24. Drusilla #2
“My sister—she was the oldest. She should’ve been queen.
” He shakes his head. “My father, however, thought she’d be more useful in a marriage bargain with some powerful senator in the Imperium.
To form an alliance between our two countries that way.
Until the last few months before her death, though, she was the one being groomed to take over the crown. Not me.”
Dru stiffens. She’s feared this entire night that Cato would divulge something he shouldn’t. He’s already said too much for her taste.
The bard places a hand on his shoulder, and Cato takes another sip. “I lost my sister and my freedom all in one night. ”
Pushing down her concerns, Dru swallows hard, thinking of her mother. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you miss your father?” the bard asks Cato.
Feeling defensive after his last confession, Dru holds out a hand. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“I want to.” Cato takes another gulp of his wine, head swaying. “Every day. I miss him every single day. I both loved and hated him, yet, for all his faults and all his mistakes, he was still my father.”
The bard places a hand on his shoulder again, though he nearly misses him entirely. “It’s okay, Cato.”
“You know, he never wanted me to be his proxy in the trials,” Cato confesses. “Not because he didn’t want me to die, or because, after my sister passed, he might lose his only son to the blood trials he didn’t even want in the first place, but because he didn’t think I could do it.”
“He was willing to help Marcus, in his final days,” he continues. “I overheard my father telling him about a map of the maze for the second trial.”
“A map?” Dru asks, unable to help her curiosity.
Cato slides his glassy eyes over to regard her. “One of the queen’s first champions supposedly sketched a crude version of the maze from when he competed, and others have filled it out since. The gamemasters may very well change up the maze altogether, but it would be better than nothing.”
Dru abruptly gets to her feet, placing the necessary Durevolian coin on the table.
“Time to go.” Before you say more things you can’t take back.
With her companions so inebriated, they do as she says without argument.
They walk back to the palace painfully slow, the two guards keeping pace behind them in the emptied streets.
The cool night air bites at her exposed legs and she pulls her cloak closer around her.
Cato mutters nonsensical things to himself, stopping to dry-heave over a few large planters along the way; the bard sways down the road but is suspiciously quiet, given his proclivity for filling all available silence.
Although glad to have gained some insight into the sort of man Cato is, she can’t help feeling like tonight was a mistake.
Not only does the bard know more than he should about the king of Anziano, but she can’t brush off their brief meeting with the sacerdos. Or this map Cato seems to think exists.
Eventually, Dru grows tired of their antics and grabs their arms, pulling them along. All she wants now is to crawl into her bed for at least a few hours’ sleep.
Once they reach the front of the palace, she nods at the guards behind her in thanks and practically shoves the two inebriated men inside.
“Straight to bed, both of you.”
“You’re not our mother,” the bard slurs.
“Someone has to be, for tonight at least,” she argues.
The bard waves her away and wanders off, stumbling across the courtyard and crashing through the doors to his room.
“Wait.” Cato holds up a hand, hiccupping. “I need to find that map.”
Sleep grabs at her body. “It can wait until the morning, Cato.”
“No, it can’t.”
He storms off in the opposite direction of his chambers, giving Dru no choice but to follow.
The moment Cato enters what Dru can only guess are his mother and father’s old rooms, she knows they shouldn’t be here. The place clearly hasn’t been touched in months; it looms around them like a tomb—cold, silent, and meant to be left alone.
Unfortunately, Cato has other ideas. And, if she admits it to herself, she’s just as invested as Cato in the map. Grabbing two of the lit lanterns hanging outside the room, she places them on empty hooks inside to give them some light.
Although the bed has been made up and everything looks to be in its place, a sadness lingers in the air, sending a soft chill up her back.
These chambers aren’t much larger than Cato’s but appear more lived-in.
Keepsakes line the walls and crowd the tables.
A painting of Cato and presumably his sister Vittoria hangs near the closed balcony; they look like twins, their dark features and stark blue eyes so alike.
Cato stomps toward it with purpose. Lifting the painting off the wall, he fumbles blindly for something behind it.
“Cato, this is madness.” She comes up behind him and glances at the back of the painting. “What could you possibly be looking for?”
“The key I know my father hid—ah-ha!”
He pulls away with a small key in his hand, the polished bronze glinting in the soft lamplight.
Without giving her a chance to ask what it’s for, he stumbles across the room to the desk piled high with papers, similar to his own.
Dru follows reluctantly. She hopes he’ll be careful, but he dashes those hopes by tossing everything to the ground until he uncovers what he was looking for: a small chest pushed against the wall.
Cato slots the key inside and turns it without hesitation.
After a small click, the chest opens. Dru leans over his shoulder to get a better look.
Random trinkets fill the inside, among them a bronze arrowhead, a lock of hair, a slightly-pointed human tooth…
and a piece of old reed paper, rolled up and tied with a blue silk ribbon.
Maybe he hasn’t completely lost his head.
He removes the ribbon, unrolling it and flattening it out on the desk. Dru peeks over his shoulder.
“It’s a list.” She tries not to sound disappointed.
Cato blinks at it, likely unable to see much given his drunken state and the lack of light in this part of the room.
“A list of what?” he asks her.
“Past proxies, it looks like,” Dru surmises, finding checkmarks inked next to many of the names. “And whether they won the blood trials for their Sovrano or not.”
Cato flings the piece of paper off his father’s desk along with half a dozen more pages, a scream building audibly in his throat.
Sorrow over his situation squeezes her chest. Losing two close family members and the life you thought you’d have in such a short time…
It would fell even the strongest person.
When he reaches for the open chest, Dru snaps it up first, gripping it tight.
“Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
Cato clenches his hands and his jaw until his legs give out from under him and he crumples to the hard marble floor.
“Why would he lie?” he whispers, hanging his head. “Why lie to Marcus, of all people, about a map that doesn’t exist?”
Dru kneels down in front of him, taking his hand in hers. “Your father was not well at the end. It’s possible he dreamt about a map, or heard stories from his own parents about the existence of one. But it doesn’t matter.” She squeezes his hand. “Do you know what I think he’d say to you now?”
He looks up at her and squeezes her hand back, indigo eyes brimming with held-back tears.
“He’d tell you how brave you are, how the map would only distract you and force you to focus on what’s known when nothing about these trials is. He’d tell you he’s proud of you, even if this is not what he wanted for you.”
Tears spill over, carving down his cheeks. “I wish he was here.”
Setting the chest down, she brushes one of the tears from his cheek. “I know. But you have people here who love you, who are also proud of you and think you’re brave, and who know you can win these blood trials because you’re the king of Anziano, and you won’t be broken.”
When he doesn’t reply, she sits beside him and he places his head on her shoulder, a few more tears falling onto her cloak. They sit there for a time, until Cato’s head bobs forward in sleep.
Helping him to his feet, she takes him back to his chambers and into bed. Once he’s passed out, she goes back to his parents’ chambers, removes the lanterns, and shuts the doors on their tomb.