Page 144 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
Not long after, her vision goes completely black, with not a stitch of light to be found—she figures they must be inside somewhere. For a moment, she panics, wondering if they found the cave on the beach.The Viverna. But she’s assaulted by the smell of wet stone and hay, not burnt plumeria.
Where are they taking me?
“Finally,” a voice says—a voice that sounds a lot like Venatus Magister Blaise. “What took so long?”
“She put up more of a fight than the king,” the man holding her says, his northern accent thick.
Cato.She squirms in his grasp again.
“See.”
“Lock her up with the others. She won’t be able to do much then.”
A few more steps and her captor sets her down hard . She nearly collapses, her legs tied too tight to attempt balance. Leaning back, harsh, rounded stones bite into her back and exposed arms. The sound of more manacles clinking around her ignites her anger further.I’m not the only one who was taken.
Someone yanks her chains back and locks the middle link to the wall before untying her legs. They remove the gag from around her mouth and, lastly, the blindfold over her eyes.
Without wasting any time to identify her captor, she smashes her head into his. The man—a Phaedran soldier by the look of him—stumbles back, a hand pressed against where she split open his skin. White stars flash across her vision and her head aches, but it was worth it.
“Durevolian scum,” the man growls, raising his hand to strike her?—
“Enough,” Blaise commands quietly, appearing from the shadows of what she recognizes as the room where she killed the lion in the second trial. “You can’t rough her up too much. We have to at least make it appear like a fair fight.”
The young soldier grumbles something unintelligible before stalking off and busying himself with something else.
Blaise approaches her. “Forgive him. He’s never abducted anyone before today.”
“You know what they say—practice makes perfect,” a familiar voice beside her mutters, but she ignores them.
“Blaise.” She says his name like a curse. “What’s the point of capturing me, of keeping us down here?”
Blaise smiles eerily, baring his teeth. “Why don’t you ask your king?”
Dru turns to her left, then her right, finding Cato beside her. He appears to be unharmed, even outfitted properlyfor the gladiator trial, as she is.At least they let us dress for the occasion before taking us.Though she imagines there’s a reason for that too.
“Did they hurt you?” she asks.
“No.” He sighs. “I should’ve prepared for something like this.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this.” She lowers her voice. “But why did the Phaedrans do it? What purpose does it serve?”
Cato watches Blaise pace as he speaks. “As Venatus Magister Blaise explained to me when I got here, the gamemasters chose a select few who have proven themselves to be the greatest threat throughout the trials to be chained here. To put us at a disadvantage.”
“I’m trying to be flattered by that,” she mutters.
“Well, if that were true, Marcus would be down here with us.”
“But we’re underneath the arena,” Dru argues. “That’s not a disadvantage—that’s taking us out of the trial completely.”
Cato shakes his head. “When my ancestors used to involve more corporeal punishment in their rulings, they would chain up prisoners here, raise this pillar above the arena floor, and whip them in front of a crowd.”
She squints into the darkness to the edges of the room but sees nothing out of the ordinary except a cache of shields and spears. “This is a moving platform?”
“It hasn’t been used in some time, but yes.”
“How do the Phaedrans know about it?”
Cato closes his eyes for a moment. “I was stupid enough to agree to give them access to the arena. I didn’t think they’d use this room for anything. Truly, I forgot about its existence.”
