2. Drusilla
CHAPTER TWO
DRUSILLA
S plitting the air between the two women, the arrow embeds itself into the back of a man’s skull at the table they just vacated. The dead soldier’s forehead slams onto the wood, blood pooling beneath it.
Deodamnatus . Heart pounding, Dru’s eyes widen at the arrow. She’s more than familiar with the burned wooden shaft, the sharp obsidian arrowhead, the coarse ebony feathers of their native bird now distending from his head.
A Namican arrow. From the rebels across the river.
Dru drops to the ground, grabbing Ovi’s arm and pulling her down with her.
Fear spoils the cries from the crowd. But no more arrows fly through the tabernae, and no one runs through the open door with swords or spears. The two of them share a baffled look.
“Someone took their target practice too far,” Ovi murmurs.
Dru opens her mouth to respond when a second arrow races through the tabernae. It sticks out of the wall beside the bard’s head, the shaft wobbling from the sudden stop. The bard throws up his hands belatedly and drops the lute to the floor with a twang, joining it soon after.
Dru pulls her hood back over her head as well. “Unlikely.”
Crouching low, she and Ovi steal through the open door and into the night.
Pockets of unnatural fire ignite the small village, lighting up the dark.
Smoke from the burning thatch roofs of nearby houses billows up into the star-pocked skies, obscuring it, the stench burning her nostrils. Of all the nights for this to happen…
Before they can take another step, more black-tipped arrows break through the windows above their heads. Thick shards of cracked glass plunk harmlessly onto their hoods.
Ovi taps her shoulder. “I’ll go commandeer some horses so we can fulfill our orders and get the fuck out of here before war starts.”
Dru nods. “Be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“No, not always ?—”
An arrow wooshes toward Dru, burying itself in the wall beside her right arm.
“No time to argue the point,” Ovi says, hurrying around the building and out of sight.
Guess I’m on my own then. Moving to pull her bronze pugio dagger from its sheath, Dru climbs to her feet?—
—when someone grabs her arm and yanks her aside, right as a barrage of arrows impales the wall. A moment later, and she would’ve been pinned to it, dead.
Not allowing her a moment to breathe, the stranger pulls her around the tabernae, shoving her between the protection of two swollen olive roots. Her head hits the wall hard enough she blinks away stars, her hood slipping down around her ringing ears.
Looking up, she immediately recognizes him as the man from the dark corner inside. I knew I wasn’t imagining him.
She struggles in his iron grip. “Let go of me.”
Instead, he moves closer, crowding her with the breadth of his body and covering her completely with his cloak.
She opens her mouth to protest, fingers inching down the wall toward her dagger again.
Claiming it was her father’s, her mother gave it to her when she was old enough to hold it, in case someone ever tried to attack her.
It’s the only thing she has left that holds any sentimental value to her.
Some of the Faithless call that a weakness, but it allows her to hone her anger into a weapon.
The pounding of rushing boots stays her hand.
A group of Phaedran soldiers barrel past them, hurrying from the direction she last saw Ovi headed. But with the two of them hidden beneath the man’s broad shoulders and long black cloak, not a single head turns their way.
Forced to look at him as they pass, he’s less than a head taller than her, though she towers over most Phaedrans. His cloak—which she recognizes to be silk rather than wool—continues to hide most of his face in shadow, leaving only his full chapped lips and square jaw.
Unhindered by armor, his warmth sears into her. Not a soldier then —suspicion worries at her stomach. Given Nusquam’s proximity to a defiant province means farmers haven’t lived on this land for at least twenty years, he’s either a spy or has little respect for his own life.
Once the sounds of the soldiers’ boots disappear, Dru bucks her hips, rolling the two of them over a root and pinning him against the wall instead.
Ripping her arms from his grasp, she unsheathes her dagger in the same motion and kisses the point of it to the stubbled hollow of his throat.
Pain hisses through his teeth, a single drop of crimson beading on her blade tip.
His hands raise slowly in surrender, even as a corner of his lips angles upward.
Her hand flexes on the hilt. She should kill him now, before he has a chance to call for help. But he did save her life, and for that, he’s allowed an opportunity to explain himself.
He speaks before she can give him the chance. “If this is how you thank someone who saved your life, I can’t imagine what you’d do to me if I tried to kill you.”
Dru bites the inside of her cheek to stifle a gasp. The man’s voice is deep and smooth, like warm honey—a voice she swears she recognizes, a voice from her past. No, it’s not possible. Still, she clenches her jaw to smother the swift anger igniting inside her.
“Rescuing me doesn’t give you permission to touch me.” She leans in closer, murmuring, “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t gut you.”
Instead of cowering at her words, he lowers his hands and pushes away from the wall, forcing her to take a step back. A smirk appears in the shadows of his face, despite the tip of her blade sinking further into his flesh. Another bead of blood slips down the sharp edge of it.
“Besides the fact that I saved your life, you mean?”
She stares unflinchingly into the blackness of his hood.
He sighs and exposes the inside of his upper arm. She risks a glance to find his skin emblazoned with the raised ink of a tattoo she knows too well. The same one inscribed on her own arm.
MORS VINCIT OMNIA. Death conquers all .
He’s one of the Faithless. Like her. She pulls her knife from his throat but keeps it pointed at him. The crimson-soaked tip flickers in the light of the fire.
“Remove your hood.”
Now, he hesitates, his confidence wavering—the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Before she can threaten him again, he reaches up reluctantly with long, scarred fingers and pulls back the edges of his hood. Her breath catches in her throat.
Deodamnatus, I hate being right .
Worse than a spy, or another Faithless sent to ensure she and Ovi completed their task: her rescuer is Marcus Scaevola.
Once considered the youngest and fiercest initiate to join the Faithless since its inception, he vanished six years ago, the night before he was meant to take his final oaths.
His betrayal cut deep for her—she liked him a great deal then and had been young and silly enough to make no attempt at hiding it.
He let her down easy after she confessed her childish, undying love for him, but the memory of her mortification brings unwanted heat to her cheeks.
Now, Dru barely recognizes him.
The six years they’ve spent apart have altered him.
His strong jaw, sharp hazel-blue eyes, and slightly pointed ears haven’t changed.
But the small, pale scars on the sun-beaten skin of his neck and face are new.
The top half of his dark mahogany hair is tied back, the rest of it falling to the nape of his neck—certainly not a cut fit for the Faithless.
His cloak does a fair job of hiding the muscles he’s gained, but not enough she doesn’t notice them.
She would’ve had to be numb not to feel their hard edges when he hid the two of them from the passing soldiers.
Gaze wandering over his stony features, she can’t find in this man the young trainer she revered all those years ago. Now, he strikes her as more of a hardened soldier. Maybe no better than the Phaedrans. In fact, if it weren’t for his voice, she might not have recognized him at first.
Considering his detached stare, however, he doesn’t remember her at all. That hurts more than I thought it would.
Dru opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
The likelihood of seeing Marcus again after he forsook the Faithless was impossibly small.
Yet here he is, in Nusquam of all places, protecting her from both the Namicans across the river and the Phaedrans on this shore.
The overlapping shouts from the soldiers leaving the tabernae confirm they’ve finally taken up arms. Despite the copious amount of wine they consumed, they’ll be a fierce opponent for the rebels.
Dru swallows her surprise at his appearance, knowing they’ve been standing out in the open for far too long. And with no Ovi in sight, she can’t spend another moment waiting.
She steps back. “Well, thank you for saving my life, but it’d be rude of me to stick around and die anyway. ”
When he doesn’t respond, doesn’t move a single muscle, she adds, “And I haven’t fulfilled my orders yet, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”
At that, a grin stretches across his full lips. It’s wide and genuine, and she could not be more furious at the way it quickens her pulse. A living memory she made certain to bury the moment he betrayed the Faithless—betrayed her .
“I do mind, actually. Under the authority of Cato Draghi, King of the Durevolian people, I’m ordered to bring you to Anziano.”
She blinks at him. Of all the things she expected him to say, none of those words were among them.
Her eyes fall into slits. “You have no right to give me orders—you lost that privilege when you defected.”
His smile falters and his nostrils flare.
“Good to know the legions of the Faithless are so easily manipulated. Especially you, Drusilla.”
So, he does remember me. Grimacing, she sheaths her dagger so she doesn’t stab him for being an asinus by mistake.
“Yes, well, some of us believed the lie. Some of us mourned you.”