Chapter 24. Now Luca
NOW: LUCA
The smell of incense still clung to me as I stood at the mouth of the north bridge, the tribune at my side. Below, the river ran rough, a sign that rain had fallen in the mountains. Now it traveled down to the sea in search of its freedom.
The tribune had taken extra time with my armor, making it shine like it had in the days before the war. It was strange to think of it like that—before and after. We were mere moments from walking onto that bridge and there, our course would be set.
On the other side, the last of the Loyal Legion was waiting.
I knew some of them—older legionnaires who’d trained us as recruits back when no one thought any of this could ever happen.
When the fighting began, they’d chosen their side.
Some because they hadn’t been able to stomach treason, while others just had too much to lose in the district.
I didn’t envy or judge them, but I wouldn’t forgive them, either. None of us would.
“Are you absolutely sure she crossed?” I spoke lowly, so that only the tribune could hear.
He nodded. “I’m sure.”
For the second time, he’d proven himself trustworthy, even if I didn’t like the fact that now he was in possession of my secrets.
What he would do with them, I couldn’t guess.
I wasn’t fool enough to believe there wouldn’t be a moment when he would have to choose, too.
Only the gods knew what would happen then.
I hadn’t been able to focus since I watched Maris walk out of the camp.
In the last few months, I’d found a way to live with the gnawing wound, stitched over and concealed, at the center of my bones.
It was like poisoned marrow, festering from the inside.
I’d managed to keep it from destroying me.
But peering down into Maris’ face, seeing her, had made me wonder if that was true.
I didn’t like the look in her eyes when they met mine. Like she didn’t recognize me anymore.
In a way, I didn’t recognize her, either. There was little trace of the fire-blooded girl who used to laugh with her head thrown back, eyes sparkling. That softness I’d found beneath her self-protective exterior was gone. I’d done that. I’d been the one to break that part of her.
Not that one.
I could still hear my uncle’s words low in my ear the night I first saw Maris Casperia.
Looking back, maybe he had been right. Maybe part of me wished I had listened.
More than once, I’d wondered if all this would have happened if I had never kissed her.
Never touched her. Never held her in my arms. But I was still thankful to the gods that Kastor lived long enough to learn I had.
The memory of holding her was like a vise in my chest. I hadn’t known what it would feel like when I left her in the district six months ago. I didn’t know that the divide of the Sophanes would feel like a knife twisted between my ribs.
The swing of hammers and chisels behind me silenced, the camp falling quiet, and I turned to see Vale making his way toward the bridge.
The legionnaires stopped their work, standing with lifted chins as he passed, every eye watching him.
There was a reverence wherever he went, his family name uttered with solemn heaviness.
Saturian. The nobleborn legionnaire who’d turned his back on his own father and cast his lot with the Lower City.
And in part, at least, he’d done it for me.
He stopped behind the granite colonnade that overlooked the river, peering out at the Citadel across the water. Its high dome gleamed in the sunlight, the spire at its top like the tip of a spear piercing the heavens.
Asinia and my tribune placed themselves in front of us, side by side at the entrance to the bridge. A look passed between them with a familiarity that I hadn’t caught before.
“Where did you find him?” I asked, leaning closer to Vale and keeping my voice low. “My tribune.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, where did he come from?”
Vale smirked, a once familiar sight I’d missed.
“What?” I said.
He shook his head. “You don’t trust anyone.”
“No, I don’t.”
“He’s just a kid from the Lower City. An orphan. I think his father was killed in the first Loyal Legion attack. He volunteered for the position.”
“Volunteered?” I studied him.
Tribunes were usually selected by the Commander or the Centurions, which was considered a great honor among legionnaires.
It was a quick way to rise in the ranks if you lived through the posting.
But it was also the most dangerous position to be in because your life was no longer your own.
It was meant only to act as a shield for whomever you served.
“He was quite adamant,” Vale added. “I accepted as a favor to Asinia, more than anything.”
“Asinia?”
“They belong to each other,” he said.
My eyes moved from my tribune to Vale’s. The two of them stood side by side, eyes now fixed ahead. I’d known that Asinia had someone, but I hadn’t paid enough attention to find out who it was. Vale, on the other hand, never missed anything.
Flags rose on the other side of the bridge, and a contingent spilled from the mouth of the Citadel, where the Consul’s brilliant robes were like a drop of blue ink against the white stone.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“This is what we wanted, right? What we fought for?” he answered.
His tone conveyed his need for reassurance. He wanted me to tell him that it had been worth it. All of it.
I pushed down the image that had plagued me since the first fight broke out in the Lower City.
There was no way we could have known how many would die between the Loyal Legion, the rebels, and the citizens of Isara caught in between.
The temples had been performing funeral rites almost every day since.
“It is,” I answered, nowhere near convinced.
If Vale could hear my lack of conviction, he didn’t show it. He seemed to relax a little, resting his hand on his belt as we waited.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do this alone?”
He cleared his throat. “I can’t.”
The Consul had accepted Vale’s invitation more quickly than we’d expected, with no qualms about our conditions.
He was to meet us at the center of the bridge with only two legionnaires.
They wouldn’t cross one inch into the Lower City and we wouldn’t cross an inch into the Citadel District.
But it couldn’t have been expected for the Commander to bring a Centurion.
Vale had insisted I come, and I wouldn’t deny him that.
For all his courage and valor, he didn’t want to face his father alone.
The Consul crossed the bridge with determined steps that weren’t at all hesitant. His eyes didn’t even lift to our side of the river, as if he had no concern about what he would see there.
Asinia and my tribune walked in lockstep with their javelins drawn, and the legionnaires on the other side did the same. We followed, the swell of the New Legion at our back like the heat of a roaring fire. They’d all come to the riverfront to watch their Commander meet the Consul on the bridge.
My stomach twisted as the district drew closer.
It was the nearest I’d come to it since all this began, and the only thing I could think was that it was too quiet.
Like the sound of the forest that edged along the coast. But the smell of the sea was tainted on the smoke-tinged wind.
Nearly every window of every villa across the water was completely dark, the streets empty of the sounds that usually drifted through the market and between the buildings.
The tribunes’ eyes were on the rooftops and balconies in the distance, trailing along the riverfront and up to the Citadel.
The legionnaires were there, but their weapons weren’t drawn, and I tried to imagine what they thought when they looked at us.
Did they still see the ungrateful, selfish soldiers who’d started a rebellion?
Or had they begun to see the Consul and the Magistrates for who they were?
They weren’t the only ones who’d come to watch. At our backs, hordes of citizens from the Lower City had begun to gather, ready to see us deliver on our promise. If we didn’t, they’d bring their own retribution. On us.
The Consul’s legionnaires stopped in the center of the bridge only paces before our tribunes.
They stood silent, the rush of the river beneath us, before finally stepping aside.
There, the Consul had his hands clasped behind his back as he looked at us.
I remembered thinking the first time I saw him that he looked highborn.
His strong, pointed nose and cleft chin were features you’d see on the statues at the temple.
And that blank look on his face made it feel as if he could be thinking anything.
As if it would be impossible to predict what he might do.
It ignited a prey instinct in people. A lowering and shrinking. And he liked it.
“Saturian, Matius.” His tongue rolled around in his mouth as if he didn’t like the taste of the words. “Such a shame to speak such honorable names at a time like this.”
Vale didn’t react. He ignored the insult, getting to the point. “We’d like to discuss the requirements for surrender of the Citadel District.”
“There will be no surrender,” the Consul said flatly.
Vale stared at him. Even if he refused to look for himself, the Consul had to be aware of the legion at our backs. They were just waiting for the order. Had been for days. And when Vale gave it, the district would fall.
“If you think you can take the Citadel, then by all means try.”
There was something else beneath the words, and I searched for their meaning in the faces of the Consul’s legionnaires behind him. But their expressions were empty. Hollow. If I had to guess, I’d say they had no idea what he was up to.
“We plan to open the gates in two days’ time, at dawn,” Vale continued. “Anyone in the Citadel District who wishes to leave will be able to do so, with our word that no harm will come to them. Magistrates, however, will not be permitted to leave. Neither will you.”
The Consul’s wolflike eyes sharpened.
“Anyone else who chooses to go will be required to surrender their medallion and will be stripped of their citizenship to Isara. Their family names will be wiped from the city’s tombs and any other claim they may have within these walls will be forfeit.”
“I see,” he said. “And what of your family name, Saturian?”
Vale and the Consul stared at each other, unblinking.
The Consul wasn’t the only one who’d posed the question.
I’d heard other legionnaires speculating about it over late-night fires.
What would Vale do with his family name when his father fell?
Would he strike it from the history of the city or remake it in his own image?
“Once the gates close, we will take control of the Citadel,” Vale continued.
The Consul smiled. Actually smiled. And when he did, he looked even more like a god. “I understand.”
I waited for a threat to follow, but it didn’t. There was no mention of grain or the tribunal or bringing the New Legion to justice. There was no resistance to the stipulation about the Magistrates.
A slow, creeping chill slithered up the back of my neck.
It was that same feeling I had when I opened the young legionnaire’s satchel and saw those falcons.
There was something more happening here.
Something wrong. And beneath that, there was a panic brewing inside me.
I’d counted on Vale and Roskia’s prediction that the Consul would refuse our terms and that we’d have to negotiate.
But he wasn’t even going to argue, and the words had already left Vale’s mouth.
Maris was a Magistrate in the district. And we’d just made a deal that ensured she wouldn’t get out.
“Is that all?” the Consul said, his robes gently rippling in the breeze.
Vale gave a single nod.
“Then I’ll see you soon.” He turned on his heel, striding back across the bridge, and his legionnaires followed.
Out of reaction more than anything, Vale and I did the same, with the crowd behind us watching.
“What the hell was that?” I murmured.
Vale’s voice was clipped. “Good question.”
“He didn’t even blink about the Magistrates.”
“No, he didn’t.” Vale turned his face toward me. “What are you going to do about your problem in the Citadel District?”
I swallowed hard. He was worried that I was going to be backed into a corner I couldn’t get myself out of. There was no question of what would happen if it came down to that.
“I’ll take care of it,” I answered.
The tribunes flanked us as we stepped back onto the riverbank and Vale took a moment to look out over the citizens and legionnaires who were gathered there. Sunlight glinted on armor as they stood waiting, and when Vale finally began to speak, his voice was the only sound.
“In two days, when the sun falls behind that mountain”—his voice rang out as he lifted a hand, pointing to the towering peak to the west—“we take the Citadel!”
Cheers erupted, filling the camp, and gooseflesh raced over every inch of my skin.
This is what we wanted, right? What we fought for?
Vale’s words returned to me.
It was. But now that we were standing here, I was consumed with a fear I’d never known.
Not like the one that filled me when I saw Rhea Vitrasian fall to the Forum floor or the first time I saw the bodies of Magistrates hanging from the bridge.
This was a different thing. A wild, writhing terror I couldn’t contain.
I’d thought I was a man with nothing to lose, but I was wrong.