Azarion slowly moved down the line, and Gilene’s heart joined her stomach in trying to squeeze itself into a corner of her rib cage. He paused before each woman, staring at her with a prolonged gaze. Beside Gilene, chains clanked as Pell patted down the snarled mess of her hair and adopted a pose to show off her attributes.
Gilene clenched her hands in her skirts, trying not to panic. Surely, he couldn’t recognize her. She’d returned to the capital time and again with a different face. Her skills with illusion were as refined as they were with fire. The slavers never knew they brought the same woman from Beroe to Kraelag year after year. No slave fighter from the Stara Dragana should have the talent to see past her veil of enchantment.
Fear coated her tongue at a memory from the previous year. Azarion’s green gaze had locked on her and narrowed. Neither lustful nor leering, he’d stared at her for several moments as if seeing not a freckled redhead with wild, frizzy hair, but her true self: a plain, dark-eyed brunette.
“Do not know me,” she muttered under her breath. It wasn’t a prayer. She’d ceased believing in gods long ago. Still, she chanted the plea silently. Her heart slammed against her breastbone when he halted in front of her.
Do not know me.
This year she was round-faced and cross-eyed, with lank brown hair and sunburned skin. She’d bound her breasts and wore layers of sweltering wool to mask her shape.
Do not know me.
The prayer that was not a prayer pounded in her head, and she swallowed a whimper when he lifted her chin with one finger. Her gaze slid past his face to a dent on the pauldron protecting his shoulder.
“Look at me.” His deep voice, so quiet, carried the resonant command of a general.
She refused to take her eyes off the dent.
“Look at me,” he repeated in the same tone. His fingers curled around her jaw and pressed. She dragged her gaze to his, the drumming of her heartbeat making her chest hurt. He leaned closer, gripping her chin even harder to keep her still, eyes blazing in triumph.
“I know you,” he whispered.
CHAPTER TWO
Azarion peered through the small barred window of his cell door and waited impatiently for the guards to deliver his companion for the evening. A decade of slavery, of fighting, killing, and biding his time had finally paid off. Skilled though he was, Damiano hadn’t stood a chance against him in the Pit, not when the prospect of freedom awaited him in the dank catacombs below the arena. The emperor and empress had been disappointed by the speed with which he dispatched his opponent, but the crowd roared its approval and chanted his name to thunderous applause.
He’d offered up a silent prayer to the goddesses for the fallen gladiator before striding from the Pit to the catacombs. The familiar pungency of manure and animals, of mold and stagnant water, was nearly overwhelmed by the stench of the unwashed guards who followed him to the common room where Hanimus waited with the unfortunate women chosen as this year’s Flowers of Spring.
Not until he spotted the tall, plain creature among the dejected row of victims did he realize how hard his heart pounded in both anticipation and the fear she might not return this year. He shouldn’t have worried. She returned to Kraelag every year to face the fires. A different face, a different body, the same dogged perseverance.
Azarion didn’t know why she subjected herself to the Rites time and again, or why he saw through her spells when others didn’t. At this moment, he didn’t care. She was the key to his escape.
Footsteps sounded from the main corridor leading to the barracks, one heavy-footed, the other light and hesitant. A voice bellowed its presence. “I’ve brought Azarion’s bit o’ cunt. Unlock his door.”
The guard stationed near Azarion’s cell answered, scorn dripping from his words. “This is her? Not much to look at. Slim pickings from this year’s crop of kindling?”
“Nay, plenty of fine pieces to choose from. You never know with these savages. I hear they fuck their own mares, even when their women aren’t scarce.”
“The mares probably aren’t as ugly.”
The two men shared a round of smirking laughter. Azarion waited, ignoring their insults, his gaze trained on the flickering shades of torchlight in the corridor.
During the first years of his captivity, he would have charged the door, determined to rip the guts out of the men who insulted him and his people. Now, their words were nothing more than a fly’s annoying buzz. The slight shadow that glided along the curving wall and finally solidified into the mousy woman who’d first refused to look at him, and then gaped at him in horror, interested him far more than they did.
She stood next to her escort, hands clasped in front of her, shoulders slumped and head bowed. He wondered how long she’d maintain such a demeanor once he revealed his knowledge of her deception and how he intended to use it. He stepped away from the door and leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. The guard’s warning to move back was unnecessary. They’d done this many times. Keys jangled on their metal ring, and the lock ground until it released on a snap. The door opened, revealing the two guards, one holding a loaded crossbow aimed at Azarion’s chest, the other gripping the woman’s arm.
The second guard leered at Azarion. “Best make it a quick tup, bull. Rumor has it Herself will be wanting you tonight and soon.”
He shoved the woman into the cell and slammed the door behind him. The guard with the crossbow flashed him a grin through the bars and turned the lock before disappearing from view.
Azarion contemplated his new cellmate, seeing what the guards didn’t—an unsteady shimmer surrounding her, like rain spilling over the surface of a polished shield. It blurred and wavered, finally fading under his continued scrutiny until her true self was unmasked.
She wasted no time assuming her role. Nimble fingers worked the ties at her high collar, loosening them so that the outer tunic gaped to expose more layers of cloth, and below those, a threadbare shift. The single candle in the cell flickered over waxen skin and the slight curve of her breasts above her binding as she lowered the garment from her shoulders.
He came away from the wall, darkly amused at her stoic manner. She might be selling him chicken feed for all the eagerness and interest she showed in bedding him. He expected nothing different. She wasn’t here of her own accord, and she’d done this before. He recognized the behavior, had acted in the same manner in similar circumstances. When the struggle only pleased the torturer and made the torture worse, you stopped fighting and learned to endure. To endure was to survive.
He halted her before the shift drooped lower. “Don’t bother,” he said softly. “You heard the guard. The empress will send for me soon, and I want you for something other than fucking.”
Her gaze flashed up to his, and he was struck by the guarded hostility in her eyes. Ah, it was as he thought. She was suspicious and feared him for far more than the threat of physical abuse.