“Weapon-keepers who assist in the battle will be put to death…no more than three weapons on any one warrior at one time…no helping other combatlords…thumbs-up means the defeated lives, thumbs-down means the defeated must be slayed…” the Empire soldier said.
When he finished, Ceres stood frozen, staring out into thin air.
She vaguely registered that Thanos had turned around and was facing her. He grabbed her arm and shook it.
“Ceres!” he said.
Disoriented, she looked up into his face.
“Bartholomew is back. If you would like, I can have him be my weapon-keeper today,” Thanos said.
At first, her heart leapt in her chest and she wanted to shout yes. Yes! But then she thought of the conversation she had had with Rexus. How would she earn Thanos’s trust if she backed out now? She wouldn’t.
“Is that what you want?” she asked.
“I prefer to work with you, but seeing the rules have changed, I will not hold it against you if you decide to sit this round out,” he said.
She couldn’t believe it. Here he was giving her freedom, and she was scheming how to best earn his trust so she could destroy him and his family. A feeling of guilt began to take root.
But then she remembered her people’s suffering: the young boy who had been whipped in Fountain Square and hauled off to an unknown destination, the girl who had died in the slaver wagon alone and afraid, her brothers who never went to bed with full bellies, and her father who had to leave his family to make money elsewhere.
If she didn’t stand up for them, who would?
“Then I will be your weapon-keeper today and for as long as you would have me,” Ceres said.
Thanos nodded, and a hint of a smile graced his lips.
“We shall conquer together,” he said.
With sweaty hands and an unsettled stomach, Ceres peered down the tunnel underneath the Stade. The passageway was crawling with Empire soldiers, combatlords, and weapon-keepers, weapons of every kind lining the walls, strewn across the gravel floors.
She sat down on a bench mere feet away from the iron gates, waiting for her and Thanos’s turn, the crowd chanting like a dragon outside.
“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” they shouted.
The onlookers roared, and not a minute later, the iron gates opened, chains clattering, and in strode two Empire soldiers, each hauling mutilated, dead combatlords. They threw one corpse on top of the other onto the dirt floor right across from where Ceres sat, and then they darted back out into the arena.
Ceres startled when the iron gate slammed shut behind them, and she couldn’t help but slide her eyes toward the lifeless bodies. Just minutes ago, those men had stood in front of her full of vigor, certain they would be triumphant in today’s competition. Now they rested in a heap on the floor, never to rise again.
When she glanced up at Thanos, his eyes were already on her, those impossibly dark irises carrying solemnity that Ceres had only ever seen in the dying. Was he afraid like she was? she wondered.
She watched as he tightened the thick leather belt around his canvas loincloth, his rigid abdomen exposed. She could hardly believe what little protection he wore: a single leather shoulder guard covering his right arm. Most of the other warriors hid behind heavy armor and shining helmets.
Ceres had been given a uniform: a blue short-sleeved tunic that reached to her knees, a silk rope around her waist, and soft leather knee-high boots that resembled Thanos’s. Although she didn’t particularly like it, she was glad to be out of her old clothes that did nothing but remind her of her old life.
“Did the king set you up?” Ceres asked, remembering King Claudius’s sly expression when he hand-picked the royal warriors’ names from the golden bowl.
“Yes,” Thanos said.
She clenched her teeth and a fire of hate burned within.
“This isn’t right,” she said.
“No, it isn’t,” Thanos said, sitting down beside her, tightening the straps on his boots. “But if there is one thing I have learned, it is that you don’t refuse the king.”
“Have you refused him before?” she asked.
He nodded.
“For what?”
“I wouldn’t marry the princess he had chosen for me.”
She stared at him for a moment, stunned. She was amazed at the courage that must have taken. Perhaps the girl was hideous, although Ceres hadn’t seen any hideous princesses her entire life, all of them dressed in fine clothing, bathed in sweet-smelling perfumes, and adorned with exquisite jewelry.
She looked away, wondering who this young man really was. A rebel? Ceres had not once considered that there might be a nonconformist within the palace walls.
She had a whole new respect for Thanos. Perhaps he was not the boy she thought he was. Which made her feel even sicker to betray him.
“And what of Lucious and Georgio?” she asked.
“The king despises them for other reasons.”
“But how can the king can just randomly – ”
He interrupted her, his voice impatient.
“Just because I am royalty doesn’t mean I have a say in my life.”
Ceres hadn’t thought about that. She had always assumed the royals were free to do as they pleased and that they ruled as one big enemy.
“All the pomp and haughtiness, the rules, decorum, frivolous spending…it drives me to the brink of insanity,” he said, almost growling.
Ceres was taken aback that he would say such things about the royals and didn’t know exactly what to say to him. Instead, she looked out the iron gates, and just as she did, she saw a combatlord stab Georgio’s weapon-keeper through the abdomen.
Her hand hit her mouth and she gasped.
In her naiveté, she had assumed she was safe from other combatlords since she wasn’t the one fighting. A sense of dread gripped her shoulders and she noticed how her hands shook even more than before.
An Empire soldier approached, telling Thanos it was his turn to fight next, and that he would be fighting together with Lucious against two other combatlords.
With a parched throat, Ceres said, “We have to stick together if we are to make it out alive.”
Thanos nodded, a quiet understanding between them.
They stood up and walked over to the iron gates, each in their own thoughts for some time.
“I won’t kill unless I have to,” Thanos suddenly said.
Ceres nodded, wondering if this was one more way he planned to defy the king.
“I need to know I can trust you with my life,” he said without looking away from the arena.
“You can trust me with your life,” Ceres said, wondering if he heard the slight hesitation in her voice.
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“You can trust me with your life, too, Ceres,” he said.
She didn’t know why, but his words sank into her bones, and she felt they were true. Despite herself, she was feeling an intense bond with him.
Lucious and his weapon-keeper stepped up behind Thanos and Ceres, and Ceres noticed Lucious’s shiny full body armor and visored helmet. No amount of armor will save a sloppy warrior’s life, she thought.
The iron gates swung open, and in came Georgio alive, his body drenched in sweat, blood dripping from a few lacerations to his arms and abdomen. An Empire soldier dragged his weapon-keeper in behind him and flung him on top of the other cadavers on the floor.
Ceres’s entire body started to shake.
“Stay close to me,” Thanos said, his eyes straight forward as if in a trance, his jaw clenching.
Just as the Empire soldier nodded for them to exit, Lucious shoved Ceres out of the way and entered the arena first, his arms held high in the air as if in victory. The masses went wild, and he paraded around for a few moments, reveling in their approval.
At any other time than this very moment, his behavior would have irritated Ceres to no end, but standing here, inhaling what could quite possibly be her last breath, she paid no attention to the approval-seeking fool.