The sun grows hotter, the air heavier beneath all the tension of their beating hearts, and the silence stretches taut and perilous between them. And there is only enough time, it seems, for him to feel like one of those carrion crows circling high above them. Or maybe there is time enough to feel like the sand, drinking in the blood of the fallen gladiator and pretending to not care which one of them was destined to water it. Or time enough to feel like the sun, laughing down at them all because it knows already —
it doesn’t matter which warrior dies. It doesn’t matter which goes on to fight another battle, the next battle, endless battles pretending to be wars because one day, one day —
Oh, one day, the victor too, will die.
Ipomoea knows it as well as the sun.
But he is not thinking of the crows, or the sand, or the sun when he steps closer to Vercingtorix. He is not listening to the crowd roaring or the sand dunes singing, but he is counting each thrum of the other stallion’s pulse at his throat, and he is tallying every scar betraying him for who — for what — he is. And his own heart both trembles and roars at the way his blood and magic burns in response.
When he blinks he can see the blood spiderwebbing across the backs of his eyelids, can see again the warrior falling with the blood twirling like ribbons from his throat. When he swallows he can taste it at the back of his throat. And when he opens his eyes it’s still there, written in promises across Vercingtorix’s skin.
“No,” he says even as the sands are raked and the next warrior steps from darkness to light. “But maybe it is what Solterra wants, or needs, or dreams of.” What he does not say is, maybe it was what I was destined for.
Maybe, he thinks, it was why Solis spared him.
His magic is still singing softly of blood, but not for the blood in the arena. No — Ipomoea did not need their bravado and false sense of glory. There would be no satisfaction in winning a matched fight.
For the first time he smiles, as he studies the crowd pressing in like jackals around them — but there is nothing soft or kind in his eyes. It is all thorns and spines and promises of violence.
Today, Ipomoea is not listening to the desert.
Today he is the desert.
When he speaks, his voice is almost lost beneath the roaring of the crowd. “And what do you need? I do not think you will find it here in the stands.” I know, I know, oh I know—
And if Vercingtorix has any bits of sand or crows or sun in him, Ipomoea’s is whispering back in kind.
it doesn’t matter which warrior dies. It doesn’t matter which goes on to fight another battle, the next battle, endless battles pretending to be wars because one day, one day —
Oh, one day, the victor too, will die.
Ipomoea knows it as well as the sun.
But he is not thinking of the crows, or the sand, or the sun when he steps closer to Vercingtorix. He is not listening to the crowd roaring or the sand dunes singing, but he is counting each thrum of the other stallion’s pulse at his throat, and he is tallying every scar betraying him for who — for what — he is. And his own heart both trembles and roars at the way his blood and magic burns in response.
When he blinks he can see the blood spiderwebbing across the backs of his eyelids, can see again the warrior falling with the blood twirling like ribbons from his throat. When he swallows he can taste it at the back of his throat. And when he opens his eyes it’s still there, written in promises across Vercingtorix’s skin.
“No,” he says even as the sands are raked and the next warrior steps from darkness to light. “But maybe it is what Solterra wants, or needs, or dreams of.” What he does not say is, maybe it was what I was destined for.
Maybe, he thinks, it was why Solis spared him.
His magic is still singing softly of blood, but not for the blood in the arena. No — Ipomoea did not need their bravado and false sense of glory. There would be no satisfaction in winning a matched fight.
For the first time he smiles, as he studies the crowd pressing in like jackals around them — but there is nothing soft or kind in his eyes. It is all thorns and spines and promises of violence.
Today, Ipomoea is not listening to the desert.
Today he is the desert.
When he speaks, his voice is almost lost beneath the roaring of the crowd. “And what do you need? I do not think you will find it here in the stands.” I know, I know, oh I know—
And if Vercingtorix has any bits of sand or crows or sun in him, Ipomoea’s is whispering back in kind.
@
”here am i!“
