Chapter XXIII Trajan #2
“Rome is under threat, my good citizens. Not from enemies abroad but from enemies within.”
Caesar scanned the entire room, as if he might be able to determine who were the traitors simply by looking at them. No one dared interrupt or ask another question. Then he continued.
“When my nephew Julianus Dakkia betrayed us all several months ago, he left a seed of rot inside our city. That seed seems to have germinated and spread. Not only did his bold betrayal empower a mere slave girl to rise up and murder her own master in his bedchamber, but it emboldened other Romans to hide her.”
No one spoke. No one moved. Caesar watched the room, gathering information with every reaction and expression. I focused on keeping mine completely blank.
“It came to my attention that one of our own, Fausta Ovidius, has been an enemy of the state, a criminal, for some years. She is the one who’s been smuggling runaways and bastard-born dragons out of the city.”
There were murmurings of disbelief as many whispered to each other.
“Yes, it’s true. We discovered that even our own newly appointed tribune, Trajan Tiberius, was tricked by Fausta and the murdering slave. They manipulated him to get passage through the city to Fausta’s home.”
Caesar turned and locked eyes on me. I kept still as stone, holding his feral gaze, thinking of cold waters and the coolness of the ocean to keep myself calm and my heart rate even.
“Unless of course, Trajan, you are to tell me now that you knew the whore you transported to Fausta’s home was in fact the murderess I’ve been hunting.”
Without flinching, I lied, “No, Caesar. I was not aware.”
He stared, but I knew that he didn’t believe me. Was he about to kill me here and now for it? He didn’t go for his blade, and I wondered why he didn’t. He obviously thought me a liar, and a traitor, the greatest crime of all.
“That is good to hear, Tribune.” Then he swiveled his gaze to my grandfather, and I flinched. “We cannot have a Rome that is riddled with liars and murderers and enemies of the state. It breeds chaos and corruption and ruin.”
I wanted to scream in his face that he was the one who bred chaos and corruption and ruin, but I kept myself perfectly still, waiting for the moment I would need to act.
He stood next to my grandfather and faced the audience of nobility. “I am going to save you all from inevitable doom. The only way I can do that is to have supreme rule over Rome.” He turned to face my grandfather. “We can have no more consuls. No more senate.”
I thrust myself between them and glared at the maniacal monster. “You will not kill my grandfather, the ancestor who formed the senate, the most respected senator of the empire.”
Caesar’s eyes gleamed with malevolence. “Kato had to die because he was too set in his ways. Too feeble to be of any good anyway.”
I gritted my teeth that he would think the man useless merely because he was old. But I kept my mouth shut when he obviously wasn’t done.
“You are correct that Gaius Tiberius is the eldest descendant of the founder of the senate.” Caesar turned to face my grandfather. “That is why you must not only renounce your position as consul but dissolve the senate as well. For Rome to remain strong under my rule, there can be no more senate.”
Instantly, there were murmured protests. Someone said, “He can’t be serious,” which caused Caesar to whip his gaze to the audience on a snarling growl.
“Silence!” he bellowed, stretching out of his toga and shifting into half-skin. Red-scaled and tail lashing, his four horns curled backward along his massive skull, he was a frightening beast.
My grandfather took a step back, and I positioned myself slightly in front of him.
Caesar raked his ripped toga from where it dangled across his body, now a gargantuan monster among his guests. I noted Drussus and others like General Sabinus smiled at the effect the emperor had on everyone here.
When there was little more than whimpers from the nobility standing around in shaken horror, Caesar turned to me and Grandfather, towering over us in his beastly form.
My dragon huffed and clawed, wanting to take my skin, but I held still.
I needed to get my grandfather and myself both out of here in one piece.
“Now, Gaius,” said Caesar in garbled speech, his voice a grating rasp. “Kneel before me.” He gestured with his scaled hand toward his claw-tipped feet. “Abolish the senate as your last action as consul and renounce your claim as consul before your brethren.”
Acid churned in my belly at what he was asking.
The senate—even though corruption lived there—was the only power the people had.
If there was no senate, the emperor ruled not simply as a king but as a tyrant.
He would have unlimited power and could transform Rome into a living hell, a pit worse than Tartarus.
My heart now pounding, I watched my proud grandfather lower himself to kneel. A noblewoman sobbed, but there was no other sound. Caesar’s dragon purred in his chest.
“I renounce my position as consul,” said my grandfather, “but I will never take action to abolish the senate. The people must have a voice.”
Caesar snarled, and I gripped my grandfather’s shoulder, readying to haul him behind me when there was a sudden commotion in the corridor. Everyone turned, then someone cried out and people pushed aside.
Through the archway, four praetorians entered, the one in front holding a red-soaked sack. They marched directly across the courtyard, patricians parting for them as they made their way to the foot of the dais where Kato’s body still lay.
“Caesar.” The one in front thumped his chest with a fist. “We smelled fire coming from a home on Palatine Hill. It was Fausta Ovidius’s home.”
“Fire?” growled Caesar, taking one step down the platform.
“Yes, Caesar. Her slaves were burning her body in a funeral pyre. We found three praetorians cut to pieces, slain on the premises.”
Then he opened the sack and lifted Hektor’s severed head. That was when I knew for sure he was the one who’d stopped me and Lela in my litter last night. I hadn’t bothered to look at the mangled bodies on Fausta’s floor earlier today. My only thoughts had been for Lela.
I squeezed my grandfather’s shoulder, warning him to keep quiet and still, not that he was unwise enough to draw attention. For the fury radiating from the emperor was a palpable, stifling force.
“The slaves did this?” he asked in his throaty voice.
“No, Caesar. They said it was the woman who’d come the night before. They called her a bloodsinger.”
The emperor roared and charged down the steps and across the courtyard. “I’ll sniff out this bitch myself. Come, praetorians!”
Everyone moved out of the way and watched as the emperor in half-skin marched toward his hall. His dragon wanted to hunt, urging him into action.
“Thank the gods,” I muttered down to Grandfather, realizing the distraction had possibly just saved us both.
The second Caesar was out of sight, there was mayhem. Everyone leaped toward the door, obviously wanting to get home and behind closed doors since the emperor was on a rampage. There was no telling what he would do in this state of temper.
“This way,” I told Grandfather, hauling him to his feet and leading him through another archway that led into a garden with a fountain where there was a back gate.
I’d been here plenty of times with Julian as I’d had to report with him following some of our campaigns. This gate was closer to the woods as well.
Once we were on the footpath, we broke into a sprint.
“You go that way, get Jovian and Lupus. Leave the litter and meet me at Kato’s alleyway.”
He instantly ran in the opposite direction. It sounded like chaos on the road as everyone was clamoring to get as far away from the palace as possible. My only focus was getting to Lela.
Racing through the woods, I smelled her before I saw the exact spot where we’d left her. But she wasn’t there.
“Lela?” I glanced around then sniffed the air, following the trail to an oak tree.
She’d sat here. Then I scented her on the wind, and something else—blood.
“Fuck.”
I’d never run so fast, my dragon pushing against my skin hard, my claws and fangs elongating. I yanked the draping toga from my body, no longer able to maintain control. Lela was in danger, and I couldn’t keep the beast back if I wanted to.
My wings broke from my skin as I came into the clearing, watching as two guards walked toward the palace, one with Lela over his shoulder. She struggled but obviously couldn’t get her nails to reach his skin to get his blood. Otherwise, they’d be dead.
With a running start, I took flight over the pit, noting the white dragon chained down below, her crimson eyes following me as I flew across her prison. The guards were laughing, both of them holding wine goblets, having been enjoying the celebration.
Good thing, for they didn’t sense or hear me as I landed on the one not holding Lela, clamping on his jugular and opening his throat. The other guard tossed Lela to the ground and turned, his eyes glowing green as he began to shift into half-skin.
Before he could, I lunged and sliced across his upper chest, raking my claws through his tunic and flesh. He cried out and lurched back. Lela was on her feet and charging him, leaping through the air.
Dumbfounded, I watched as she swiped her palm over his wound and fell to the side when he blocked her. She licked her palm, the presence of her magic swirling through the air.
The guard snarled and jerked his head toward her, bursting from his clothes into half-skin, his green scales glinting under the moonlight. He marched toward her, growling, “You’re gonna die.”
I ran forward to intercept him, but it wasn’t necessary.
Lela shoved to her feet and shouted, “Stop!”
The guard instantly froze. It was almost comical, he was so still. Breathing hard, her voice shaking with fury, she told him, “No. You are going to die.” She pointed to the giant hole in the ground. “Leap into the pit. Feed yourself to the white dragon.”
Without hesitation, the guard walked to the edge and jumped inside. Cross-hatching bars layered the pit, but the gaps were big enough for a man to fall through. There was a sickening thud then the chirping call of Camilla before the crunch of bones and scream of the guard.
I didn’t waste another second, sprinting and scooping Lela into my arms.
“No! We have to set her free!” She struggled against me.
I pushed the dragon back and shifted back into a man, grabbing hold of her wrists as she beat against me to get away.
“Stop, Lela!”
She did, finally meeting my gaze.
“We have no time. Those bars and chains that keep her there can only be unlocked by the keys Caesar keeps himself.”
Her face was contorted with rage as she hissed, “The master must always hold the keys, mustn’t he.”
“We can’t free her.” I cupped her face. “We must save ourselves now or we’ll die.”
She gripped my wrists. “I can’t leave her like that.”
“We have to. I’m sorry.”
I grabbed her hand and ran back through the woods in the direction of Kato’s house. Thankfully, she didn’t fight me, but she sniffled as she ran close at my heels.
We made it through the woodlands quickly, coming out on the main road.
Patricians hurried away from the palace to their homes.
Some of them abandoned their litters and chose to run on foot, forgetting civility.
No one wanted to be there when Caesar returned to his palace.
Fortunately, everyone was so distressed, they didn’t take note of me, now nude, or the woman at my side.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to get to the docks.”
Dodging two litters, we wove around them and down the alley beside Kato’s home.
“Trajan!” Grandfather called from a niche along a wall.
We ran to him alongside Jovian and Lupus, Jovian watching up and down the road.
“Here.” Grandfather unwrapped the sash of blue he wore over a white tunic.
I draped it around my middle and over one shoulder. Lela quickly took the end and tucked it so that I looked remotely presentable and not like I was on the run.
Without another word, the five of us headed toward the Aventine, Jovian in front, Lupus in the back.
“What about the litter?” I asked Lupus behind me. “Caesar may smell your family’s scent and link it back to you if it’s left at his palace.”
“We ordered the others to carry it back. Everyone is hysterical right now. No one will be able to remember what litter you arrived in.”
“Good.”
The last thing I needed was anyone else’s death on my conscience. Plus, Horatius and his sons would be necessary allies. They were cunning and formidable fighters, assets that we needed to win the coming war.
Because of their caste in the House of Griseo, they were overlooked for high-ranking positions in the army and elsewhere. But that was Caesar’s mistake. His hubris would be his undoing.
Once down the sloping hill, Jovian took a left into the Aventine, away from the docks.
“No, this way,” I called quietly.
The chaos on the hill had plebeians emerging from their homes and taverns, wondering what had happened.
Jovian shook his head and fell in beside me. “Centurions are watching the main entrance into the docks. I know a secret way.”
I smiled and nodded. We followed quickly and quietly past closed shops and raucous taverns and busy brothels.
We came out near a sewage ditch that dumped into the Tiber.
The stench was suffocating, but Jovian was right.
No one seemed to be patrolling this entrance toward the docks.
Mainly because it wasn’t actually an entrance as much as a narrow path alongside the draining ditch.
Lela never made a sound, keeping close to my side, her veil wrapped over her head, partially covering her face.
We climbed up some steps at the end of the docks and hurried close to the ship, searching for the one Koska described.
But there was no need. Only one ship had a man lurking at the gangway, leaning against a barrel with crossed arms. He was watching both directions, but stopped when he saw us moving silently through the shadows toward him.
He was a rough-looking, barrel-chested man. His eyes widened when he saw the blue togas, obviously not realizing he would be smuggling nobility out of the city.
“What’s the code word?” he asked.
Lela removed her veil and answered for me. “Bloodsinger.”