Vulsan was a Doma.
Doma were gods.
Did that … make her mother a Doma?
Did that make Kerrigan a Doma?
All this time, she had thought it was a coincidence that she looked so much like them. Or that everyone had told her that she did. She had no Doma in her world. And there were plenty of people who looked like Kerrigan back home. Or at least, red hair and freckles weren’t that common, but it wasn’t extinct. Now, she knew it was more than that. In fact, it wasn’t that at all. It was who she was.
She had seen Vulsan and knew him for what he was, as others had known with her. But that didn’t make her a Doma. The looks could still be a coincidence.
She was just finding it harder to convince herself that was even an option.
It was possible that Vulsan had many wives. Perhaps their customs were so different from everyone else’s. After all, Tarcus had consulted his wife before considering purchasing Kerrigan. Perhaps this was a common practice. To have multiple wives and mistresses. Her mother might not even be a Doma.
Kerrigan might not be a Doma.
And yet … and yet …
She was a descendant of He Who Reigns. Somehow. In some way.
She had so many questions and no one to answer them. Part of her wanted to rush after Vulsan to demand answers. The other part of her knew that it was folly. This man—this god—would not greet her pleasantly. He’d wanted her dead since the moment he had known of her existence. Walking toward him now would only help him along faster. It was better to go unnoticed.
Kerrigan dropped her head, breaking the spell that had been cast between them. She didn’t know if it was enough.
“Forget about me. Forget about me,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and terrified.
Her heart was thumping through her chest until she felt like she was going to hyperventilate. Vulsan wanted her dead. Why had she looked at him? Why had she let him get that close? What had she been thinking?
None of that was worth getting to her mom. Wherever she was in the city. Because she knew now that she had been right to come to Carithian. Her mother would be here. And somehow, Kerrigan would find her and get the answers she so desperately needed.
“What were you thinking?” Constantine demanded of her when he finally came to his feet.
She remained kneeling, closing her eyes to try to block out the questions cycling through her.
“Felicity!”
She was shaking. Gods, she was actually shaking. This wasn’t good.
When she had come here, she’d had no time to process what she was doing. She just knew her father had said it was the only way to fix what was broken. The only way to survive the Red Masks usurping the Society. She hadn’t expected a broken Domara, cursed by its own divided allegiances. She hadn’t expected to end up here with Constantine. She hadn’t expected her parentage.
Nothing could have prepared her for it. And between that and the lack of magic, she felt as if her mind were eating itself. There wasn’t enough room for her to process the possibility of her birth.
“Felicity,” Constantine said, his voice lowering and a protective hand coming to her shoulder. “Are you all right? You’re shaking.”
She wasn’t going to cry. Anytime someone asked if you were okay, the waterworks were triggered. But she couldn’t do that. Not here. Not in front of him. Yet she couldn’t stop shaking.
“What is it?” He worked gentle, comforting circles on her back. “Talk to me.”
She met his gaze and saw only concern there. It was hard to reconcile this man with the one who was planning to sell her for sex.
She pulled back out of his grasp. “I don’t know.” Her voice was defensive, even to her own ears. But she couldn’t care. It wasn’t like she could trust him with her woes. “I don’t know your customs. I didn’t know I was supposed to bow.”
“It’s all right,” he told her, still placating. “I didn’t want him to look at you too long. You don’t want to be taken in by a man like that.”
“That much I know.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
His back stiffened at the insinuation that he was anything like a Doma. But he couldn’t deny it either.
“I see,” he said, the bite returning to his voice. “Well, you seem better now.” He snapped his fingers at his soldiers. “Let’s go.”
She glanced over her shoulder once at the litter in the distance. She wondered if she should just follow it, would she find her mother? No. That wasn’t an option. It had never been an option. Vulsan wanted her dead. It would just be suicide.
So, she trudged after Constantine and his men. Theo winked at her and blew a kiss to try to cheer her up. She shook her head at him, falling into line behind Constantine to cross the incredible bridge.
Yesterday, they’d docked on the western bank of the Liber and crossed the cobblestone streets of Carithian on horseback. She’d only gotten glimpses of the bridges that defined Carithian’s beautiful waterway. Now on foot, heading toward the eastern banks and the coliseum beyond, she could marvel at the craftsmanship. Stones interlocked into wide arches a thousand feet above the waterline. Matching arches were on display every few feet with the rest of the city sprawled out around them. Every step was a mosaic of white archways, designed into the footpath as if a fountain were raining water down the lane.
“They’ve been here thousands of years,” Constantine said when he caught her expression. “They built Carithian around the bridges. Everything else was in ruin, but the bridges still stood.”
“Who built them?”
Constantine shrugged his massive shoulders. “No one knows. Whoever came before the Doma in Domara. But they are the only bridges that still withstand the flood season. One of the only other remaining legacies of that empire are the aqueducts that bring clean water from the countryside into the city. They keep Carithian the center of the world.”
Kerrigan considered that. Even something as powerful as the Doma had once never existed, and their predecessors had built something they still couldn’t even fathom. Even with magic.
That brought a smile to her face. Domara and Alandria were not so different in that regard. Her home, Draco Mountain, had been carved out for residences long before Fae ever stepped foot on the island. It was comforting in its own way to know that time always persevered above all else.
The east side of the river was night and day from the west. She had noticed it from the boat, but it was clear that the eastern banks of the river had more people in a smaller amount of space. There were whorehouses on every other corner with exposed women hanging out of the doors and leering at Constantine’s men. Wine was on everyone’s tongues, and the quarters got progressively dingier the closer they got to the coliseum.
The west banks were for the wealthy. And Constantine, even in his depleted state, still had a home with the wealthy. The people he hated and who hated him still allowed him the privilege of his rank.
“Stay close,” Constantine warned, putting her toward the river and away from the crowd.
“I can handle myself in the slums,” Kerrigan told him.
She’d spent a lot of her time in the Dregs of Kinkadia. She’d learned to fight in the Wastes at Dozan Rook’s famed Dragon Ring. Her heart ached. He’d been her first everything, and now, she didn’t even know if he’d survived. She chose to believe he had. He was a cockroach. A little insurrection wouldn’t stop him.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Constantine said instead.
His men formed up around her at Constantine’s insistence. The worst part was that she couldn’t see much over their hulking figures. She eventually sighed and looked forward toward the coliseum, which was impossible to miss on the horizon.
“How long does the tournament last?”
“A few weeks,” Constantine explained. “It will start with lower fights within the week. Most of them aren’t mortal. They warm the crowds up. Defeat is usually drawing first blood. They only get more serious if the Doma request it. But typically, the Doma only appear for the main event.”
“The main event is what you’re sending Myron for?”
“Yes. He’s ready. He wanted to try it the last couple of years, but I wouldn’t risk him without proper training. It’s a fight to the death.”
She nodded. “I see. How many gladiators join for that?”
“Depends. A few dozen. More or less.”
A few dozen dead was nothing for countries accustomed to war. She’d killed a few dozen in a matter of minutes during the Battle of Lethbridge. What would a few dozen mean in an arena with people cheering you on? She shuddered. She still had nightmares about the deaths she’d caused at the time. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to do it as sport.
Constantine held a fist up, and his men halted as one. Trained despite what she’d seen in their sessions back in Eivreen.
A large group of men stood outside of the arena, blocking the entrances. Some of them shouted over the mayhem their presence created, but she couldn’t gather what their purpose was.
“Protestors,” Constantine grumbled under his breath.
She craned her neck to get a better look. If she listened closely, she could hear one man’s voice above another.
“End the tournament. End gladiator deaths. End the empire!” He chanted this three times, and then others picked up the last refrain. “End the empire! End the empire! End the empire!”
“Well, that’s going to work,” Constantine said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “This way. They’ll be here any moment.”
“Who?”
But she shouldn’t have bothered asking.
What did she expect from a protest in front of the gladiator ring? What would have happened at home? She knew because she’d been caught in one even more organized and peaceful than these men blocking the entrance. The stamp of guards’ boots against the cobblestone was all the confirmation she needed. Constantine gripped her arm and drew her farther away as men in red-plumed hats appeared before the protestors.
“The Domaran army,” he filled her in.
Tarcus’s stupid hat when he’d arrived at Constantine’s estate made more sense. He had been trying to show strength by displaying the blood red of the Domaran military.
She couldn’t make out the words from the military commander at the front. But she saw the moment their swords swung loose from their scabbards. The distressing cries from the protestors as they pleaded for leniency. A leniency that would never come. She saw it on the soldiers’ faces before anything ever happened.
Screams punctuated the scene as all those near the army fled in terror. Some of the protestors managed to escape the oncoming assault. But the leader stood his ground.
“End the empire!” he shouted one last time before a sword swung through his neck. His head was severed and rolled off into the crowd.
The streets ran red with the blood of those who had deigned to oppose those in charge. Oh, how familiar.
A haze clouded her mind as she floated out of her body. She had been here before. She had endured this once. And here it all was again. And again. And again. She’d never escape.
Constantine must have been trying to speak to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the buzzing in her ears. She’d moved forward. Toward the onslaught. She hadn’t even known that she had been drawn in.
Then, she was in his arms, scooped up and out of the trouble. A minute later, they passed through an arch of the enormous arena and were entering the massive structure. He only put her down on her feet once they were through the worst of it, and her sandals touched the sandy bottom arena.
“What were you thinking?” Constantine demanded.
She hadn’t been thinking. In fact, it had been the opposite of it all. The trauma of the Red Masks invasion and the takeover of her world had left scars on her heart. She hadn’t dealt with them. She’d just pushed them aside for her mission. And all of it had come to the surface at once.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked like a soldier who had just left the battlefield.”
Her eyes were empty when she looked up at him. They were mirrors in that moment. Soldiers who had lost their country, their world, and their hearts.
He frowned. “Who hurt you?”
A laugh cracked the emptiness in her chest at those words. “Everyone.”
He nodded as if he were looking at a fellow soldier. As if maybe he saw her for what she really was and not the porcelain doll everyone had been dressing her up as since she’d landed in the gods-forsaken country.
Then, the look disappeared, and he was back to business as usual. He couldn’t see her for her reality. Not when it didn’t fit into his world view.
“This way,” Constantine said.
She had no fight in her. Not after the senseless slaughter she’d witnessed. It wasn’t as if she had been under some illusion that Domara was a great and wise country. Only a few weeks in the country had wiped away that illusion. But sometimes, it was still hard to reconcile it with the romanticized land of the gods she had always believed it was.
Constantine moved to the front of a line and showed a man with all gray hair a large letter with a coat of arms on it. The man inspected it, sucking on his teeth as he considered the letter against the man behind it. Then, he waved him through.
“General Constantine Pallas of Leon,” the man said, “in which events are your gladiators participating?”
Constantine passed him another letter, which the man unrolled and read out loud. Each of the soldiers came forward to beat their fist against their chest twice in acknowledgment of their entry.
“Excellent. These seem in order.” The man scratched his quill against a list. “There has been a change in the final tournament. Are you aware of this?”
“A change since when?”
“Yesterday. The prize money is the same, but Doma Vulsan has raised the stakes and offered the winner a Gift.”
Constantine blinked in apparent shock. “A Gift from the gods for a tournament win?”
“Indeed,” the man said. “He wanted to get in as many competitors as he could.”
Kerrigan looked between the two men. Both seemed shocked by the news. The pot money for winning in the final tournament was already astronomical. She’d heard the men discussing it on the boat ride here. But a gift from the gods?
Her heart thumped in her chest. The Doma had the power to get her home. They had the ability to stop what was happening in her world. And all she had to do was win a tournament. A plan began to form in her mind. She suddenly knew exactly what she needed to do.