18. Drusilla
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DRUSILLA
C ato leads them through the square and down the main road of Notevole, two of his guards flanking either side and the third at his back, while Dru and Marcus bring up the rear.
One of the guards appears to be around her age and has Marcus’s build, with a shock of thick red hair tied at the nape of his neck.
The other guard boasts a slimmer form and shorter hair, speckled with grays.
The third in front of them has skin nearly as dark as the night around them, his head shaved.
All keep vigilance around their king.
With the night deepening, the glow of the lamplight grows fuzzy at the edges of her vision. Or perhaps that’s the Nettare . The balconies become less and less crowded the further they leave the festival behind, their footsteps echoing louder against the cobblestone.
A horde of Phaedran soldiers stumble out of a tabernae, supporting themselves against the building. One vomits on the ground, leaving it behind for someone else to clean up. Dru grimaces.
How many Phaedrans fill the streets tonight, acting as if they haven’t come to Anziano to watch the destruction of the Durevolian people over the course of the Blood Trials? To take pleasure in their deaths for their own entertainment?
Dru finishes the rest of her drink to put a stop to those thoughts, if only for one night
As they turn a corner down an alleyway, the sounds of merriment all but disappear. Her body floats down the street as if caught in a river current, the lamplight blurring around her so much that she stumbles over a raised cobblestone.
A strong hand grasps her arm to keep her from falling, and she looks over to find Marcus.
A seriousness envelops his features. She doesn’t normally allow herself to lose control like this, but she’s been wound tight for so long—years now, if she’s honest with herself—she finds it too tempting to let go.
To make the memory of Ovi proud, like she promised herself she would.
And a part of her knows Marcus will never let anything happen to her. He may not feel for her the way she does— did —for him, but she trusts him completely. She always has.
Instead of telling her to keep her wits, he reaches for her.
Her breathing grows shallow as his fingers brush the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck, his warmth spreading from where he touches her.
She stares up into his eyes, barely able to find the blue of them in the dark.
Her lips part slightly on their own accord—he glances down at them, digging his fingers into her hair. Her breath catches inside her chest.
A moment later, he pulls the ties of her mask and it falls from her face. He lets it drop to the ground before loosening the ties of his own. Stellae, she missed looking at his face.
“There.” He wraps an arm around her and pulls her to him. “I’ve got you.”
Her heart beats loudly inside her chest at the contact. She hates how incredible his warmth feels, how much she craves his touch. The impulsive, inebriated part of her wants to erase the distance between them, to capture his lips with hers.
In a moment of clarity, she banishes the temptation; not only would it be unwanted, but it would complicate things that can’t afford to be so.
“Ah, here we are.” Cato gestures at a short, splintered door barely hanging on by its hinges once they catch up.
The seven of them find themselves at the back of an old stone building. The scent of flour and yeast spills out onto the road, and she could swear it’s warmer where they stand. One of Cato’s guards yanks the door open the rest of the way?—
—to unveil stairs leading down into the dark.
Some of the haze from the wine wears off as Dru’s instincts kick in.
Extricating herself from Marcus, she stares down into the maw long enough to see the darkness isn’t pervasive. The soft glow of firelight reaches up through the gloom, daring them to climb down.
Cato pays the murk no mind. After one of his guards steps down first, the king yanks his mask off and follows.
Marcus puts out his hand for her to follow after the bard, which she does after only a moment’s hesitation.
Marcus wouldn’t have allowed them to come here if it wasn’t safe, not with the risk of putting the king’s life in danger.
They descend deeper than Dru would’ve thought possible.
She watches the dim walls around them for possible snares as the gentle scent of old, wet stone replaces the odors of the bakery.
She nearly falls once or twice from how steep the steps are, but she manages to hold herself up against the wall.
Marcus waits behind her patiently, wordlessly.
As soon as she begins to suspect the king led them down here to be slaughtered in some sort of Spettrale ritual, the sound of boisterous conversation reaches her ears. The firelight grows stronger, as does the stench of sweat, wine, and something sweeter she can’t place.
At the last few stone steps, the room reveals itself.
The curved stone entrance hangs low, forcing them to crouch down to get inside.
Standing to their full heights again, the place opens up into a high, carved-out cavern.
Lanterns hang precariously on their hooks.
An array of multi-patterned tiles have been slathered across the concave walls, as if patrons bring them to this place when they come upon extras.
What’s more impressive, though, is that someone painted the top of the domed ceiling to rival the night sky.
Black brush strokes frame the highest tiles, thickening to span the entirety of the ceiling.
Hand-drawn gold and white stars sparkle among the blackness, some with actual jewels embedded in them that twinkle in the lamplight.
“Marcus, a drink, if you please.” Cato glances at Dru and the bard. “For all of us.”
He faces his guards. “Except you three, obviously. I can’t be the only one with his wits about him.” He stumbles toward an empty table near the back wall.
Dru and Marcus head over to a white-marble rectangular bar beside the entrance, where the stout, hairy man behind it pours a dark, honey-colored liquid into a cup the size of her thumb for the customer beside them.
“What is that?” Dru asks as the woman he poured it for throws her head back and downs the entire contents. Notes of a sickly-sweet syrup hit the back of Dru’s throat.
“They call it Coinvolgente,” Marcus murmurs. “A powerful drug ground from the seeds of a rare flower found in grottos on the southwestern side of the island.”
The woman’s eyes glaze over almost instantly, her attention strewn about the room even as her companion continues to speak at her in drunken slurs.
Dru’s almost envious, but she regrets the thought instantly.
As much as she wishes she could forget some of the things she’s done, she’ll never go further than wine to do so.
Her past makes her who she is—she’ll be no one if she forgets it.
“I think I’ll stick to the Nettare.”
Marcus places his arms on the bar. “Smart. Coinvolgente is dangerously addictive. ”
“And the Nettare isn’t?” she asks, lamenting how the soft edges from the potent wine have already started wearing off.
“It is.” He holds up four fingers to the barkeep once he finally looks their way. “Just the acceptable sort of addiction. One that kills you slowly over time rather than all at once.”
“Ah,” she breathes. “My favorite sort of addiction.”
The bartender sets four tankards before them. Discarding her empty horn from the festival on the bar, she grabs two of them while Marcus leaves a few coins. He takes the last two, and they head in the king’s direction.
Dru takes a longer look around at the patrons. “I’m still surprised no Phaedrans were invited here.”
“You shouldn’t be—they wouldn’t be welcome. Every citizen of Anziano, no matter their station, hates the Phaedrans. All the Imperium wants to do is take from them, to destroy their way of life. There’s nothing those people can give them that they don’t already have.”
Dru glances at Marcus, his mouth drawn in a thin, angry line. “An impassioned argument.”
His expression softens. “Once you’ve been around the Durevolian people long enough, you have trouble seeing it any other way.”
I realize that now.
“Finally!” Cato slams a hand against the table. “I thought I was going to have to go up there myself and demand all the Nettare in this place.”
“Patience is a virtue, Cato,” Dru reminds him, setting down a drink in front of him, while Marcus hands his extra drink to the bard.
“I never promised to be virtuous, Drusilla.” He takes a few healthy gulps of the wine.
“You might want to pace yourself,” Marcus suggests softly to him. “The first trial is tomorrow, and we can’t be sure the Phaedrans plan to follow the rules you instated.”
“Just one night, Marcus,” Cato complains. “One night I wish you wouldn’t be so”—he gestures up and down at him—“you. My gods, man, take a night off for once.”
Marcus stares at him but doesn’t answer.
Dru sips her own wine while the bard weaves a tale about a time in the Phaedran capital when he stole a donkey and rode him through the streets with nothing on but his lute. But Dru’s not listening.
As the wine winds newly through her mind and body, she watches Anziano’s elite drink themselves into oblivion on the eve of the first blood trials in a hundred years.
Their expensive robes shimmer in the lamplight, their jewelry glittering on their necks, fingers, and wrists.
I’m sure they used all the influence they had to keep themselves off that lottery list, leaving their fellow citizens in the lurch.
“I know that look,” Marcus says after downing half his cup. “You think too much.”
She takes one more long pull of her own, deciding not to bite her tongue this time.
“Sometimes, you don’t think enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”