In His Arena 1: Slave Eternal by Nasia Maksima Page A

divided.
    He knows I seek entry into the Grand Melee. He knows what I mean to do.
    But why would Stratos care?
    Frustrated, Hektor lengthened his stride. Never had he understood Stratos and his dark intents. He stepped out onto the tiers of House Actaeon. In these days—the days of the Empress—it did not ride as high as House Vulpinius, but the view was still breathtaking. More than three quarters of the Grand Palestra lay sprawled out in concentric circles below.
    The Empress’s Theatre was emptying out.
    Dusk was swiftly drawing down, and the crowds would be returning to their homes, leaving behind stray trash, abandoned clay tickets, and parchment programs. In the past, defiling the theatre was a crime punishable by death.
    These days, the Empress seemed not to care if the people wanted to defile their own living space.
    Arena was a huge walled city, built around the Grand Palestra as its hub. Everything stayed inside—the people, the livestock, even the refuse. Oh, they burned what they could, but it was never fast enough, the quotas allowed each house never large enough. And yet, it was impossible to blame any one group or house for the trash that trickled down to the lower levels of the Palestra. The houses each claimed a tier of the towering city, and each of the seven had at least one area with access to the Palestra.
    Pursuing litterers in a city filled with its own refuse would be nearly impossible. In the morning, the noxii would pick through the garbage and ferry what couldn’t be used to the lowest tiers where it would rot, forgotten like the poor who lived in the shadows of the seven great houses.
    It was the way of Arena.
    Hektor saluted as a group of praetorian guard passed, their pikes glinting in the silver twilight. Their plumed visors made them look more like one of House Lucia’s mechanized contraptions than man. They did the Empress’s bidding without question.
    Hektor ducked past and found the huge spiral stair winding down from House Actaeon to the training stables. Lucan would be fine resting where he was.
    In my house. What am I doing? Hektor could not shake the dread in his gut. Bringing a Vulpinius into House Actaeon. He had to be mad. After what Stratos had done to him? Hektor ran a hand along the back of his neck, feeling the expired mark like a tattoo rising with the heat.
    The boy had performed well today. He’d shown bravery, courage, leadership. He could be great. Make a real name for himself.
    Hektor shook that thought off. Stop thinking of him. The Grand Melee was only two months away. He had never wanted it before. Always content to fight and win, to hear the glory of the crowd screaming his name and then to come back and luxuriate in Leander’s arms, in his presence, while he painted his landscapes of an idyllic countryside.
    They’d retire there, Leander had said. After he made his fortune.
    A month later he was dead.
    Hektor strode past other gladiators, the smells of men exerting themselves, the sweat and blood urging him on, urging him to remember as much as he wanted to forget. Leander’s touch, his kiss, the softness of him beneath Hektor, and the hardness as he pushed into him for the first time in the dark of night beneath a sweltering moon.
    He shoved the memories away, but not before a wild thought gripped him. You could have that again. With Lucan.
    No. He walked into the rack room and took his longspear from its place on the wall.
    He had to prepare, to train harder than he ever had. This time, he would not be anyone’s puppet. This time, he would fight for himself and take his opponents down to the Doomsayer’s Abyss with him.
    And damn the Empress and her bloody Spectacles.
    * * * *
    Stratos slipped from the alley between the Healers’ Haven and an array of small merchant booths. So, Hektor took the boy to House Actaeon. Interesting. A small smile formed on Stratos’s lips.
    He knew Hektor would never step one foot inside House Vulpinius again. Not after what