would happily leave all of this absurdity behind. Until then, Constantine was still her best bet. She couldn’t help but hope for another outcome.
She pushed her way out of the crowded corridors and headed down into the depths of the coliseum. A man was guarding the entrance to the gladiators quarters, but he recognized her from yesterday and let her pass without a word. Since Fordham was the last fight for the day, the quarters were empty. All the other winners had likely gone up top to see what their competition looked like. There wasn’t even an attendant or trainer or anyone awaiting Fordham. Constantine had waited for her below, watching her compete through an open window.
But no one was there now.
No one was there at all as Fordham Ollivier strode through the gate like a thundercloud. His mask of indifference carefully in place. The terror he evoked from others at that expression completely warranted. She had seen where he had acquired that look under his father’s tutelage inside the depraved House of Shadows, but that wasn’t who he was.
“You absolute idiot,” Kerrigan shouted.
She rushed toward him, smacking him hard on his sweaty, sandy chest. He grasped her by both shoulders and shoved her. She gasped, stumbling backward several feet and nearly falling.
“What were you thinking?”
But then Fordham was on her. His blank expression as dead as she had ever seen it. The sword he still had in his grasp pointing at her chest.
“Be gone, phantom. It won’t work this time!”
“Fordham! It’s me!” she said, her voice rising in panic. “It’s me. It’s Kerrigan.”
He blinked. The death stare hovering at the edges of his expression. “Kerrigan.”
“Yes,” she said, gently pushing against the blade at her chest. She stepped toward him and put a hand to his cheek. “It’s Kerrigan. I’m here.”
The sword clattered to the ground, forgotten. His hands wrapped around her wrists, feeling them, real and steady and whole. Then, he slid them roughly up her arms and to her shoulders. The fabric of her toga fell away as he felt each exposed inch of skin.
