Chapter 1. Now Luca #2
My tribune’s voice faded away behind me, my heart turning into a knot wedged between my collarbones.
I couldn’t breathe for the several seconds it took for my eyes to find them.
Three bodies were hung from the bottom of the bridge, their forms limp and heavy.
The river ran below their feet, the water whitecapped and quick as it traveled from one side of the city to the other.
The dead man’s face was turned up to the sky, his neck gruesomely broken, and his bulging red eyes open and empty. He had a crescent ring of hair that crested his balding head and a bloom of dark blood stained the front of his fine white tunic. It looked as if he’d soiled himself, too.
I nearly lost my balance, catching the railing as my vision focused on the pale blond braids of the woman who hung beside him. She was missing a sandal, her bare foot blue and misshapen, as if it had been crushed.
Not her.
But the third body was turning slowly in the air, the face hidden by a curtain of dark hair.
My hand tightened on the railing, slick with sweat.
My chest felt like it was caving in, my whole body bracing for what I was about to see.
The green silk chiton fluttered in the breeze, gently caressing the pale hands that hung limp in the air, her skin almost completely drained of its color.
The tassels of the belt at her waist were caked in mud, the ties unraveling, as if she’d been dragged through the streets.
A shaking breath escaped my lips as the glint of a gold ring caught the light.
I swallowed down the urge to retch, as slowly, the body continued to turn on the rope. The wind picked up, blowing the length of hair across her face, and by the time I could see it, black was pushing in along the edges of my vision.
It wasn’t her.
The image of the woman suspended from the bridge was instantly replaced by my memory of another, which was cast across my dreams each night.
Salt water dripping from her hair, the sound of her laugh.
The shape of her body beneath the wet silk as she waded out into the sea.
The memory flashed in my mind, flickering in and out until the blue-tinged face of the dead woman finally came back into focus.
Not her. Not her.
A sharp, tingling feeling spiraled from the center of my belly as I finally inhaled, and then I was pushing back into the gathered legionnaires, away from the river.
“Centurion?”
The tribune followed at my back, but I kept my eyes on the cobblestones until I reached the edge of the crowd, certain that I was going to pass out.
I barely made it to the corner of the building across the street, my legs threatening to give out beneath me with every step.
I caught my balance on the stone just as I vomited, and I was only half aware of the tribune taking position behind me to hide me from view.
I retched until my stomach was empty, the rush of blood in my head making me dizzy. By the time I was steady on my feet again, my tribune was waiting, discreetly holding a cloth between us. I took it, trying to catch my breath.
“Are you alright, sir?” he said, eyes still fixed to the street. He’d been like a splinter beneath my skin for weeks, but he at least did me the courtesy of not watching as I wiped the vomit from my mouth.
The crowd at the bridge had multiplied now, and the sound of cheering had begun to fill the air. The collective chant took shape slowly, growing louder as more voices joined in.
“Thirty-three! Thirty-three! Thirty-three!”
The number changed every time a Magistrate’s body was hung from the bridge—it was the number of them left in the Citadel.
“Centurion Roskia,” my tribune murmured.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, trying to breathe through the sick feeling still gripping my gut.
I knew he was right. The Centurion Roskia and his cohort of forty-eight legionnaires were some of the best soldiers we had, and there was no doubt that they were one of the reasons we’d managed to push the front all the way to the Sophanes River.
But he was also the most brutal and barbaric Isarian in our ranks, and he’d made a name for himself by hunting down and killing every Magistrate who attempted to flee the city.
After more than two dozen unsanctioned skirmishes and executions, he’d been relegated to the gates in an effort to contain him until we crossed the bridge.
But that hadn’t kept him and his legionnaires at bay.
“Thirty-three! Thirty-three!” The sound of the words warped in my mind.
The seats in the Forum were now half empty. And it was only a matter of time until I saw Maris Casperia hanging from one of those ropes. And when that happened, it wouldn’t just be the end of me. It would be the end of everything.
I pushed off the wall, stalking back toward the camp, where the smoke from the temple fire was still rising from the Illyrium. I glanced back one more time at the crowd, at the fists lifting into the air, the sound of a bright, fragile hope in their voices.
Traitors, they’d called us, when we first revolted. Defectors and rebels. When the first arrows flew over the Forum. When the first barricades went up. But it wasn’t until I saw the bodies in the streets that I realized what we’d done. And for that, I didn’t know if there was a name.