Chapter 4. Now Luca
NOW: LUCA
I stalked back through the camp, headed to the Illyrium with the sound of the crowd at my back. The rows of tents grew wider as I neared the towering colonnade that had once served as the entrance to the Lower City. Beyond its archway, the Illyrium was still whole.
I glanced up as I entered the courtyard, a familiar discomfort bleeding into me.
The temple’s entrance bore the likeness of the god of peace, which was an irony that I took no pleasure in.
It was one of the oldest buildings in Isara, constructed long before the Citadel that sat across the river, but now it belonged to the New Legion.
Great white pillars carved in deep, uniform ridges stood shoulder to shoulder atop the temple’s steps, where six legionnaires were posted with swords in hand.
Along its roof, archers were at the ready above the three carved stone faces of Phaedo looking out over the square.
In its center sat a large round fountain where Isarians used to come collect the water blessed by the Priestesses.
Now, for the first time in nearly three hundred years, it was dry.
But it was the smooth white stone wall that faced the river that drew my eyes now.
The insignia of the New Legion had been painted in red, black, and gold across the pale stone.
The symbol stretched at least thirty feet high, like a flag that couldn’t fall.
Couldn’t burn. Couldn’t be shot down. The depiction was of a soldier on his knees, bloodied short sword hanging from his hand as he looked up toward the sky.
A gilded halo encircled his head, and every time I looked at it, I couldn’t help cringing.
It wasn’t just any legionnaire. It was me.
No one knew who first drew the symbol, but in the days after the Philosopher died, as I sat in the catacombs awaiting my own death it began to appear all over the Lower City. This image, this record of what had happened, was the match that lit the fire of rebellion. Now it was a battle cry.
The Commander’s tribune, Asinia, stood at the top of the steps, his javelin clutched in one hand as I passed beneath the ornate entry.
His was one face I did look at because I’d known it before all this began.
But it was different now. The scar that marked the curve of his jaw disappeared into his tunic.
The result of a javelin’s hook thrown in the second battle at the gates.
He was one of the few who knew the version of me from before the fighting began.
By the time it ended, maybe there would be none.
“Has he been told?” I asked.
Asinia fell into step beside me. “He has. The medallions arrived before dawn.”
The thick smell of incense swelled around us as we entered the chamber.
The windows encircling the great domed roof filled the Illyrium with bright, scattered light, and a number of soldiers already had their hands busy with the day’s work.
I followed the corridor that led to the gallery on the north side of the building.
Inside, more tapestries were hung against the expansive walls, their bright colors dulled with a layer of dust.
Before the rebellion, the Illyrium had been one of the city’s jewels, filled with ornate marble statues and colorful frescoes.
Now some of the tapestries were torn from their rods, the beautiful golden tassels piled on the ground.
The enormous granite slab that had once held offerings to the gods was now stacked with the leather strips used to make armor and finely sanded wooden rods waiting to be crafted into arrows.
My eyes landed for just a moment on the altar, where the mother who’d borne me had spent her days and nights begging for favor from a god who didn’t know her name.
She’d wasted away on that floor until my noble uncle took me in, determined to make me his heir.
I had no way of knowing then that it would all lead to this. Now.
When we reached the gallery, I stopped, turning to face Asinia.
“How is he?” I kept my voice low, trying not to draw the attention of the guards posted on either side of the doors.
Asinia waited longer to respond than I liked. As tribune, it was his job to protect the Commander with his life. Not just in body, but in reputation. I could see him weighing his answer before he finally spoke.
“His color is better today.” He gave me a knowing look.
I pushed through the doors, the length of my cloak rippling out behind me.
The Commander stood over the table at the far end of the gallery, his attention on the unrolled maps before him.
I was glad to see that Asinia was right.
The pallor of his face had warmed since the night before, even if just a little.
His black hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, making him look much older than his twenty-seven years.
The scruff along his jaw was thickening, too.
I caught myself wondering when exactly it had happened—the two of us becoming men.
“This has to stop.” My voice echoed in the room, drawing the Commander’s eyes up from the table.
He let the edge of the map curl up beneath his palm, exhaling. “Luca.”
My given name was almost unrecognizable to me now.
The Commander was a friend who’d been made my brother by war, and one of two people who could call me Luca without me drawing my sword.
To the legionnaires and everyone else in this city, I was called by the name engraved on the medallion that hung around my neck.
Matius, son of the family Matius. In the same way, the Commander was Saturian, son of the family Saturian.
I, however, knew the Commander by his given name—Vale.
I stopped in front of the table, gaze dropping to the stack of three medallions that held down one corner of the maps.
The gold discs still hung on their chains, bearing the family names of the bodies on the bridge.
Each time Roskia and his men executed someone attempting to flee the district, the medallions were delivered to Vale.
A kind of trophy that allowed him to maintain the claim that it was the work of the Commander, not a rogue Centurion.
“We’re losing control of him,” I said through gritted teeth.
“We’ve lost control, Luca. Surely you can see that.” His stare fell to my hands, which were still trembling just slightly. I balled them into fists.
“She’s not a fool. She won’t try to flee the Citadel District. She wouldn’t dare set foot in the Lower City,” he said, addressing the true source of my panic.
I wanted to believe that. Maris had missed her chance to leave Isara, and the New Legion’s thirst for Magistrate blood was growing by the day.
This was the wire I’d been walking for months now—balancing my commitment to the cause with the fact that there was still someone across that river I was protecting.
He waited for me to respond, but I didn’t.
“I want you to go see him—Roskia,” he said.
I straightened. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’m not leaving you at the front. Not when you’re like this.” I grimaced, gesturing to the wound concealed beneath his armor.
A swift anger lit in Vale’s eyes, where dark circles made the cut of his cheeks deep and shadowed.
In an instant, the old Vale, the one I’d spent my first years in the legion with, flashed in my mind.
Bright-eyed, with words always on the edge of sharp humor.
The man who stood before me was a different creature. One of my own making.
“I’m not asking you,” he snapped, snatching up one of the medallions and holding it between us. “If we’re going to make a deal with the Consul for surrender, we need Roskia to support it.”
“He won’t. You know that,” I argued.
“We can’t afford to have him oppose us. There are too many in the New Legion who would be happy to slaughter every single soul left in the Citadel District when we take it.”
He met my eyes again, this time with a look I couldn’t quite read. He was nervous, and I could guess it was because there was more than one kind of battle waiting for us across the river.
“Are you sure you can do it? See the Consul?” I asked.
Vale swallowed. “My father is a difficult man, but I understand him. I can get him to negotiate.”
“And if you can’t?”
When Vale crossed the bridge with me and the rebellion began, he’d chosen to stand on the other side of the line from his own father. It was a betrayal that had garnered him the respect of the New Legion, but the rift between the Consul and his son had started long before that.
“When we take the district,” he continued, “the legionnaires will look to Roskia for permission to take out their vengeance. Not me.”
I stared at the medallions on the table, the gold shimmering with godsblood.
Like every Isarian, I grew up with the tales of the Old War, when our legion took the city of Valshad and planted its stolen magic and seeds of wealth in our own soil.
But the blood of that fight had never painted the streets of our city.
It wasn’t an outside enemy who’d turned its gleaming spires to crumbling dust. Now Isara was a husk, a crumbling sandcastle compared to what it had been just a year ago.
The weight of that lay on one person, and one person alone.
“Summon Roskia and we’ll talk,” Vale pressed.
“I—”
“You’re going to the gates.” His voice invoked his rank, reminding me of my place.
I gritted my teeth, swallowing down a curse.
“If we’re going to push into the Citadel District, it will take all of us. And I can’t afford to have a Centurion who is waging his own separate war,” Vale reminded me. “And you’re not going alone.”
I stared at him.
“Asinia says you have yet to accept your new tribune.”
I clenched my jaw, shooting a look over my shoulder to where Asinia was posted at the door. The argument was one we’d had more than once now, and it was the last thing I wanted to discuss.
“I told you I don’t need a tribune,” I said.