Page 28 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
He returns to kneeling among the dirt again. “If you’re looking to escape the palace like I am, you’ve come to the right place. This is my favorite spot in all of Anziano.”
Dru glances in the direction of the ocean, which she can only mark a sliver of from this vantage point.I suppose when you’ve lived by the sea your entire life, you grow tired of it.Dru’s certain she never would.
“Why?” she asks honestly.
“With my hands in the dirt, bringing life to the things that feed us, that heal us—that feels so much more significant than being king.” He sighs. “I know it sounds trivial, but I’m most at peace here. Especially since my father passed.”
Her heart clenches. She never knew her father, and her mother never spoke of him. The Faithless became both a father and a mother once her real parents were both gone. But the pain of losing family never dissipates.
“I’m sorry about your father. I wish I could’ve met him.”
Cato laughs once. “No, you don’t.”
Enough rumors have circulated about the dead king and the last years of his life that it takes little convincing.
She pauses before asking, “And your mother?”
His eyes light up. “You’ll meet her as soon as she’s well enough. She’s afflicted with chlorosis.”
A blood disease.“I hope her health returns soon.”
“It always does. Though she’ll never be fully well as long as she lives.” He stands again, rinsing his hands in a bucket of water. “But I know you’re not here to ask about my family.”
“You don’t know that.”
One side of his lips cocks up. “You’re right, I assumed. Apologies.”
A laugh bubbles out of her. “Forgiven.”
“Marcus did tell me a bit about you—you wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t—and I’m going to make a proposal I think you’ll find more amiable than the subject of my parents.”
Not that she expects him to be aware of her existence beyond the Faithless, but now she wonders what all he knows.
“Go on.”
“You want to spar with me in the arena; see what I’m capable of.”
She smirks. “I stand corrected—you do know me.”
“Only because Marcus does. Or, at least he thinks he does.” Grinning, he waves her forward. “Follow me.”
They make their way past the last of the garden boxes and down the dirt path beyond, where it gradually turns into stone steps, worn down by the footfalls that have trod it. To their left, the cliff drops off suddenly, forcing her to lean into the hillside.
Dozens of houses sit peacefully below. Children play outside in the streets, laughing and screeching. An open window reveals a couple making love inside. The woman throws her head back in ecstasy before they move out of sight.
She has no idea how they’re supposed to get to the arena this way until Cato takes her around a sharp bend and it appears. The sight of it physically stops her; through all her travels in the Imperium, she’s never seen anything like it before.
From this high vantage point, the arena is daunting: the empty dirt center mirrors the bloated half-moon shape of it, the outside lined with six tall rows of carved elevated stones which span the entire arena, meant to seat thousands of people. The cerulean sea sits behind it—a calm apposition to the warm limestone as it peeks through the open, rounded arches on the top row.
She feels a hand on her arm, steadying her. It takes a moment for her to find Cato’s gaze, but she grasps his arm in turn.Curiously, his blue eyes have small flecks of purple in them, and his nose is slightly crooked, like it’s been broken before but set well.
Once they reach the bottom of the steps, she releases his arm. Wordlessly, he leads them to the outer wall of the arena where a second, narrower path appears, taking them further to the left. With all the dust kicking up around her, she almost wishes she’d waited to bathe.
The end of the path spits them out onto a wide cobblestone courtyard, a few of the insulae outside it visible. Bronze torches as tall as trees stand dormant around them, pointing them toward the entrance to the arena.
Cato waves her over. “This way.”
They pass beneath one of three tall, rounded arches carved into the mountain that span the entire width of the thick wall before entering the arena.
