“He fell. No one could have survived that.”
“But—”
Crius gripped her shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes. “He’s dead. Xanthus is dead.”
Attia pulled away with a wordless cry. The others gave her a wide berth as she staggered past. Then all at once, the world she’d known came crashing down around her. She fell to her knees, dug her fingers into the earth, and wept.
So much had been taken. So many had been lost. And so often, she’d failed the ones she loved. She could all but see their blood on her hands. Maybe Lucius was right. Maybe no amount of penance would ever wipe her clean, and she would carry the memory of her failures to the bitter end. The shame was more profound than any she’d ever known. And she wasn’t sure if it was worth fighting anymore.
With quiet deliberation, tears still streaming down her face, Attia stood and walked to the edge of the cliff. A harsh wind whipped at her hair and tunic, as though it knew the agony that coursed through her.
Lucretia was the only one who moved—the only one who could even begin to understand the urge to stand at the edge and fall. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Attia and whispered, “Come back.”
Why? Attia couldn’t even say the word.
But Lucretia must have heard it in her own way. She reached out and put something hard and cool in Attia’s hand. “Please come back.”
Attia looked down to see the warped remains of her pendant. The iron ring had broken away in jagged intervals, and much of the silver had melted, distorting the edges and giving the once finely carved falcon a hideous tail. Deep black burns scarred the wings so that they looked more like scales, and the waves in its claws looked like deadly blades. Only the stone in its chest remained whole and clear, mocking the emptiness inside of her.
Lucretia left her then, and Attia stared out at the sea, waiting for her thoughts to clear.
“I’m sorry,” Rory whispered behind her.
Attia hadn’t even heard her come close. She turned to look at her.
“I think … I think it was my fault.” Tears tracked down Rory’s face, and her blue eyes were red and swollen.
Attia shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “None of this was your fault.”
“But you came back for me,” Rory said.
A few feet away, Sabina put her face into her hands and began to sob. Ennius stared at the ground with a glazed look on his face.
“Of course I did.” Attia reached out her arm and Rory hurried into her embrace. “I couldn’t leave you.”
“What happens now?” Rory asked. “Where’s Lucius?”
Attia closed her eyes. How could she tell the child that her family had abandoned her to the fire and smoke? How could she tell her that life would go on, that it would somehow be good again?
How would she ever be able to forget what she’d lost?
“I don’t know,” Attia said. Her voice broke on the last word. It was the only honest thing she could think to say, and yet it was so inadequate. “I don’t know.”
Rory lifted her small face and looked at her. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t leave you either.”
*
While the others slept—or tried—Attia watched the smoke from Mount Vesuvius unfurl slowly throughout the night. It made her think of the mists that Xanthus said covered his home in Britannia.
He would never again see those rocky hills, just like she would never again see Thrace. But the yearning she’d held on to, the regret and heartsickness, had all transferred onto something else. She’d wanted to go home. She’d wanted to be free. But now she would trade all the minutes left in her life for just one last chance to see Xanthus.
She couldn’t help herself from replaying those final seconds as she watched him fall. But slowly, the better memories came—the first time she saw him truly smile, laughing beside him in the middle of the night, feeling his lips brush against hers and knowing that when she woke up, he would be beside her.
She would never have any of that again. One morning very soon, she would wake up alone. And she feared that more than any weapon she’d ever faced.
So as the long, black night of the Winter Solstice crept on, she kept a new vigil. Not for the gods or her sins or the spirits that waited for her in the underworld. But for Xanthus, for her father, for her people.
For them, she faced the darkness and waited for the dawn.
CHAPTER 26
Albinus woke first. He sat up in the gray light of morning, and his eyes immediately focused on the low-hanging cloud that spread across the horizon. “What is that?” he asked. “Is that smoke?”
“And ash,” Attia said. “Wake the others. It’s time to leave.”
“Have you slept at all?”
“Hurry.”
Sabina and Lucretia stirred a minute later, and Crius barked a threat that Albinus wasn’t to touch him if he wanted to keep his fingers. The others woke to Albinus’s foot in their backsides, and soon they were all mounted and ready to leave.
Attia carefully picked up Rory, who’d fallen asleep in the grass beside her, before handing her to Sabina. The little girl opened her eyes before dropping her head onto Sabina’s shoulder and falling asleep again.
“There’s nowhere for us to go,” Gallus said. His usually smiling face was drawn with grief.
“I can’t even remember what my life was like before this,” Iduma said in a quieter voice than he’d ever used. “I couldn’t get home if I tried.”
“We could keep going north to the mountains,” Ennius suggested. “No one would follow us there in the middle of winter.”
“They wouldn’t follow because they wouldn’t want to freeze along with us,” Crius said. “We should go south to Egypt. The weather will be fair this time of year.”
Albinus shook his head. “Egypt is just another province. We won’t be safe there. The western islands are better. Sicily, perhaps.”
As they argued, Attia tugged on the reins of her horse and turned away.
“And where the hell are you going?” Crius called.
“Rome,” Attia said over her shoulder.
Albinus spurred his horse forward to block her way, forcing her to stop. “I think you may have missed the part where we decided it was in our best interests to avoid the Romans,” he said.
“I am going to Rome,” Attia said again, her voice firm and even. “I am going to find Crassus Flavius, and I am going to kill him and every member of his family.”
The others all stared at her in shock.
“You want to kill the Flavians?” Crius said as he pulled his horse up alongside hers. “Are you mad?”
Ennius frowned. “Attia, I don’t think…”
“You’re a fool if you think you can reach Crassus or that you can assassinate the Princeps of Rome!” Crius shouted.
“It’s suicide, even for you,” Iduma said.
She silenced them all with a look she’d learned from her father. “If the Flavians hadn’t invaded Thrace and Gaul and Britannia, none of us would be here. Our homes would still be standing. Our families would be whole.”