Creusus's Arc

Chapter 20 of 21

Creusus had two days before the next bout. He walked past the arena gates without looking at them and followed a stone path up into the kingdom gardens. The pack on his back was light. The orb inside it was quiet. He passed low hedges and pastel beds of flowers he could not name, and he made his shoulders drop for the first time in a week. He had come here to do nothing. He was bad at doing nothing, so he kept walking until the paths narrowed and the noise of the town fell away behind him. The path opened into a small grove. Trees closed over a ring of old brick set into the ground. A weathered statue stood at the edge, a robed figure with one hand held across its chest. He read the plaque. Aegis of Mercy. He did not know the story. He sat on the brick and looked at the stone face and felt his knuckles itch under the wrappings. He rubbed them through the cloth. The black skin beneath stayed still. A woman stepped into the grove from the far path. She carried a small cluster of grapes in one hand. A thin gold band held back her dark hair, and her white dress caught the light between the leaves. She stopped when she saw him. She did not turn away. She looked at him the way a person looks at a horse in a field, curious and unafraid. He stood up too fast. The brick scraped under his boot. "You are the fighter," she said. "The one with no sword." "Creusus." His voice came out flat and low, the way it always came out. He tried to think of something else to add. He thought of the post at the training grounds and the sound his fist made on wood. He thought of the old man at the docks and his knotted fingers. He had nothing to say about grapes, or gardens, or the statue behind him. He said, "I was leaving." It was not true. He watched her face for the small pull of disappointment he expected. It did not come, but he had already decided what her silence meant. He nodded once and stepped past her onto the path. He did not look back. He heard her say his name once, softly, like a question. He kept walking. By the time he reached the main garden his hands were fists inside the wrappings and the power under his skin was warm and awake. He forced it down. He had come here to rest. He had failed at that. He would go back to the post instead. The post did not need words. Two days. He walked faster.