Chapter XXV Felix #2
‘Untraditional not to do this in a temple, but it appears the Priest of Jupiter is indisposed,’ Servius said. ‘No matter. By virtue of my political position, I’m qualified to act in Umbrius’s place.’
Priests, politicians, poppy sap. The same story cropping up throughout Felix’s life.
Darius gripped Loren’s neck, sword trained at his throat. He wriggled, face screwed up, but Darius forced Loren to his knees. A pained hiss. The noise shot to Felix’s fingertips with how badly he ached to reach.
A child darted from the surrounding portico, dropping by Loren’s side.
‘You’re alive,’ Celsi said, breathlessly relieved in a way he had no right to be.
Loren’s pain shifted to puzzlement. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Betraying you,’ Felix said. ‘Choose better friends.’
Loren recoiled. Felix half expected him to lash out, curse or plead or question, but all Loren said to Celsi was, ‘Camilia is looking for you.’
Celsi scrunched himself up and crawled to crouch beside Servius, who petted the top of the boy’s curls the way one comforts a dog. Felix’s skin crawled. The ridges of Mercury’s helmet dug into his flesh, he clutched it so tight. The pain grounded him. Kept him from drifting.
Servius beckoned Felix to the altar. When he didn’t budge, Darius flexed his hand. Almost imperceptibly, Loren winced.
Felix stumbled forward. ‘Stop hurting him.’
‘Control your reactions,’ Servius said. ‘You allow yourself to be taken advantage of.’
‘Maybe others should learn not to take advantage.’
Sizzling rock landed inches from Felix’s foot. It fumed in the dirt before spluttering out. Another followed, and this one caught, snaring the grass in growing flame .
‘Is that what your father taught you?’ Servius smiled.
‘He was terribly young when you were born. An accident, too much to drink at a festival. He almost quit our guild to raise you, but he was our best sneak, so light on his feet. Magical, how he moved. I convinced him to leave you at the temple with the priest while he worked. A solution that favoured everyone.’
Felix spat. His strength still bogged down by the drug, it didn’t fly far, landing in the altar bowl to crackle in the ashes.
‘I can’t imagine the gods will appreciate that,’ said Servius.
‘If the gods gave a damn, none of this would be happening,’ Felix said, needing it to be true.
Seconds of silence passed. An act. An effect. ‘You truly don’t remember who he was. Who your father’s own father was. The reason you carry no family name.’
‘He was human.’ The word fell from Felix’s lips without a thought to how strange a defence it sounded. Of course his father was human.
In his grip, the helmet hummed.
‘He was the last of a dying breed. The blood that flowed from his veins – the same that fills yours – was priceless. I’d spent years tracking rumours, hoping to find something like him, and he was in my lap in Rome all along. Of course, had I known then, I would have kept him. Kept you.’
‘Shut up.’ Felix bared his teeth against another roll of the earth.
‘That first night, you didn’t recognise me,’ Servius continued.
‘But I understand what happened. Your father didn’t want you to remember, so he locked the memories away.
Heroes’ minds were made to be manipulated.
How else would the gods ensure their children did their bidding?
Wouldn’t grow too powerful to be controlled?
Think of Hercules. Achilles. What they did when left to their own will. ’
‘Felix,’ said Loren, ‘what’s he saying? ’
Darius kicked Loren in the ribs, and he stifled a gasp. Flames spread through the grass, a hungry, licking animal. If this didn’t end soon, they would all be made ash.
Servius’s hypnotic gaze locked Felix in place, and he only stared, breathless, waiting.
‘Your father,’ said Servius, ‘was the son of Mercury. What does that make you?’
Numb.
Felix was numb and cold and silent. The impossible revelation floated on the surface of his understanding, refusing to sink in, his mind’s final attempt at keeping him safe.
‘Imagine the possibilities, Felix. Who you could be if you were made whole again, with your power intact. Put the helmet on. Find out.’
‘No, Felix, you can’t—’ Another kick, and Loren doubled over.
Felix’s vision tinted red, but he was shutting down.
Words refused to come. Memories tugged at his ankles, his hands, demanding he follow.
He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He hated the way Servius said it, as though his identity hinged on the past he lacked instead of who he’d grown to be.
That what lay behind the gate in his mind defined him, and nothing else.
‘You wield power I’ve searched for my entire life,’ Servius urged. ‘We could sweep the empire in days, reclaim what was stolen from us. You would make us legendary. Put it on.’
He was Felix. Just Felix. Why couldn’t that be enough?
Felix stared at Mercury’s helmet, its silver wings and empty eyes, the promises and threats stored in its hollow crown. Plane-crosser. Dream-walker. Traverser between the living and the dead . Power waiting to be used.
Abruptly, his question shifted, transformed, glass catching colours under new light, and the helmet echoed with a sharp jolt. He was nobody. He was a pickpocket.
He was just Felix .
But what if that meant something more?
Servius waited, then sighed. He looked to Darius. ‘Start with his hair.’
Loren thrashed as Darius wrenched him forward by the braid.
Horror flooded Felix, rooting his bones in stasis.
At Servius’s feet, Celsi made an aborted attempt to intervene, but a hand on his shoulder stilled him.
Darius forced Loren’s head into the flames.
His hair caught. A wrecked cry tore from his throat, a sound that would ricochet in Felix’s mind until the day he died.
Adrenaline surged, and Felix hurled the helmet into a sea of white-dusted grass.
Servius’s brows shot up, the most emotion he’d ever displayed.
Then Felix upended the smouldering altar bowl in Servius’s face.
A coward’s trick, but cowards outlived heroes for a reason.
Engulfed by the close cloud of stinging embers, Servius coughed and lashed out.
Felix lunged for Loren, but a hand dragged him backwards across the altar by the neck of his tunic. Stone scraped his skin.
Felix grappled and twisted. He would have liked to think he was the craftier of the two, but the drug still clung like sap to his senses.
He gripped Servius’s clothes, seeking leverage.
Weight jostled in his pocket, his favourite knife reclaimed on the same trip to the study to fetch the helmet. If he could only work his hand down—
‘I’ll show you if I must.’ One hand clutching Felix’s throat, Servius peeled the glove off the other with his teeth. ‘I didn’t think you would need this much convincing.’
Shock rocked through Felix at the sight of Servius’s hand, bare at last, bleached white and covered in thick scar tissue.
Utterly ruined, damaged past hope of healing.
The helmet had done that to Servius. The same silver that welcomed Felix’s touch.
If the helmet’s power did that, what else could it do? What else –
‘Impolite to stare,’ Servius snarled. He cupped Felix’s jaw.
– could Felix do?
Skin met skin, and Felix fell backwards through time.