35. Drusilla
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DRUSILLA
D ru can’t sleep.
Tonight feels warmer than the others this past week. Sweat dots her forehead and slickens the back of her neck, making it impossible to get comfortable.
It doesn’t help that she can’t stop fidgeting. Her legs move constantly without her permission, tossing her sheets around, her pulse loud enough in her ears that it drowns out the crashing of the waves.
She can’t stop thinking about what Ginevra said. About how her mother was one of them, and she only survived the dragon’s inferno because she’s one of them too. Only to have it confirmed the moment she stepped inside the cave, and the Viverna treated her like one of the Tredici.
Yet she also can’t forget what Cato said to her. He feels like Marcus and I belong together . She wasn’t willing to admit it to herself, but she knows it to be true in her heart. Despite what happened today at the pools, she cares deeply for him.
Stellae, you might die tomorrow—at least admit the truth to yourself.
Staring up at the long shadows on the coffered ceiling, a smile pulls at her lips. She’s a fool for not realizing it sooner: she doesn’t simply care for Marcus, she’s in love with him. She never stopped being in love with him, from the moment she entered through those gates at the Faithless.
Seeing him in Nusquam after so many years apart made her question everything she’d ever imagined about him.
It was easier to be angry that he’d defected, that he was off living his life somewhere in the outskirts of the Imperium with a wife, maybe even children.
To find him there, older and wiser but still somehow the same man who left, she didn’t know how to react—she wanted to both trust and distrust him.
And after Ovi died, she barely had room in her heart to make the distinction.
Once she realized he was the same man she once knew in the ways that matter, she fell in love with him all over again without realizing it.
He stood up for her, protected her, understood when she didn’t need protecting, gave her space to process Ovi’s death.
He even exiled the Imperium’s sacerdos for her, knowing the threat he posed.
All without expecting anything in return.
She can’t deny he harbors great secrets, refusing to share the burden of them with her, yet that doesn’t lessen her trust in him. He’s never given her a reason to doubt that his intentions are noble.
Cato’s right: if she’s going to die tomorrow, she deserves to tell Marcus how she feels, to see if he feels the same.
Not that she’d live very long to regret it if she didn’t, but she’s tired of wondering.
Tired of waiting for Marcus to confess something when there might not be anything to confess, no matter what Cato claimed.
If he does feel the same, she wants nothing more than to be with him. To feel him, to kiss him, to be together . And she won’t know whether he wants the same things if she doesn’t ask.
She doesn’t want the greatest regret of her life to be not taking a chance on Marcus.
Nearly leaping out of bed in nothing but her thin nightgown, she flings her door open.
Most people will be asleep by now, so she shouldn’t run into anyone.
She pads down the hall over to Marcus’s room, nervousness swinging through her like a swiftly moving pendulum.
She prepares herself for his rejection, for him to tell her she’s like a sister to him and nothing more.
It will break her heart, but at least she won’t wonder anymore. At least she can begin to move on.
Standing in front of his door, she reaches out with her fist but doesn’t knock, her confidence wavering. She was so sure a moment ago that she should do this, but who is she to wake a man fighting for his life tomorrow just because she wants some answers?
Just because I’m suffering doesn’t mean he needs to.
Unsure of what to do, she places her forehead against the door, skin digging into the wood?—
When it swings open.
She stumbles forward a step, finding Marcus looking at her, confusion marring his features. Dressed only in a loose tunic he clearly threw on before opening the door, he blinks at her. His wide eyes tell her he wasn’t asleep, sparing her of that guilt at least.
“Dru?” he asks, voice gruff. He doesn’t sound unhappy to see her. “What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she offers.
A soft laugh pushes out of his nose. “Me neither.”
He turns to the side. An invitation .
Her nerves spark as she steps inside Marcus’s room, her stomach in knots.
His chambers are laid out very similar to her own, except everything is opposite, and no clothes trunk sits at the foot of his bed.
She stares at his tangled sheets—he must’ve struggled to sleep too, though it’s unlikely to be for the same reasons as her.
Being so close to his bed makes her bones ache.
Unsure of what to do with herself now that she’s here, alone with him, she heads for the balcony, the marble floor cold beneath her feet.
A calm settles over the Multum Sea, the waves softly eddying against a small fleet of Phaedran ships anchored out in the deep.
The last sliver of the moon reflects in the waters, its shape rippling alongside the thousands of stars brightening the night sky .
She presses a thumb into her opposite palm nervously. So many thoughts spiral through her mind, but the confession about her mother and her heritage burns more urgently than anything else.
Although Cato already knew, she’ll never tell anyone else but Marcus, trusting him to keep it a secret.
“Something else is bothering you,” he says softly behind her and she nearly leaps out of her skin.
“It is,” she confesses, keeping her attention on the sea.
“This isn’t about the trials,” he presumes correctly. “I saw you talking with High Priestess Ginevra, and then you disappeared down the path to the arena. What did she say?”
She swallows and glances up at the sky, not yet trusting her own words.
“My mother was the high priestess of the Tredici before she got pregnant with me.”
Admitting it aloud, it sounds ridiculous—something she plucked straight out of a tall tale. And when Marcus doesn’t respond, she knows she made a mistake in saying it. I suppose I won’t be telling him about my bond with the dragon, either.
She has no idea what Marcus plans to say, but it’s not, “It makes sense.”
Spinning on him, the balcony ledge bites into her back as she regards him with indignation. He couldn’t have understood me correctly.
“No, it doesn’t. It can’t possibly be true, Marcus. I’m from Obliviscatur—that’s what my mother always told me. That’s what I’ve always known.”
He takes a step toward her, his light blue eyes soft, the gentle understanding in his expression stealing her breath from her chest. “When you were burned by the dragon’s fire and came out unscathed, a part of me knew then.
I wasn’t sure I could trust the story the priestesses told me, given that you were completely healed underneath the plumeria ashes.
But my understanding is, the only way to survive the molten fire of a Viverna is to have Tredici blood. ”
Shaking her head, she almost wishes he hadn’t confirmed what Ginevra told her. She wants to be angry at him for not confiding this to her, and yet it doesn’t bother her as much as it should. Not when the betrayal wasn’t his to begin with.
“Why would my mother lie to me, tell me I’m from Obliviscatur when I’m not?”
“I’m not sure what happened with your mother, but I can’t imagine the story Ginevra told you was false. She’d have no reason to lie.”
He’s right.
“Do you remember that day I made you and Ovi run a hundred laps for being insubordinate?” he asks.
She laughs quietly, almost grateful for the change in subject. “Insubordinate is a nice way of putting what we did to earn those laps.”
He looks away. “I lied to you about the reason behind that particular punishment.”
Her gaze narrows. “The reason was no secret.”
“Yes, but the punishment should’ve fit the crime. The reason I gave you laps rather than shit duty is because one of the Three was bringing in new recruits from the last city in Obliviscatur to fall. If I kept you on the field and out of the barracks, there’d be little chance you’d see them.”
Anger stiffens her shoulders. How dare he keep her from her people? But they’re not your people , she reminds herself.
“Didn’t think I was strong enough to welcome them?” she asks, insulted he thought so little of her.
“It wasn’t that. Word among the trainers was that most of them were so weak with hunger from the blockades they wouldn’t make it out of basic training. They’d be thrown back out on the streets, and I knew you wouldn’t stand for it. You’d get yourself kicked out with them.”
He knows me too well.
“You didn’t have to protect me, Marcus. ”
He smiles softly. “No, I didn’t, and that holds true now. I’m fairly certain you could kill me if properly motivated. But back then, I felt like I needed to. Even if it was for my own selfish reasons.”
There was nothing selfish about what he did; it was self less for him to think of her feelings like that.
For so long, she thought Marcus unbelievably egotistical for defecting from the Faithless before taking his oaths.
Even when she learned it was untrue, it didn’t change her mind, for the sole reason of his spurning her affection.
Now, hearing that he cared about her enough to keep her from watching her people be thrown back out into the cold, unyielding world of the Imperium…
She couldn’t have been more wrong about him.
The walls she put up around her heart begin to crack, but she props them up, not ready to let them crumble. Ovi would chide her for being stubborn.
“I’m sorry to have barged in here like this,” she says after a moment, “especially the night before our last trial. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what she said.”