Chapter 29. Now Luca
NOW: LUCA
I lay awake in the darkness of my tent, listening to the sound of the river.
The black sky stretched like a veil across the city, and it was quieter than it had been in weeks.
There was a hush that had fallen over the New Legion after Vale’s declaration about taking the Citadel, and now there was a different feeling in the air.
After months of fighting through the tangled streets of the Lower City, after spilling the blood of countless legionnaires, it was all ending.
Every fired ballista, soaring arrow, and knife drawn had been for this.
A new beginning. But all I could feel as I lay awake in the dark was the sense that if Maris Casperia didn’t make it out of Isara alive, then it had all been for nothing.
What did that say about the man who’d started this war?
What did it mean for the people who’d followed him?
I sat up, letting my feet hit the floor, and searched for my tunic in the dark. I hadn’t even finished pulling it over my head before I’d made it outside, and the cool night breeze rushed around me, the smell of the river thick in the mist.
The idea had been turning in my mind since we’d left the bridge.
There was only one way this ended for me and that was with Maris on the other side of the wall.
If I wanted to make that happen, I had to cross a line Vale and I couldn’t come back from if anyone found out.
But what Vale didn’t know, he couldn’t be held accountable for. That was what I was counting on.
I followed the row of tents along the river until I found the one I was looking for.
The tribune spent only a few hours in his own quarters, sleeping when I did.
But what I needed from him wouldn’t wait until morning.
I glanced up the street, checking to be sure it was empty before I pulled the canvas opening back and ducked inside.
The space was cold in a way that made it feel bare and empty, and when I reached the cot in the corner, I realized that it was.
The quilts were neatly folded, the bed not slept in. When I turned in a circle, eyeing the contents of the small table and the trunk beside the door, it didn’t look like the place had been used in days. Weeks, maybe.
I stepped back outside, eyes scanning the peaks of the tents along the row until I spotted Asinia’s. His quarters were next to Vale’s.
The entrance to the Commander’s tent was still, but I waited, watching to be sure he was asleep before I crossed the path.
When I reached Asinia’s tent and pulled back the canvas, the diffused glow of starlight fell on the cot inside.
The quilts were only half draped over two entwined bodies, and the broad, bare expanse of the tribune’s back was visible.
The sight made me swallow hard, a hundred memories of lying like that with Maris flooding through my mind. The smell of her hair. Her warm weight in my arms.
As if the tribune could sense me there, he gently stirred, head turning and eyes squinting when he saw me. I met his eyes, tipping my head toward the street and, slowly, he sat up, untangling himself from Asinia’s embrace.
I stepped outside, running one hand over my head and down the back of my neck, asking myself if I was really willing to do this. It wasn’t just a betrayal to the New Legion. It was more than any Centurion should ever ask of a tribune. And somehow, I knew that mine wouldn’t refuse me.
He came outside, still fastening the belt low on his hips, and the clouds broke just enough for the moonlight to touch him.
I didn’t know if it was the sight of him without his armor, or if it was seeing him sleeping in Asinia’s arms, but he looked different to me then.
More human than the quiet soldier who shadowed me day and night.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was deeper with sleep, his face serious as he looked me over. As if searching for some evidence of what was going on.
“Can I trust you?” I said, looking him in the eye.
He visibly flinched at the question. For a moment, that empty look on his face made me unsure what his answer might be.
“Yes. You can,” he said.
I exhaled and the tribune’s eyes grew more focused. Concerned, even.
I instinctively glanced over his shoulder to Vale’s tent. If he knew what I was about to do, he would be furious, and I had to ask myself again what I was willing to risk. If I put him between me and the whole of the New Legion, he would do the right thing. He would choose them.
The tribune followed my gaze to Vale’s quarters. “My allegiance is to you, Centurion. Not the legion,” he said.
I wasn’t sure he understood the weight of what he was saying. What kind of danger those words held. They were the seeds of treason. The same ones we’d planted months, even years, before the war.
“What do you need?” he asked.
I took a step closer to him. “I need you to get a medallion.”
His head tilted, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me. “A medallion,” he repeated.
“One that bears a name of no significance. A name that won’t draw any attention.” I paused. “And then I need you to get it across the river.”
Understanding slowly settled in his features, and he fell quiet.
He looked at the ground between us, and I could see his mind turning with the implications of what I was saying.
I was asking him to commit more than one serious crime, and not just against Isara.
Stealing a medallion wasn’t like stealing a possession.
It was a sacred document. A holy thing. And crossing the river without the Commander’s permission was an entirely different kind of offense.
If he was caught, he wouldn’t just be risking his own life.
He could break the agreement we’d just made with the Consul.
“The woman.” He watched my face for confirmation. When I said nothing, he sighed. “Are you asking me to help you protect a Magistrate?”
I stared at him, looking for any clue as to what he was thinking now. I’d suspected that he’d put together more about Maris than I wanted to believe, but he’d said nothing. Now I wanted to know why.
“You know who she is,” I said as I realized it.
He didn’t deny it. “I don’t know who she is to you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” he argued. “My job is to protect you.”
“This is how you do it.” My voice was uneven now. I sounded desperate. And I was.
He stared at me, waiting.
“I end,” I breathed, “with her.”
The truth of it was laid bare in the words. There was no pretense in them. No posturing. That was the whole of it—of everything. The only reason I had to draw air into my lungs was across the Sophanes. And I couldn’t think of anything I wouldn’t do, anything I wouldn’t ask for, to save her.
“How do you know you can trust her? She’s one of them,” he whispered.
“She’s the only one I trust.”
The tribune took two steps to the riverbank’s edge, staring out at the water. He was silent for a long time. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but if you want me to do this, then I need to know more than I do right now.”
I would say the same in his position. He had everything he needed to report me as a traitor, and it was incriminating enough that not even Vale would be able to save me. The tribune held every advantage, every power in his hands. And I had no choice but to trust him with it.
“What is your name, tribune?” I said.
He turned around, facing me. It had been more than a month since he’d been assigned to me, and I’d never asked. I hadn’t wanted to know.
“Théo,” he answered.
The family name wasn’t familiar to me, most likely a Lower City bloodline like so many others that had never really mattered. Not in the eyes of Isara.
I cast my gaze across the river, to the faint outline of the Citadel’s dome. “The only thing you need to know, Théo, is that there was a time when I had to choose between my duty and my heart.”
“And what happened?” he asked.
“I chose wrong.”