Last Man Standing

Prologue: The Nightmare

I held my father's sword upright as he finished putting on his armour, struggling with the weapon as it was almost my size and twice as heavy as me, but I always did my best to impress. Father smiled before grabbing the sword from my weak little fingers and putting it in his sheath. He bent down to my eye level and raised my chin.

"Are you going to cheer for your old man, Candra?"

"I'll be the loudest in the stadium!"

"Will you? Well, you'll have a lot of voices to compete with. You think you can handle it?"

"I never lose, papa. Just like you!"

He chuckled, "You'll fight fire with fire, will you?"

"Always..."

With that, he kissed my forehead and made his way through the gladiator's tunnel to finish preparing. This was our usual ritual. It was my turn to make my way up to the Emperor's box where I would watch my father, Augustus Calpurnius Galeo, defeat another opponent in the arena, maintaining his championship title.

I ran up several flights of stairs and down dozens of hallways as fast as I could, hoping to reach the Emperor's box early to share a private audience with Prince Decimus. Before rounding the last corner, I slowed my pace and fixed my appearance to impress the Prince, who just so happened to be my best friend and arranged fiancé thanks to Father's success. Even a ten year old girl knows what it means to be engaged to the nine year old Prince of Romallia: I would be the future Empress. But this wasn't what I looked forward to most, but rather the fact that I would get to spend the rest of my life in comfort with a friend.

A huge grin began to spread across my face when I turned the corner and saw Decimus waiting by the curtain to the box. The crowd was shouting in the arena, waiting impatiently for the fight. We had to make this quick before anyone realized we were missing.

Decimus gave me a toothless grin, "I have something for you."

"What is it!?" I was skipping with excitement as I closed the gap between us.

Decimus opened his left hand to reveal a golden hoop earring in his palm. "Mother said that Father gave her a ring when they were betrothed to show her that she-... well, I don't remember why, but she said it was important. I took this ring from Mother's jewellery case. She had two, so I didn't think she would notice. It looked like it would fit your finger."

Decimus held out the token, waiting for me to surrender my hand. I was just as unaware as Decimus to the earring's true function, overjoyed by the gesture of the gift to even care.

"Thank you, Decimus! It's so pretty!"

Before we could say anything else, my twin brother Marcus poked his head through the curtains to scold us.

"Come on you two! Your parents are looking for you, and dad's about to come out!"

We walked into the Emperor's box and took our seats by Marcus.

Hadrien Servilius Drusus welcomed the children of his champion gladiator as he always did, assuring my brother and I that he had trained our father even further to ensure another victory.

The Emperor turned to us with a frown before resting his gaze on his wife, who was silently sobbing in her seat. A malicious smile formed on the Emperor's lips as he stood to address his people, and then a hush fell over the crowd. It was time for him to introduce his champion.

"My fellow Romallians, today is a glorious day! Before we welcome our gladiators onto the field for the summer games, we have the opportunity to bear witness to the execution of a Romallian traitor!"

The crowd cheered for the death of another Galacian rebel; men who belonged to the Emperor's brother who fought to take over Romallia. Father would give the crowd a good show, dragging out this rebel's death to satisfy their need for revenge for this continuous war.

The Emperor hushed the crowd again and continued, "This man has fooled us all for years, including myself, pretending to be a true Romallian as he fought by my side against the Galacian's. But it turns out he was a Galacian all along, sabotaging our campaigns from the inside."

I looked back at the Empress, who was now staring at her son's fiancée with wide eyes. She said nothing as another tear ran down her cheek. I couldn't help but feel like something bad was about to happen.

"It pains me to say this... but the traitor to the Romallian Empire is none other than Augustus Calpurnius Galeo, your champion gladiator."

Thousands of men and women gasped with shock and horror, making it easy to hear my cries of protest. The Emperor's men had to restrain me from hurling myself forward in Father's defence. Marcus and Decimus froze with the shock of the news as Hadrien swore to Augustus' innocence and pleaded for the Emperor's pardon.

Father was led out onto the field in chains by another gladiator for torture; a punishment my father used to carry out on the accused. The roles were reversed, and the Emperor was the only one in the box who seemed excited about the coming execution.

After the initial shock of the Emperor's announcement, the crowd began to react. They booed and cursed the man they once cheered for, screaming for his blood by vicious means. The Emperor gave the signal to begin the bloodshed, and the gladiator began to slice through my father with the sword that I was holding only moments ago. He cried out in pain as the crowd roared.

Marcus finally found his voice and screamed profane insults at the Emperor, then lunged at the man with fists flying. He landed a few good blows across the Emperor's back, but nothing that would ever leave a mark. A few more guards appeared to drag Marcus out of the box, and then they did the same to Hadrien. Finally, two guards advanced on me.

"No! I want her to see this!"

The guards obeyed the Emperor's orders, and then escorted the Prince out of the box before he could say a word. I was hurt by his detached response to the situation, unwilling to stick up for my father or even comfort me through the trauma. Whether he knew about or agreed with this deviation from the summer games was beside the point; he should have stayed to console his fiancée...

The Emperor grabbed the back of my neck and pushed me toward the railing of the balcony. "Look, Candra! See as your father falls! A traitor to his people and my trust! See how the crowd yearns for his bloodshed; how they believe my every word as if it were fact! See how I hold the power over Romallia, and how your father kneels in the sand in chains like any other peasant who chooses to defy me; who tries to overpower me!"

His words were muffled by my father's painful screams and the crowd's cheers of approval. The Empress tried to intervene, but the Emperor delivered a powerful blow that knocked her to the ground and silenced her. The Emperor had gone mad, and the crowd was only feeding off of this energy. Things were escalating fast, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The Emperor turned back with fury. "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO TAKE WHAT ISN'T THEIRS! TO THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE ABOVE THE CROWN AND MY RULE!"

Father was beyond saving. He could no longer scream in pain or make attempts to dodge every blow. Blood poured out of his wounds, falling into the sand at his knees as his skin began to swell around his broken limbs. A tear fell from his eye as he looked at me with regret, knowing that this was the end. I was sobbing so hard that my vision threatened to cloud, but I shook it off to reassure my father of all his unanswered questions that he had in leaving my brother and I behind.

The last thing I saw before burying my face in my small, fragile hands was the gladiator raising Father's sword up high to bring it down with such force to severe his head from his neck, just as Father mouthed: fight fire with fire.