Chapter LV #2
“Stop!” I shout it because, apparently, none of the senators will.
Ostius pauses, foot hovering in mid-air.
He hops to balance, almost comically, as the madness retreats once again behind that jovial, too-casual facade.
The senators across the room just stare.
Frozen in their abject fear. My razor-sharp iron shards still between them and us. None move to help their moaning leader.
Through my own horror, my own disorientation and disgust, I am ashamed to say that I feel some flicker of satisfaction at the helplessness of their expressions.
“But. Speaking of trust,” continues Ostius, digging into his robes and pulling out some paper with a flourish, as if the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened.
“I have names! All the names. Well. All the ones who matter. Details about those names, too. All the things they did. All the ways in which they helped with the attacks on the naumachia and Solivagus.” He makes a show of reading.
“Hmm. Yes. Yes. Your names are on here! Wonderful. Even yours, Uncle. I included it as an addendum about the cover-up, after you found out what they’d done.
” He addresses the last to the still-groaning, bloodied man on the floor.
“Now all I need is for you all to sign it, seal it, and we can be on our way.”
Silence. If there was any doubt, it is washed away in that moment. The shifting of their eyes, the slow horror dawning. There is no surprise. No outrage or shock or denial.
Each of them knew.
I feel my hands shaking, even through the numbing power of Will. I clench them into fists.
“Don’t be foolish, Ostius.” Quiscil finally scoffs it into the dismay. “Why would we do that?”
“Because it is the truth, of course!” Ostius smiles too widely.
Gathering ink and quill, sealing wax and a candle from the triangular table.
“Oh. And of course it means I won’t kill you.
This way, you all get … what? The night, I suppose, to get out of Caten?
” He emphasises the crushing inevitability of their choice with another savage kick to his uncle’s midriff; the man’s breath explodes from his lungs and he doubles over again with a defeated gasp.
No one speaks. Horrified acceptance amidst their fury. They know there isn’t an option. “What is to stop you from killing us anyway?” asks Dimidius Werex eventually.
“You haven’t been listening, Werex. My word.
You have my word. You have to trust me.” He crouches beside Exesius.
Places the paper beside him on the floor and then props him up gently, pressing the quill into his hand.
“Just down there, Uncle. That’s it! You can check it over if you like, if I’ve made mistakes I can …
no? You trust me? Wonderful.” He watches as the Princeps of Military signs the confession, then snatches up the paper and springs to his feet, letting the man collapse back to the floor. “Who’s next?”
And so they sign. One by one. Anger and defiance and shock and regret in every stroke. Evil men seeing their power ripped away. There is, I quickly learn, no sadder or more gratifying sight.
Despite that, my mind is finally catching up to the madness of these events and I try to plot out their consequences.
A civil war that ensures Military is divided?
That seems most likely, and in fact, I suspect the senators are gradually coming to the same conclusion.
See them sliding from stunned to calculating.
Ostius is right; they’ll be able to leave before anyone can take action—exiles, but exiles who still command formidable loyalties.
The armies swear their oaths to Exesius as much as they do the Republic.
They’ll claim they were working for the good of Caten, or maybe recant and say they signed under duress. All is not lost for them.
The blood drains from my fingers, I squeeze my fists so tight. I get my names, but not necessarily justice. These men killed my friends. They killed thousands. That much will soon be public.
And there’s still a gods-damned chance they will get away with it.
Quiscil is the last. He signs with a disgusted flourish and presses his ring into the wax; Ostius examines the signature and then nods absently, as if he was not now holding a document that could tear the Catenan Republic apart.
“Very good. Very good. Thank you,” he says, blowing on the ink to dry it. “I think … yes! I think that is all, from me.” He turns to me. “They are all yours, my boy.”
There’s silence as he steps back. The senators turn to me, puzzled. Not understanding.
I do.
The hush stretches, the senators’ uncertainty eliciting shuffling feet and anxious looks.
The stolen Will within me hums. They are completely within my power.
They are pitiful and they are dangerous and they most certainly deserve to die for their confessed crimes. My hatred boils. My rage trembles.
And yet, through it, my father’s voice echoes. The power to protect is the highest responsibility.
Ostius wants me to kill them. That alone says I should not.
The rage remains but I force it down, chain it somewhere deep and dark.
Just like I always do. Make myself think it through.
These men are prisoners. It will be a mental strain, but I could hold on to their Will until they were stripped of it.
Get their confession to Quartus Corenius and maybe Ulciscor as well, who between them would know who to trust. An agreement between Military’s unimplicated Quartii and the rest of the Senate might be struck.
And then to consummate the union and prove to everyone that the rot in the Republic has been dealt with, these men would undoubtedly be placed in Sappers.
A lot of ifs. A lot of things needing to go right. A lot of trusting others.
But it could still end in a world where the horrors of a Will-fought war are never realised, and the worst of those who would have brought it are gone.
“We need a way to tie them up.” I breathe it. Expel it as if it were my fury. “Until the trial.”
Ostius frowns. Nonplussed. Then he turns to the senators.
“Gentlemen, I’ve been rude. Please allow me to introduce the man you know as Sextus Vis Telimus, or Catenicus if you’re feeling nostalgic.
Though his birth name is Diago, son of Cristoval.
Prince of Suus. I believe some of you hanged his parents and sister? ”
The words stun me as much as they do the Military leadership. I feel as though I’ve been punched.
“But not his little sister. She drowned trying to escape your men, from what I understand.”
I choke. Ostius is stoking my rage. Poking and prodding at all the painful memories. The knowledge should help. It doesn’t.
There’s abrupt movement in the archway, the sudden soft clicking of claw on stone, and Diago, unprompted, as if sensing what I’m going through, as if understanding his concealment is no longer necessary, stalks into view.
Gaze fixed on the suddenly breath-holding, frozen senators as they take in his massive form.
He stops between us and them. Lips curling back slowly, revealing the razor-sharp, saliva-covered ivory beneath.
He makes no sound. Somehow, it makes the whole thing even more threatening.
I do what I can to strip away the dazedness, grateful for the alupi’s brief distraction. Set my features into something grim, and slowly let the metal triangles depart my face. I do not flinch from the senators’ stares as they tear their eyes from Diago to take in the sight of me.
“Tell me why you invaded Suus.” My voice growls across the room, though I direct it mostly at Exesius. More powerful and forceful than it should be; the men all shift back, and even Ostius flinches. “Tell me why you killed my family.”
Exesius props himself up. As fascinated as he is in pain, now. “You don’t know?” He glances at Ostius.
“Gods. That’s what this is about? Blame your father,” mutters Werex, even as he eyes Diago warily again. “He pulled on threads he knew were better left unravelled.”
My metal shard takes him in the shoulder, and he squeals in shocked pain.
I rip it out and hover it in front of his face. Red dripping. There are low, outraged gasps from among the gathered senators. Ostius watches delightedly.
“He found out about the Cataclysms.” Exesius this time, tired and soft. “He found out, and did not believe it. So he had men seek out more. And though he kept his circle of trust excruciatingly small, he nonetheless trusted too much.”
“Who?” Hissed. Ragged. Not my own voice. “Who betrayed him?”
“Our spymasters are jealous with their secrets. I do not know the name.” Exesius is guarded.
He sees how tenuous my grasp on my anger is.
“But it wasn’t just his knowledge. We were warned that he had uncovered a weapon.
Something not even the Republic could stop.
So we acted.” His gaze bores into mine. Still sharp behind all that blood and pain.
“Though surely you knew that part, Catenicus. Given the naumachia.”
I don’t disabuse him of his cynical and false assumption. I can see now how Estevan likely did what he did. But my mind is already moving on to something far more important to me. “Why kill my family?”
Exesius grimaces. Hesitates, but as he takes in my expression, he sees I will accept only the truth. “Men sometimes confide in those they trust, but they only truly unburden themselves on the ones they love,” he says softly.
I close my eyes. Killed because the Hierarchy worried my father had told them something. I believe him. Not that my father would ever have used such a weapon. Not that he would have for a heartbeat considered what these men assumed he wanted to do.
But I have always wondered at the Hierarchy’s violence in the face of Birthright. Now, I understand.