Chapter 16
XVI
I STARE AT EMISSA. SURPRISED. DELIGHTED. FURIOUS. Panicked. So tangled up in myself that I don’t respond for several seconds. The dark-haired girl in the middle of the street just watches me. Lit by the dawn. Smile painfully uncertain.
“Emissa.” I finally get the name out. “What are you doing here?”
It comes out harsher than I mean it to, and Emissa winces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ambush you like this. We can talk another time. Or not,” she adds with hesitant insecurity. “But I know you have a carriage just around the corner. Could I ride with you? Just give me until you get home.”
It’s less than ten minutes to my apartments. “Alright.” It’s not alright, not entirely, but I can’t avoid her forever. I don’t want to avoid her forever. I think.
And while I don’t believe she’s still intent on killing me, it doesn’t hurt that the driver will be a witness to her company.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I’ve been trying to contact you since the Columnae attack. Even Veridius couldn’t get you a message.” She fidgets with her clothing. “I knew you’d come to see Lanistia eventually, though.”
Of course. Given both her father’s position and her sway as Military’s top graduate, it wouldn’t have been hard to arrange word of my visit. “Veridius sent you?”
“Not exactly.”
We pass a clump of grim-looking Octavii. They glance at us sourly before one of them brightens, whispering something to her companions; suddenly they’re all nodding and murmuring “Stronger together” to me as they pass. I force a smile back in acknowledgement. A common occurrence. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I wanted to see you, and Veridius wanted me to pass along a message. But mostly, I wanted to see you.” Sincerity in the emphasis.
We reach the carriage and I just grunt as we get in, the driver eyeing Emissa but making no objection. I’m still too disoriented, too twisted up, to know what emotion I want to display. Brusqueness is a convenient shield at the moment.
There are only the sounds of waking Caten around us as the Will-carriage begins to roll. So much that needs to be said, to be explained, but I don’t think either of us know where to begin.
Eventually, Emissa speaks into the awkwardness.
“I thought you were already dead. That you’d died and been replaced by something very dangerous.
” She doesn’t look at me. Her brow is furrowed, long brown hair falling over her face.
Her calm facade vanished. Or perhaps this is the facade.
But I have never heard her sound so vulnerable or small or sad as when she makes the admission.
“When I stabbed you, that night. I really thought …” She trails off.
“What?” I whisper it. Shake my head. Spread my hands to show my utter confusion. “Why would you think that?”
“It was your blood. Veridius said you’ve been to the ruins near the Academy—been underground?” She takes a breath. Steadies. Meets my gaze long enough to see me confirm it. “Then you saw those bodies in there. The ones with the swords through their chests, but that can talk.”
I shudder. “Yes.”
“I thought you were one of those. ‘Iunctii,’ Veridius calls them. Already dead, but … not. He warned me that there are more of them out there, and they’re not always like that. Not always obvious. They can move around. Even pretend to be the people they once were.”
I think of the husks chasing me from the dome. Complete the journey, warrior.
Vek. My stomach twists as more connections come. “Gods. Lanistia …”
“She’s not. Military have already had her blood tested.
” My heart unclenches. “But the way they test is by seeing how blood interacts with an imbued object. Obsidian, usually. Normal blood does nothing. The blood of the dead causes a kind of interference. It’s easy to spot, if you know what to look for. ”
I think about what she’s saying. Replay that night up on the tower, as I already have so many times.
“Your blade. You used it to cut away my shirt. It had my blood on it.” That was the moment it all changed. She was protecting me, so concerned about my injuries. And then, suddenly, not.
“There was something wrong with it,” she says.
Utter, painful frustration at the memory.
“So obviously. I didn’t want to act on it.
You have to know I didn’t want to. But that’s why those things are so dangerous, why Veridius trained me to spot them in the first place.
Why it’s so important to strike first,” she finishes softly.
I stare at the opposite seat of the carriage, just trying to grasp it. “If that’s true, then what changed? How do you know I’m not …” I gesture.
“There are things the dead can’t do. Like heal.
” Her eyes go to my empty sleeve. “You were tied up for the first few days when you got back to the Academy, but then you started to get better. Veridius … I think Veridius was looking for it. He said you must have run the Labyrinth in the ruins on the other side of the island. He figured your blood must have been contaminated in some other way. I think he knows how, but he doesn’t trust me enough to explain.
” She locks eyes with me. So much pain and sorrow in them I can barely stop from looking away.
“It was a mistake, Vis. A terrible, terrible mistake that I wish every day I could take back. I am so sorry.”
I don’t tell her it’s alright. I can’t. “So you’ve been working with the Principalis.” I say it gently enough that she understands I’m willing to continue listening, at least.
Emissa struggles to find the words for a few seconds. Fighting the urge to say more. Apologise more. The newly healed scar along my stomach itches.
“For him.” It’s a correction she’s not happy at having to make.
“Willingly?”
She takes some time to think about it. “Yes.” Not as confident as I would have expected, though. “I know he’s told you about the Cataclysm, and I believe him.”
“Why?”
“The things he’s shown me.” She shakes her head with a rueful smile at my expression. “No. If I tell you what I know, you’ll decide it means there’s no need to go and see Veridius. And Vis? You really need to go and see Veridius.”
I don’t say anything. She knows me well.
“He’s been trying to get a message to you for days now,” she adds, seeing I’m not going to respond. “A warning. When are your Placement exams?”
“They’re not telling us exactly, but probably in a couple of months. Same time as yours, I assume,” I say slowly.
“There’s going to be a separate test, just before you get ceded your Will. They’re going to check your blood.”
I swallow. Remembering Sextus Valerius, the strange man who came to the villa after the naumachia and took samples of my blood. Showed me those pictures. “I’m not going to pass, am I.”
“No. And they’re going to kill you because of it.”
I close my eyes. Part of me doubts her, can’t just accept her word the way I used to. I know how gods-damned good a liar she is now. But it feels real. “How do I avoid it?”
“You don’t. You can’t. It’s being mandated by the Princeps.” She takes a slow breath. “But there is a way you can fool it.”
“Which is?”
“You could cede to me before taking it.”
Silence, and then eventually I just laugh. When she just looks at me steadily, I throw up my hands. “You want me to become your Octavus?” Even the words make me sick.
“Only just before the test, and then I’d release your ceding as soon as it’s done.
Before Placement. The timing would be tricky, but we could do it.
” She sees the disgust warring on my face.
“Veridius says it’s something to do with your Will being different, not your blood by itself.
If you don’t have enough Will to begin with, it won’t trigger the reaction they’re looking for. ”
I run a hand through my hair. “You’re sure that will work?”
“Veridius is sure. And I trust him on this. He wants you alive. So do I.” She watches me. The carriage rolls through Caten’s streets. Outside, the faint cries of hawkers are already echoing in the early morning. “It’s not enough, is it? You don’t believe me.”
“No. I believe you.” No reason for her to lie about this. Trust, though. That’s another issue. “Thanks. I’ll find a way.”
Her nod to my tacit rejection of her help is hurt and unsurprised. “What about talking to Veridius?”
“I’ll go and see him if he guarantees me unrestricted access to Solivagus. No chaperone.” Even before speaking to Lanistia, I knew I was going to have to talk to him eventually. But Emissa doesn’t know I’ve already made that decision.
“You know he won’t do that.”
“If he won’t trust me, then I see no reason to trust him.”
She stares at me. Frustrated. Seeing through me, I think, but enough has happened and she’s unsure enough that she’s not willing to gamble.
The carriage is passing Lordan’s Column, not far from my apartments now.
“What if I could get you in to see the prisoner from the Iudicium? Would you agree to go and see Veridius then?”
I blink. Taken aback. “I … didn’t know there was one,” I eventually lie.
Officially there was no one captured after the Iudicium, though there have been rumours swirling.
And I’ve been isolated since the Aurora Columnae attack, haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone with senatorial access.
If not for my prior knowledge of the Anguis’s plan, this would have been a startling revelation.