Page 105 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
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 fuckinglion? 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 letterG.”
“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.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MARCUS
“You’re saying you ran into the sacerdos leaving a brothel two nights ago while you were out with the bard and the king in the early hours of the morning without my knowledge, and I’m only hearing about it now?”
Dru sucks in a breath as Marcus presses a linen cloth, soaked in a concoction made from thyme and wild yarrow, on the wounds on her right arm. They’ve been waiting for the king’s physician to arrive for longer than he cares for, but at least they had this on hand.
She hisses again, bringing his attention back to her. “Be gentle.”
“I’m sorry.” He loosens his tight grip on the linen and dips it in the liquid again, staining the water in the bowl pink. “But I don’t understand why you didn’t wake me. Or at least make me aware of the incident afterward. I can’t protect the king from things I’m not aware of.”Or protect you.
“Two of your guards were with us, and I had things well in hand—that’s not the issue.” Sitting up, she winces. “The issue is that the sacerdos claimed to have recognized me from the Imperium, though he couldn’t remember where.”
