Livia fell directly between Cassian and the Ape Titan.
For one terrible second, the entire arena seemed to forget how to breathe.
Forty thousand spectators had been screaming only moments earlier.
Now there was almost complete silence.
Livia hit the sand hard.
Her white stola twisted around her legs.
One bronze chain still hung from her wrist where the platform above had broken apart.
Cassian turned toward her.
“Livia!”
He tried to run.
The Ape Titan moved first.
The creature was enormous.
More than twenty feet tall when fully upright.
Black fur covered its shoulders and back.
Broken bronze restraints hung from both wrists.
Its arms were thick enough to crush a shield between them.
Dust clung to the scars across its chest.
The crowd expected one thing.
The Titan would attack Livia.
Even Cassian expected it.
He raised his broken shield and stepped between them.
“Stay behind me!”
Livia barely moved.
“Cassian…”
The Titan approached.
One step.
Then another.
The sand shook beneath its weight.
Cassian lifted his sword.
The blade had already been damaged during the fight.
Half its edge was chipped.
It would do little against a creature that had survived spears, chains and three gladiators before him.
Still, Cassian stood his ground.
The Titan stopped.
Cassian stared at it.
Something was wrong.
The creature was not looking at him.
It was not looking at Livia either.
Its dark eyes were fixed on the imperial balcony.
Cassian slowly turned.
Governor Varro stood beneath the red awning above the arena.
Until that moment, Varro had looked entertained.
Now he looked afraid.
Very afraid.
Cassian followed his gaze.
Then he saw Varro’s left hand.
Two fingers lifted.
A small motion.
Almost invisible.
The archers positioned along the upper wall immediately changed stance.
Cassian’s stomach tightened.
Varro was signaling them.
Not to fire at Cassian.
Not at Livia.
At the Titan.
“Down!” Cassian shouted.
The arrows came.
The Ape Titan roared.
It grabbed Livia with one enormous hand.
Cassian lunged forward.
“No!”
But the creature did not hurt her.
It pulled her against the shelter of its chest and turned its back toward the arrows.
Wooden shafts struck the sand around them.
Several bounced from the bronze fragments still fixed across the Titan’s shoulders.
The crowd erupted.
Cassian stopped.
The monster was protecting her.
“Why?” Livia whispered.
Cassian had no answer.
Above them, Varro stood.
“Fire again!”
The archers hesitated.
Varro shouted louder.
“NOW!”
Cassian looked at him.
“You knew.”
His voice disappeared beneath the crowd.
But Varro seemed to understand.
Cassian remembered something from earlier that morning.
The Titan had been brought into the amphitheater beneath heavy canvas.
Sixteen guards surrounded the transport cage.
Nobody had been permitted close.
Cassian had assumed the secrecy existed because the animal was dangerous.
Now he wondered if Varro had been hiding something else.
The Titan roared again.
This time, the sound was directed entirely toward the balcony.
Varro took one step backward.
Livia noticed it too.
“It knows him.”
Cassian looked at her.
“What?”
“It knows Varro.”
The Titan lowered Livia carefully to the sand.
Then it struck one fist against its chest.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Varro’s face changed.
Cassian saw recognition there.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“Cassian,” Livia said.
She pointed toward the broken bronze restraint on the Titan’s right wrist.
Something had been engraved into the metal.
Cassian stepped closer.
The Titan allowed it.
That frightened him almost as much as an attack would have.
He brushed sand from the bronze.
Three letters appeared.
V.A.R.
Livia stared.
“Varro.”
Cassian’s eyes lifted toward the governor.
Varro immediately shouted:
“Release the lions!”
A gate opened at the opposite end of the arena.
Two large lions emerged.
The crowd screamed with excitement.
Cassian cursed.
“They’re trying to distract everyone.”
The Ape Titan turned.
Both lions charged.
Cassian moved beside the creature instinctively.
“Livia, get behind the wall!”
“There is no wall!”
“Then stay behind us!”
The first lion leapt.
The Titan swung one massive arm.
The animal was knocked sideways into the sand.
Cassian intercepted the second with his shield.
The impact drove him to one knee.
He pushed upward.
The lion clawed across the bronze.
Cassian rolled.
The Titan seized the animal around its middle and threw it toward an empty section of the arena.
Neither animal returned immediately.
The spectators were on their feet.
But Cassian was no longer thinking about survival.
He was watching Varro.
The governor spoke to a guard.
The guard ran.
“Where is he going?” Livia asked.
Cassian looked toward the lower tunnels.
“To destroy something.”
The Titan suddenly made a strange sound.
Not a roar.
Something softer.
It looked toward Livia.
Then toward the tunnel beneath Varro’s balcony.
Cassian understood.
“You want us to go there?”
The creature struck the ground once.
Livia stared at Cassian.
“You’re asking questions now?”
“I’m running out of normal ideas.”
They moved.
The Titan followed.
The crowd became louder as all three crossed the arena together.
Cassian reached the tunnel entrance.
Two guards appeared.
“Stop!”
Cassian raised his damaged shield.
“Move.”
“By order of Governor Varro—”
The Titan roared behind him.
Both guards moved.
Cassian almost smiled.
Inside the tunnel, the noise of the arena faded.
Torches lined the stone walls.
The Titan had to crouch to enter.
Livia stayed close to Cassian.
“What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s comforting.”
They followed the passage beneath the imperial seats.
Then the Titan stopped.
Its entire body became rigid.
Ahead stood a heavy wooden door.
On it was the same symbol engraved into the restraint.
A circle.
Three vertical cuts.
Cassian touched the mark.
“What is this?”
Livia leaned closer.
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Where?”
“In Varro’s records.”
Cassian turned.
“What records?”
“The ones he ordered me to copy before he accused me of treason.”
Cassian stared at her.
Livia continued.
“Shipments from Africa. Animals. Prisoners. Weapons.”
She pointed toward the mark.
“That symbol appeared beside every shipment.”
The Titan struck the door.
Wood cracked.
Another blow.
The hinges failed.
The door collapsed inward.
Behind it was not a cell.
It was a laboratory.
Cassian stopped.
Iron tables.
Chains.
Cages.
Tools.
Jars filled with dark liquids.
Scrolls stacked on shelves.
Livia covered her mouth.
“What did Varro do here?”
The Ape Titan entered slowly.
Its breathing changed.
Then it moved toward the far wall.
A large painting hung there.
Cassian pulled it down.
Behind it was a collection of sketches.
Dozens.
Apes.
Lions.
Bears.
Human prisoners.
Each drawing contained measurements.
Weight.
Strength.
Reaction.
Survival.
Cassian felt sick.
“This wasn’t an animal captured for the games.”
Livia looked toward the Titan.
“It was experimented on.”
A voice came from behind them.
“Not experimented on.”
Varro stood in the doorway.
Six soldiers surrounded him.
“Improved.”
Cassian raised his sword.
“You did this.”
Varro smiled.
“You think Rome becomes powerful by leaving nature untouched?”
The Titan roared.
Varro flinched.
Cassian noticed.
“You’re afraid of it.”
“I created it.”
“No.”
Livia looked at the drawings.
“You tortured it.”
Varro’s expression hardened.
“Careful.”
Cassian stepped forward.
“Why does it recognize you?”
Varro said nothing.
Livia moved toward another table.
There was a leather ledger.
She opened it.
Names filled the pages.
Handlers.
Doctors.
Guards.
Test subjects.
Then she found one section marked with the Titan’s symbol.
SUBJECT A-1.
Cassian read the first line.
Captured alive.
Transferred under Varro’s personal authority.
Then another entry.
Conditioning unsuccessful.
Subject continues reacting aggressively to Governor Varro.
Livia looked up.
“That’s why.”
Varro’s face hardened.
Cassian continued reading.
A later entry had been written in red ink.
Subject witnessed destruction of original habitat.
Female specimen terminated.
Young specimen removed.
Cassian stopped.
The Titan made a low sound behind him.
Livia whispered:
“They killed its family.”
Varro stepped forward.
“It was an animal.”
The Titan roared so violently that dust fell from the ceiling.
The soldiers raised spears.
Cassian shouted:
“Don’t!”
Varro pointed.
“Kill it!”
The Titan charged.
The soldiers scattered.
Cassian pulled Livia aside.
Spears struck stone.
A torch fell.
The Titan slammed into the doorway.
Varro staggered backward.
For the first time, the governor screamed.
“Archers!”
No answer.
The arena above had become chaos.
The crowd could hear the roaring beneath them.
Cassian grabbed the ledger.
“Livia, take this.”
She held it against her chest.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting everyone upstairs.”
The Titan blocked Varro’s escape.
Varro looked at Cassian.
“You have no idea what’s in that book.”
“I know enough.”
“No.”
Varro’s voice suddenly changed.
The confidence returned.
“You know the part I allowed my assistants to record.”
Cassian stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Varro smiled.
The Titan hesitated.
Then Varro looked directly at the creature.
“You think it hates me because of what happened to its family?”
He shook his head.
“That isn’t why it remembers me.”
Livia opened the ledger again.
“What did you do?”
Varro glanced toward the final pages.
Cassian pulled them free.
There was another record.
Older than the others.
A sketch of the Titan when it was much smaller.
Beside it stood two human figures.
One was Varro.
The second face had been scratched away.
Underneath were four words:
PRIMARY HANDLER — CASSIAN OF THRACE.
Cassian stopped breathing.
Livia stared at him.
“What?”
“I’ve never seen this creature before.”
Varro laughed.
“Are you sure?”
The Ape Titan slowly turned toward Cassian.
Its anger disappeared.
It stared at him.
Then it made the same soft sound it had made earlier.
Cassian’s sword lowered.
A memory flashed through him.
A wooden cage.
A young black-furred creature.
A soldier telling him to deliver it alive.
A mission Cassian had been ordered to forget after his unit was destroyed.
“No.”
Varro smiled.
“You were there before the arena.”
Cassian looked at the Titan.
The creature reached one enormous hand toward him.
Not attacking.
Remembering.
And suddenly the mystery was much larger than why the Ape Titan recognized Varro.
It recognized Cassian too.
Whatever Varro had done to the creature had begun years before either Cassian or Livia entered the arena.
And buried somewhere in the final pages of Varro’s ledger was the reason Cassian’s own name had been erased from that history.
Tap the link below the comment to discover why the Ape Titan remembered Varro—and what Cassian had forgotten about the day the creature was first captured.
