Chapter 34. Before Luca #2
Light glinted on something up on the scaffolding, and every face lifted to watch as one of the gods drew a javelin from his robe.
The others followed as the music swelled, and as the drums pounded, reverberating in my bones, each of the javelins was thrown.
They soared down to the stage, the Magistrates falling one by one, toppling into a pile as red stained their white robes.
Rhea was drawing from the myths of the gods to illustrate that their favor was reflected in the harvests, and it wasn’t a far leap to decipher the meaning.
There was a clear line that could be drawn from one point to another—that the problem with the fields lay in the favor of the gods.
That their retribution was coming for Isara.
A chilling silence descended in the theater as, slowly, the audience began to understand. Faces turned to look at each other, bodies awkwardly shifting. I looked down at the door that led to the side of the stage, where Rhea usually watched the performance. But I couldn’t see her shadow there.
I rose from my seat quietly, following the steps down until I was pushing through the curtain. The small viewing chamber was empty.
The passage into Vitrasian’s study from the theater couldn’t be accessed without crossing the stage, so I slipped out of the theater, taking the dark arched corridors to the entrance from the Citadel’s gardens.
When I reached the courtyard, a single light shone from a window across the pond. Rhea’s study.
When I came through the doors, she was sitting at her desk, her earrings glittering as she worked her stylus over a parchment. She didn’t look up when I entered, as if she’d merely been waiting for me. As if this were any other day, her working over her studies, me serving as her novice.
“What have you done?” I said gravely.
She stopped writing, taking her time to lift her gaze. “They asked for a play, and I’ve given them one.”
I stared at her, heart sinking. The role of the Philosopher in Isara was to be a thinker, and every generation of Philosophers was different.
Vitrasian’s tenure had been marked by wide-ranging accomplishments.
While most Philosophers focused on one area of thought, Vitrasian’s mind was spread across many disciplines. And she excelled at them all.
In my years with her, we’d spent significant time on the school of intellectual thought about the gods, religion, and their roles in society. She’d been enlisted by the Consul and the Magistrates to help shape the public’s opinion. But this wasn’t what the Citadel had in mind.
“What were you thinking?” I rasped.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Do I have to explain myself to a novice now?”
“Rhea.” I used her given name, something I rarely did. But I hoped it would help bring the seriousness of the situation into focus. “You need to find a way to explain this. To make it look like you didn’t intend for—”
“For what?” Her chin lifted in defiance. She’d always liked an argument. But there was something different about this. She looked almost … scared.
“Why are the fields dying, Luca?” she asked, impatient.
I crossed my arms, ready for the string of questions I could feel coming. “There are countless variables that impact the harvests. No two seasons are the same. You taught me that.”
“Alright.” She nodded. “Why has this harvest failed? And the one before that? And the one two years ago?”
I looked around the study, thinking. “Rain? Changes in the soil?”
“But our measurements are consistent, are they not?”
“They are. But like I said, there are many variables that—”
She interrupted me. “Variables aren’t the only thing that can be measured.
We must also measure the outcomes. The harvests have been waning for the last seven years.
Most likely before that, too. The Citadel’s granary has run out of reserves, and this will be the first year we do not have enough grain to feed our people. ”
My hands tightened into fists.
“Next year, there will be less. And the year after that, there will be none. What comes after failed harvests? What happens after drought or infestation or overly wet seasons?” she pressed.
“Famine,” I answered, more to myself than her.
But she didn’t look pleased. “The grain will stay on this side of the river. It will feed the Citadel District. The Lower City will starve, and the Forum will have their justifications. They will say that it was the will of the gods. That the city has been culled in some divine way that is acceptable. And people will accept it because they don’t want to believe the truth.
Then the Consul will take our legion to war.
We will tear apart a people, like we did to Valshad, and the collective identity of Isara will be renewed.
This is a cycle. A pattern as reliable as the seasons and the path of the moon. ”
There was no hint of emotion in her voice. No echo of it visible in her eyes, either. She was thinking like the Philosopher she was. She was looking at the problem from the perspective of its inevitable consequences.
“And the play? What is the point of that?”
Vitrasian exhaled. “It’s time the Forum considered less scientific solutions to the problem.”
I waited.
“Harotha,” she said, testing me with the Valshadi word.
I had to think about it before the translation came to me. “Atonement,” I said. “You think the gods are angry.”
“The gods are always angry,” she scoffed. “But now they are hungry for blood.”
“Then how do we appease them?”
I went rigid when I heard the sound of boots in the corridor. The unmistakable sound of a cohort of legionnaires. They were coming. For Vitrasian.
Finally, she stood, fingertips grazing the top of her desk before finding a strip of parchment. She held it over the lamp, watching it catch flame.
Her eyes met mine with a tender look. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, my love.”
The burning parchment fell from her fingers, and the fire caught quickly, racing to the floor in a river that rushed to the shelves. She’d doused the room in oil.
She watched, blank-faced, as a tangle of angry orange light engulfed the study—every scroll, every specimen, every record—in flames.