Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Praefa was a thin crescent in the night sky, barely lighting the now-familiar paved ribbon to Decimus’s home on which Sarai rode beside Kadra.
With a day and a half before trial, they’d decided to transport the scutum to Aoran Tower. Cato had warily made space for it in the wine cellar, with Kadra dryly assuring him that it wouldn’t explode while he was home.
I’m so close . The scutum would be exposed as fraudulent, and Aelius and Tullus would have no further hold over her. Granted, she had nothing yet to prove they were behind the dead Petitors and Othus’s murder, but it was a solid start to destabilizing them.
The air hung damp and chilly, winter giving way to the wet month of spring. Sarai glanced at Kadra. Posture impeccable as ever, he appeared lost in thought.
“What’ll you do when this is over?” she asked.
The question seemed to throw him. It was a moment before he answered. “I’ll have peace.” A bitter edge underscored the words.
He’d been like Jovian and Livia, too, she realized. Trapped by knowledge he couldn’t act on and waiting for enough allies so he could bring Aelius and Tullus to justice. For all her fear of the trial, she was glad that he’d seen an ally in her.
Dismounting by Decimus’s haphazardly repaired front door, she squinted at the lack of light within. Even the windows had been boarded up.
“Your vigiles must be exhausted after last night.” Sarai secured Caelum. “I thought they’d be on watch and alert for— ”
Kadra raised a finger to his lips, gliding off his horse with the fluidity of a predator. He examined the domus for a long moment before he cursed in a manner far different than he had at the pleasure house. Before she could ask why, he gripped her hand and steered her back to her horse, pressing a dagger into her palm.
“Ride back a quarter mile, and you’ll find Gaius. He’ll accompany you home.”
She stared at him like he’d sprouted two heads. “Why in hav?d would I do that?”
There was a grim tension to him, harder and colder than she’d seen yet.
“Kadra.” She blanched, stock-still. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Grasping her shoulders, he turned her to face him, staring beyond her to something at the front of the house. Something she wasn’t seeing.
Sarai tried to turn.
“Don’t,” he said softly, but she stepped away.
She had to know. Trembling, she walked to the front door, pushed it open, and staggered back.
The air reeked. An ugly brown painted the interior, a mass of limbs scattered about the narrow entryway, with a few toes ghoulishly stuck in the doorframe. A dark object rolled out of the shadows, its path no longer impeded by the door. The head came to a rest by her feet, bloated with death, eyes staring blankly at the ground.
Decimus. Or what was left of him.
As if manipulated by some magic outside of her body, her head swiveled toward the windows, where Kadra had been looking. She’d thought they were boards. They weren’t. Kadra’s vigiles had stuck to their duty after all. They watched through the window even now.
Blood trickling from her throat. Her face hitting the ground. Sarai slammed a hand against the doorjamb.
“He’s dead.” She stared at Decimus’s slack face, as though there was a possibility the man could come back to life. “He’s dead,” she repeated. And she already knew that the scutum was gone .
She should be panicking, but she couldn’t feel anything.
Kadra took her by the shoulders, turning her away from the carnage. At the quick pace of her breath, he tipped her chin up to him.
“Come out of there.” He took a step back, encouraging her to do the same. “Breathe.”
She was shaking so badly she knew she’d collapse if he let her go. “If I hadn’t sought him out—”
He cut the thought off at its legs. “He’s been dead for a while.” He tightened his grip when she tried to turn again. “Look at me, Sarai. He’s been dead for at least three weeks, if not longer. The Metals Guild got to him a while ago.”
“Because I illegally Probed Helvus—”
“Because Decimus made accusations at a tavern.” His voice was glacial, meant to slice through her panic.
Decimus had been polite to her even when she’d just been Kadra’s mouthy Petitor. She’d intended to give his brother justice. She’d wanted him to be there. She didn’t realize that she was saying it all out loud until Kadra nodded.
“I know.”
“Your vigiles—” She couldn’t breathe.
“Aelius stationed people here to kill them if they came looking.”
He exuded nothing in the way of grief, only fierce detachment. She’d have thought that he felt nothing and that his vigiles were assets at his disposal were it not for how his eyes had iced over. Right now, Kadra wasn’t a politician, he was a general at war, whose people had suffered heavy casualties. He was already preparing for how the other side would pay.
And then and there, her resolve solidified. They won’t take him . No matter what happened at trial, even if she was tied to the Aequitas’s whipping post, she wouldn’t allow them to topple Kadra. It wasn’t just because he was a good man, or because she respected— loved —every mad inch of him. The land needed him. And he cared for it just as deeply. The knowledge sank to her bones, mingled with her grief .
“Give me a moment.” Balling her hands into fists, she allowed the tears to fall silently, too numb to scream or sob. “One moment. Then I’ll think of something too.”
A fissure appeared in Kadra’s hard mask at that. Snatches of emotion waged a war on his face. Conflict. Ferocity. Bleakness. And then, he visibly gave up. The hands on her shoulders moved to the back of her head, and he pulled her into him, arms like bands of steel around her.
“I’ll make them pay,” she bit out, and he stroked her hair, echoing the same fierce vow.
“ We will.”
Pressure tightened her chest. Sleep hadn’t come. Every movement felt difficult, unnecessary, when she could simply lie in bed. Kind, grieving Decimus had been murdered. She had no hope of finding another scutum in a little over a day, and she couldn’t ruin Kadra.
She slipped out of Aoran Tower to pace the Academiae’s tangled walkways, seeking clarity, aid, anything that would save her from Jovian’s and Livia’s paths. The sky had no answer. She walked back.
Unlocking Aoran Tower’s gate, Sarai noted Kadra’s mount outside. He’d left for the vigile station after bringing her back several hours ago. She couldn’t imagine having to let the others know their colleagues were dead.
Padding into the atrium, she paused at the raised voices coming from Kadra’s study. Peering through the keyhole, she found Cato by one of the couches, furious. Kadra was less visible, but she could make out his face and the grim resolution in his eyes.
“How could you be so reckless?”
Unconcerned, Kadra brought a wineglass to his lips. “Everything’s ready.”
“ Drenevan! ” Sarai jumped at the roar. “She isn’t ready. She’s been worn down enough!”
“There’s no other way.”
She stilled at the finality in Kadra’s tone .
“Times like this, I see why Othus called you a monster,” Cato spat.
Kadra smiled sardonically. “And look at where he is and where I am.”
Cato slammed a fist onto the table. Sarai raced toward the front door just as he stormed out of the tablinum. Pretending that she’d just returned, she released the doorknob.
“Is something wrong?”
“Just …” Cato struggled to compose himself. “Please make sure he’s alright,” he finally muttered, before leaving the tower.
She warily eyed the door to the tablinum, pausing at the series of rough curses coming from within, each one filthier than the last. Flushing, she considered the merits of sleeping in the atrium when the door parted a little wider, and she caught sight of Kadra.
He was covered in blood.
Sarai’s breath stuttered as he shrugged off his tunic with another curse. Powerful muscles rippled at the motion, a few pale scars at his waist catching the firelight, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
A series of deep gashes stretched across both collarbones, looping around his shoulder to curve down his back. More nasty gouges spanned his chest, his upper abdominal muscles practically shredded. Sweat-dampened hair hung over his forehead as he grimly surveyed the extent of the damage. How had he spoken so evenly to Cato? She’d have been screaming. What in hav?d had happened in the hours since they’d returned from Decimus’s home?
Tearing a strip from a roll of bandages, Kadra blotted the blood, then attempted to wrap another strip around his shoulder, grimacing when it slipped, digging into his wounds. Twisting around, he paused upon sighting her in the doorway.
Sarai’s eyes followed the trail of blood dripping down his body, to the puddled tunic leaking scarlet onto his spotless tiles. There was far too much blood for all of it to be his.
“How many did you kill?” Her question hung in the iron-scented air, a gauntlet .
“Twelve.” He knotted the bandage across one of his wounds, somehow managing to look immaculate despite the crimson rivulets charting a path down his tattered chest.
Any sane woman would run. She took a shaky step toward him.
“You should see a healer,” she said hoarsely.
“And inform Aelius and Tullus that I’m injured?” The gravelly undertone to his voice hinted he was in pain. “I may as well open my gates and undo the wards while I’m at it.”
“You took that risk with me.” She closed the rest of the distance between them, the potent scents of wine, sweat, and iron overpowering. “I could have let anyone into your home.”
“You despised me.” One side of his mouth rose. “But at the Robing, you risked yourself so a man who was vermin would receive a fair trial. That was enough.” Her breath hitched when he tucked a blood-covered knuckle under her chin. Kadra tilted his head down at her. “To hope you’d choose me.”
Her pulse doubled. A drop of blood trailed down his arm, dripping off a fingertip to splatter on the floor. Those gouges would scar him for life, his muscles would never repair. He had to know it.
She spoke quickly. “I could heal that.”
He halted his binding.
“Only if you want me to,” she muttered.
A gleam lit his eyes before he unwrapped one of the bandages. And waited. She dropped her illusion and ran a pricked finger over beshaz . She held out her hands, and as he’d done when she’d tried to heal herself, he held her fingers still, pressing them to the golden skin of his stomach. Slowly, tentatively, she traced the jagged edges of one of the wounds and closed her eyes, searching deep. The cuts were a ragged mess, but there was nothing embedded in his skin. Scarlet coated her hands as power flowed from her fingertips, binding broken tissue, rebuilding torn arteries and muscle. She knew it burned, but he sat through it like stone.
Many moments later, she opened her eyes to his unblemished abdomen and Kadra regarded her for a moment before undoing the rest of his makeshift bandages. Without a word, she started on the worst of the wounds, the one that had all but shredded his chest.
Silence stretched between them, loaded with the questions he wasn’t asking and the rabid hunger unfurling through her with every stroke of her hands across his flesh.
She broke first. “Growing up, I wanted to be a healer.” She moved on to another gash, avoiding his eyes as he tried to catch hers. “Cisuré was gifted and wealthy enough for the Academiae. I wasn’t, so I learned as much healing as I could on my own.” She smiled bitterly. “I worked really hard.”
“You always do.”
She smiled sadly. “But Arsamea’s healer didn’t want an urchin as an apprentice. So, when I was fourteen, I left for Edessa to join Cisuré.”
“And challenge the entrance exams,” he said matter-of-factly.
She nodded. “I was here for a little over three days before I had to return.”
“Why?”
“You’ve seen the scars. Cisuré brought me back to Arsamea after I was healed. I was in no condition to do anything. All I knew was that I was missing all memory of what happened here and that I could never be a healer again. I can still hurt people. There’s no precision required to that, but handling serious damage is impossible on my own. As you can see”— she took a deep breath—“my hands are ruined.”
Black rage dawned in his eyes. “The person who hurt you was here?”
“Yes.”
“Who?” It was an order.
“I don’t know.”
She thought back to Kadra standing over her, cavalierly ordering a new face, a furious Othus beside him. All those years hungering for the truth, and now, part of her wanted nothing more than for it to stay buried, to stay assured that whatever he had done hadn’t been to hurt her.
Once the final wound sealed, Sarai drew away, staring at the blood coating her fingers .
“That isn’t what you’d do, though, is it, Kadra?” she asked softly. “You wouldn’t maim an innocent so badly that they wished they were dead.”
“No.” The word was guttural. Taking her hands, he wiped the blood from each finger with a clean bandage. “Are you alright? After Decimus.”
“I’ll pull myself together. I’ve a little over a day left. Can’t let them win.”
His gaze turned molten. She shoved down the aching warmth humming in her, the painful desire to reach out and touch him just once more. Instead, she gestured at his chest.
“New skin usually itches for a day or two. Goodnight, Kadra.”
“Why?” he asked as she made to head upstairs.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand his meaning. “Because you’re wrong,” she said, her heart racing a mile a minute. “I never despised you. Even when I wanted to.”
At his silence, she looked up to find him watching her with an emotion that defied description. She didn’t protest when he took her hand. For an aching, electrifying moment, she thought he would pull her to him.
Holding her gaze, Kadra bent and pressed his mouth to the inside of her wrist, lingering against her skin. “Goodnight, Sarai.”
When he let go, she wobbled to her room and leaned against the door. There was no going back from that. No hiding from what she’d seen in those black eyes.
Hunger.