Page 15 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons (Empire of Vengeance #4)

I found Livia on her hands and knees in the eastern corridor, scrubbing the stone floors with a coarse brush that had already left her knuckles raw and bleeding.

The sight of her like that—bent over like a common servant, her Academy uniform stained with dirty water—sent a familiar rage coursing through my veins.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered, crouching down beside her. "You're a dragon rider, not a scullery maid."

She looked up at me, pushing a strand of dark hair from her face with the back of her wrist. There was exhaustion in her eyes, but also a kind of grim satisfaction that I recognized all too well.

It was the same look she'd worn in the ludus after particularly brutal training sessions—battered but unbroken.

"It's honest work," she said simply, returning to her scrubbing. "I've done worse."

That was exactly the problem. She had done worse, and the Academy masters had no idea that their attempt at humiliation was falling completely flat.

They thought they were breaking down a spoiled noble girl, teaching her humility through menial labour.

Instead, they were giving a former slave tasks that probably felt like a holiday compared to what she'd endured.

"The other students are talking," I warned, keeping my voice low. A group of Valeria's friends had passed by earlier, making loud comments about "putting the savage in her place" and wondering if cleaning floors might teach her "proper behaviour." I'd wanted to break their pretty little necks.

"Let them talk." Livia's brush scraped against the stone with unnecessary force. "Their opinions matter about as much as a dragon's fart in a windstorm."

Despite my frustration, I couldn't help but smile at that. Even exhausted and humiliated, she still had fire. It was one of the things I loved most about her—that unbreakable core that had kept her alive through everything we'd faced.

"Valeria's been keeping her distance though," I observed. "Haven't seen her anywhere near you since the fight."

Livia paused in her scrubbing, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Good. Maybe she finally learned her lesson."

"Or maybe she's planning something." I caught her hand, stilling the brush. "Scared people can be more dangerous than angry ones, Liv. When someone's used to being the predator and suddenly finds themselves prey, they don't always react rationally."

She pulled her hand free, but gently. "She's a bully, Marcus. Bullies fold when someone stands up to them. She won't risk another confrontation after what happened."

I wanted to argue, to tell her that my years of reading people—first as a gladiator trying to survive, then as someone navigating the complex social hierarchies of the capital—had taught me that wounded pride could be more dangerous than open hostility.

But I could see the stubborn set of her jaw, the way her shoulders had tensed.

She'd made up her mind, and pushing would only make her dig in deeper.

Instead, I stood and offered her my hand. "Come on. You've been at this for hours. Even the masters can't expect you to work through dinner."

She accepted my help, wincing slightly as she straightened. Her knees were probably aching from kneeling on stone for so long. "I suppose I could eat something."

As we walked back toward our quarters, I debated whether to tell her about Antonius and my plans for the afternoon.

We'd received word that the last of the bodies from the festival bombing had been recovered, and we wanted to check them ourselves.

Neither of us really believed we'd find Tarshi and Septimus there—if they were dead, their bodies would have been found by now. But we needed to be certain.

The other possibility—that they'd been captured alive—was somehow worse.

We'd heard whispers about other resistance members who'd been taken by the Imperial Guard, subjected to interrogation techniques that made ludus punishments look gentle.

Some had eventually been released, broken and terrified. Others had simply disappeared.

"Any word?" Livia asked quietly, as if reading my thoughts.

"Nothing concrete." I kept my voice carefully neutral. "Antonius and I are going to check the morgues this afternoon, just to be thorough. The last bodies were brought in yesterday."

She nodded, not asking the obvious question—what we'd do if we found them.

What we'd do if we didn't. The resistance network had gone underground after the bombing, and without Mira and Kalen's leadership, most of us were operating blind.

We'd tried to make contact with other cells, but it was like shouting into a void.

"They're alive," she said firmly. "I can feel it."

I hoped she was right. The alternative was either grief or a kind of torture I wasn't sure any of us were strong enough to endure.

We reached our quarters, and I watched as she moved around the small space, gathering clean clothes for after dinner.

There was something different about her today—not just the exhaustion from her punishment, but a kind of lightness I hadn't seen in weeks.

She'd been miserable since her falling out with Jalend, barely eating, going through the motions of classes and training without any real engagement.

Today, despite everything, she seemed more like herself.

"You seem better," I ventured, settling into one of the chairs by the window.

She paused in folding a clean shirt, her cheeks flushing slightly. "Do I?"

"Mmm. More... present. These past few weeks, it's been like talking to a ghost."

The flush deepened, and she turned away to busy herself with unnecessary tidying. "I may have... resolved some things."

I raised an eyebrow. "Things involving a certain brooding scholar?"

"Marcus." Her voice carried a warning, but it lacked any real heat.

"I'm just saying, if someone's made you happy again, I'm grateful to them." I leaned back in my chair, studying her face. "You deserve to be happy, Liv. All of us do, but especially you."

She looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something vulnerable in her expression. "Do you think we'll ever have that? Real happiness, not just stolen moments?"

The question hit harder than I'd expected.

We'd all been living day to day for so long, focused on survival first and freedom second, that the idea of actual contentment felt almost foreign.

In the ludus, happiness had been simple things—a good meal, a day without beatings, the rare moment of laughter shared with friends.

Here in the capital, our wants had grown more complex, but somehow no less impossible.

"I think we'll make our own happiness," I said finally. "The way we always have. One day at a time, one small victory at a time."

She smiled at that, the real smile I'd been missing for weeks. "When did you become so wise?"

"Probably around the time I started looking after stubborn gladiators who think they can take on the world single-handedly."

She threw her clean shirt at me, laughing despite herself. "I don't think I can take on the world. Just the parts of it that annoy me."

"Which is most of it."

"Which is most of it," she agreed cheerfully.

I caught the shirt and tossed it back to her, feeling lighter than I had in days.

This was what I'd missed—the easy banter, the comfortable familiarity of people who'd been through hell together and come out the other side.

Whatever had happened with Jalend, it had given her back some essential part of herself.

"I should go meet Antonius," I said reluctantly. "Will you be all right here?"

"I'll be fine. Go." She waved me toward the door. "And Marcus? Thank you. For checking. For... everything."

I nodded, not trusting my voice. Sometimes the weight of how much we meant to each other was overwhelming. We were family in every way that mattered, bound by shared trauma and mutual protection and a love that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with survival.

The walk to the city morgue took me through the lower districts, where the festival bombing had hit hardest. Even three weeks later, the signs of destruction were everywhere—collapsed buildings, boarded windows, makeshift memorials where people had left flowers and candles for the dead.

The guilt was a constant ache in my chest. These people had suffered because of choices our movement had made, because a few extremists had decided that violence was the answer.

I found Antonius waiting outside the morgue, his massive frame somehow managing to look inconspicuous despite his size.

He'd gotten better at blending in since we'd come to the capital, learning to hunch his shoulders and avoid eye contact, to project the kind of harmless servility that made people overlook him.

It was a skill that had served him well in his job at the tavern, where drunk patrons often said things they shouldn't around the "simple" kitchen worker.

"Ready for this?" he asked as I approached.

"No," I answered honestly. "But let's get it over with."

The morgue attendant was a thin, nervous man who seemed eager to get us in and out as quickly as possible.

The smell hit us first—a mixture of herbs and chemicals that couldn't quite mask the underlying stench of death.

Then came the sight of the bodies, laid out on stone slabs like pieces of meat at the market.

The explosion had been horrific in its completeness.

Some of the bodies were barely recognizable as human, torn apart by the blast or burned beyond identification.

Others looked almost peaceful, as if they'd simply laid down for a nap and never woken up.

I found myself studying each face, looking for familiar features while simultaneously hoping I wouldn't find them.