Chapter 9 - THE SECOND BETRAYAL
Marcus refused to believe it.
“You're lying.”
Varro smiled.
“Ask him yourself.”
Soldiers dragged Darius into the chamber.
His hands were chained.
His face was bruised.
Marcus stared at him.
“Darius?”
Darius lowered his eyes.
“I'm sorry.”
Mara looked sick.
“You led them to us?”
Darius nodded.
“Why?”
“My daughter.”
Varro answered for him.
“Cassian has held her for six years.”
Darius looked at Marcus.
“Every message.”
“Every camp.”
“Every movement.”
“I had no choice.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“You always had a choice.”
Darius flinched.
Varro reached for the stone chest.
Marcus attacked.
Steel crashed against steel.
Mara pulled Lucan behind a pillar.
Elias fought one of the guards.
Umbra lunged at another.
The chamber erupted into chaos.
Varro was fast.
Marcus was stronger.
Their blades collided again and again.
“You should have died nine years ago,” Varro hissed.
“You should have learned loyalty.”
Marcus knocked Varro backward.
Darius suddenly moved.
He wrapped his chains around a guard's neck and pulled him down.
Varro shouted.
“What are you doing?”
Darius grabbed the fallen man's sword.
“Making a choice.”
He cut Marcus's restraints from a rope that had snagged around his wrist.
“Get the documents!”
Lucan ran toward the chest.
He pushed the golden ring into the lock.
Nothing happened.
“Turn it!” Marcus shouted.
Lucan twisted.
Click.
The chest opened.
Inside were sealed parchments bearing the emperor's mark.
Lucan grabbed them.
Varro saw him.
“STOP THE BOY!”
Lucan ran.
A guard blocked him.
Umbra slammed into the man.
Lucan escaped through a narrow passage.
“Lucan!”
Mara followed.
Elias came next.
Marcus remained behind.
“Father!”
“GO!”
Varro's soldiers closed around him.
Darius stood beside Marcus.
The two old soldiers fought together.
Lucan wanted to go back.
Mara grabbed him.
“If you lose those documents, everything they are doing means nothing.”
Lucan looked at the parchments.
Then he ran.
They emerged inside the palace temple.
Bells were ringing outside.
The city was preparing for Marcus's public execution.
Lucan stopped.
“How can they execute him?”
Elias understood.
“Darius.”
The man pretending to be Marcus had been exposed.
Cassian had turned the surrender into a spectacle anyway.
Hundreds of prisoners were being brought into the Forum.
Mara looked toward the palace.
“We have the evidence.”
“But who will believe us?”
Lucan looked toward the distant roar of a crowd.
Then he remembered the arena.
“Forty thousand people already saw the king fear me.”
He tucked the documents beneath his tunic.
May you like
“We don't need to convince everyone.”
“We just need to make sure everyone sees the truth.”
