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Nundina Ardenta: Ashes of Blood — Author’s Cut Edition
Chapter 8 — Blood and Sand
They transferred her at dawn. The cart rattled through Rome’s waking streets, iron-reinforced and barred like a cage. Nundina sat in the back, still shackled, watching the city pass through gaps in the wood. People stared. Word had spread faster than she had anticipated. She heard her name whispered as they rolled past market stalls and fountains. Heard “Ardenta” and “Senator” and “sorcerer’s daughter” trailing in their wake like smoke.
Good. Let them remember. Let them wonder.
The ludus sat on the outskirts of the city, near the amphitheater where gladiators fought and died for Rome’s entertainment. High walls surrounded the compound. Guards walked the perimeter with the casual efficiency of men who had done this for years.
The cart stopped. The door opened. “Out,” a guard said.
Nundina climbed down, chains rattling. Her legs were stiff from the ride, but she forced herself to stand straight. To look at the ludus with the same blank expression she had perfected as Prisca.
Inside, she was cataloguing everything. Exits. Weak points in the walls. Guard rotations.
A man approached—tall, broad-shouldered, maybe fifty. Scars decorated his arms like a history written in flesh. His eyes were the cold, evaluating kind that had seen too much death to be impressed by much of anything.
“Nundina Ardenta,” he said. Not a question. “I am Gaius Corvinus. Lanista of this ludus. You belong to me now.”
“I belong to no one,” Nundina said quietly.
Corvinus’s expression did not change, but something flickered in his eyes. Amusement, maybe. Or recognition of a challenge.
“You murdered a Senator. Rome sent you here to die. Whether that happens in a week or a year depends entirely on how quickly you learn.” He gestured for the guards to remove her shackles. “But until that death arrives, you train. You fight. And you do exactly as I say.”
The shackles came off. Nundina rubbed her wrists where the iron had chafed.
“Can you fight?” Corvinus asked.
“I killed Senator with piece of broken pottery,” Nundina replied. “Does that provide answer?”
“It tells me you can kill in rage when cornered. Arena requires more than that.” He turned and started walking. “Follow.”
She did, flanked by guards who kept hands near their weapons but did not touch her.
The ludus compound was larger than it looked from outside. A training yard in the center—sand and blood and chalk marks dividing the space into sections. Barracks along the walls. An armory. A valetudinarium where screams occasionally echoed. And gladiators. Dozens of them.
They stopped training to watch as Corvinus led her through the yard. Men and women both—though the women were fewer, relegated to different fights, different spectacles.
All of them carried the same look: hard-eyed, scarred, alive only because they had learned to kill better than those they had faced.
“That is her?” one man called. Massive, easily six and half feet tall, muscles like carved stone. “Girl who killed Senator Varro?”
“That is her,” Corvinus confirmed.
The giant gladiator laughed. “She will not last a day, dominus.” Others joined in. Not all of them, but enough. Nundina felt their eyes on her—assessing, dismissing, some with darker intent that made her warning sense prickle.
She said nothing. Just filed their faces away for later.
Corvinus brought her to the women’s barracks—a long building with sleeping mats laid out in rows. Maybe twenty women total, ranging from late teens to mid-thirties.
“This is where you lay head,” Corvinus said. “You begin training come tomorrow. Tonight, settle yourself. Learn rules. Do not die before proving useful.” He left.
The women stared at her. Nundina stared back. Finally, one of them—light olive-toned-skinned, maybe twenty-five, with a scar running from her temple to her jaw—spoke: “You truly Cygnus Ardenta’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“The sorcerer who killed forty-three soldiers?”
“My father was. I stand merely as girl who murdered a Senator.”
The scarred woman nodded slowly. “I am Cassia. I have been here three years. Survived forty-two fights.” She gestured to empty mat near back. “That holds as yours. Keep head down, trust no one, and hold memory—we are not friends. We stand as competitors. Any one of us might face you in sand someday.”
“Understood,” Nundina said.
She claimed the mat. Set down the few possessions they had allowed her—nothing, essentially. She owned the clothes on her back and nothing else. The grimoire was gone. Left behind at the pleasure house, hidden but inaccessible. For the first time since the Senator’s blood had sprayed across her hands, Nundina felt the full weight of what she had lost. But she could not think about that now. Could not afford grief or regret. She had to survive.
• • •
Training began at dawn. They woke to a bell that sounded like judgment itself—harsh, unforgiving, demanding immediate response. Nundina joined the others in the yard. The air was cold, her breath misting in the early light. A doctore approached—different from Corvinus, younger, meaner-looking.
“Line up! Women on left, men on right!” They obeyed. The doctore walked down the line, evaluating. He stopped in front of Nundina.
“You are new one. Ardenta’s daughter.” He spat in sand. “Let us see if you inherited anything of use.”
He pulled a wooden training sword from a rack and tossed it to her. She caught it awkwardly—the weight was unfamiliar, the balance strange.
“Fresh meat!” a woman called from across the yard—maybe thirty, built like she had been carved from violence. She grinned across the yard toward the men’s side. “Sica. Show her what the sand costs!”
A man stepped forward from the men’s side. Not the giant from yesterday, but big enough—taller than Nundina by a foot, broader by twice. He grabbed a wooden sword and grinned.
“This will not take long,” he said.
The doctore gestured. “Fight. First blood or yield. Begin.”
Nundina barely had time to raise her weapon before Sica attacked.
He was fast. Faster than his size suggested. The wooden blade cracked against hers, nearly knocking it from her grip. She stumbled back. Laughter erupted from the watching gladiators. Sica pressed forward, not giving her time to recover. Another blow. Another. Each one jarring her arms, testing her balance.
Nundina tried to dodge like she had read about in her father’s grimoire—theory about using an opponent’s momentum against them. It did not work. Sica’s sword caught her across the ribs. Even wooden, it drove the air from her lungs. She went down.
“Get up,” the doctore called.
Nundina struggled to her feet, gasping. Sica did not wait. He came at her again, methodical now. Not trying to end it quickly—trying to teach her exactly how outmatched she was. His blade cracked against her shoulder. Her thigh. Her forearm. Each blow precise. Controlled. Painful but not crippling.
Nundina swung wildly, desperate. Sica batted her sword aside like it was nothing and swept her legs out from under her. She hit the sand hard.
“Stay down,” Sica said, standing over her. “You are done.”
Nundina tried to rise. Her body screamed in protest. Sica’s wooden sword pressed against her throat. Not hard enough to choke, just enough to make the point.
“I said stay down, girl. You may be a sorcerer’s daughter, but you fight as frightened child. Surely, your father would weep to see this.”
The laughter from the other gladiators was louder now. Mocking. Cruel.
“Enough,” the doctore said. “She learns lesson.”
Sica stepped back. Tossed his practice sword aside and walked away without another word.
Nundina lay in the sand, tasting blood from where she had bitten her tongue. Every part of her hurt. Worse than the hurt was the humiliation—the proof that five years of studying magic meant nothing here.
Cassia appeared above her, offering a hand. Nundina took it, let herself be pulled to her feet.
“Welcome to ludus,” Cassia said quietly. “Magic holds no meaning in sand. Only steel. Only blood. Only whether you can kill before death finds you.”
“I will learn,” Nundina said through gritted teeth.
“You had better. Because next time might stand in arena. And Sica was being gentle.”
• • •
The first week was brutal. Training from dawn until the sun hung high and merciless overhead. Then again in the afternoon. Combat drills. Weapon familiarization. Learning to fight with sword, spear, net, trident. Learning to kill. Nundina’s body protested every movement. Muscles she did not know she had screamed in agony. Her hands blistered, then callused. Blood and sand became familiar textures.
But she learned. How to read an opponent’s stance. How to create openings. How to make a killing blow look accidental. How to survive against someone bigger, stronger, more experienced.
On the fifth night, one of the male gladiators cornered her near the water barrels after training. “Ardenta’s daughter,” he said, moving too close. “I have been desiring to… become better acquainted with you.” His hand reached for her. Nundina’s training sword was still in her grip. She drove the butt of it into his throat before he could touch her.
He staggered back, gasping.
“Touch me again,” she said quietly, “and I kill you in sleep.”
She meant it. He saw it in her eyes. He backed away, coughing. Word spread quickly after that. The sorcerer’s daughter was not helpless. Was not easy prey. Good.
• • •
At night, alone on her mat while the other women slept, Nundina practiced what magic she could without the grimoire. Small workings. Barely worth the blood. Making cuts heal slightly faster. Sensing when someone approached. Creating tiny sparks of flame in her palm that died almost immediately.
Without her father’s book, she was working from memory. From fragments of theory she had studied for five years but never fully tested. It was not enough.
She needed the grimoire. Needed its knowledge, its spells, its power. But it was lost. Hidden in a pleasure house she would never return to, guarded by a madam who probably burned it the moment Rome came asking questions.
No, Nundina thought, staring at the ceiling. Not lost. I remember. Not everything, but enough.
The immortality spell.
She still did not know if it had worked. Felt no different. No stronger or faster or harder to kill than any other gladiator in training. But her father’s notes had been clear: Working will not reveal itself until death demands proof. Which meant she would not know until someone tried to kill her. And in the arena, that would happen soon enough.
Corvinus announced it the following morning.
“Ardenta!” he called across the training yard. “You fight in three days. Afternoon games. Standard bout against another novice.”
Nundina’s stomach went cold. Three days.
“What weapons?” she asked.
“Sword and shield. Basic gladiatrix match. Crowd desires to see Cygnus Ardenta’s daughter bleed.” He smiled without warmth. “Give them good show before you meet death.”
He turned to leave, then paused and looked back at her. “You carry name that Rome remembers. Ardenta. Your father killed forty-three of their soldiers and became legend for it.”
His eyes hardened. “You will bring glory to this house. I give not fuck if you claim victory or meet defeat in first bout—novices rarely survive debut. But you will make them remember. You will fight with such fury that every citizen in those stands holds knowledge they witnessed something worthy of coin.”
“And if I do not?” Nundina asked.
“Then you will die having wasted my investment, and I will ensure your death proves particularly humiliating.” He stepped closer. “But if you give them spectacle? If you make my house’s name ring through Rome alongside yours? Then perhaps I give you training to survive second fight. Perhaps even third.”
He leaned in, voice dropping. “Bring glory to House of Corvinus, girl. Make them chant our name. Do that, and I make you champion. Fail, and you will be forgotten before sand drinks your blood.”
He walked away.
Nundina stood in the training yard, feeling the weight of what he had demanded. Glory. Spectacle. Entertainment for Rome’s masses.
Three days to prepare for her first real fight.
Three days to discover if her father’s spell had worked, or if she would die in the sand like every other failed gladiator before her.
WANT TO SEE IF SHE SURVIVES?
Continue Nundina Ardenta’s story in Ashes of Blood.