Chapter 9. Now Maris
NOW: MARIS
The north wing of the Citadel held the warmth of the afternoon sun, but as I made my way deeper into the heart of the winding corridors, the air turned cold.
If I’d been told a year ago that I’d be descending into the dark catacombs to perform my duties as a novice, I never would have believed it. The open-air temple of the Illyrium was only a memory now, as was the woman I’d served.
I’d had the sense to shed my tribunal robes and pull the jewels from my wrists and ears before I made an appearance before the Priestess. In her eyes, I would never be Magistrate Casperia. To Ophelius, I wasn’t a woman at all. I was still just the child who’d been her novice in the temple.
As the halls narrowed, the ornate adornments that covered the walls and ceilings bled away and the black iron doors came into view.
The legionnaires posted at either side were expecting me, already reaching for the bolt before I’d even made it down the corridor.
There was a time when I performed the rites only once a month—on the eve of each feast. Now I was bleeding the Priestess every week.
A deep, vibrating groan rang out as the heavy doors were opened, and the cool, damp smell of the catacombs filled my lungs.
The first time I’d taken the steps down into the belly of the Citadel, my chiton had been soaked in blood.
I could still feel how my heart had raced, fingers dragging over the stone wall as my feet flew down the stairs on Vale Saturian’s heels.
The start of the rebellion would be marked two days later, but that was when it had really begun—with Luca Matius dragged into the catacombs while Vitrasian lay dead in the Forum.
The first breath of this war was the flash of his blade as it arced through the air.
It began with the sound of him screaming.
I started down the staircase and the walls grew tighter around me as I descended, the echo of my steps coming from every direction. The torches that lined the narrow passage flickered with amber flames, and the last of the sunlight from above snuffed out as the doors closed above me.
When I reached the main artery of the catacombs, the stone walls finally opened up again.
There were a dozen legionnaires posted along the chamber, standing at the ready with javelins in hand.
When the Priestess was brought here, I was told that the guards were here to protect her, and at first I’d believed it.
The Lower City was falling, the Loyal Legion losing ground, and Ophelius had been shut away from danger, guarded day and night.
But as weeks turned to months, I’d come to see what Ophelius had long before—that she wasn’t being protected from what lay outside the Citadel.
She was being held prisoner inside. And I still couldn’t help feeling that, in part, it was her own doing.
The stone walls glistened with the trail of moisture dripping from above, reflecting the glowing square of lantern light at the end of the corridor. There, a small window was cut into a closed door.
I walked straight toward it as the legionnaire closest to the chamber pulled the ring of keys from his belt, and again, the memory flashed through my mind. Luca’s face lit by amber torchlight, his hands finding me through the iron bars. The feel of him shaking in my arms as he wept.
I stopped beside the door, slipping my feet from my sandals before I dipped my fingers into the crude wooden basin on the floor. I washed my face, followed by my hands and feet, and then I pulled my hair back, tying it into place.
The second guard was already waiting with the carved alabaster box that held my tools, and he didn’t meet my eyes as he handed it to me. They never did.
I drew in a breath, bracing myself before the door opened. The Consul had allowed me to continue as Ophelius’ novice, but the woman who’d taught me the tales of the gods wasn’t here anymore. She was something else now.
The legionnaire stepped forward to unlock the bolt and the door screeched, swinging out into the corridor. Light flooded the darkness, making me squint, but as soon as my eyes adjusted, I could see her—a lump huddled in the shadows.
The room was small, with solid stone walls that still bore the crude marks of chisels, and it was sectioned into two parts divided by a wall of iron bars.
Ophelius sat on one side and the bronze bowl filled with the fire that kept her warm was on the other.
It also served as a makeshift altar, lined with a few offerings and bronze bowls to burn the incense.
Ophelius had all but lost the face I remembered. The woman who’d painstakingly instructed me in the ways of the gods was encased inside a withering body, a tangle of bones beneath a chiton she’d been dressed in that morning. Now she was just a creature determined to die.
“You’re late,” she said, out of habit more than anything. Down here, she had no sense of time.
“I’m sorry, Priestess.”
I opened the alabaster box on the altar as the legionnaire unlocked her cell and helped her to her feet. I tried not to stare. Her stringy, thin hair had been braided, her skin washed clean. But when she looked up at me, it was like being stared at by a half-living corpse.
I gathered up the length of my chiton and lowered myself to the ground, sinking onto my knees. My palms pressed to the cold floor before I let my forehead touch the stone in the same way I’d done in the temple.
“Have you brought an offering?” Her voice scratched as the legionnaire closed the door.
I reached into my belt, producing a small clay vessel fixed with a glass stopper. For a moment, Ophelius’ eyes flashed, a question lighting them.
“It’s only olive oil,” I said lowly, watching her expression fall.
Ophelius had been branded a traitor before Vitrasian’s body had even gone cold.
At the very moment the Magistrates had been casting their judgment stones in the Forum that day, the three Priestesses in the Illyrium had been bringing their own judgment down on Isara.
They were found in a pool of godsblood that dripped over the altar in the Illyrium, their veins opened by their own hands.
The plan had been in motion for months, and in the days that followed, I would stand before the Forum and be questioned as to what I’d known. The truth was, I hadn’t suspected even for a moment what the Priestess was planning. I never saw what was coming. She’d made sure of that.
No one knew exactly what transpired that day, only that the Priestesses were guilty of the worst kind of treason.
Vitrasian had committed the first true act of rebellion, and the Priestesses committed the second.
If Isara was to turn its back on the will of the gods, then they would take the only thing that gave the city its power—the magic.
But Ophelius didn’t succeed as the other Priestesses had.
By some cruel twist of fate, her heart had failed to stop.
And when her eyes first opened after the physicians saved her life, she’d used what little strength she had to curse them.
The magic could only be given from one to another, and it was the single reason Isara’s legion marched from the sea and spilled the blood of Valshad in the Old War. Isara wanted the favor of the gods that had allowed Valshad to flourish for generations, and they’d gotten it.
Now the last little flame of its power was dwindling in the eyes of Ophelius, only days away from snuffing out.
She’d been dying long before the rebellion.
The greedier the Citadel became, the more blood I drew.
The more blood I drew, the less life it left her.
But Ophelius seemed to welcome the ritual now, and each time I came to see her, she was closer to death, determined to let her body die.
More than once, she’d made it clear that as her novice, it was my duty to make sure she had that choice.
But conspiring with Ophelius in her own death was a crime that would end with my execution.
I loved her in my own way, but the only person I’d give my life for was across the river.
“Not so different from your mother after all.” Ophelius came to stand beside me, her thin fingers brushing the stone.
I bristled, giving her a questioning look.
“I don’t need to see the robes to know you’ve taken your oath. I could smell the stench of the Forum on you before the door even opened.”
I turned away from her, taking a stick of incense from the urn on the altar. “Not as if I had much choice.”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” A sound that resembled a laugh bubbled deep in her chest. “How much choice belongs to us, and how much belongs to the gods?”
I ignored her, not in the mood for one of her cryptic lessons. I lowered the incense into the fire, blowing on the small ember until the smoke bled into the air. I was almost halfway through the names of the gods before her hand landed gently on my wrist.
“Let me look at you, Maris,” she said softly.
Using my given name was something Ophelius almost never did.
Not even in the last few months, when I was the only soul permitted to enter this room.
I turned my back to the incense and faced her, steeling myself before I let my eyes land on hers.
It was difficult to look at her like this when I remembered the brazen, bold face she once wore.
Her pale gray eyes ran over me, the color shifting as they focused. A deep exhale escaped her lips. “Just as I suspected. Your fate has changed. Again.”
I felt my heart sink at the deep disappointment in her voice.
Ophelius had never hidden her opinion of the Magistrates from me.
She saw them for who they were—a body of highborn strategists who played their roles in exchange for the power their seats afforded them.
She’d taught me as much in the temple, her treasonous teachings like a knife hanging over us both.
I hadn’t fully known then what she’d risked with those words, but she had.
And now that judgment in her eyes was set on me.
I drew in a deep breath, letting it out before I picked up the names of the gods where I’d left off, hoping she would let it go.
“Does he know you’ve taken the oath?” she asked.
My eyes shot to the door, where I could see the legionnaire’s shadow on the wall. Talking about Luca within the confines of the Citadel was a risk that I didn’t think even Ophelius would take. But I’d been wrong about her before.
“You fool yourself into believing that you aren’t like the rest of us. That you’ve chosen the bloodless way to peace. But you’re no different, Casperia. And it’s only a matter of time before you realize that.”
The words slowly diffused into the air, sounding vaguely like a threat. Ophelius was the only person in the Citadel District who knew what I’d done. Again, I looked to the door. My pulse was climbing now.
“It’s time to go see him.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I whispered. “There were three more bodies hanging from the bridge just this morning.”
Ophelius blinked, falling quiet as she reached for the incense smoke and wafted it toward her. I could see her thinking. Considering.
I finished the prayer, reaching into the box and taking the marble bowl from inside.
I set it between us as Ophelius pulled up the sleeve of her robe, already offering me her wrist. She didn’t even blink as I pressed the whalebone knife to her skin.
Her face was blank as the first drops of godsblood drained into the bowl.
“The gods are at work, child. It will do you no good to refuse them.”
“You think all of this is the work of the gods?” I spoke through gritted teeth. “You really believe all of this is fated?”
She let her silence answer for her. Ophelius had been speaking prophecies in riddles for years, and I wasn’t sure even she knew what they meant anymore. Her mind seemed as lost as her body was.
“It’s time,” she said again, the words sticky in her mouth. “Something has changed. He will need you for what comes next.”
The blood began to slow to a drip, but Ophelius’ eyes didn’t leave my face. I avoided her gaze, binding the wound as the skin knit back together, but her wounds were much slower to heal now. Sometimes, they took days.
From the corner of my vision, I saw her hand inch toward the knife, her fingers twitching as she looked at me.
There was a question in her eyes. An intent that chilled me, no matter how many times I saw it.
This was a woman who wanted to finish what she started and we both knew I was the only one who could help her do that.
And I could. I could conveniently forget to place that knife back into my box.
Let the door shut behind me as Ophelius tucked it into her pocket.
By morning, she would be dead. But the death of the last Priestess, the end of the magic, assured destruction for Isara.
Without it, what was all this for? What would come after?
Carefully, I set my hand on hers, sliding it back to the edge of the altar before I took up the knife. I wiped it on the satin before I closed it in the box and she swallowed, the wrinkles that framed her face deepening.
“Keep your offerings.” She picked up the small vessel of oil I’d laid on the altar and pressed it into my hand, her fingers enclosing mine. “This is no temple.”
My eyes rose to meet hers, disquiet filling me. The touch was a tender gesture I’d never seen from her before. It scared me.
“You told me the gods dwell everywhere.” The bitterness that had lived inside me for these last months hardened the words.
A weak smile pulled at one side of her mouth. “Because I used to believe it. But the wrath of the gods is coming, Maris. Which side of the river will you be on when that fire begins to burn?”
She knew exactly what I was thinking. She could see the thoughts unfolding as if she’d put them there herself.
I had every reason to believe she was mad, that every word to come from her mouth was poison.
But I couldn’t shake the faith knit into the fabric of who I was.
The faith that she herself had planted in me.
I had seen too much to still give my allegiance to the gods.
I had no reason to hold fast to all I’d learned in those years at the temple.
But impossibly, despite everything, I somehow still believed.