“But I did, and it was warm and soft and not at all like mother said it would be. Look!” She turned her face to the side. “I didn’t burn!”
Attia wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Blisters maybe, or some kind of terrible rash or swelling or bloody wound. But all she saw was a flushed cheek like berries and cream, and bright blue eyes that shone with delight.
“It didn’t hurt! It felt like … like fire, only softer and just on this spot,” Rory said, pointing at her cheek. “I used to feel the moon. But it was nothing like this.”
Attia smiled, though her heart was still racing. “You can feel moonlight?”
“At night, I open the windows in my room and pretend the moon is a sun just for me. But that wasn’t like this. Not at all.” Her eyes grew round. “I have to show Mother and Lucius,” she said, and hurried to the back of the cart to open the door.
“No, Rory, wait!”
The alarm in Attia’s voice caught her attention, and Rory turned back to stare at her. “What’s wrong?”
Attia probably should have realized it during their time together. Rory was clever and vivacious, and her little limbs were perfectly normal. She lost breath quickly, and she was so incredibly pale, but what else could be expected from a child who’d been shut away in the dark her whole life?
For a reason that no one said out loud, her family had kept her hidden—kept her from friends, from society, even from sunlight. They claimed it was for her health, and the household believed them. Why wouldn’t they? But the clear skin on Rory’s face was proof enough. She wasn’t really ill, and her family knew it. So what were they hiding?
“We can’t show them yet,” Attia said.
Rory cocked her head as she pulled her hand away from the door. “Why not?”
Because they can’t know that I know.
“Because … well, because the cart is still moving, and…” Attia swallowed hard. “We should keep this our secret.”
“Even from Lucius?” Rory asked, her mouth puckering into a frown.
Attia nodded. “Yes. Just for a little while.”
“All right, but…” She looked up at the little slits in the cart. “Can I look out again?”
She looked so excited, so hopeful, that Attia couldn’t bring herself to deny her. With a weak smile, she unwrapped Rory from the yards of cream-colored fabric. She still looked so small, so fragile, but determined, too.
Attia kissed her cheek and held her close for a moment before positioning her hands under her arms. Then she held Rory up to the light.
CHAPTER 16
Timeus’s estate in Pompeii sat on the very edge of a cliff that jutted out over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Somehow, it was a different sea from the one that had greeted them in Ardea—no fiery colors, no glittering expanse. Near Pompeii, the sea was calm and deep, its blue a hundred times darker than the evening sky.
Silence and stillness, Attia thought. Much like the gladiator standing beside her.
As soon as she’d entered Xanthus’s room, she could see the guilt and sadness written across his face. She could feel it in the hesitant touch of his hand on her cheek before he turned away. He was glad she’d stayed, and yet he wished she hadn’t. Attia knew he blamed himself for her bondage now more than ever, and they held themselves on the sharp edge of so many unspoken words. Attia wished he could just understand that freedom wouldn’t mean much without him. Not anymore. She wished he knew that, for her, there was no escaping what was between them.
Like statues, they stood together at the single window in his room, where they had a clear view of Mount Vesuvius to the north. It loomed over the city like a storm cloud, angry and brooding. Ash dyed its sloping sides in broad strokes of gray and black. Its mouth frayed at the edges, exhaling gusts of smoky breath that melted into the sky above it. Despite the coolness of the evening, the air around the mountain shimmered with low heat, ominously caressing the houses tucked into its dark folds.
The main road snaked along the edge of the jagged coastline below. Merchants, fishermen, and vendors rushed back and forth like ants, frantic to finish their work before nightfall. As Attia watched, a driver pulled a little too hard on the reins, and his cart’s wheel nearly slipped over the edge.
“You’d think they would just build a wider road,” Attia muttered as men hurried to right the cart. “Save themselves the trouble.” Her eyes drifted back to the mountain. “Then again, you’d think they wouldn’t have tried building a city at all next to that.”
“Attia.”
The moment Xanthus said her name in that heavy tone he used when he was upset, her insides clenched.
“There are things I haven’t told you yet,” Xanthus said.
Attia sighed. “There are things I haven’t told you yet either.”
He watched her patiently, obviously hesitant to speak his own truths just yet.
“Sabina is a Thracian,” Attia said.
Xanthus’s brows rose. “What?”
“She told me in Ardea. I still can’t believe it.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one.”
“Attia, I’m not asking out of curiosity. If anyone else heard her say that—”
“No one knows,” Attia said. “No one else was even there. Well. Except…”
“Except?”
“Rory was in the room—”
“Attia!”
“But she was asleep! She didn’t hear anything, and even if she did, what would it matter? Why would anyone care if Sabina is a Thracian?”
“Because you’re all supposed to be dead!”
Attia froze.
The statement, in and of itself, was not surprising. Thrace was attacked and defeated, and everyone knew that Thracians didn’t surrender. It would follow that there were no other survivors.
But there was something deeply disturbing about Xanthus’s tone, about the way his face tightened with frustration and horror. Attia swallowed hard and waited for the next part. Not an apology, no. Comfort? She didn’t need that either. An explanation, then.
Xanthus leaned his elbows on the windowsill and rubbed his face with his hands. “You don’t know that House.”
“The House of Timeus?”
“The House of Flavius.”
Attia frowned. “The Princeps?”
Xanthus turned to her with weary eyes and breathed out slowly through his nose. “What do you know about Titus?”
“His father was Vespasian,” Attia replied. “When he died last year, Titus inherited and became the leader of Rome.”
“And do you know what Vespasian said on his deathbed?”
Attia shook her head.
“He said, ‘Oh, I think I am becoming a god!’”
The fine hairs on the back of Attia’s neck stood up. “How do you know that?”
“His brother Crassus told his nephew Titus, who told his good friend Timeus.” Xanthus scoffed. “The world still believes that Rome is a republic at heart, with elected officials and the Senate to represent the people. Not emperors or godheads. But it was the Republic—under Vespasian and Crassus—that forced its way into Britannia, that sacked Herodium, then Cremona, then Jerusalem.”