Chapter 14. Before Luca
BEFORE: LUCA
“Don’t tell me you’re going to refuse her.
” Vale’s voice was at my back as I led us down the corridor that connected the Citadel to Vitrasian’s theater.
We followed the vines that snaked between the pillars lining the walkway, where the early mist was still dripping down the stone.
Every few steps the sound of our boots sent birds fluttering from their nests tucked up in the eaves.
“Really, Luca. Don’t be an idiot,” Vale muttered.
I ignored him, exhaling when we turned the corner and I saw that the gallery was empty.
Any moment, the doors to the theater would open and the Philosopher would expect me to be standing there.
I couldn’t afford for her to find out that I was late again, this time because our drills in the sparring ring had gone long.
I’d had to visit the physician for stitches after I caught Vale’s blunted sword with my forearm, but it wouldn’t matter to Vitrasian that I was juggling my noviceship with my training as a legionnaire.
If anything, she’d use it as proof that I was overcommitted. And I was.
“Luca.” Vale gave an exasperated sigh, snatching the folded message from my hand.
I finally stopped, turning to him. He was still wearing his dust-smeared armor, his hair damp with sweat. It fell across his forehead as he opened the parchment, reading it.
“I’d be an idiot to accept the offer.” I adjusted the belt around my tunic, checking that it was straight. The last thing I needed was for Vitrasian to accuse me of being unpresentable.
Vale’s eyebrows lifted as he finished reading the message. Once it was refolded, he pressed it to his nose so that he could inhale the scent. The parchment was perfumed with coriander and jasmine.
It was the third one I’d received from Magistrate Casperia, inviting me in no uncertain terms to sleep with her.
The first had arrived three days after I’d met her at the First Feast. The message had been delivered to the training grounds by a servant waiting for me outside the baths, and my stomach had dropped when I saw the seal of Casperia on the scroll.
But the message wasn’t from the girl who’d given me her scarf.
That tipped-over feeling in my gut soured when I read what was written inside.
If you’re going to insult me, at least have the decency to do it in my bed.
The second message had been the same. So had the third, and I suspected it wouldn’t be the last one.
“You can’t deny that she’s beautiful.” Vale waved it between us. “And if she smells half as good as this parchment…”
I gave him a flat look.
“You wouldn’t be the first legionnaire to accept an invitation from her. Most people would consider it a compliment.”
“It’s a political play. That’s all.”
“One that could benefit you both.”
“She holds the leader’s seat of the opposing faction, Vale. She thinks that I’m young and impressionable. That she can bend me to her will.”
“Who’s to say she doesn’t just want you to bend her?” He held in a laugh and I snatched the message from his fingers, shoving it into the pocket of my tunic.
“There’s one side of this I don’t think you’ve considered,” he said. “If there’s anything that would finally finish off your uncle, it’s you sleeping with his enemy. Might save you some time.”
“Maybe that’s what the Magistrate is counting on,” I muttered.
Vale’s mouth quirked to one side just as the doors at the end of the corridor opened, sending a screech echoing between the stone pillars. A horde of Centurions spilled from the theater, dressed in their armor with their polished gold brooches gleaming.
Vale shoved me toward them, folding himself into the current of the crowd and almost immediately falling into conversation with one of the high-ranking soldiers.
He was a pet of the legion, talented and admired.
Most of the Centurions had known him since before he was weaned from his mother’s breast, and when the Consul cast her out of Isara, it had only garnered Vale more loyalty from those who opposed the decision.
He had the favor of the whole city, a fact that made his friendship with me even more unlikely.
In fact, most considered him to be the natural heir to the Consul’s seat.
But few in the district really knew just how different he was from his father.
I turned on my heel, weaving through the bodies until I reached the threshold of the theater.
The high walls opened up to the sky, where a sea of stars served as the ceiling on nights that a play was performed.
Every member of a Magistrate family had a regular seat, and tickets sold for more than what some people in the Lower City earned in a year.
Down on the stage, Vitrasian was gathering up a stack of loose parchments on the podium.
I came down the steps quickly, raking my hair back from my face before she finally noticed me.
But it wasn’t with the sharp attention her eyes usually held.
The wrinkle in her brow made her look distracted, as if she’d forgotten I was coming.
“Luca.” She spoke my given name in a weary tone.
“How did it go?” I asked, watching the last of the Centurions slip out the door.
“It went well.” She managed a smile. “Thanks to you.”
I nodded, a bit of pride swelling in my chest because she didn’t give praise often.
She’d been preparing to deliver a half-day lecture to the legion’s Centurions on the mechanics of siege warfare for weeks and she’d tasked me with working on the historical figures for her.
It was one of the only times my experience as a legionnaire had aided me in my noviceship.
“The Consul should be pleased. The Centurions are now equipped to lay siege to any city he may choose. To starve, isolate, and trap. To target resources, poison water supplies, and even perpetuate widespread sickness.” She tapped the edge of the parchments, gaze flicking up to me.
There was a bitterness in her voice that dimmed the light in her eyes.
This was a look I’d seen on Vitrasian more and more lately, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. She’d always been critical of the Consul, the legion, and the Forum, but there was something wounded about her in the last year.
She walked across the stage with the parchments tucked beneath her arm, and I followed her through the door that led to her study. She usually kept it propped open so that she could go stand in the empty theater and try out lines from whatever play she was writing or practice her teachings.
Her desk was covered in an array of plans for medicinal experiments, a half-assembled skeleton of a bat, and the little metal cogs she was using to test a new, more blade-resistant form of scale armor.
“This is where it begins, I suppose,” she murmured, still lost in thought.
“What does?”
“War.” She set her fingertips on the surface of her desk, face lifting to look at me. “It always comes back to the Philosopher.”
“I thought the work of the Philosopher is quite opposite to the work of the legion.”
“How so?” she asked, perking up a little. The weight that had seemed to settle on her shoulders looked lighter now. She was always ready for a debate.
“Philosophers build, create, discover. The legion attacks, destroys, conquers,” I offered.
She considered the argument, her eyes going to the doorway behind me for just a moment. “Do you know what made Isara successful in the Old War? Do you know how we were able to take Valshad, one of the greatest cities to ever exist?”
“The legion,” I answered.
Her mouth twitched in a way that told me I was wrong. “We had a legion and many lost battles against Valshad before the Old War.”
That was true. My military history was sound and there had been a number of failed attempts. At least a few generations’ worth.
“So, how did we do it?” she continued. “What did we have in the Old War that we did not have before?”
It took a few seconds for the answer to come to me. “Ballistae.”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
I watched as she went to the corner of the study, where she took a large hunk of something gray from the shelf. “And how did we make the ballista?”
“It was…” I hesitated, thinking. “Made by the legion.”
“Using?”
“Iron,” I said.
She walked toward me, placing the gray lump in my hand. It was ore. “Where do you think iron was first smelted? Where do you think lead and copper were first forged and formed?”
“Here,” I said, realizing what she was getting at.
She nodded. “Yes. Here. In this very study. By a Philosopher.” She looked around us.
“There is no one with more blood on their hands, Luca. Because everything we make, everything we study, will be used in the quest for power. You wanted this noviceship because you didn’t want to be a soldier.
But we are all soldiers in Isara. We are all cogs in a machine meant for a single purpose and you will not be useful to me until you understand that. ”
I bristled at the sharp words. She didn’t sound like herself. She didn’t look like herself, either. Again, she glanced at the entrance, as if she was waiting for someone to appear.
“If I were you, I’d be asking myself why the legion is preparing to lay siege.”
My eyes narrowed on her. “The legion educates every soldier on warfare tactics. One lecture doesn’t mean we’re going to war.”
Her gaze flicked up to me before it darted away again.
There was something in that look that I couldn’t quite sift from the tense conversation.
Something was bothering Vitrasian. I’d been the Philosopher’s novice long enough to know when she was stuck on something.
When she was working a problem that had a difficult answer, she would all but disappear.
As if her mind had been swept up to the heavens with the gods.
“Is it something I can help with?” I finally asked, acknowledging the taut silence in the room.