by Cass Morris
Up and down the lines they rode, driving the tribesmen back from any place where the legionaries were faltering. Once, Sempronius came around a cluster of pine trees and nearly collided with Autronius Felix, also ahorse. Felix’s dark eyes shone with bloodlust, and his sword bore the proof. He had evidently taken the same initiative as Sempronius, and Sempronius was glad to see it. He wasted no time on orders or commendations; he merely nodded, and they both swung back around to their respective units.
And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The tribesmen sounded a retreat from their lugubrious horns, and those that had not fallen to the Aventan swords rushed back into the trees. “Should we pursue?” asked a cavalryman from Sempronius’s side, but he shook his head.
“It could be another ambush if we do.”
And so the legions stood, braced for another assault, until General Onidius Praectus came down the line. He had taken a gash to the chin, and there was blood pouring from his left calf, but he did not seem to notice either injury. “There’s a clearing two miles from the front of our line,” he said. “If we can make it that far, we can make camp as quickly as possible—and then maybe find out what the hell happened here.”
Sempronius refrained from saying that he knew exactly what happened—they had been ambushed and could expect to be attacked in this manner again. Three Aventan legions crossing through the forest would be easy to track, but General Onidius was right; the best thing they could do now was to get out of this narrow passage and fortify themselves. “Our men can still march,” he said. “I’ll pass the word back to General Calpurnius. With luck, the Fourteenth may not have been hit at all.”
Onidius nodded. “They only got the back end of our line—there can only have been so many of them, after all.”
Sempronius hoped, rather than believed, that would prove true.
VIII
Stabiae
When Aulus came to greet his daughters, Alhena hovered just behind him, shifting herself from one foot to the other. All she wanted was to have her sisters to herself. She knew from the letter they’d sent ahead not to expect Vibia, not yet, and perhaps that was all to the good. However necessary the Fracture mage might be, ultimately, Alhena could not be sorry for a little time alone with Aula and Latona.
If she could get that time alone with them.
During the long days that her sisters were traveling south, Alhena had debated telling her father about the visions. Twice more, the same imagery had visited her. Maybe, maybe if she confided in her father, he would be able to do something about it. Instinct intervened—and so did observation. This was a mage’s problem; Aulus could not solve it. And she had seen his attempts to clip Latona’s wings, just as he had sought to keep Alhena safely mewed up. No, this would need to be a secret between sisters, at least for now, lest their father’s well-meaning interventions keep them from the gods’ design.
“Come in and sit,” Aulus said, after kissing first little Lucia, then Aula, then Latona on the cheeks. “I want to hear about your trip. And you—” He fixed Latona with a hard stare. “I didn’t think you’d be along without Herennius.”
“He may join us after he’s completed some business in the city,” Latona offered airily, “but he told me to go on ahead.” Alhena wondered how much truth was in that tale.
Aula’s eyes met Alhena’s over Aulus’s shoulder. She might not have had Latona’s empathic gifts, but Aula had a canny intuition all her own. “Father, we’ve been in the carriage for days. I feel jounced half to pieces and my legs are aching. You know how restless I get.” Aula spent most of her days wandering up and down the seven hills of Aven on errands, social calls, and various missions conniving for her family’s political careers; spending several days cooped up in a carriage was a trial for her. “I need a walk before I settle in.”
“And I,” Latona said, looking nearly as desperate as Alhena felt.
“Me too, me too!” Lucia crowed, bouncing up and down at her mother’s feet.
Aula, however, was swift with an alternate plan for her daughter. “But my darling, you wanted to see if there were any new kittens in the stables, didn’t you?”
“Oh! Yes!” Lucia’s face split in a gap-toothed grin. “And you said maybe we could bring one home!”
“I said I would think about it,” Aula said, settling her hands on her hips. “And I shall continue to do so, if you behave yourself. So why don’t you go help Gera set up your room, and then have her take you to the stables?” Lucia’s agreement was so swift that her fleet feet had already taken her halfway to the house before she finished promising her best behavior.
“Very well, stretch your legs, then,” Aulus said, raising his hands in defeat. “We’ve got leerfish and plover for dinner, so work yourselves up a hearty appetite.”
Alhena burst forward, seizing Latona’s hand and fairly dragging her toward the tree line. But Latona held back a moment, looking to Merula. “Would you help with the unpacking, dear? See if you can set up a desk in my room so I can keep working on the texts we brought.”
Merula’s boxy face set in a frown. “Domina, I would not like you to be going alone in the woods. There may be—”
“I think we can chaperone ourselves on a short walk,” Latona insisted. “And I would trust no one but you with my papers.”
Alhena didn’t miss the look that passed between Merula and her mistress. No doubt they had discussed Alhena’s letter, and no doubt Latona would share whatever revelations Alhena had with her girl as soon as they returned. But she appreciated the gesture. It was ever easier to speak with fewer people around, and having only her sisters was best of all.
* * *
Once they were out of earshot of the villa, Latona cast her gaze over her shoulder at Alhena. “All right then, pet,” she said, with a wry smile. “Tell me what had you so rattled that you begged me to come down.”
Though this had been her entire reason for summoning her sisters to Stabiae, Alhena struggled to fit her words together. “I—I had a vision. At the temple.” She worried her lower lip. “Three times, actually. The same each time. I mean—only the first time, at the temple. The other times, I was at home. It scared me. And I thought . . . I thought you should know. Because I think it means something’s going to happen, here.” She glanced at the shady pines around them, wishing Proserpina had sent her images a bit more literal. “Or near here.”
“What sort of a something?”
“Something . . .” Alhena bit her lower lip. “Something tearing a hole in the world.”
As Alhena shared her vision of torn earth and hills of bones, bronze gates and fiendish voices, the women continued walking. Instead of setting their usual pace, with Aula charging ahead and Alhena dreamily bringing up the rear, the three sisters drew nearly shoulder to shoulder, as though that might afford them some protection from the terrors Alhena had seen.
By the time she finished, Alhena had tied a number of knots in the fringe of her mantle. “‘All worlds shatter,’ those were the last words on the door, and I swear, it felt as though the hills around me were ready to shake themselves to bits. And those doors . . . something was behind them, something wanted through.” She shuddered, hearing their howling cry in her mind again. “They said they were hungry . . .” Alhena wrapped another loose thread around her finger and yanked hard. “I wish I could tell you better what it means. I only think it’s to do with Fracture magic.” It made sense to her, it felt right. All that bronze, and the gates, the words of chaos and fury. “And I don’t know if, even if I’m right about that, there might be one mage or many. Or how close they’re getting. Getting or . . . might get, in the future.” Her nose crinkled and her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. A better mage would know for sure . . .”
Latona reached over to cup her chin. “A more experienced mage, pet. Better has naught to do with it.”
Alhena shrugged off the reassu
rance. Latona always tried to lift her spirits with encouraging words, but it didn’t alter their situation. They all would be better off if Alhena could make herself of more practical use, and the frustration of ineptitude nibbled at her nerves. “I feel so sure something’s going to happen. Or it’s already happening. And I thought, if I got you down here, well, you can see magic. And if Vibia comes, she might not be able to see it like you can, but if it’s Discordian, then it’s a kind of Fracture, and she’ll be able to sense it, at least.”
“And maybe make sense of it.” Latona’s gait was uneven, as though she were trying to walk within the patches of warm sunlight rather than in shadow. “Yes, that may be. I only wish . . .” Latona’s lips twisted slightly. “Well. Vibia Sempronia is not the most . . . comfortable of companions.”
Aula snorted. “That’s an understatement. I’ve met more congenial geese.”
A defensive stab prompted Alhena to say, “You should be easier on her. She’s wound so tightly to keep from falling into chaos.”
“You’re right,” Latona said. “We should be more generous with her. But that wasn’t quite what I meant. More that . . .”
But before Latona could find the words, Aula supplied, “You don’t think she likes you very much.” Aula laughed as Latona sputtered the beginning of a denial. “No, no, don’t even bother, you know it’s what you’re hinting so elegantly at. And it’s of no concern. I know she doesn’t like me.” She tilted her head to one side. “But the political art is learning to work with those with whom we have a common purpose, no matter the distaste, is it not? And you are a daughter of the Vitelliae. So, fix yourself to the purpose.”
“Vibia was ready enough to believe Alhena, however little she thinks of you or me,” Latona said. “She was as disturbed by Pinarius Scaeva as I was. Maybe more. Feeling someone misuse your element . . .” A shudder moved down Latona’s back. “It’s a wretched thing.”
Alhena almost wished she would say more. She had heard some whispers of what went on at the Dictator’s court: mages who had delighted in depravity, abusing their gifts at Ocella’s behest. Some had been compelled, of course, responding to threats to themselves or their families, but others, rumor had it, needed no such persuasion. No one had ever spoken of the details around Alhena, however. Aulus had kept her as far from such things as he could manage. ‘Ignorance is comforting,’ she thought, reading the echoes of agony on Latona’s face, ‘but it is not safe.’
Latona settled her shoulders back, as though shrugging off the memories. “So I believe we may count on Vibia to help us dig out the problem at the root.” She rolled her eyes, her tone turning lighter. “I just wish I knew why, even when she’s agreeing with me, she always looks at me like she’d rather I went away.”
Aula’s eyes shot wide. “Does she know about your deliciously torrid liaison with her dear brother?”
“No!” Latona cried, coming to a halt in a patch of sun between two pines. Then she turned a horrified gaze on Alhena.
For the first time that day, amusement instead of desperation took hold of Alhena. But it was tinged with annoyance. ‘They really do forget I’m not a child, sometimes.’ Clearly they’d discussed this with each other. Why not with her?
Alhena flicked her gaze to Aula—who was blushing a fierce red, mouth agape and at an uncustomary loss for words. She arched an eyebrow at her older sister, asking with sardonic innocence, “What? Is that something I’m not supposed to know?”
“You knew?” Latona gasped, in the same moment that Aula croaked, “They’re dear friends,” in a frantic attempt to mend her slip of the tongue, “who hold each other in the highest esteem and—”
“Aula,” Alhena said, rolling her eyes. “I do wish you’d stop treating me like a taller version of Lucia.” She turned her gaze back to Latona, who had gone as pale as Aula had red. “I mean, I didn’t know-know. But I suspected.”
“I confess,” Latona said through a dry throat, “that I was rather hoping it wasn’t so obvious.”
“It’s not,” Alhena said. “At least, not to everyone. Not to most people, even. Maybe to no one. But . . .” She shrugged. “Well, I told you.” Latona’s gold and Sempronius’s darkness, intertwined. Alhena had never been able to convince Proserpina to give her more detailed or literal information. Perhaps the future was still too uncertain, but it seemed Alhena’s instincts about the haziness had been correct.
“Anyway,” Latona said, starting to walk again, “Vibia doesn’t know, I’m sure. I can’t imagine we wouldn’t have heard about it, if she did. And she’s disliked me since long before that.”
“Well,” Aula said, “there’s no accounting for taste.”
* * *
Latona wished they’d walked down to the shore, rather than into the forest. Even before Alhena had told her story of bone-built hills and fiendish voices, she had felt unsettled. In fact, the disquiet had been growing since they had passed beneath Vesuvius and onto the curving southeastern coast of Crater Bay. After hearing the substance of Alhena’s vision, the shade provided by the verdant carob trees and brushy pines no longer seemed cool and inviting, but ominous.
At least the air was sweeter here than in Aven. The breeze whipped in from the water, and without the dust from carts, the smoke from thousands of hearth fires, and the refuse of three hundred thousand lives, it stayed clear as it drifted through the town and into the wooded groves beyond the seaside ridges. Latona paused for a moment as the three sisters ascended a hill, drawing a deep breath and trying to quiet her mind. She heard the crunch of grass and underbrush beneath Aula’s feet, Alhena’s softer and more careful footfalls, the calling of birds chattering in the trees above, the rustle of leaves. ‘An Earth mage would appreciate this more than I do,’ she mused, thinking of her friend Terentilla, as near an incarnation of the goddess Diana as she could imagine. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Tilla to go for a jog through these woods bare-breasted if she felt moved to do so.’
Aula and Alhena strode a little ways ahead of her. Aula was interrogating Alhena about the temple and her friends there. In an attempt to shake the baleful mood that had crept under her skin, Latona took a deep breath, and in a slow, deliberate push, she sent her Spirit magic out into her surroundings.
It was calming, grounding. There was Aula’s familiar aura, bouncing lightly along the path; there, Alhena’s, a sense of cool water disturbed by pebbles. Non-human life was muted to nothing more than a soft glow of energy, the quiet thrum of forest life all around. She wondered if she might be able to sense someone else nearby—a hunter, perhaps, or someone foraging for nuts or berries. Nothing else hit her, until—
Latona winced and started, reflexively, to draw her magic back into herself. But she stamped down on that instinct and reached out again, more tentatively, to probe the strange presence she had encountered. Not a person, though Latona could not say why she was sure of that. The energy lacked the cohesion she associated with a person, yet it was stronger than that of an animal. Instead of emotion, she simply felt force. Magical force.
“Well, we should have them over for dinner sometime,” Aula was saying. “This Moira, at least, since you like her so well. Shouldn’t we, Latona? And maybe if Father sees—”
“Wait.”
“—how well you’re doing at—what?” Stopping mid-sentence had physical force, and Aula halted. “Latona, what?”
Latona closed her eyes. “Just . . . quiet, please. I’m trying to—”
To her credit, Aula actually managed to remain silent for a brief moment before saying, “Trying to what? Latona?” But Alhena hushed her.
Whatever it was, it didn’t like Latona probing at it. Latona had to swallow her fear and the inclination to back away: that was what it, whatever it was, wanted her to do. Initially, it tried to divert her attention, spinning her magical tendrils away. As she pressed on, though, it responded with anger—not a human sort of anger, still
, but the red-hot sizzle had a familiar aspect. And then it began pushing back against her. A strange buzzing leapt along her fingertips, like miniature bolts of lightning within her skin.
“I recognize this . . .” Her eyes snapped open, finding Alhena’s. “You were . . . Oh, this is not . . .” Latona started wandering, peering into the trees around them.
“Latona?” Aula asked, trotting after her. “You realize you didn’t finish any of those sentences?”
“Yes.”
A cold chill crept along Latona’s spine. More afraid than she had been at first, she nonetheless knew she had to investigate. She had realized why the sensation felt familiar. A place where the world felt like pottery overheated in a kiln, brittle and cracking. A defensive pulse, encouraging panic to overtake her rapid-beating heart, urging her mind to turn away, look away, look anywhere else.
Fracture magic, warped and twisted and set to ill purpose. Alhena’s visions confirmed, and Latona’s fears realized.
With Aula and Alhena in her wake, Latona trekked up the hill, as though following a map only she could see. The magical fissure acted as a lodestone; when she turned in the right direction, it reacted more strongly; when she stepped the wrong direction, the sensation faded.
Finally, they came around an outcropping of stone and into a little grove. Latona’s head ached. The sensation that the Fracture magic was actively fighting her own power increased with every step, but she pressed on, determined to find the source.