Rise of a Fallen Man (A Look in the Mirror #2)

Chapter 5

Salas

Seven years later.

T he crowd screamed as the royal gladiators and I entered the arena. These were the screams of cheers and support, but they echoed with the chants “Burn, filthy whore!” ringing through my memories.

I was the same man, with the same body and soul, and the same shameful past. Only the place had changed. And here, they admired me instead of despised. I wondered how long it would take for the cheers to turn to sneers if they found out who I really was and how I came to be here now.

After Traeh’s fun house had burned to the ground, I spent weeks recuperating from my burns in a rented room. As my injuries healed painfully slow, I had plenty of time to contemplate my future.

The decision was simple because my choices were fewer than ever before. I was a fallen man who’d worked in a fun house for eight years. There was only one place for me to go now—another whore house. Even a slave contract was out of reach with the past like mine. There was no such thing as a “former whore.” Traeh had been right all along. A stain like this remained forever. It became a life sentence.

A working boy was required to be registered to a brothel and confined to a fun district. Legally, I wasn’t allowed to leave the district without permission or accompanied by a woman.

Traeh gave me a letter of reference for another establishment like hers. As soon as my burns healed enough for me to walk, I headed to the town where it was located.

Once again, I walked along a frozen dirt road to a place I’d never been to before. This time, however, I had the money to stop at a tavern and buy a meal.

By pure luck, I found a letter of reference in the tavern, dropped by someone, probably after a night of heavy drinking. The letter had no name. I couldn’t return it. So, I used it to sign my first slave contract.

As a whore, I could only keep my heart to myself. But as a slave, I kept more. I no longer had to share a bed with anyone. I was not required to fake emotions I didn’t feel or to have strangers’ hands on me when I didn’t want to be touched. As long as I did my work during the day, my body remained my own.

Later, I learned, of course, that slaves were still despised and looked down at by free folks. Yet the status of a slave was higher than that of a whore because every slave had a chance at redemption, even if many of them never got free again.

After that first contact, getting the next one proved easy. As long as I worked hard and asked for little, slave owners didn’t dig deep into my past.

Nothing in my life had predicted my being in the gladiators’ arena now. A position like that was highly coveted by many and was granted to very few. Still, when Lady Gem had offered this opportunity to me, my first instinct was to decline.

The gladiators’ games rivaled the queen’s parades in popularity. They attracted enormous crowds, and in my case, too much attention could be deadly. I’d broken the law by concealing my past to become a slave. If discovered, I risked the death penalty.

But in the end, I had accepted the offer. A part of me wished to experience at least a moment of the respect and admiration that society showered the royal gladiators with. I wanted to know what it felt like to step in front of a crowd with my head held high.

The other reason was her—Princess Aniri. As a royal gladiator, I got to stay in Egami, where she lived.

My mind demanded I get away, but my heart decided otherwise. And that was the problem. That girl with her freckles, and her glasses, and her tragic secrets had made her way under my skin, getting dangerously close to my heart.

She was the only woman I’d ever met who made me feel like her equal, despite our positions being so impossibly far apart. The feeling came as a true shock, and I still wasn’t sure whether it was her who was so down-to-earth or me who felt elevated in her presence, but with her, the slave felt worthy of the princess. She never treated me as a lesser being, not even after she’d found out the whole truth about my past.

The gladiators formed a circle around the arena, framing it in a single line. Queen Anna and her royal consort King Trebor walked down the long rug laid over the sand. Regal and dignified, the royal couple crossed the arena toward the lavishly decorated sitting platform on the opposite side.

I thought I was prepared to see her again. I’d waited for this moment all morning. But my breath hitched when Princess Aniri stepped out into the arena after her parents.

She held her chin up, not letting her tall crown weigh her head down. The long train of her formal gown sparkled like a starry sky, stitched with diamond stars. The starched lace collar rose from around her shoulders like a wide flower petal, not letting me see her face until she stopped in the middle of the arena and raised her hand in greeting.

Ari turned around slowly, waving to the crowd. Hiding behind the visor of my helmet, I greedily soaked in every detail about her.

The sun reflected in her glasses, hiding her eyes from me. Did she see me? I was standing too far away, and she was looking up at the cascading rows of seating from where the people who’d come from all over the queendom waved and cheered.

A different kind of images entered my mind as memories rushed me. I remembered how her glasses fogged with my breath while I kissed her freckles. I never forgot the sensation of her hair gripped in my fingers while she held my cock in her mouth. And how she sobbed in my arms, recalling things that no girl should have to live through.

The princess was a survivor. Like me. I sensed our connection from the first words she said to me. That was the only reason I’d agreed to come to her bedroom that first night.

The generous sum the crown offered for teaching the princess the ways of sex would’ve enticed many. But for me, it was useless. I didn’t plan to buy my freedom because there was no future for me beyond slavery.

I had no desire to work as a hired man of pleasure ever again, not even for one night, not even for the crown princess. But I had to make sure that Princess Arini was simply the spoiled little girl like most nobles were. Born in miracle and raised in luxury, she couldn’t possibly have anything in common with me.

How badly I’d been mistaken, and how wrong she’d proven me. Since that first night, I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts.

Throughout my life, women had been many things to me. My mother was a source of strength and safety. Lady Lana became my source of pain and humiliation. Later, being with women delivered some pleasure and even comfort. My clients had been my job that I did well but didn’t think about once it was done. I hadn’t pleasured a woman since the night of the fire and hadn’t missed it.

But with Ari... With her, I let it all spiral out of control, and I wasn’t sure when or how it had happened.

It wasn’t Ari’s fault. I knew who she was from the very first moment I laid my eyes on her. I had no business falling for the crown princess. But there I was, falling, plummeting so hard, my head was spinning, and I had to stop it before I crashed.

She crossed the arena and climbed the stairs up to the royal balcony under the awning of gold brocade. The train of her priceless gown stretched over the stairs like a waterfall of diamonds and sunshine. I watched her climb higher and higher to the heights where I could never follow her.

As she took her seat next to the queen, I forced my thoughts out of the past and into the present.

Instead of remembering how Ari’s arms twined around my neck with her naked body pressed against mine, I recalled the purpose of all of us being in this arena today. The purpose of this event was for Princess Aniri to welcome to Rorrim Queendom the three high-born princes. Before their visit was over, she’d choose one of them to be her lawfully wedded husband.

By the end of this year, another man would share her bed, touch her body, and kiss her freckles. And it wouldn’t be me.

A fallen man could never claim the crown princess for his own.

Ari wasn’t mine and could never be.

THE HELMET DID A GREAT job, concealing my face from the audience in the arena. But on a hot day like today, it turned impossibly stuffy inside. I grunted with relief when taking it off upon our return to the gladiators’ quarters.

The three wings of the two-story building framed a large courtyard in the middle. In the summer, the men preferred to take lunch outside. A wide awning hung from the tall fence poles to the left, shading several long tables with benches on both sides. The cook and her helpers brought out huge platters with food from the kitchen and put them onto the wooden tables for our midday meal.

The aroma that drifted from the platters made my mouth water. I got up late that morning and only had a few gulps of hot tea and a slice of bread for breakfast before Lerrel, the games master, dragged me into the practice rink to get ready for the ceremony in the arena.

Marching in the arena required far less strain and energy than hauling bricks or rocks as a slave, but I was used to eating my fill, even as a slave. A single slice of bread was not nearly enough to sustain me for the entire morning. By now, I felt famished, looking forward to finally getting some food.

I hung up my helmet on the hook on the fence, next to the props and costume pieces of the other men.

Raob, a stout man with copper-red hair braided in long pleats and a beard that reached down to his chest, carefully placed his elaborate headdress on the shelf nearby. His helmet was decorated with a wide strip of thick brown fur, a pair of tusks, and a snout pierced with a thick bronze ring in the middle.

“This fucking thing gets boiling hot like a teakettle in the sun,” he muttered, running his hand over his sweat-slicked braids. “You must be cooking under that hide, too, boy?” He tipped his chin at the bear fur over my shoulders.

I nodded, unbuckling the belts that connected the hide to my shoulders.

“I’ve been waiting to get rid of it all morning,” I admitted.

The fresh breeze blew over my sweaty back the moment I removed the hide. I stretched my shoulders, reveling in the relief it brought.

The rules of modesty and propriety didn’t seem to apply to gladiators. Many of us remained topless, both in the arena and here now. A few men threw on their light shirts or robes after removing their armor, and I wished I’d brought my shirt down here too. I wasn’t used to being half-naked like this, even less so when taking my meals. But I was way too hungry to run inside for a shirt now.

I took a seat at the end of the bench, grabbed a plate, and piled it high with food from the platters. I’d never felt this hungry, not even as a slave. It wasn’t in the owner’s interest to starve us. But the watery potato stew and the undercooked barley normally served to the slaves had been barely eatable compared to the gladiator’s fare of roasted ribs, steamed vegetables doused in buttery sauce, and freshly baked bread. I tried not to drool, breathing in the appetizing smells.

Regit, the young gladiator, originally from Tresed Queendom, slid onto the bench across from me.

“So, what did you think about the arena, Reab?” he asked before biting into a piece of bread.

Reab .

That was the name I gave to the games master when she asked how I wished to be known to the public. The less people knew about me, the safer I was.

“It’s a big arena,” I replied, tearing a piece of warm bread from a thick slice.

Somehow, Regit managed to stuff his face with food and chat simultaneously without choking.

“I bet it feels different when standing in it than when looking at it from the audience during the games,” he said between the bites of the meat and forkfuls of the vegetable dish.

Before that morning, I’d never been to the Royal Gladiators’ Arena either as a performer or a spectator. I grew up in a small village, quite a distance from Egami. Lady Lana’s estate was deep in the country, too, far away from the capital. I’d first arrived in the city when I was already a slave, and of course, the owner never took her slaves to see the games. Why would she?

Obviously, I wasn’t going to explain any of it to Regit.

“It’s different,” I agreed, bringing the bread to my mouth.

Falo, another gladiator, dropped his plate on the table next to mine and stepped over the bench on my right.

“Make space, big boy,” he growled, squeezing between me and Raob. “This place was just right for the forty-eight gladiators. And now, it feels way too tight.”

He slid along the bench, slamming his side into me. Not expecting it, I lost my balance and nearly fell off the bench. Dropping the bread, I grabbed on to the table, shifting the whole thing toward me.

“Hey!” the other gladiators yelled, catching their plates to stop them from sliding off the table.

I jumped to my feet. Falo rose from the bench, too, jerking his chin up in challenge. The midday air sizzled with tension around us. Even the clanking of the dishes stopped abruptly.

A single clap came from behind us, sharp like a crack of a whip. Lerrel, the games master, propped her hands on her hips, glaring at us as she approached the eating area.

Of an average height and size for a woman, she looked tiny compared to the gladiators. Yet she didn’t need a size advantage over the men for them to do as she said. Her words lashed harder than a whip.

“You two. On the rink. Now.” She snapped her fingers and flicked her wrist at the oval rink roped off in the middle of the courtyard.

Packed with dirt and sawdust, the rink was smaller than the Royal Gladiator’s Arena, but it had the same shape and proportions. We’d used it to practice our formations that morning. And now, Lerrel wagged her finger between Falo and me.

“Whatever is going on between you two, get on the rink and work it out. Now.”

Cursing under his breath, Falo stomped over to the rope stretched between the low poles that marked the rink.

I tossed a wistful glance at the succulent ribs on my plate and my uneaten slice of bread before following him. My empty stomach spasmed in protest, but no one seemed to dare disobey the games master, and I wasn’t going to be the one to set that example.

Judging by Lerrel’s clothes, she was a Roamer from the traveling tribes. Roamers were notorious for their street fighting skills, but Lerrel had made a career out of it, rising all the way to the Games Master of the Royal Gladiators.

She was dressed in a frilly, colorful skirt and a sleeveless blouse with flowery embroidery in the front. Her black, thick curls were cut to just above her shoulders and held away from her face with a red scarf tied around her head. With her hands propped on her hips and her dark eyes narrowed at us, she watched closely as Falo and I stepped over the rope and got into the rink.

Falo spat on the ground. “Lady Gem doesn’t give a fuck about you, Raeb. Don’t you imagine even for a moment that you’re her boy now just because she put a word in for you on a whim.”

I shrugged. Lady Gem spoke to me for the first time ever just a day ago. She’d talked through her teeth, avoiding eye contact and clearly hating every minute spent in the same room with me. She might’ve given me the official reference, but I had a strong feeling she wasn’t really the one behind my sudden rise from a slave to a gladiator.

As Lady Gem had reluctantly explained, there might be a murder accusation looming over my head. She also had made it clear that becoming a gladiator might shield me from my past catching up with me if I remained a slave. It seemed I had a high-standing benefactor who was concerned about my safety, but it couldn’t be Lady Gem. Princess Aniri was the only one who’d shown me any kindness lately, and I believed it had been her idea all along. There simply wasn’t anyone else who would care about me or my future.

With his fists raised, Falo circled me, and I rotated to keep facing him.

“Stay away from the lady chamberlain,” he snarled.

“Gladly.”

But he was too wound up to listen to reason. Launching forward, fast like lightning, Falo executed a maneuver I’d never seen before, slamming his fist into my ribs.

“Slow like molasses,” he gloated. “You’re a waste as a gladiator. You may’ve gotten here by giving Lady Gem a satisfying fuck or two, but that’s as far as you’ll go.”

He kept jumping around me, searching for another chance to strike. His leaping around proved disorienting, giving me a headache.

“What are the rules?” I asked.

“There are no rules, you oaf,” he spat out.

Lerrel grabbed a roasted rib from Falo’s plate and ate it with her foot propped on the bench.

“The rules are no killing your opponent and no broken bones on the training rink,” she said between the bites. “Save the real stuff for the arena.”

That was good to know, since I’d broken a man’s arm in my last fight. It hadn’t been intentional. I’d grabbed his wrist, and when he’d jerked one way, I’d pulled in the other. The bone had snapped.

That day, we worked on fixing a giant pothole in the road leading to the palace. A few wagons passed by, and I recognized one as Traeh’s. I should’ve just let her pass. But I hadn’t seen Traeh for years and didn’t give it a second thought, running up to her to say hi.

“Traeh, it’s me, Salas. How have you been?”

She squinted at me, her hand pressed to her chest. “Salas? Is that really you?”

She didn’t recognize me, unsurprisingly so. I hardly recognized myself when I had a chance to look in a mirror. I’d grown wider and rougher since my days at the fun house. I’d also stopped shaving, letting my beard grow.

Seven years had passed since I saw her last. Her face, however, held the mark of sorrows worth far more than just seven years.

We chatted briefly. Erif had survived the fire but died five years later, succumbing to the aftermath of the injuries he’d gotten that night. All the other men who’d worked for Traeh had found positions in other fun houses.

“You’re the only one who never went back,” Traeh said.

“Pure luck and a lie helped me get away.”

She shook her head, her lips pressed together in concern.

“You know what the law is. If your past is discovered, you won’t live long.”

“I know. But for as long or as short as I have, I’ll live the way I want, not the way the law forces me to.”

“Are you content with your life then?” She didn’t ask if I was happy. True happiness wasn’t for the men like me.

“It is what it is.” I shrugged.

I went back to hauling the gravel to fill the pothole, and Traeh was on her way to the farm of a distant relative. She’d never opened another fun house while taking care of Erif. After he died, she decided to move to the farm and help around for as long as she could.

When I returned to the slaves working on the road, one of them recognized Traeh’s wagon.

“Hey, I saw that wagon years ago. People on the market said that woman was getting groceries for a whorehouse.”

“Do you want to become a whore, Salas?” the other one snorted.

“That bitch would take you for all you’ve got, make money off you, then fuck you herself for free,” the first one added.

The third slave made a sign of a circle over his forehead—the ring of purity in honor of God Yarnus, “Cursed is she and all those who are with her. May they all burn in a purifying fire.”

The others laughed and cursed, saying things about Traeh she didn’t deserve. The brunt of our stigma scorched her too.

“Shut up,” I snapped.

Traeh wasn’t perfect by any means. But who was? She had taken me in when every door had closed on me. She showed me kindness when no one else did.

They taunted me and insulted her, delighted in having someone below them to look down at and spit on. One of them shoved me, and I threw a punch in response. Five more men jumped at me, and I hit left and right without looking, until a bone snapped and a man yelled in agony.

“No breaking bones.” I nodded, repeating Lerrel’s words.

Falo hit again. The blow to my chest left me winded. He was too fast, jumping around me like a rabbit. I figured out the pattern of his jumps and leaped aside to evade his next strike. Then I moved behind him and hugged his arms to his torso.

“Hey!” he yelled and sputtered, squirming in my tight embrace. “That’s not how it’s done. Fight me, you coward!”

“You said no rules.” I wrapped one arm around his middle, holding his arms to his body, then lifted him off his feet.

He kicked, so I shifted him under my arm, holding him horizontally to the ground. He kicked and screamed but couldn’t free his hands or reach me with his feet.

“Set me down, you fucking clumsy bear!” Falo yelled, dangling in my hold like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Lerrel’s mouth dropped open, the half-eaten rib dangling in her fingers.

The rest of the gladiators erupted in thunderous laughter. Raob all but fell off the bench, holding his sides. Regit laughed so hard, tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Don’t you squirm like that.” I adjusted Falo under my arm. “Or you’ll break your ribs, which is against the rules.” I turned to Lerrel. “Where do you want him, master?”

Lerrel blinked, then swallowed, hiding a giggle behind her hand.

“Well.” She stepped over the rope and onto the rink with us. “Set him down. The fight is over, Falo.” She shoved the rib bone with little meat left on it into his hand. “Go eat your lunch.”

“The fucking ogre has no clue how to fight!” Falo glared at me, storming off the rink.

A reflection wave of embarrassment ran over his skin and clothes, momentarily blending his shape with the fence and the ground. He tossed the half-eaten rib into the bucket on the ground, then grabbed his plate from the table and stomped toward the building, chased by the teasing shouts of the gladiators.

“I never said I knew how to fight,” I explained to Lerrel. “I’m much better with a sword than with my fists. Especially if you don’t want any bones broken.”

“But you sure made it entertaining.” She smirked. “Which is actually the most important part of what we do around here. Above all, the public must be entertained. Let me think. What can we do with you?”

She stepped around me, assessing me with her stare.

I was wearing long linen pants and knee-high boots made from a soft, thin leader held up by a rope zigzagging up my calves. Instead of a shirt, a pair of wide leather belts crisscrossed my chest, with two metal buckles on my shoulders that were used to hold the bearskin.

Lerrel splayed her fingers on my right bicep.

“Flex,” she ordered.

I raised my forearm, straining the muscles. She added the second hand but barely made it half-way around my upper arm with both hands.

“Well, shit.” She gaped at me. “Huge like a mountain and hard like a rock.”

Taking a step back, she stared at my chest for a few seconds, then slid her gaze down to my abdomen. Without a warning, she poked her finger in my belly. I jerked, my muscles flexing instinctively.

She traced a square of an abdominal muscle, muttering, “A bit too lean, but that’s to be expected, considering what you did before. No worries, we’ll put some bulk on you yet.” She walked around me. “What exactly did you do as a slave?” I turned to face her again, but she twirled a finger in the air, signaling me to spin around. “I need to see your back.”

As requested, I presented her with the view of my back again.

“Is that from the flogging you got for that fight Lady Gem mentioned?” She traced a scar on my back.

“Yes.”

“It’s healed well,” she commented matter-of-factly. “So, what else did you do, other than fight?”

“I helped fix the castle walls with the others,” I said over my shoulder. “And before that, I helped lay the garden paths. And before that—”

“How exactly did you help, Raeb?”

“I carried rocks and bricks, brought gravel in a wheelbarrow. That kind of things.”

“I see.”

I felt the press of her fingers on either side of my spine.

“What did they feed you to keep you working?” she asked.

“Mostly, a potato stew or boiled barley, with other grains sometimes.”

“Really? How long were you a slave?”

“Long enough,” I replied evasively, afraid to give her the exact number, lest she dig deeper into my past.

“How long?” she insisted. “Months? Years?”

“Years. Many years. Almost three contracts’ worth.”

“Hmm. And all those years, you ate mostly barley and potato stew?”

“Pretty much.”

She poked and prodded down my spine then around my lower back, sliding the tips of her fingers under the waistband of my pants.

I tensed my shoulders but didn’t stop her. Lerrel’s attention, though uncomfortable, didn’t feel sexual or suggestive. She inspected me the way a farmer would inspect a horse that she considered buying. Some men might still find it offensive, but I’d been through similar assessments a few times already, when signing the slave contracts.

“Have you ever had any back pain?” she asked.

“No. Not yet.”

“You’re lucky.” She completed her walk-around and stopped in front of me again, tapping her chin with her finger. “Maybe I should cut down on meat for my boys here too? Switch to barley and potatoes instead?”

The gladiators grumbled, shifting uneasily at her words.

I flinched, casting a longing glance at my plate of ribs on the table.

Lerrel laughed.

“Don’t worry. For one, our chef can prepare any grain much better than those in the slaves’ kitchen, I’m sure. And two, I know I can’t take meat from them completely or I’ll have a mutiny on my hands.” She tilted her head. “Well, you look like the gods have hewed you out of a mountain rock. A bear indeed.”

A loud clapping came from the direction of the building, accompanied by a female voice, “Big like a mountain and strong like a bear. Why do you think I gave him that bear hide to wear this morning?”

A couple walked to us from the open door of the gladiators’ building. The woman had introduced herself to me as Naeco that morning. She’d said she was the choreographer for the gladiators. Because apparently, the great fighting skills weren’t enough to put up a satisfying show for the audience. Each fight had to be carefully choreographed for the arena, even as the risk of injury or death remained very real too.

Naeco’s snow-white hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, as well as her light-blue eyes, subtly tinted with violet, told me she was one of the Frosted people who looked like Eci, the Goddess of Winter. Every now and then, gods sent someone looking like Naeco into the world to remind us that beauty had many forms and the mortals’ appearance was as varied as that of the gods.

The man who accompanied Naeco was Noil, Lerrel’s husband and the gladiators’ mentor. He trained the men to fight while Naeco made sure they looked good when fighting.

Naeco squinted in the sunshine before putting a pair of dark-tinted glasses on to peer at me through them.

“Fur suits you,” she said.

“It goes well with the hide he has growing on his chest.” Noil chuckled, then beelined for the table with food.

“Mountain Bear,” Naeco murmured, raking with a finger through my chest hair that had fully grown out after the last grooming. “That’s what you should be called in the arena. Mountain Bear. What do you think, Lerrel?”

I glanced at the games master.

“Works for me.” She tipped her head at the table. “Go eat. I know you’re hungry. It wouldn’t do for us to starve you, especially if we’re going with that bear-like persona for you.”

“Thanks.” I headed to the table, not waiting to be asked twice.

Noil took the place on my right, the one vacated by Falo.

“So, here is what’s going to happen.” Noil grabbed a rib from his plate, using it to articulate his words by waving it in the air. “You’ll figure out all that costume shit with Naeco today. We’ll get you the gladiator’s ring tomorrow.” He tapped against the table with the heavy silver ring on his right middle finger. The ring was engraved with the golden crown of Rorrim in the oval frame of the gladiator’s arena. “I allowed you to sleep in this morning, but you’re getting up early with the rest of the boys tomorrow. We train before and after breakfast. The first two weeks you’ll help with the games and practice your own act. A week after, we’ll try your act in the arena, see how it goes, and go from there.” He bit into the rib, tearing a huge strip of meat from the bone. “And no women during the first month,” he said around a mouthful. “I need you fully focused on the games, at least at the beginning.”

“Fine with me.” I reached for my plate. “I’m not interested in women.”

“That’s too bad, because if you prefer men, they can’t pay much. Women are the rich and powerful ones. They make the best benefactors.”

“No. Not interested in men, either.” I picked up a rib and finally sank my teeth into the succulent meat. The flavor gave justice to the aroma that had been teasing me all this time.

Noil raised his bushy eyebrows, then shrugged his shoulders, and dug into the vegetables on his plate. “Suit yourself. You can certainly survive without a benefactor. But with a rich woman taking care of you, your life would be much easier.”

The one and only woman who’d ever caught my interest I couldn't have. I’d shot way too high. Even a royal gladiator was way below a princess.

Her true match could only be a prince.