Chapter 1. Now Luca
NOW: LUCA
There were no gods left to pray to.
The short sword glimmered as I tilted its edge against the sharpening stone, the metal warm against my calloused fingers. A line of recruits watched in a kind of daze, their focus trained on my grip as the high-pitched vibration drowned out the sounds of early morning in the camp.
Sharpening your blade correctly is a means of survival, I’d told them.
As necessary as cleaning your armor or fastening your boots before battle.
What I didn’t tell them was that there are times when none of those things matter.
That no amount of preparation could prevent the kind of death many of them would meet.
The motion of the wheel sank deep into my hands as I leaned my weight into the sword, turning it again at just the right angle until it held steady against the stone with almost no sound at all.
“Give it a try.” I handed the sword to the man beside me.
The unsteady look in his eye did little to reassure me. If I had to guess, I would say he had once been a mason or one of the laborers who maintained the city walls. He didn’t look as if he’d ever swung a sword in his life.
He was at least ten years my senior, but he gave me an obedient nod and took the sword, eyeing the blade. It was a humble weapon, the iron a flat gray and missing the faint shimmer of the swords that had been forged and strengthened with godsblood. With the right blow, the metal would fail him.
He got to work, stepping into my place so he could position its edge against the wheel as it cranked back to life.
The sound of metal on stone filled the tent, and I watched his eyes focus, his strong hands turning the sword a bit clumsily until it slipped, sending an eruption of sparks into the air.
He caught it by the handle before it fell to the cobblestones underfoot, eyes wide as he looked up at me.
I motioned for him to try again, and when he set the blade to the wheel this time, it took only seconds before he had the feel of it.
The medallion that hung around his neck signified him as a citizen of Isara, but I paid no mind to the family name engraved on it.
These recruits weren’t the apathetic privilege-born legionnaires I’d sparred with in the training ring.
The ones who grew up in the Citadel District, enlisting for their parents’ political gain.
They weren’t the zealous, hot-blooded youths I’d fought beside when the first breath of rebellion flooded the streets, either.
These were dwindling remnants of the Lower City.
Broken pieces of lost family lines who’d joined up for the rations and the protection of the New Legion.
I’d stopped looking at their faces months ago, eager to keep myself from recognizing them when we pulled the arrow-pierced bodies from the streets.
But the questions still hung in my mind as I drew the smell of the hot metal into my lungs.
How many children did this man have? How many would miss him once he was gone?
He lifted the blade from the wheel, and when I gave him a nod of approval, he stepped back in line.
“Next.”
I gestured to the man behind him, an old Isarian with a white beard and sun-worn skin that sagged.
As soon as he drew his sword, I exhaled a little.
He had strong hands and arms. That, at least, was something.
But that meager sense of hope withered when I saw the talisman that hung alongside his medallion.
The braided cord lay beneath the opening of his tunic, a sign that this was a man who believed the gods would protect him.
He tried to be discreet when he glanced up over my head, but then forced his eyes down with a look of shame. He wasn’t the only one in the group I’d caught staring at the mark. That was something I hadn’t gotten used to. I didn’t think I ever would.
It had been almost six months since the gods had marked me, placing a faint circlet of light over my head. It wasn’t as visible in the glare of the sun, but in dim, shadowed light like this, it glimmered just enough to catch the eye.
The scrape of the wheel sounded in fits and starts as the man got started, and I tilted my hand in the air silently, showing him the correct angle.
He made the adjustment, giving me a grateful nod, but my attention was slowly drawn to the opening of the tent, where I could hear the low hum of voices. Dust had been stirred into the air.
My brow creased, my arms falling from where they were crossed over my chest, and I watched the light outside change just a little. Far beyond the walls of the city, the sun was just rising over the horizon, but the stillness of the camp had shifted somehow. I could feel it.
One by one, the recruits were sensing it, too. They looked up, faces turning toward the sunlight, and the man lifted the sword from the wheel, waiting.
“Every blade,” I ordered, leaving them.
I pushed outside, expecting to find my tribune waiting, but he was gone.
The moment the Centurion’s medals had been placed on my chest, I’d been assigned a handpicked legionnaire honored for his talents in battle.
A tribune’s only job was to protect the highest-ranking soldiers, and in the last three months alone, I’d watched two of them die. This one would be the third.
I looked up and down the street, trying to spot him. I hadn’t been able to shake him from my shadow for more than an hour at a time. So, where was he?
The Loyal Legion’s barricades were erected along the riverfront, where the soldiers who’d been our brothers-in-arms less than a year ago were hunkered down and waiting for the end we all knew was coming.
They’d chosen their side, just like we had.
And most of the time, I could hardly blame them for it.
The only question was how much blood would be spilled before it was finally over.
Our sprawling camp marked the hard-won front line, flanking the opposite edge of the river that cut the walled city of Isara in two unequal parts.
The first was the Citadel District, where the Citadel sat on a hill, encircled by the villas of the Consul, Magistrates, and other highborn families.
It was still dark, save for the lights of the Forum’s great dome, the streets empty. The commotion wasn’t coming from there.
Behind me was the Lower City, ten times the size of the district and filled with everyone else.
It had taken months to fight our way through the compact maze of streets and buildings all the way to the edge of the Sophanes River, and for twelve nights, we’d held what was left of the Consul’s Loyal Legion on the other side.
It, too, was quiet. Just beginning to stir as the temperature warmed.
It took a few seconds for me to realize what was off.
It was the camp itself. By this time each morning, there were already legionnaires going about their daily tasks, and in preparation for what lay ahead, there was more than enough work to be done.
We outnumbered what was left of the Loyal Legion, but the last stand in the district would be a bloody one.
In a matter of days, we’d be crossing the river.
I took a step forward, where the tents opened up enough to see past the camp.
It was all but empty now, a stream of red tunics spilling down the bank of the river.
Except for one. My tribune appeared, pushing through the legionnaires in the opposite direction.
As soon as he saw me, his pace quickened.
He had one hand clenched to the hilt of his sword.
“What the hell is going on?” I snapped, eyes scanning the growing crowd in the distance.
“It’s the south bridge, Centurion.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, my gut twisted.
For the first time, I looked the tribune in the eye. His dark irises were sharply focused on me, the set of his jaw firm. There wasn’t so much as a ripple of unsteadiness there, but I could sense the faint shadow of something else.
My feet were moving before he could fall into step beside me.
“Three bodies this time—Magistrates.” He kept his voice low, confirming what I already knew.
It wasn’t the first time dawn had broken over the hanging corpses of Magistrates and their families on the south bridge.
They were the reason this war had started, the wielders of the judgment stones that controlled the fate of the city.
But now they were being hunted one by one, emboldening the soldiers of the New Legion with the promise of an empty Forum once we crossed the river.
“Are there any women?” I rasped, throat tight.
“Sir?”
“Women.” I could barely get the word out. “Are any of them women?”
“Yes. Two women and one man.”
My pulse was racing so fast now that it felt like my heart would stop altogether.
More legionnaires ran past us, everyone headed to the bridge, and I pushed into the crowd as panic flooded my veins.
I could see the pillars of the stone archway ahead, but there were too many people. I couldn’t get a view of the water.
The tribune stayed close to my side, one arm shoving into the bodies before us to create a path.
But it took only a moment for the legionnaires to recognize me, a collective hush falling over them.
They parted until the street was open before me, and their gazes drifted above my head to the mark, a look of reverence falling over their faces.
I ignored them, taking advantage of the opportunity to get to the railing at the river’s edge. Once I could see the bank, I struggled to keep my steps steady until I reached it.
Not her. Please, gods, don’t let it be her.
“Centurion.”