Chapter 4. Now Luca #2
Vale’s expression went flat. “You’re a Centurion. Every Centurion has a tribune. That’s how we keep you from dying.”
“I’ve kept him busy enough,” I said.
“He’s not your errand boy,” Vale snapped, irritated now. “He goes where you go. He fights where you fight. If I have to assign you three tribunes so they’re more likely to keep track of you, I will.”
I glared at him.
“I mean it,” Vale said. “The last thing I need is to find out that an archer on the other side of the river took you down while you were taking a piss because you were too proud to let a tribune cover your flank.”
“It’s not pride,” I said, defensive.
“Isn’t it?” He shifted on his feet, wincing as he pressed a hand to his ribs. His face blanched a shade whiter.
He waited to see if I’d continue arguing, but he wasn’t the one I was angry with. Asinia reporting my actions to Vale wasn’t surprising, but he should have known better than to bother the Commander with it at a time like this. We had bigger things to worry about.
“How is your wound?” I changed the subject, glancing at the right side of Vale’s breastplate, where the bandage wrapped around his ribs was concealed.
He gave a frustrated sigh, as if he resented being reminded of it. “Better.”
“And you’re letting the physician treat you?”
“Luca,” he said, clipped. “Stop.”
I relented, recognizing that look in his eye.
Almost two weeks ago, as we took the Illyrium, I’d watched from only yards away as a legionnaire from the Loyal Legion drove his short sword into the seam of Vale’s armor.
The man was dead before Vale even hit the ground, Asinia’s blade catching his throat.
There had been several hours while the physicians worked over the hole in Vale’s chest when I thought he was going to die.
Since then, I’d done a poor job of hiding how much it had terrified me.
“Now, if you’re finished.” Vale paused. “There’s something I need to show you.”
He didn’t bother with the cloak he usually wore at his back, leaving it behind as he came around the table and headed for one of the arched doors along the wall.
I glanced at Asinia before I followed Vale up a tight staircase that curled like a seashell as it rose.
Tiny slits in the stone walls let in the sea air, but it was still dark and dank with the smell of sour mud.
He stopped when he reached a small platform, moving aside in the tight space to make room for me.
A young boy dressed in stripped-down armor stood at one of the rectangular openings, his bow in one hand, a fresh arrow in the other. He looked up at us, a nervous fidget finding his stance. But his eyes widened when they landed on the arc of gold that hovered in the air over my head.
“Show him,” Vale said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall.
The boy blinked, shaking himself from the trance.
He instantly obeyed, sheathing the arrow and setting the bow down before taking up a small woolen sack at his feet.
He handed it to me and I peered inside, my jaw instantly tensing.
The soft silver shine of feathers gleamed in the dim light, and I stepped closer to the opening, lifting the sack higher. They were falcons.
Across the river, the tower of the Citadel that housed its scribes was painted red by the setting sun. The day we took the Illyrium, the Citadel’s aviary released a single bird. The next day, another. The day after that, three.
“How many now?” I asked, reaching inside and picking up one of the stiff, cold carcasses.
“Eight since yesterday morning,” the boy answered.
One of the bird’s black feet was encircled by a bronze ringlet that held a small wooden tube. I opened it, sliding the rolled message from inside. But like always, it was blank. The parchment gleamed with a warm iridescence, the evidence of godsblood. Whatever it said, we couldn’t see it.
“There are more each day,” Vale said.
I dropped the bird back into the sack before my eyes moved over the blank scroll again, willing something to appear. Behind the gilded doors of the Citadel, the Consul was sending messages hidden in the magic of godsblood. But to whom?
Isara didn’t have allies, one of many mistakes the Magistrates had made in their policies in the hundred years since the Old War.
There were only a few places that messages from the Citadel went.
To the farms that fed the city or to the ports that brought in trade, which had all but stopped.
The only other thing I could think of were the remnants of the Loyal Legion who’d been posted at the borders, but every soldier had been called in when the fighting began.
There was no one else out there to talk to.
“You said you understand the Consul. What do you think this is?” I asked.
He shook his head just slightly.
“I don’t know how much it matters now, anyway.” I tried to believe my own words. “We’ll be standing on the Citadel steps in a week’s time.”
Vale didn’t look convinced. I could see his mind was working at something he wasn’t saying aloud.
He turned out of the chamber, and I handed the sack back to the young soldier, tucking the small piece of parchment into my tunic’s pocket beneath my armor.
The boy was standing at the ready with bow in hand again before we were even out of sight.
I followed Vale back down the spiraling stairs. “What is it?”
“It’s not just the district I’m worried about. It’s the Lower City, too. How much longer do you think they’ll believe in this cause? How much do they have to lose before they turn on us, like we turned on the Citadel?”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, though I’d thought the same thing. Many times.
Vale walked me to the opening of the gallery and stopped, holding out a hand for me. I took his arm, gripping it below the elbow, and he did the same to mine.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” he said.
My hold tightened on him. “And if they cross the river before I do?”
“They won’t.”
I bit the inside of my bottom lip to keep myself from challenging him again. I didn’t like the idea of being deep in the Lower City if the Loyal Legion took a chance to attack.
Vale let me go and turned on his heel, steps heavy as he crossed the gallery. His voice echoed out behind him. “And take that damn tribune with you.”
I watched him round the table and open the maps again before I started for the gallery’s entrance, where Asinia was still waiting. When I reached him, I muttered a curse.
“Could have warned me.”
The look Asinia gave me said that he couldn’t. More important, he wouldn’t. That alone was the reason he was the only person I trusted to keep Vale alive and the only one worthy to serve as his tribune.
“He relies on you,” Asinia said.
I knew that. More than Asinia could possibly know.
And I relied on Vale, too. I let my gaze drift back to the gallery, where Vale’s shadow was cast on the marble floor.
Only days ago, I’d stood over his barely breathing body, calling out to every god I could think of to save his life.
And not only because I loved him. Vale had taken the role of Commander in part so that I didn’t have to.
If something happened to him, it would fall to me.
There was no one who dreaded that fate more than I did.
“He doesn’t leave your sight until I get back,” I said. “Understand?”
Asinia gave a sharp nod in answer, hands clenched tight around his javelin.
The sound of my boots bounced through the marble hallways until I was coming back down the steps of the Illyrium.
When I was a boy, if I’d been able to peer into the future like the Philosopher and see us, three scraggly boys leading the charge of a rebellion that was bleeding Isara dry, would I have believed it? I didn’t think so.