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the sky. Let him die. Dimly, Hektor wondered how she made such judgment, blind as she was. But he was the slave. It was for him to obey.
    “To the sky! To the sky!”
    In the end, he would do her will. Or his life would be forfeit.
    FROM THE BALCONY of House Vulpinius, Lucan held the spyglass to his eye and watched the Spectacle unfold below. His new master, Quaestor Stratos, had said nothing, but Lucan was certain the man had brought him here to study the styles of rival houses.
    But Lucan could not take his gaze from Hektor Actaeon’s gorgeous form. All those rippling muscles and sleek power. Even covered in blood and sand, the champion gladiator was wondrous to behold. Tanned skin, corded muscle. Biceps and broad shoulders honed by countless battles. A few scars added a ruggedness that Lucan found alluring. He wondered what it would be like to taste the sweat on this man’s body, to run his tongue over those scars and soothe them with velvety kisses.
    But Hektor Actaeon was nobody’s Claim. Rumor had it he fucked in the cells below but never allowed a man to please him.
    “He is quite something, isn’t he?” Stratos’s voice broke Lucan’s reverie. For a moment he had forgotten the quaestor was there.
    Stratos of House Vulpinius seemed an odd man. Odder, perhaps, than even Alession. At least the consul had appetites Lucan could understand. Stratos, on the other hand, seemed to harbor desires that Lucan could neither guess nor fathom. He had taken Lucan from the Claim and ordered him bathed and dressed. Then he had brought him here, to House Vulpinius.
    He’d not touched him. Not so much as looked at him with a lascivious eye.
    Taking the spyglass, Lucan moved to the other side of the balcony and looked down. The curvature of the Grand Palestra and all its fine houses laid out in concentric circles, the grounds and training compounds sparkling in the sun, gardens and causeways—the entire structure a sprawling marvel that Lucan found impossible to absorb in one glance. He could not keep his gaze from darting about, dizzying him.
    Never had he been so high. The entirety of the Grand Palestra stretched out below him.
    House Pineus had been at the bottom of the Grand Palestra, a small manor and tiny grounds wallowing in the stink and refuse thrown down from those higher, those better, the real houses—Priassin, the House of Architects; Lucia, the House of Artists; Aeschylus, the House of Philosophers; Menelaus, the House of Panacea; House Actaeon, the Warriors.
    Only the ruling House of Zaerus was higher than House Vulpinius.
    Lucan had mixed feelings about his sudden rise in station, but he could not help the excitement that coursed through him. Even if it was the station of a glorified slave.
    Below, the sounds of cheering rushed up from the Empress’s Theatre. Hektor Actaeon had struck a great blow. His opponent lay dying in the dust. Lucan flexed his hands, felt his calluses.
    He was to become a novice gladiator. Soon, he would know what a true Spectacle was like. But even though the other novices were training—some at the prestigious Ludus Magnii, others at the schools of their respective houses—Stratos had kept Lucan by his side these past few days.
    At first, Lucan had been wary. He knew his golden good looks drew all manner of attentions from men. But Stratos had been content to merely take Lucan on a tour of House Vulpinius’s gladiatorial school. At the sight of the sand-strewn amphitheatre, the racks of weapons both blunted and sharp, the rows upon rows of straw dummies and practice poles for striking, the extensive barracks and plush quarters for the master trainers as well as the primus palus of the House, Lucan had forgotten any wariness.
    House Pineus had not been able to afford one-tenth the richness of these halls. Lucan was still reeling from his fortune, both ill and good. He was just another of the unskilled, a novice hoping to make his name in the arena. No other Unnamed fighter had been