Chapter 21. Now Maris #2
Luca took a step back from me. “When the New Legion crosses the river, you can’t be a Casperia anymore. Do you understand?”
His eyes ran over my face slowly, the gleam of tears just barely visible, and I could see the weight of it all pressing down on him. He’d lost control of the monster he created. And he knew it.
He tried to smooth over his expression, but he’d forgotten that I knew him. He was barely holding it together. The glittering ringlet of faded gold shimmered in the air over his head again, a flash in the dim light. I tried not to stare at it.
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for him then.
I closed the distance between us and pulled him into my arms, wrapping them around him so tightly that I couldn’t feel the places where I ended and he began.
I turned my face into his hair, breathing him in, and he melted into me, his palms sliding up my back.
The feeling rushed through me, the pain in my chest so great that it felt as if my bones would crack open with it.
My gaze went back to the opening of the tent, where I could see the shadow of his tribune standing guard. I held on to Luca, trying desperately to draw out the moment. I could already feel it slipping away.
“Come with me,” I whispered into his hair. “Say you’ll come with me and we’ll leave right now. Tonight.”
A shaking breath passed through his lips before he pulled back to look down into my face. One of those tears now striped the bridge of his nose, the pain in his eyes changing the shape and light of them.
“I can’t.” He let me go and the warmth of him bled away, the cold air filling the space between us again.
There was more to those two words than he could possibly say. He wore the yoke of this war around his own neck. He was a prisoner of it all, a man half erased by it.
The distant ring of voices lifted at the other end of the camp and Luca went rigid, going to the opening of the tent. Over his shoulder, I could just make out a few legionnaires drifting into the street.
“Go see what’s going on,” Luca ordered, and the tribune immediately vanished from sight.
Luca watched through the flaps of the tent, the sharpness of his gaze growing more severe with every second that passed. I wrapped my arms around myself, my pulse climbing. Whatever he saw there, it wasn’t good.
When the tribune returned, his voice was low, his attention cutting from Luca to me. “Her brother’s come to claim her,” he said.
Luca and I looked at each other for a silent moment before I stepped around him.
I pulled back the canvas just enough to see the young man waiting on the other side of a line of legionnaires outside.
It was Zuri. He was wide-eyed and pale-faced, hands clutched together at his back where his fingers were tangled together nervously.
The legionnaire Neatus from the night before stood at his side.
“It’s Zuri.” My hand slipped from the canvas. “Iola’s brother.”
Luca’s eyes moved over my face for another agonizing moment as the footsteps drew closer and I realized that this—these lamplit, dreamlike moments of being here together—was nearly over. I could feel my heart grasping at them, trying to gather them up before they slipped away.
“Luca.” I said his name, hand moving in the air toward him, and that was enough to make him turn and push out of the tent. He was gone.
I stood there staring at the empty space he’d left, the burn of tears lighting behind my eyes. The tribune watched me, waiting.
I pulled the palla over my shoulders, draping it over my head so that the fabric covered one side of my face. The wind caught it as I stepped outside, and the tribune fell into step beside me without a word.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat as the early sunlight fell on the street. Were those the last words Luca and I would say to each other? Was this, truly, the last time I’d ever see him? If he was wondering the same thing, I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t looking at me now.
Luca and Neatus exchanged a few words before the legionnaire turned his hard gaze on me. Across the square of dirt that served as a kind of courtyard between the row of tents, Zuri was waiting.
“Tell him how you know this woman.” Neatus gestured to Luca.
“She’s my sister,” Zuri answered.
Neatus looked me over. “She was caught in the Lower City with no medallion.”
Zuri cleared his throat. “She’s foolish, but she’s loyal. She at least has the sense to not implicate her own family when she’s getting into trouble.”
“What family?” Neatus asked.
Zuri pulled a medallion from inside his shirt, holding it up so that Neatus could read it. “Rullias.”
Neatus took it, turning it in the light to check for the godsblood. It made a medallion impossible to fake.
The legionnaires that were gathered at the large tent in the distance were moving now, headed in our direction. I turned just slightly so that the palla hid my face.
Luca took a step forward, as if thinking the same thing, and his tall frame mostly hid me from view.
Neatus dropped Zuri’s medallion after careful inspection and it swung from Zuri’s neck. “If we catch her again…”
“You won’t.” Zuri gave me a reproachful look.
“Rullias?” Neatus said, looking at me this time. He was waiting for my confirmation.
The crowd of legionnaires made it to the row, a few of them looking in our direction as they passed. But they were all lost in conversation, distracted. All except one.
A man I recognized was trailing at the back, a tribune at his side.
He spotted Luca, and when his eyes moved over the scene playing out around us, his steps slowed just a little.
It was Roskia, the young legionnaire from the Lower City who’d made a name for himself as a Magistrate hunter.
Now he wore the brooches of a Centurion, like Luca.
If he recognized me, he didn’t show it, falling back into step with the others before they disappeared from view. But I felt like I was swaying, a sick feeling climbing up my insides. I could feel the eyes on me now, like flames held to the skin.
“Rullias,” Neatus said again.
A few steps away, Zuri was looking at me intently, waiting for me to respond.
I finally answered with a nod.
Neatus motioned to Zuri and he stepped forward, gently taking me by the arm and leading me in the opposite direction of the legionnaires. When I looked back, Luca was still watching me, the stiffness in his body well concealed beneath his armor. Invisible to anyone else but me.
I can’t.
The words he’d spoken to me curled around my heart like a serpent as he disappeared from view.
I unclenched my fist, glancing down at what still lay crumpled in my palm.
The parchment stared back up at me, the godsblood shimmering across the invisible message.
If Luca was right and it was from the Consul, there was more to all this than rebels and godsblood.
What I held in my hand was a secret. One that even the Magistrates didn’t know about.