Peasants, their donkeys and oxen stared at me, as my litter passed them on the outskirts of Fidelium. I understood their apprehension. Someone heading out of town at this unfashionably late hour usually meant bad news. They feared an Imperial tax collector. They worried that a new draft might lure their sons into the legions. They bemoaned the change.

The countryside maidens, on the opposite, waved at me. If I waved back, they blushed as red as the strawberries they were picking in their straw baskets. Maybe they hoped that a tax collector or an officer would whisk them away to a life of glamor in the city. I disappointed their hopes by refusing to stop, even if it was just to buy the first strawberries. My riled emotions longed for the gone thunderstorms, not sweet treats.

I dismissed the litter by the gates of the temple, because otherwise the bearers wouldn't enter Fidelium before the curfew. For myself, I wasn't all that worried. If the temple didn't have a corner for me, I could sleep under the stars. But a bit of hay in a warm, dry corner would go a long way to heal my injuries.

With that in mind, I waved at my familiar priest. "Ave! Do you ever stop to rest?"

"The best rest is the change of activity," he replied and straightened from a patient. His gaze lingered on me with a professional interest. "What happened to you?"

I let go of the fake grin I had plastered on and winced. "You don't need to read the auguries to deduce that. I was in a fight."

"Let me take a look."

"Fulvia has just bandaged me up," I muttered, but stepped aside. If he wanted to enjoy the sight of my bruises, so be it.

The priest almost touched his nose to the bandages, sniffing Fulvia's pungent salve and bobbed his head in obvious approval. "Every time I hear Fulvia's name, I expect the news of her funeral, but no. May we all preserve as well as she did."

I thought that was the end of it and was about to ask him if I could go, when out of nowhere, the priest poked my battered rib cage. I yelped and hopped three feet away from him, almost twisting my good ankle in the landing. The hem of the tunic tickled my navel as it slipped back into place. I belted it up, swearing off undressing in front of any more healers today. It was too painful.

He ignored my pirouette. "When did you get hurt?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"What did you dream about?"

"A black void." I shrugged. "I drank so much poppy's milk, I was astonished when I woke up."

I didn't think the absence of dreams could help his diagnosis, but he grabbed my chin and stretched down my lower eyelid.

"Uh-huh. Huh. Oh. Wait by... ah... over there." The priest swept the entire yard with one gesture.

"Actually," I said, "I was going to ask if I could take you up on an offer of a shelter in the temple for the night. I haven't seen Victor yet, and it's getting late."

"I sense there's more to your request than simply being late at the gates of Fidelium."

I saw no reason to lie. "A ruthless killer murdered my friend today. Before thousands of upstanding citizens. And I couldn't do sh— I could do nothing."

"You can stay at the temple. And another thing..." He hesitated.

I bit a cuticle off my nail. "Is it Victor?"

"Yes. He's growing restless. I'm afraid this place of peace and healing disagrees with his soul."

Strange creatures, humans. "A few weeks ago, you didn't want to admit Victor to your Sanctuary, because you doubted if the heathens have souls. Now you're an expert on it."

"An expert? Far from it. We helped Victor, and we won't put him out, not with Asclepius' blessing resting on him, of course, but he needs something he can't find here to stay healthy. That much I know." He peered into my eyes, deeper than when he studied them for the aftereffects of the poppy. "I think you know it too, Maximus, that Victor is searching for a purpose after being brought back from the brink of death."

I looked away, without answering.

He sighed. "Think about it when you see him. And take this."

I could no longer get away with staring at the ground. I lifted my gaze at the priest and saw what he was offering to me in the palm of his hand. "Won't you get in trouble for giving away the precious Bite-of-Life?"

"Not with my god," he said.

"But with men? Your superiors?"

Apparently, he was capable of wry smiles. "Men forgive."

"They do?"

"Let's put it to the test." He hung the vial of blue liquid around my neck and hid it under the collar of my shirt. "This is my apology. Take it as a sign of your forgiveness."

Confusion must have passed over my face, because the priest chuckled. "I went to Fidelium with the supply cart four years ago, during the Great Games."

"Oh."

He nodded. "So you see where I'm going with it? The whole Fidelium was agog with Maximus. Every wall I turned to had a drawing of your giant prick. Silver flowed like a river through the streets."

I knew where he was going, but his tirade was growing in volume, his soft eyes glowed, so it felt like it was important to let him finish.

"All people talked about was if their great Maximus would decimate another gladiator. Meanwhile, I had to decide every day which orphan, which widow or a poor man to heal, because there was not enough money to go around. So many died every day on my watch, so many suffered..." he ran his hand over his eyes and choked up.

"You hated me," I summed up.

"Worse. In my mind you were this mindless machine of destruction, a repugnant disease to be purged from the body of our society."

"And now?"

"Now, I want you to take the medicine and remember to never use over three drops per day. More than that can stop a man's heart."

I clutched the precious flask through the fabric, feeling the raised outline of the snake's fang on the glass. "Thank you for the gift. And you'd never offended me with your thoughts, so there's nothing for me to forgive. I am what I am."

"You are." He expelled what was left of his agitation with a sigh, nodded and returned to his rounds, silent. Again, he reminded me of a stork. I watched him for a few moments, then went to find Victor.

In a rough-span tunic, knee-long breeches and a straw hat on his growing-out hair, Victor carried two buckets of slop to the ditch. The moment he saw me, he frowned. "Ave Maximus. What got you?"

"I was drunk and fell down a flight of stairs." I came up with this unsophisticated lie on the ride here.

"Nonsense." He challenged me with a stare. "The news of great Maximus, the Champion of Champions, returning to the arena at the ripe old age of twenty-eight had reached our mountaintop."

I flinched. "Some guy heard it at the Forum, so it must be true? Don't believe every rumor you hear."

"That guy made me a bet on how long the 'old dog' would last. Fidelis don't waste silver on a rumor. Looking at you, I'm going to lose money."

"Tat, tat! It's nothing! Just some exotic bullcrap fight with a stupid shield. Imagine a shield with talons. What a useless monstrosity!"

"Six talons? A bronze shield?"

"You'd seen something like this before?"

"Yes. It's sacred to those who were born of the Turtle-wife."

Right. The history of his people, with each tribe starting from a different foremother and the Hunter. I cleared my throat. "Who is your clan's foremother?"

His lips twisted. "Shut up, Maximus."

So much for skirting our differences, but how was I supposed to know? "I want to know more about you and your people, I swear. I... I want to know."

"Then what? You would babble about whatever I tell you to your Empress? Twist it to make a story like you did to put me up for the Night of the Behemoths?"

"You're angry about that." His seething resentment toward me back before the start of the season presented itself in a new light. "I was only trying to save our backsides. Messalina Augusta is a vicious bitch."

His gaze pointedly traveled to my belt, where I no longer had the rudis. "Don't give the vicious bitches a bad name."

Chill crept up my spine. "How long have you pretended to be ignorant? Why?"

"Because I didn't know what to make of it. What to say to you... Ancestors forgive me, I still don't know what to think. Let's just... let's walk."

I was also fresh out of answers. "Yes, let's walk."

By the time we had made the shrine of Apollo, the sunset was already warming the horizon. Our favorite destination was a humble construction, no larger than a cowshed. The climb was as hard as scaling Appian Peaks with my bum leg, no matter how much Victor slowed his wide strides.

"I might have to carry you back," Victor grumbled, examining me with concern. "Come on, how bad is it?"

"It's a glancing blow. If it doesn't inflame, I need to rest for a few days." Relieved that he was done stewing, I leaned on the sun-warmed stone wall, taking weight off the hip. "If I envy anything, it's how fast you heal."

"Wow, you've noticed!" He glanced at me so sharply that my stomach hollowed out. My lies were called and our spring truth was at an end, even though I didn't tell him about Junius. "Then why haven't you dragged me back to Fidelium yet? I'm fit for the arena and you need another champion, lanista."

The breeze plucked the strands of his grown-out hair, tossing them across his forehead until I itched to smooth them away. Red sky back-lighted his tensed body, his clenched hands, his etched profile. He was so achingly beautiful, my heart palpitated, chasing away all the grim thoughts.

"The priests think you were blessed by Asclepius, so they love having you here." Mindful that the spot we stood on was consecrated to Apollo, Asclepius' divine father, I added, "it's a good place. A wonderful place." It never hurts to get on the gods' good side.

We lapsed into silence, while the sun sank behind the Appian Peaks in one of the most spectacular sunsets I had seen. Victor didn't care for the heavenly spectacle, only for what was happening between us. His hand reached out to caress my cheek. "So, you think I should retreat from the world?"

"It was never right to mock you or to force you to fight on the Night of the Behemoth. This is better... safe. Even Rufius Fulgentius wouldn't dare to demand of the temple to return you. It would be blasphemy."

His fingers traced my jowl, circling toward my lips. The touch of his fingertips was too much, so I caught them between my lips, suckled as gently as a lamb.

"You feel guilty, because I was hurt. Is this your only reason?" he whispered.

"Far from it." I leaned forward to kiss him. It wasn't even a kiss, but a permission to kiss for real. "Test me. Tell me who was the foremother of your clan, and I would never breathe a word of it to another soul."

He smiled. "I don't need to tell you. You only need to look into my eyes..."

I did. Their blue color was so startling because it was a lighter blue than I saw on many others. The color of the ice in the glaciers. "Your foremother was the first wife of the hunter," I guessed, recalling the history. "The one who had given birth at the entrance to this world and had died."

"Yes." His beard prickled me, but I didn't taste his lips. I pressed my mouth closer, and his lips parted. Victor loomed close to me. "That's why my people live farther North, by the Sleeping Sea."

I slumped down the wall until I was sitting on the ground. He knelt next to me, sinking his fingers behind my ear, leaning my head forward. I obeyed and worried his lips deeper between mine. A deeper kiss. Not nearly deep enough... I wanted to taste more.

"Is this alright?" Through the cloud of sweet daze I realized he was worried about my bruised ribs.

"Better than alright." I didn't mind the hurt. I wanted him to do so much more to me, and me—to him. "Kiss me better."

He chuckled, nudging my shoulder with his nose. His beard scratched my skin at the collar. The vial dangled on its cord, tapping my sternum. He plucked it out. "It looks like you have the medicine for it."

"That's snake venom and roots. I need healing." My eyelids lowered, allowing a fantasy to envelop me. "Can't we stay away from the rest of the world together?"

"It sounds good."

It did. We'd be alone for a while, or at least until the stars came out. "Kissing used to feel like that once upon a time."

And, sure, I had kissed plenty since that first, mad crush of mine, sometimes even with enthusiasm. Sossia Octavia... she woke me up to the possibility that there could be something in my life beside forever pining. Her kisses always tasted of spice, wine and laughter... But the special heartache had been absent. I thought, maybe it only came once in a lifetime, like the orchards bloom once a year in spring. I thought maybe I wasted my chance at it too young and I wouldn't miss it. That no one would ever make me feel that way again. I was mistaken. O, how I was mistaken! My head spun with it, and I missed it so bloody much.

Victor shifted, trying to hover, cleave to me and kiss me all at once, until he straddled my hips and put his hands on the wall, next to my head.

"This is the best grapple I have ever experienced in my life," I whispered. "But I could make it even better..." and I locked my lips on his neck.

"Here, here... this way it won't hurt you," he moaned between kisses. He was wrong, but I didn't dissuade him. I lost all sense of time. If the back of my head didn't rub against the stone, I'd have believed we were floating in the sky, kissing.

The intensity with which love returned into my life brought tears to my eyes. I quivered with glee when I felt the unmistakable poke to my thigh. I stroked him through the fabric.

"I don't know if any philosophers of the second generation ever did what we're doing, because it seems to me it's no brainer we're all the same... superficial differences... nonsense... maybe there were other portals... some primordial world for our ancestors, the ones we call gods or heroes..."

"Maximus," he said hoarsely, "remember brevity. For the love of—"

That word again... not 'brevity'. The other one. I tore myself away from his lips for about as long as I could bear to stay separate. "I love you, Victor."

Love had a new name, Victor. I exhaled it again, then teased my upper lip with my tongue, daring him to land his there.

Alas, his neck stiffened under the palm of my hand. Sweat dotted it as if on a cue.

"No. My name is not Victor. It's just something your foul Empress branded me with. Like the stamp on my chest."

"Then what is it?" My heart flipped in anticipation of his birth name.

"Inehmasaric," he said.

Or something that sounded similar.

"Good, good," I whispered feverishly. "I love you... In... ah..."

Syllables tumbled together in my head. It was a pretty name, and I wanted to say it, but I couldn't wrap my tongue around it on the first try. I slipped him a helpless smile. "Say it again, a bit slower, beloved?"

He straightened and stepped back from my lap, stiff from head to toe. Midway he was hard as rock.

My frustrated desire poured into one long groan. Why did he have to get up? We could have discussed it in this cozy setting, seal it with a kiss... and more.

"Fidelis always have trouble with my name." His voice sounded so dead, my sulk was gone in a flash. "Maybe you will have an easier time saying it the way the rest of your people say it."

I braced on instinct, as if a ballista's bolt was flying at me and it was too late to duck.

He struck the middle of his chest with his thumb, right next to where the professionally branded letters of P.U.F. were hiding under his tunic. "Inimicus, Proprietas Urbis Fidelium."

I would have crawled back and toppled off the cliff, if the shrine's wall didn't bar my retreat. The night had already leeched the day's heat from the stones. The chill seeped through my skin.

My beloved, my dream champion was the property of the City of Fidelium, and his name was Inimicus. It was a simple word, with just one meaning, 'enemy'.

No, it was more complicated than that. His name was the enemy.