Empire of Silence

The narrator-Hadrian claims to remember little of the fights that he watched on the day he joined Anais and Dorian at the Colosso.

On that day, the young Hadrian is surrounded by nobiles partying and drinking while people die in the arena below. Anais is interested in Hadrian’s past, so he lies about where he is from, how he was trained, and why he joined the myrmidons. Meanwhile, Hadrian overhears Dorian bragging about the Cielcin in the dungeons, who was bought in by Gilliam Vas and is now awaiting execution.

When one myrmidon familiar to Hadrian dies fighting a gladiator, Anais mistakes Hadrian’s discomfort for nostalgia and suggests that he rejoin the Colosso fights as a gladiator rather than as a myrmidon. Recoiling, Hadrian vehemently refuses, sickened by the thought of being pitted against one of his former friends. He berates himself for going to the dungeons in search of the Cielcin, lamenting the fact that this rash decision cost him his freedom.

Hadrian’s new alias holds a lower rank than the Mataro family, and etiquette requires that he behave in an accommodating manner with them. Specifically, he is not permitted to refuse their requests or to leave the Count’s palace to visit his myrmidon friends.