Chapter 15. Now Maris #2
I started for the door and Iola reached for me, pulling me into her, the baby silent and warm between us. Her arm wrapped around me and I instantly stilled, the tenderness of her touch allowing a single tear to fall down my cheek.
I let my hand brush across Muriel’s brow, seeing the faint echo of Iola in those eyes. She smelled of the blooms that crested the villa’s terrace in spring. She was new. Innocent. Clean of the blood and ash that covered the rest of us.
“Goodbye, Iola.” My voice was a breath.
This really was the last time I’d see her. If there was still a city to return to when all this was over, there would be no more Magistrates. The New Legion would purge Isara of highborn blood. And they were mere breaths from doing it.
I let her go and lifted the bolt, opening the door. The clean night air rushed into the flat and Muriel started to cry. I let myself look back one more time to see Iola cradling the back of her head gently as she pressed the baby to her shoulder. She didn’t say goodbye.
When I reached the bottom of the steps that led to the street, I stopped mid-stride. The insignia of the New Legion looked down on me from where it was painted on the white plaster wall of the next building.
The tears I’d managed to swallow only moments ago were a tightening vine around my throat.
This time, I couldn’t breathe through them.
I pulled up the silk of my chiton, pressing it to my mouth to muffle the sound of the cry before it could escape.
I knew this pain—the fractured remnants of the broken thing buried like a knife in my chest. There were times when I couldn’t keep that wave from running ashore.
Not when I could still feel Luca’s hands on my face.
When I could still taste his tears as I’d kissed him for the last time.
That pain was the reason for everything.
I drew in a long, steadying inhale and pushed that feeling back down to the place it lived, the damp chiton slipping from my fingertips. I let myself look at the insignia for the length of another breath before I forced myself to turn and walk away.
“Maris.” A whisper broke the silence. “Wait.”
Iola stood at the top of the steps, Muriel propped gently against her chest.
“I’ll get you into the camp. But he won’t like it.”
My chest deflated, my lungs emptying in a relieved exhale.
“Wait there.”
She disappeared through the open door to the flat, and I leaned against the wall, wiping a stray tear with the back of my hand.
But I went still when the shadows along the wall of the building beside me suddenly shifted, and I jolted when I caught sight of a red cloak in the darkness. Across the next street, a legionnaire was unfolding himself from the embrace of a woman, her soft laughter echoing over the cobblestones.
Up the stairs, Iola reappeared with her palla draped over her shoulders, pulling the fabric up over her hair, but when she saw me, she froze.
Silently, I shook my head, and her gaze trailed the street until she saw what I did.
I could see her debating what to do. Weighing the cost of the risk.
So, before she could make up her mind, I slipped into the darkness, disappearing.
As soon as my feet started moving, the woman’s laughter lifted again and then it abruptly cut out. I kept walking, trying to keep to the shadows, but when I glanced back, the man was already scanning the street around him. It took only seconds for him to spot me, and my pulse skipped into a run.
“You!” His voice sounded at my back.
The legionnaire was pulling himself from the woman’s arms. Now her eyes were on me, too.
I kept walking, the trembling in my hands now finding my arms. My legs.
“You there!” The word rang out in the silence. “Stop!”
I did, halting so fast that my chiton swirled around me. I stared into the cobblestones, mind racing before I slowly turned to face him. He was stepping into the street, hand lifting to the hilt of his sword. His eyes squinted as they tried to focus on me.
“Medallion,” he ordered.
I looked one more time at the door of Iola’s flat.
It was shut now, the flames of the oil lamps blown out.
I had two choices, neither of which ended with me breathing.
Anyone without a medallion would be considered suspicious, and it wouldn’t take long for the legionnaire to decide I was lying about who I was.
I knew what lay at the end of that path—I’d seen it that morning, hanging from the south bridge. But if I ran …
I didn’t give myself time to think it over, turning on my heel and taking off in the opposite direction.
My sandals slapped on the cobblestones as I reached the corner of the next street, and I caught the wall with my hand, scrambling into the alley.
The legionnaire’s footsteps pounded behind me, but I didn’t look back.
Shouting erupted, cracking open the stillness of the Lower City, and I threw one foot in front of the other with my chiton clutched in my fists.
I turned again, and then again, sliding to a stop when something flew past, slamming into the closed window shutters before me.
I stared at it with wide eyes, heaving. An arrow.
“Stop!”
The voice called out and I turned in a circle, searching the alley. A pair of eyes watched from one of the high windows, but the silence grew more still. More sinister. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
I sank down, hands coming over my head as more than one set of footsteps stormed toward me.
I screamed as fingers took a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head back.
When I opened my eyes, I was looking up at a soot-streaked face.
The legionnaire’s flat mouth was the only thing visible in the darkness.
His other hand searched at my throat for the chain of my medallion and when he didn’t find one, he let me go.
“Name,” he spat.
I stared at the ground, palms pressed to the stones.
“Name!” he said again, louder.
A light in the window overhead went out, shutters closing. I tried to think. If I gave them the name Casperia, I’d be dragged into some dark corner of the Lower City and gods knew what they would do to me. If I was caught lying, I’d find the same end.
“Get her up.” The man sheathed his sword and two others appeared. They took hold of my arms, dragging me forward.
My sandals slid beneath me as I tried to find my footing, and another cry escaped my lips as we turned the corner back onto the street.
Panic snatched the breath from my lungs as they shoved me forward and I looked around me, searching for an escape.
If I took my chances and ran for the river, I could jump.
If I was lucky, it would be too dark to see me in the water and their arrows might miss.
But that wouldn’t keep me from drowning.
It wasn’t hard to decide which fate was worse.
I wrenched forward, freeing one arm, and threw myself toward the ledge. But before I’d made it more than two steps, the men had hold of me again, yanking me back. A sharp sting lit across my cheek and I looked up to see one of the legionnaires standing over me, his face like ice.
“Try that again and you’ll be hanging from that ledge by a rope.”
He jerked his chin toward the opposite direction and the other man dragged me forward, scraping my knees along the stones.
More voices lifted outside, followed by footsteps, and nausea rolled in my stomach when I saw what lay ahead.
Rows of tents. The glow of fires. The three carved stone faces of Phaedo, peering out in the darkness.
They were taking me to the Illyrium. They were taking me to Luca.