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

Chapter 11

Salas

T he streets, meanwhile, had gotten even more crowded. So many people moved on foot that wagons appeared to be frozen in place, with no room for the horses to stir in any direction. There was no point in looking for a ride in a wagon. I might as well walk.

As I made my way through the crowd, trying to ignore the pictures of the royal couple holding hands on the banners and the paper flyers everywhere, I found myself being carried off route by the stream of people. Instead of turning left and heading along the city wall to the gladiators’ quarters, I ended up being shoved right, toward the open gates of the royal palace.

Apparently, I hadn’t made enough effort to combat the crowd and now ended up in the place I had no intention of coming to today. The only sane, reasonable thing to do now would be to turn around and proceed on my way against the constant stream of people. But when it came to Ari, both sanity and reason deserted me long ago. The closer I got to the place where she was, the stronger the pull grew. I didn’t fight the crowd, going with its flow instead.

The guards stopped me at the gate.

“Are you invited?”

“Yes.” I presented them with my ring. “I’m with the gladiators.”

“Gladiators?” The guard leader pivoted in my direction from the door to the gatehouse. “Really?” She squinted at me, then moved her gaze up and down from my head to my feet.

The shadows from my hood obscured my face, but my figure betrayed me.

“You’re the Mountain Bear, aren’t you?” She waved at the guards to let me through and for me to come closer. “By Goddess, you’re even bigger up close.”

The comments about my size were nothing new, and there wasn’t much to say in reply.

“Yes, madam. I come from a family of tall people.”

“Tall and massive.” She nodded with delight, then grabbed a piece of paper and an ink pad from the gatehouse. “This is for my son. Could you please?” She thrust the paper to me.

Realizing what she wanted me to do. I dipped my ring in the ink then pressed it to the paper, leaving an imprint of the gladiators’ crest—the Rorrim’s crown inside the oval of the arena.

The woman cooed excitedly, smiling at the piece of paper as if it was a real treasure.

The public admiration still felt new and a little overwhelming. People who didn’t know me as a person, who’d never met me outside of the arena, appreciated me and didn’t hesitate to express their admiration whenever they got a chance to speak to me.

It was addictive. Every time I stood in the arena after yet another successful performance, showered with cheers and applause, I soaked up the public love, even as I knew the same people would rather see me decapitated if my past ever came to light.

I took the quill the guard leader handed to me and wrote my arena name under the gladiators’ crest.

“Mountain Bear,” she read with a bright smile. “Oh, this will make my little boy so happy. You’re his favorite gladiator. He’s been dragging me to the games every week since they trapped you.” She gave me a once-over. “You’re not really as wild as they claim, are you? Or have they tamed you?”

“Somewhat.” I grinned. “Enough to let me go out in public unsupervised.”

She laughed, matching my tone. “So, it’s safe to allow you onto the palace grounds then?”

Except that getting onto the grounds wasn’t easy. More guards gathered around me, along with the people from the crowd. After borrowing the ink pad from the guard leader, they asked me to stamp their royal wedding invitations, the flyers with the portrait of the couple, and everything else that would hold ink.

“Press it right here, handsome.” A woman yanked down her dress, offering me her bare shoulder for the stamp. “I’ll never wash it off.” She winked.

Another woman pulled on my arm, bringing my ear to her mouth.

“You don’t have to risk your life in the arena if you let a woman take care of you,” she whispered while stuffing a piece of paper under my belt. “My name and address are here, sweetie. Drop by for a visit.”

Only when the music blasted from the turrets of the palace, announcing the beginning of the ceremony, did the swell of attention on me ebbed. When everyone turned around toward the balcony over the main entrance to the palace, I used the moment to sneak out of the crowd and made my way to one of the pillars with lanterns that surrounded the front plaza.

The glass doors of the balcony opened. The Head Priestess of Great Goddess Nus stepped out, followed by a priestess of Rethaf, the God of Matrimony.

The priestess of Rethaf opened a scroll and read an excerpt from the scripture about the sanctity of marriage. A third priestess joined them. This one was wearing the white robes of Yarnus, the God of Purity.

Nus, Rethaf, and Yarnus. Power, Matrimony, and Purity. All were asked to shower their blessings on the royal couple.

As the priestesses stepped aside, Princess Aniri exited onto the balcony, and the ache in my chest leaped to new heights.

In the formal gown of red-and-gold brocade, with the heavy golden crown set over her swept up hair, Princess Arini presented the image of royal power and grace.

People clapped, shouted greetings, and tossed flowers and colorful ribbons into the air.

“May the Goddess bless you!” the crowd cheered.

“May you give us an heiress soon!”

From the moment Ari first arrived in this world, the entire queendom rested its hopes on her shoulders. It was a heavy load to bear, but she carried it with dignity and quiet determination.

I knew she cared about me. We had an undeniable connection. She had shown her affection for me on more than one occasion. And I believed I could make that affection bloom into something far stronger if I had a chance.

If only...

A stab of regret hurt too much to continue that thought.

Shrinking into the shadows from the pillar, I searched her face for any clues about her true feelings.

It was her wedding day. Was she happy? Apprehensive? In love with her groom?

Love was hard to hide, they said. But Ari did a damn good job when hiding her emotions. Her face revealed nothing. Her expression was the same as in that picture on all the banners and flyers—dignified and neutral. A smile appeared briefly as she waved at the crowd. The smile blinked to life once more when her groom joined her on the balcony.

Prince Leafar wore a white suit, as was customary for men when getting married. Princess Aniri took his hands in hers, and the Priestess of the Great Goddess started the ceremony.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. In fact, I’d made a considerable effort to stay away from the palace today.

Why did my feet carry me here anyway? For the dubious pleasure of catching a glimpse of Ari again?

I hadn’t seen her for almost two weeks now. She hadn’t been to the gladiators’ quarters since the time we made love in the window seat. She hadn’t even come to the arena for the games. And, well... I missed her.

It was a foolish, self-destructive feeling, but just for a moment, I allowed my imagination to take flight.

I imagined it was my hands she was holding, that she wasn’t wearing a crown and the fancy gown with the train that draped from the balcony like a royal banner, billowing in the wind, but that she was just a girl I met in a city market or at a country fair.

I saw us facing each other, with bright genuine smiles on our faces. My fingers intertwined with hers as the priestess tied our hands with the ceremonial sash.

It’d be a far more modest ring in Ari’s hands, but she’d be placing it on my finger. And I allowed myself to believe she’d be happier if she gave it to me instead of the prince.

After our ceremony, we’d come back to our true home, just the two of us. I’d make her the best meat pies in the world, and she’d cook potatoes for me in every way she knew how. We’d go on dates, swim under the stars, and make love whenever we wished, and no one could stop us. Because I’d be hers, fully and completely. And she would be mine.

I let the memory of her body held in my arms run through my veins once more. I held to the fantasy for one bright, sparkling moment longer. Then I let it fly away and disappear like the dream that it was.

The princess said her vows to her noble groom, “You’ll have my trust and protection.”

“I vow to cherish and obey you for as long as we shall live,” the prince promised in return.

Nothing was said about love. But these vows weren’t meant to be romantic. It was a political deal made between two queendoms.

As the priestess announced the royal couple as a wife and husband to the cheering crowd, I turned away and made my way back to the gate. I left before the bride kissed the groom because the only kisses I wished to remember were those she’d given to me.

Drawing the hood lower over my face, I made my way across the crowded road outside of the palace, then turned to go back to the gladiators’ quarters.

I walked as fast as the crowd allowed. Even a good distance away from the palace, the roads remained packed. With no chance to glimpse the royal couple or even the palace gates, people still came out. The mood was cheerful. Clapping or shouting, and breaking into a song or even a dance, the city people celebrated along with the royals.

Tired of fighting to move against the stream, I left the road and headed closer to the city wall. Here, the crowd finally thinned. Keeping to the shadows from the wall, I made much better progress following the footpath here.

Eventually, the path turned completely deserted. The crowd remained closer to the palace, with not a soul in my way.

I took the hood off, letting the summer breeze cool my head. My chest remained heavy, with a gaping hole in my heart that I could only hope time would heal.

A strangled cry of terror came from a narrow street up ahead. It was cut off short, as if by a hand placed over the mouth or by a blade pierced through the heart. The voice was high, like that of a woman or a child, which made my hackles rise and my muscles tense instinctively. I had no weapons on me, but I rushed to the street ahead.

The high, windowless walls of the surrounding buildings came close to each other here, not allowing for sunlight to reach the ground. Groans and sounds of struggle from around the corner spurred me to run faster.

A woman lay on her back on the muddy cobblestones, her clothes torn and smeared with dirt and blood. The man on top of her held a knife in his hand.

“Shut up, you monster,” he gritted through his teeth.

He called her a monster? When he was the one acting like it?

Blood rushed to my head. Rage jolted me into action, numbing all other senses, including the sense of self-preservation.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I lunged at his back. “Get off her!”

I grabbed the wrist of his hand with the knife, stopping his next blow.

The woman’s eyes met mine over the shoulder of her attacker. They were wide open and filled with horror as he clamped a hand over her mouth.

She was alive, thank Goddess, but terrified nearly to death. Blood smeared her blouse around her neck. Crimson droplets beaded from the scratch on her temple and cheekbone, glistening like rubies against her dark-brown skin.

The man growled like a feral beast when I wrestled his arm back, keeping the knife away from his victim. Letting go of her mouth, he swung a fist at me.

I grabbed his other wrist, blocking his blow. We both rolled off the poor woman. She sat up, gasping for air and pressing her torn clothing to her body.

“Run!” I shouted, needing her to be safe.

Thankfully, she didn’t wait for me to repeat it. Scrambling to her feet, she ran as if demons were chasing her or a true monster was on her heels.

The man bucked under me, trying to throw me off him.

“Monsters...” he mumbled, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth. “They’re all vile. Kill them all before they kill you.”

I shoved down on the hand with the knife. He unclamped his fingers, letting it fall onto the cobblestones. He kicked me, then twisted an arm out of my grip, and punched me in the ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs.

I bent over, gasping for breath.

He shoved me off and tried to gather his legs and feet under him, but I threw my bulk on top of him, pushing him back to the dirty cobblestones.

“Stay,” I growled. “Stay and answer for what you’ve done.”

I rolled him over to his back, seizing his both wrists and pinning his hips to the ground by straddling him. He snarled, trying to get away.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” I yelled, unable to comprehend this man and his actions. “How? Why?”

He eased his struggle, staring at me intently.

“Salas?”

The sound of my real name coming from the chapped lips of the stranger thundered through my mind.

“Do I know you?” I studied the scars on his face, searching for the features I might recognize. But his face was so disfigured, it looked like a grotesque, unfamiliar mask.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” He smirked. “Of course you don’t. No one does anymore. It’s me, Das. Remember? We both worked for Traeh, what feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Das?”

I knew the name. It belonged to a dark-haired boy only a year older than me. He came to Traeh’s establishment a month after me and stayed for less than a year. After several complaints from customers about him, Traeh asked him to leave. The women complained Das was too rough, even when they had paid him to be gentle.

“What happened to you?” I stared at the complex map of scars on his face.

The web of them covered his entire face and neck, descending into the neckline of his shirt too. Some were long and narrow, as if left by a blade. Others looked puckered and discolored, like burns. One scar slashed across his left eye. The eyelids healed in a way that kept that eye almost completely shut.

“Monsters, Salas,” he croaked. “Monsters have been at it for as long as I remember.”

“What monsters?”

“You call them women. I call them beasts. They love blood. Pay good money to see men writhe in pain. Even more money if they get to inflict it.”

“Did they do this to you in a fun house?”

“A fun house?” He exhaled a coarse laugh. “They had fun, all right. But to someone like us, that’s a place of horrors.”

“Das, I’m sorry about what happened to you. But what you did—”

He jerked at the approaching sound of footfalls against the cobblestones. His one good eye opened wide. Horror replaced any sense of intelligence in his expression.

“Demons are here. Monsters are coming. They bring filth and darkness. Eternal night is near. Ghouls reign. Can’t you see? They’re too powerful. There is no salvation. No refuge from them. They... We need to fight them. You need to carve their hearts out... Slice their flesh...” His eyes bulged out, rotating wildly in their sockets. Saliva bubbled in the corners of his mouth. His voice descended into a barely comprehensible mumbling. “They thrive on pain. Give them pain. Until they are no more. That’s the only way... The only way to save this world from evil.”

The woman he’d attacked ran to us from around the corner, followed by the armed city guards.

“There he is!” She pointed an accusing finger at Das.

Her hands trembled as she clutched her ruined dress to her chest, but her eyes glared with determination and her voice was firm.

Das growled, then shrieked like a man possessed. With an unexpected burst of strength, he wrenched his arms from my grip, then punched me in the chest, knocking me off balance.

“Get him,” the leader of the guards ordered.

“Monsters... monsters.” Das fought his way from under me, chanting that one word under his breath.

Gripping my chest where the pain from his blow bloomed, I scrambled to my feet.

“Hold it!” A guard aimed her crossbow at me, drops of milky white sleep potion glistening on the end of the bolt.

“I mean no harm.” I spread my arms in the gesture of surrender.

“This one helped me,” the rescued woman said quickly.

The guard didn’t shoot, but kept her crossbow trained on me.

“Perish, monstrous beasts!” Das took off in a mad dash.

Another guard released a bolt from her crossbow. It hit Das in the back, just above his right shoulder blade. He roared in pain.

The wound seemed to cost him whatever was left of his mind. He whipped around. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, foam dripping from his bared teeth.

“Evil!” he screamed. “All of you shall perish. Drown in your own blood!”

He lurched forward, clawing at the air, as if fighting something visible only to him.

A guard raised her crossbow, aiming it at his head this time.

“Don’t.” I grabbed her arm. “Please, he knows not what he’s doing.”

“Don’t move!” The guard behind me shoved her crossbow in my back, the bolt’s tip jabbing painfully against my spine. “Or I swear I’ll shoot you.”

Snarling and foaming at his mouth like a cornered rabid animal, Das made an unsteady step forward, then crashed to the ground face first. He rasped and hissed something incomprehensible, then stilled finally, succumbing to the effects of the sleeping potion. His eyes closed, and his mouth slacked.

The leader of the guards ordered one of her women, “Get two wagons, one for the lady and another one for the criminal.” She then turned to me, sliding an assessing look down my body. “You’ll have to come with us, too, boy. I’ll need to ask you a few questions.”

With the crossbow bolt still jammed between my shoulder blades, I slowly raised the hood over my head again.

“I have to get back to the gladiators’ quarters before nightfall.”

The fewer questions I answered, the better off I was. Also, Regit needed the pain powder and the magical tea before going to sleep. Otherwise, he’d get no rest.

She paused her gaze on the ring on my hand. “Are you a gladiator?”

“Yes, madam.”

“You must be the Mountain Bear!” the guard behind me exclaimed, shifting her crossbow from my back to my arm in her excitement. “Sorry,” she apologized as I winced. Then she put the crossbow away. “There is no one else quite this size.”

I nodded, rubbing my arm.

“Well.” The leader’s voice softened considerably and her posture relaxed. She produced a pad of paper and a lead pencil from a satchel on her hip. “Let me just jolt down a few notes while the event is still fresh in your mind, sir. Then you can go. If I need anything else, I’ll drop by the gladiators’ quarters later.”

The wagons arrived. The guards helped the woman into one of them, while several others loaded the unconscious Das into the second one.

“What is going to happen to him now?” I asked the leader.

“It’s up to the judge to decide.” She shrugged.

The guard, whom I’d stopped from shooting Das, shook her head.

“You should’ve just let me kill him,” she said. “It would’ve been faster for him that way.”