The Emperor's Head

35. One Step Away

You are here!

Jun's heart swelled. He tried not to make his movements obvious, but he could not restrain himself from looking in the direction his soul led him. Someone had cleared the path for his blood bond, and the cool calmness of his lover bathed over him. It only took seconds to find his face in the crowd of strangers.

No, not strangers. Di is next to him. And the Green Clan Leader stands behind them.

The parade stopped. The sudden cessation of movement pierced through Jun's shoulder, but his heart ignored the pain as it soared through the air to land on his lover. Bolin smiled, and Jun knew how dire his state must be.

You are trying to encourage me, and I am glad. But as long as you live, I will live. I will find a way.

Di put a hand on Bolin's arm, and Jun knew her restraint was necessary. He felt his body struggling against his bindings to nudge closer to Bolin. The cage jerked into motion once more. Bolin remained still, not following the parade toward the arena.

I will wait for you.

The residual giddiness from this brief interaction distracted him for the rest of the long route to the Emperor's miniature battlefield. But the cold stone wall that marked their arrival grabbed his attention again.

Scaffolding still surrounded part of the outer wall of the towering structure. Where Jun could see the building clearly, its foreignness shocked him. He had neither seen nor read of any structure built this way in the Jiayi Empire. Weak and broken as he felt, his mind still could not help but admire the tightly fitted stones that created the large arched doorways of the ground floor. They stood at least ten persons high and five wide, and the thick stone around them somehow allowed a second layer of archways to be built on top. This second layer was shorter but still grand and supported a third layer of smaller but more frequent doorways. The entire structure had to have been as tall as 100 men and, judging by the curvature, just as wide. Thousands of citizens would be able to fit inside once it was complete.

The parade did not stop. The soldiers marched through an entrance as wide as three carts, and Jun admired the thick wall as they passed through.

On either side of the long walkway through the wall, dark hallways stretched deep into the oval ring. Jun could smell the fetid odor that accompanied death and poorly kept animals. Still, the banners over the hallways indicated entrances for patrons, not prisoners, so the smell had to come from elsewhere.

The smell intensified as they entered the sandy center of the arena. The side farthest from them had bars covering the arched doors, and Jun could hear the roars of beasts from inside. The animal smell wafted from that corner of the space, but death surrounded them. Pikes, almost as tall as the first layer, lined the walls, filling every space between the entrance and the cage archways. The walls behind the pikes were smooth, no spectator entrances outside the animal cages and the one he entered from was visible. Hanging on the pikes was more Yewan. None had been freshly killed, so their faces had been rendered unrecognizable by decay and carrion birds.

What leader takes such pleasure in the death of his people? The Clan Master and his family are understandable, but why had he bothered killing even the youngest and weakest of the clan? There is no glory in the death of children.

Jun closed his eyes from the horrific site as the cage came to a halt and slammed onto the ground, pulling his right arm out of its socket. The searing pain distracted him from the guilt beginning to pour over his body from the site of the dead clans' people.

His arms dropped free of their bindings simultaneously with his legs. Without the support of the tethers, Jun could not support his weight and slammed his head hard against the metal ground as he fell. Jun felt the warm trickle of fresh blood flow down his cheek from a new wound on his head.