Chapter 74: The Catch
Chapter 74: The Catch
The cold hit Alex first. Not the cold of the water, but the cold of the air rushing past his face, the cold of the void opening beneath him, the cold of inevitability wrapping itself around his chest like iron bands.
He was falling. The world was a blur of grey sky and dark water and the distant roar of a hundred thousand voices that didn’t care if he lived or died.
The crocodiles were already surging upward. He could see them through the haze of blood and poison and failing vision—massive bodies launching from the water like scaled missiles, jaws wide, rows of teeth gleaming in the grey light.
They had been waiting for this. They had been waiting for him.
Time seemed to slow without the system’s help. The world narrowed to a single point of focus; he jaws, the teeth. The dark water rushing up to meet him. The poison was still burning through his veins, the vitality points were still pinging in the corner of his vision, but none of it mattered now.
He was going to die. He was going to die in the same water that had almost killed him weeks ago, and this time there would be no wheat field, no scarred hand, no ancient presence reaching across centuries to pull him back. Just the cold. Just the dark. Just the end.
This feels like deja vu
He closed his eyes.
And then...
Hands caught him.
The grip was iron. Not the iron of the Numidian’s desperate fingers, but the iron of trained men who knew exactly what they were doing. Two guards, their arms wrapped around his own, their weight anchoring him to the platform above. The crocodiles snapped at empty air inches below his feet, their jaws closing with a sound like slamming doors, their massive bodies crashing back into the water in a fury of thrashing tails and displaced foam.
The guards hauled him up. It wasn’t gentle. Not was it ceremonial. It was the rough, efficient rescue of men who had been stationed at the edge of the platform for exactly this purpose—to retrieve the winner before the Pool of Death claimed him. They dragged him over the edge and dropped him onto the blood-slicked wood, and Alex lay there on his back, gasping, choking, bleeding from everywhere, staring up at the grey Macedonian sky.
The poison was still burning. The vitality points were still pinging. But he was alive.
I’m alive.
The crowd was a wall of sound. A hundred thousand voices screaming, chanting, roaring their approval. They had just watched the Ghost survive the impossible—again. They had watched him fight through poison and steel and his own failing body, and they had watched him win. The chant started somewhere in the upper tiers and spread like fire through dry grass.
"WHITE GHOST! WHITE GHOST! WHITE GHOST!"
Alex didn’t hear it. He was too busy trying to breathe. Too busy trying to keep his heart beating. Too busy staring at the grey sky and wondering if the vitality points would be enough to fight off the poison or if he was just dying slower than the Numidian had.
In the pulvinar, Aurellia Magna rose from the governor’s throne.
The movement was sudden. Involuntary. Her body acting on instincts she didn’t know she had.
The senators around her turned, startled. Lord Severus, still fidgeting in his seat, looked up at her with wide, confused eyes.
The Trident, standing motionless behind her, exchanged glances that betrayed their own surprise. No one had ever seen Aurellia Magna lose control. No one had ever seen her rise from her seat in the middle of a spectacle, her chest heaving, her hands trembling at her sides, her lips parted in an expression that no one in the pulvinar could interpret.
It was awe. Twisted, obsessive, reverent awe. She had watched him fall into the crocodile pit weeks ago and climb back out changed. She had watched him slaughter thirty men with empty eyes and a dagger in his hand. She had watched him kill the Gaul without breaking a sweat. And now... this.
He should be dead. He should be feeding the creatures below. And instead, he was lying on the platform, bleeding from every hole in his body, still breathing, still alive, still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
Her lips moved. No sound came out. Just the shape of a name.
Albius.
The governor tugged at her sleeve. "Domina? Are you okay?"
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the white-haired figure being lifted off the platform by guards who moved with the hurried efficiency of men who had seen too much death to be impressed by one more survivor.
The Ghost was being carried toward the tunnel. The finals were over. The battle of champions, complete. And Aurellia Magna, the most powerful woman in Rome, stood frozen in the pulvinar, trembling with an obsession that had just reached its breaking point.
Somewhere behind her, Ignatius was on his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He had watched Alex fall. He had watched the guards catch him. He had watched him survive. And now he was watching Aurellia, standing rigid in the governor’s box, her face a mask of something that looked almost like worship. The Lanista’s blood ran cold.
Oseka was already pushing through the crowd, heading for the holding area, desperate to see his brother. Gaius was nowhere to be seen. The Numidian’s body was being digested by crocodiles.
And Alex, the Ghost of Rome, the pretty white ghost, the champion of the Battle of Champions, was being carried through the dark corridors of the arena, barely alive, the poison still burning through his veins, the vitality points still pinging in the corner of his vision.
He had won. He had survived. The battles were over. But the real fight—the one against the system, against Aurellia, against the empire itself—was only just beginning.
And somewhere in the pulvinar, the woman who would burn the world to possess him was still standing, still trembling, still whispering his name to the empty air.