I didn't see Victor in the weeks prior to the Grand Final of the Games marking Claudius Caesar's return, but I dreamt about him. These were the kind of dreams where everyone dies while you fall into the void, flailing in protest. Twice, I dreamt a happier dream: the arena froze and Victor walked hand-in-hand with me toward the Appian Peaks bathed by sunset.

When Victor marched onto the sand to meet me, I tuned out the noise—for the Colosseum was packed—and became all eyes.

Victor squinted at the pale November sun. He lost weight. His cheek sunk over missing teeth. Otherwise, he looked well.

What made me cringe, however, was that he carried twin swords and wore light armor, as if I hadn't told him enough times to fight in the shield-wall style.

"You hoping to beat me at my game?"

"I promised you, that I would win your stupid tournament. I will and I will do it with your weapons."

Damn his stubbornness to Hades! He wanted to conquer me because Fidelium celebrated Claudius Caesar's triumph over the very last of the Inimicus' Rebellion. His rebellion. He hated us, and he hated me.

I saluted him with my blades. "You look well."

"Hoped they softened me up to make your job easier?" He was lisping, but sounded alert.

I didn't scoff despite the sour taste in my mouth. My loyal fan, the guard, kept his word. That was something. I focused on that, rather on what I had to do on the sand.

"No," I said. "I didn't."

Victor shook his head slightly. "I could never decide if I love or hate your brand of honor. Why did you do all this?"

Because I wanted his fate in my hands. "You deserve to die fighting a Fidelis."

"You believe that you'll win." He shook his head incredulously. Did I imagine a trace of affection in the gesture? Was I just hoping it was there? "Is there a limit to your ego, Maximus?"

Instead of reply, I hailed Claudius Caesar and Messalina Augusta in their green-and-gold box. "Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!"

But I wasn't looking at the Emperor and the Empress. I wasn't even looking at Victor, who sketched a mocking bow toward the royals and said nothing.

Instead, my eyes found my favorite place in the stands. Today, Quintus fidgeted in it. The boy's neck stretched out so far that his head nearly popped off. He met my glance and bit his lip. Before the anxiety got the better of him, he bent his arm at the elbow, so his fist would come level with his ear—our signal.

"Oh, I will win," I whispered.

If my eyes stung with tears, so what? Quintus had earned that, and I was a louse for asking him to help me. Knowing that he would be punished as a run-away slave if he was caught, that he couldn't confess his true mission to anyone, he had intercepted Claudius Caesar for a private conversation before the Emperor entered Fidelium in glory. This would be a feat for anyone. For a half-blood it should have been impossible. But Quintus did it, because I asked him to.

Now Quintus signaled to me that everything was ready.

More importantly, he was the testimony that some others, even if they were few, believed as I did. That love held value. That a man could—even should—do the unthinkable in its name. Let others call it a folly, for it was mad, for sure. Let them judge. Let them exist in contentment. I stood firm, because it was also sublime.

"I'll win," I said, bowing my head to Quintus.

"Look who's repeating himself now!" Victor lifted his swords to an en-garde position. The two blue pools—his eyes—called to me so strongly I was ready to dive into their depth. I mimicked his move purely on instinct.

He came at me. Steel rang on steel, nothing like the blunt sounds at the training yard. Today we fought to the death. Let the steel ring!

Victor's first blow almost took my arm out of its socket when I caught it on my cross-guard. I didn't let the shock distract me from his actual attack. It aimed to slip his second sword under my breastplate.

"No, you don't." I chuckled and parried that too.

This double parry locked us together. We swayed like dancers, feet digging into the sand. When he realized he was letting me rest, he broke his hold and twirled away.

He was back in a flash. The flurry of his attacks pelted me at the speed of hail. I only withstood them by playing defense and nothing else.The more I turned them aside, the faster his swords dove for my throat, my stomach, my thighs, my knees, my eyes. Every seam in my armor was targeted. Every mistake—used. His breathing sounded far too even for my liking.

Did I overestimate my ability? Underestimated him? Relied too much on the fact that Victor had never watched me use the full range of my abilities?

I shut off this cowardly thought. I shut off all thoughts.

The stadium melted away in my peripheral vision. Sweat sealed the palms of my hands to the grips of my swords. The length of steel extended my arms. My arms became my shield. No matter how sore, they had to move. So did my feet. My torso. My neck.

We circled the arena. I was retreating. Victor, the tornado of blades, chased me.

Fatigue reached the tipping point. Surrender beckoned as the way out of the grinder. Were it my life on the line—and nothing more—I could have lied down and died. But something more was at stake. I couldn't let Fidelium crucify Victor. Thus, despite blood and sweat streaming down my body, I held my ground.

That's what Fidelis do. We withstand adversity. We persevere. We don't yield. That's what I would do until... until my rush kicked in.

For past bone-deep weariness lay my trump card.

Other fighters had the second wind too, but not like I did. With me, the effect was tenfold. It came on like a torrent. Blood coursed through my veins, evaporating fatigue. Pain receded despite the pounding of my heart. The harder the obstacle, the more resilient Fidelis prove themselves to be. We fought to the last, because this was also the lesson we had learned from the fate of the three legions in the Teutoburg Forest, our ancestors.

I stepped inside Victor's attack, instead of dodging it.

He thought he had me, but his blade only scraped flesh. My right arm forced his left high up, at a weird angle. He staggered back a step, searching for an opening for his stronger side against my weaker one... except, I don't favor left or right at all.

I reversed the sword's direction and crashed the pommel into his ribs.

His armor bent, deflecting the blow. He recovered, but not fast enough.

I shoved him away, stepped in, stepped in again and ran him through. My whole body's momentum went into that stab. Metal pierced through metal, boiled leather and flesh.

His left sword clattered to the ground. He could still clutch the right one, but not lift it. He staggered.

I caught him into my arms, before he would collapse. Last time I held him like that was back in my apartment when his fingers smelled of sage. Now they smelled of blood as he clutched his wound. His mouth gaped wide, trying to say something in his astonishment.

"Shh..." I whispered. "It's over."

The stubborn man gurgled 'how?' along with bloody foam.

I lowered him to the ground. His own hubris killed him, when he refused to see me train and fight in the arena at full strength. But there was a higher truth. "I won, because I fought to avenge someone I love. Do you understand?"

Before his eyes dulled, he lowered his eyelids in agreement. It was time for the ancient ritual.

I leaned in and took the last exhale from his lips. This was the end—I would never kiss him again. I would never see the blazing blue of his glance. I kissed him once more, as a sob built up in my throat. I stifled it. Then, using my sword as a crutch, I climbed to my feet. I held his dying breath in my chest.

The cuts Victor had given me, stung worse than they should have. Still, only flesh wounds. I didn't even need the Bite-of-Life for it.

Victor... Victor was dead by my hand. A merciful hand, yes, but he was dead. If I wasn't the vessel for his breath, his soul, determined to not expel it, I would have wept.

The arena went mad with excitement. As a rule, they didn't care what color blood soaked the sand, red or indigo, Fidelis or barbarian, so long as we spilled it in abundance. But seeing the Fidelis Champion kill the Enemy of the Empire... that charged them up like nothing else.

It took a while to restore a semblance of silence so Claudius Caesar could give his speech.

While waiting for the Emperor to weigh in, I couldn't stand looking at Messalina Augusta's gloating face. Then, to my surprise, I spotted Quintus at the back of the Imperial box. It was good news, for people to follow their Emperor. If Claudius Caesar tolerated a half-blood publically, so would they. Alas, at the moment, this was of little comfort to me, for plum-sized tears rolled down Quintus' cheeks.

I dry swallowed and stared at Claudius Caesar as he rose from his throne.

In his youth, the Emperor was considered ugly, much to Messalina Augusta's dismay. By his sixtieth year, however, his lined features gained an air of dignity. A wreath of golden laurels hid his bold cupola. He looked every inch the old Emperor from a fairy tale.

"Friends and Fidelis," he said. "Citizens! The justice was swiftly, ably delivered. This barbarian plotted against our wife, Messalina Augusta, and our sons, the princes. He schemed to destroy peace in our Empire!

"Before we reward the champion of this year's Grand Final, I must attend to another matter."

Our Colosseum seated a hundred thousand people, more than any of the arenas on Earth. I reckoned more than that had filled it today.

Claudius Caesar held the pause until the thousands of mouths stopped flapping. Until all eyes turned on him, except for mine.

Me, I locked gazes with Messalina Augusta and smiled. She smiled back, pinking with excitement. Heat raised in my cheeks too.

"There was another plot discovered," Claudius Caesar said. "An alarm was to be sounded as we celebrated Maximus' triumph. The assassins would wait on the way to the palace, poised to overcome my bodyguard."

Claudius motioned for the Praetorians.

Their officer, resplendent with his plumed helm and cloak, stepped forward. In his hands he held a sack. Just an ordinary sack, good for corn or onions. The rough cloth it was made of didn't hide stains like the Praetorians' proud scarlet. The rusty smell of congealing blood hit Messalina Augusta's aquiline nose before it wafted to me.

"Here are those assassins!"

The look on the Empress' face was priceless.

Normally, when seen in public with her husband, she would be seated next to him. When she shakily rose from her throne, she abandoned all thoughts of pageantry, so it became obvious that she was taller than Claudius Caesar. Taller, younger, prettier... She shuffled forward, reaching with her hands, as if trying to stop the officer from upturning his sack. She couldn't arrest the inevitable, of course.

The severed heads thumped to the floor of the Imperial box one by one. The sound was muffled because the Praetorians took care to wrap gray veils around each head.

If it was quiet before, now a single bee would have caused havoc.

"Messalina Justa," the Emperor inquired with steel in his voice, "explain why the assassins are the handmaidens of yours?"

My grin turned wolfish—the merciful fool was giving her an out! She would lie. Plead ignorance, plead betrayal, plead for leniency!

In a single swift motion Messalina Justa—no longer the Empress deserving the title—produced a dagger hidden in the heavy folds of her green-and-gold gown and stabbed herself through the heart.

After all, Claudius Caesar knew his wife better than I did.

Before Messalina Justa collapsed, she exclaimed, "I curse you!"

Twice, she pronounced the curse sealed with her blood twice. The second one was for me.

The Emperor straightened, as tall as a man gets. "With this unpleasant business done and over with, let us reward our Champion of Champions."

If the sand didn't crunch under my feet as I approached the Imperial box, I would have thought I was dreaming.

This was the day for forgoing formalities, so the Emperor simply handed me the rudis over the stone railing. Its weight was familiar. The smooth feel of polished wood was the same as on my first one. However, on my request, the words carved into it were different.

It simply said, 'Valor begets freedom'. No mention of Caesar. No mention of Maximus.

The spectators expected me to kneel and hail Caesar to restore the proper level of pomp and circumstance. They boo'd their disappointment when I turned my back on the box.

The buzz increased, pushing at me from all sides, as I limped toward Victor's body.

There, by his side, I finally knelt... and did that shut them up? No.

I wrapped Victor's stiffening fingers around the rudis, making sure the words were on its visible side.

Valor begets freedom.

I lifted my head and swept the citizens of Fidus Empire with a heavy gaze.

"I'm the Champion of Champions," I shouted over their dismay, cheers, thirst and what have you. I'd never shouted louder in my life. What did I care if my vocal cords snapped? I had to be louder than Fidelium, so they would hear me.

"I'm the Champion of Champions. And Inehmasaric is a free man!" This time his name rolled off my tongue.

The name of the perfect man.

THE END

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Novella: Calgary, March 17, 2022

Novel: December 14, 2022

Last edited: June 11, 2022