“You’re a remarkable young woman, Fallon,” he continued, as if we were having a pleasant discussion about something as meaningless as the weather. “And Caesar is not the only one you’ve beguiled with your—admittedly barbaric—charms.” He put a hand to his heart. “I too feel such kinship with you. Affection, even. Perhaps not in the same realm as the hopeless yearning my son bears for you, but I almost feel you are the daughter of my heart, Fallon. Not Caesar’s. Perhaps, when you are dead, I will honor your passing with a mask in this very room.”
He gestured with the silver feather to the wall of ghostly faces, and a shudder of revulsion ran through my entire body. Then he turned and held the feather out, pointed at me, as if it were a dagger. He took another step toward me when, suddenly, the ebony door swung open, and I almost gasped with relief as Cai stepped into the shrine room. Quint and Antonia were with him. Antonia was wearing her crescent blade strapped to her arm.
“Step away, Father,” Cai said. “Please . . .”
“Caius—”
“Now!”
The rasp of scabbards as Cai drew his double blades was enough to make the senator close his mouth and take a single step backward, away from me. But a dangerous anger flared in his eyes as he glared at his decurion son.
“Fallon,” Cai said, “come to me.”
I walked backward in the direction of Cai’s voice, not taking my eyes off his father. I was almost there when the double doors leading to the courtyard burst open and a wash of blinding daylight flooded the room, accompanied by seven men in the armor and regalia of the city vigiles.
With Aeddan at their head.
“Your carriage driver is waiting, my lord Varro,” he said to Cai’s father, with a deferential bow.
“Ever the snake,” I said, glaring at Aeddan as if I could set him on fire with my eyes.
He met my gaze unflinchingly and shrugged. “At least I’m consistent.”
“Thank you, Aeddan,” Varro said. “You are a loyal Son of Dis, and you will be rewarded.”
Cai took a step forward. “Father—”
“No, Caius!” Varro silenced him with a slash of his hand through the air. “I will brook no further opposition from you. This isn’t a game, boy, and you have no idea what’s at stake. You don’t understand—I know that—but one day soon you will come to realize I’m doing this for the Republic. For you, my son.”
“I’m not your son,” Cai said, his face twisted with conflicting emotions—grief, disappointment, betrayal . . . love. “Not anymore. You’ve forfeited the right to address me as such.”
Varro’s mouth disappeared into a hard line, and the planes of his handsome face twisted into a bitter grimace. “The girl is not to be harmed,” he said to Aeddan and the vigiles. “My son . . . is not to be killed. The others, I do not care what happens to them.”
Aeddan nodded and unsheathed the sword that hung at his hip. His mouth turned up in a smile, but his eyes remained cold. “And the ludus challenge?” he asked.
“Must go on as planned.” Varro was adamant. “See to it that you get her there and in costume and ready to perform.”
“I won’t lose,” I said.
“Yes, my dear, you will.” He gazed at me with an expression of bleak satisfaction. “I’m sure you think your abilities are at their peak, but it’s amazing the subtle, barely discernible diminishing in one’s muscle strength that occurs when one has consumed small amounts of hemlock in wine over the course of several nights. I think that, when the time comes and the cornua horn sounds to start the fight, you’ll find that your strength is not what it was. Your reflexes, just that fraction of a second slower. Your eyesight, just a touch blurry . . . Oh yes, you will lose. And with that defeat, so go all of Caesar’s victories. That stain will stick to him like tar. And it will spread. And the mob will turn on him.”
Aeddan’s face remained impassive as his eyes locked with mine.
“I’ll leave your tainted heart for Pontius Aquila to feast upon.” Senator Varro smiled at me, an expression of pure malice. “Perhaps, if I’m very lucky, the spirit of the hemlock will rid me of him as well.”
Then the leader of the Sons of Dis cast one last, bleak look back at his son before he turned and stalked through the double doors, the folds of his purple-striped robes billowing in his wake. Aeddan closed the doors behind him, plunging the room back into a sepulchral gloom, and the vigiles Varro had left behind—all hard-bitten men by the looks of them, probably veterans of the legion—fanned out in a loose circle around us.
Wordlessly, Cai handed me one of his swords, and stepped up to flank me. Quint stepped up on the other side. Antonia started to hum a little under her breath in anticipation of the coming fight and turned to guard my back, her crescent-blade weapon reflecting fire all along its edge.
But we were outnumbered two to one. At least, I thought so.
The sound of hoofbeats and the creak of Varro’s carriage wheels in the courtyard grew faint, disappearing into the distance. Aeddan stood by the doors, listening, and then turned his attention back to the room. I tightened my grip on the hilt of my sword as he strode across the marble-tiled floor . . . through the circle of vigiles . . . to take up a defensive stance between me and Quint. I saw him share a glance with Cai.
“He’s gone,” Aeddan said.
“Good,” Cai answered, the rasp of iron in his tone. “Then let’s get this over with so we can be on our way as well.”
One of the vigiles—the most scarred, battle-worn one—snarled in Aeddan’s direction. “You treacherous scum,” he said. “The Sons of Dis will have your heart out for this.”
“I doubt it,” Aeddan said. “And they wouldn’t find it palatable if they did.”
Then there was no more time for talk.
The vigile’s snarl turned to a grunt of exertion as he launched himself into an attack, aiming for Aeddan’s shoulder. Aeddan ducked, and I darted in with a slash of my blade that drew an arc of blood from the fleshy part of the attacker’s sword arm. But I wasn’t fast enough to evade the punch he aimed at my head without even pausing to acknowledge the wound I’d dealt him. His knuckles caught me a glancing blow to my chin, and I reeled back, off balance and cursing.
When he came at me again with a second punch, I didn’t bother to duck. I just blocked the blow with my sword. He didn’t have time to scream in pain before I circled my blade through the air and lunged forward, burying the point in his chest. He fell back, and I yanked my sword from between his ribs, kicking away his slumping corpse.
As I regrouped for another attacker, I saw Antonia put her crescent blade to good use. The man she used it on didn’t even know that his throat had been opened up before he was on the floor, staring empty-eyed up at the ceiling. Quint saw it happen too, and offered a grunt of approval. Then he turned and dispatched his own attacker. The remaining vigiles fought grimly, but they proved no real match for two trained legionnaires and three angry gladiators.
Soon, the room was quiet. Still.
Red.
The blood pooled beneath our feet, seeping from the mortal wounds of the seven dead vigiles. I stood there, catching my wind, when Cai turned to Antonia.
“Find Neferet,” he said. “Hurry—and tell her to bring her satchel!”
I blinked at him. None of us was injured.
“I don’t think it’ll do them any good,” I said, gesturing at the bodies of the vigiles on the floor.