by Cass Morris
“Domina?” Such quavering uncertainty did not belong in Merula’s voice, and Latona was almost as alarmed to see the trepidation on Merula’s broad face as she had been to see the lemures. “Domina, you are all—You are safe?”
“As can be, Merula,” Latona answered. Her own voice was hoarse. ‘Was I shouting more than I realized?’
Merula narrowed her eyes at the pile of bones. “What is needful now?”
“Helping us up off of this damned floor would be a start,” Vibia said, holding out a hand. Merula hauled her up with less grace than Latona suspected Vibia was used to, then went to assist Rubellia.
Latona stayed on the floor a moment, squeezing Alhena tightly. She had no comforting words to offer. She tried instead to merely offer her sister a soothing burst of empathic energy—but the effort of dispelling the lemures and closing off the Fracture magic had left her utterly drained. Latona wasn’t sure she had the strength to extinguish a candle.
Then Rubellia reached down, gently drawing Alhena out of Latona’s arms. Latona felt the soft glow of Rubellia’s magic settling over them both, but mostly wrapping around Alhena like a warm blanket.
Merula cocked her head at Latona. “You can stand, Domina?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” Unceremoniously, Merula reached beneath Latona’s armpits and hauled her up. Then, quietly, she added, “That was terrifying, Domina. And I do not like being terrified.”
“I know, my dear.” Latona cupped her cheek, smiling slightly. “You could have stayed outside, you know.”
Merula snorted. “You are knowing me better than that, Domina.” She turned away, looking at the pile of charred remains, then bent to pick up Alhena’s stick. “She fought like a tiger, you know, when I am trying to get her out.”
“Yes, well,” Latona said, smiling over at her sister, “we’re all stubborn women, under the Vitellian roof.”
“Latona,” Rubellia said softly, “I’m taking her outside.” She stroked Alhena’s hair lightly. “Fresh air, yes? Nothing so restorative.”
Latona nodded. “We’ll be out in a moment. I just want to make sure that . . . that everything’s settled, here.”
As Rubellia guided a still-sniffling Alhena out of the house, Merula started prodding at the partially collapsed tower of blackened bones. Vibia sidled up beside Latona. Her sable hair was, like Alhena’s, torn totally loose of its bonds, and her skin was pink and puffy with exertion. She looked strong, though, much stronger than Latona felt, and was already setting to work adjusting the pins and belts of her gown, neatening her appearance back to something approximating its customary precision. “Someone was here,” she said. “Very recently.” She jerked her head at the torches in their wall sconces.
“Someone might still be here,” Latona said. “Though I don’t know how they could’ve missed all of that.”
“Oh,” a voice said, “they didn’t.”
On the far side of the atrium, a woman stood beneath an arch that led back toward the other rooms. Vibia stopped dead in her tracks, clutching at Latona’s arm so hard her fingernails would leave marks. Merula whipped the stick in her hand up like a club, ready to strike.
The woman was perhaps twenty, with nearly translucent alabaster skin and raven-dark hair that hung loose about her shoulders. Her face belonged on a statue of some goddess, so even and flawless were her features. But her eyes blazed with implacable hatred, and the air around her shimmered bronze in Latona’s magical sight.
“The pair of you,” the woman said, her tone strangely song-like. “Glitter-gold and the knife’s edge. Such a lot of trouble you’ve been.”
“We’ve been trouble?” Vibia snapped. “You’re the one—”
“You keep spoiling things,” the woman went on, ignoring Vibia. “You’re shutting all the doors. You can’t do that, you just can’t. And you broke my friend Scaeva’s mind, the two of you.”
It had been Alhena, not Latona, who had helped Vibia in that, but if this girl was misinformed, Latona would not correct her.
“You’ve shielded yourselves well. I’ll have to work around that.” She cocked her head to the side, contemplative. “But only your minds and your magic. Your bodies . . .” A sudden grin flashed, ghoulish on the perfect face. “That, I can work with.”
Her hand snapped out, splaying against the nearest column, and before either Latona or Vibia could react, the arch above began to shake. Bits of plaster fell to the ground as the ceiling cracked and shuddered.
“Latona, she’s bringing down the—Run!” Vibia shouted, bolting back toward the atrium. Latona was right on her heels—or had intended to be, but found herself falling instead.
‘No, no, no . . .’
A weight landed on her back: the Fracture mage, one leg on either side of Latona’s body, pushing her into the tiled floor. Then, just as swiftly, the weight lifted—was flung from her. Merula had whacked the stranger with her stick so hard that it broke, then hauled her off Latona. She struck the Fracture mage several times, swift and effective, but when her hand went for the dagger at her thigh, the woman reached up and snatched the kerchief from Merula’s hair. She wasn’t fast enough, not entirely. Merula’s blade flashed, and red blossomed in a long line along the stranger’s arm.
Then a terrible noise pierced Latona’s ears, worse than the snaps and pops of rupturing plaster all around her, worse than the shrieks of the lemures: Merula, screaming in utter agony. Unthinkable sound, unimaginable. “Merula!” Latona shouted, trying to push up and go to her, but her limbs refused to respond, sapped of all strength.
Before she could figure out what had happened, Latona was knocked prone again. The Fracture mage clasped her hands around Latona’s head. “I’m afraid I lied,” she said, in that same lilting tone. “Your magic wasn’t very well-shielded at all, not anymore. Weak, weak, but don’t blame yourself, glitter-gold. Anyone would be, after dealing with my trap.”
‘Her trap. She—’ Latona struggled, trying to get to her feet, but it was as though her muscles would not obey her. ‘She intended all that to happen. She set that spectacle so that we would spend all our energy on it, and leave ourselves vulnerable.’
Chips and dust continued to fall from the ceiling, plinking like hard rain all around them. “I’m afraid I just can’t have you interfering, glitter-gold, no, no, that won’t do at all.” A shattering pain came into Latona’s head, as though the woman’s hands were crushing her skull like an egg. She screamed, or tried to, but she no longer had even that much strength. “Say hello to the fiends for me, beauty.”
Latona’s world erupted, blinding white followed by the black weight of oblivion.
XLVIII
Merula had known pain, thought herself well-girded against it. She had been beaten by the people who had enslaved her. She had endured blows and cuts from the gladiatrix who trained her to fight. Never had she felt such a wracking torment. Everywhere her skin had touched that of the Fracture mage, her body erupted into horrible pangs, as though her bones were breaking and stabbing their way through her skin. When the woman threw her off, Merula could do nothing, her every sense too swamped by astonishing agony.
Then, all at once, it stopped. The pain, the crumbling plaster, the tremors in the walls, all ceased, leaving a terrible stillness. Merula glanced at her limbs briefly, to assure herself they were not broken in truth, then sprang up, snatching her fallen knife, ready to carve that bitch-dog of a Fracture mage to ribbons.
But the woman had vanished. ‘She could not be getting far. I could still—’
The thought tangled as Merula’s eyes took in Lady Latona, left in an ignoble heap on the cracked tile floor, as still as death.
“Domina?” Merula scrambled to Latona’s side, rolled her onto her back. “No, no, no, no.” The domina was limp as a rag, her eyes closed, her cheeks ashen. “Domina! You must wake!” Panic rose in her chest. She
placed a hand to Latona’s cheek. Warm, despite its pallor. A good sign. Her fingers went to the domina’s throat, pressing at the side of her windpipe. Merula held her own breath, waiting—then released it in a ragged sigh when a pulse beat faintly against her fingertips.
At that moment, Vibia rushed back in, accompanied now by Rubellia and Alhena. “I thought you followed—” Vibia began, breathless. “Where did she—?”
Merula looked up at them, eyes blazing with fury. “I am going to kill her.”
* * *
‘My fault, my fault, my fault.’
The words thumped in Alhena’s mind with each footstep as she and Vibia ran through crowded streets, too panicked to care if anyone recognized them. Not likely, in this part of town, anyway. They had to get help, and the nearest friend they could trust was halfway up the Esquiline. Merula, fuming and cursing and swearing vengeance, had stayed behind to guard her mistress, while Rubellia desperately tried to rouse her. ‘Please, please let Rubellia wake her. If I hadn’t had that vision—if I hadn’t told her we had to go, right now—it was a trap, and I led her right into it, how didn’t I see it was a trap? My fault, my fault, my fault.’
Alhena had been outside with Rubellia, still trying to gather herself together, when the Discordian house had shaken as though Vulcan had stamped his feet beneath it. Vibia had hit the front door, then turned, with a horrified expression on her face. “They didn’t follow—I thought she was bringing the whole building down!” Vibia had shouted in explanation, but only a column and a bunch of ceiling tiles had fallen. By the time they reached the garden again, the Discordian mage had disappeared, and Latona lay on the floor, unconscious and surrounded by dust and shattered plaster.
Thinking of her sister had Alhena weeping, which did not make running any easier. Her lungs burned with effort, and her eyes were so wet she could hardly see where she was going. But Vibia had her firmly by the hand, and she allowed herself to be tugged along until they reached a tavern with a rearing horse and the word VATINIAE painted on the side.
“Vatinius Obir!” Vibia shouted, as soon as they were in the door. “Your captain, now!”
The tall man emerged from a back room, brow creased in worry. “Ladies? Is there—”
“My sister!” Alhena gasped, half-doubled with exertion. “Please—”
But Obir was already on his feet. “She is hurt? In trouble?”
“Both,” Alhena half-sobbed.
Obir turned his head to his nearest associate, a tall pale man, sharp with sudden alertness. “Get a litter. The small light one, fast as you can.” Then he snapped his fingers at a scrawny boy. “Go fetch a healer. Bring him to the domus of Aulus Vitellius, southern face of the Palatine, green door.”
* * *
Latona had not woken by the time they returned to her, and Alhena broke out sobbing anew as Obir lifted her, with a gentleness that seemed odd in so muscular a man, into the litter and drew the curtains around her. As they rushed for the Vitellian domus, Alhena half-heard Rubellia and Vibia coming up with a plausible story. “Her father will never let her out of the house again if he finds she was hurt on this business,” Rubellia said, voice thick with tears, “and she would never forgive us for that.”
“An accident, then,” Vibia said. No tears in her, but her voice crackled like dry paper. “In the marketplace. A collapsing stall, a fallen beam.”
When they reached the door, Vibia rushed in without preamble, issuing instructions to every slave and servant who caught her eye, and Alhena followed, drawn in her wake, too overwhelmed with tears to speak. Obir carried Latona in and lay her on a couch.
Aula ran into the atrium, wide-eyed with terror. When she saw Latona, she shrieked, her knees going out from under her. Vatinius Obir swooped to catch her by the arms, hauling her upright. “She lives, Lady, she lives!”
“No, no, not again, I can’t, not her, not her!” Aula wailed.
“She lives, she lives!” Obir insisted, over and over, until Aula tore her eyes from Latona and looked at him, scarce comprehending.
“Sh-She—?”
“She’s alive.” Vibia came forward, and with Obir’s help, navigated Aula onto the couch opposite Latona. “We—” But then Aulus rushed in, and Vibia lowered her voice. “I’ll explain properly later.” She raised her chin, striding over to Aulus. “There’s been an accident.” And as Vibia and Rubellia, between them, spun the story they had agreed on, lying with all their combined art, Alhena sank to her knees beside Aula, clutching at her sister’s leg as though she were still a small child seeking comfort. Aula’s hand sank into Alhena’s hair; the other covered her eyes, as though she could not bear to look at Latona. Alhena could not bring herself to look away.
‘My fault, my fault, Latona, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’
* * *
‘She should not be so still.’
Latona’s restless energy often irritated Vibia, but now, seeing her laid out as though waiting for a shroud, her stillness was a horror. Only a faint rising of her chest gave sign that she yet lived. No flutter of her fingers, no twirling of her hair, no gaze taking in every wonder of the world around her.
They had moved Latona from the couch in the atrium to her own bed. Only Vibia sat with her now. Everyone else, it seemed, was weeping. Aulus was at the household shrine, imploring the gods to save his girl. Aula and Alhena were on a couch, crying into each other’s shoulders. Rubellia had recovered herself enough to consult with the healer, but tears continued to flow down her cheeks unchecked, though her voice was smooth and controlled. Vatinius Obir had absented himself as discreetly as possible. Vibia pitied the horror and sorrow she had seen in Obir’s eyes. ‘My brother will have both our heads for not taking better care of her.’ Even Merula’s eyes were wet, though her expression as she paced the atrium was of fury, not despair.
Vibia sat at Latona’s side, dry-eyed. Tears had never come easily to her. She didn’t think she had cried since she had put aside the toys and charms of childhood. But that did not mean she was not in agony. ‘Damn you, Latona. When did you become important to me?’
The healer had come and inspected her head. A bad blow, he agreed, but there was no blood, and he could feel no fracturing of her skull. “There is no reason she should not wake,” he had proclaimed, and promptly suggested a number of sacrifices Aulus could make, to speed the process along.
“Please wake,” Vibia whispered to the too-tranquil face, still sun-golden even this late in autumn. “You’re not really going to leave me to deal with this Discordian nonsense, are you?” Her voice felt strangely thick. “I’m only involved because of you. It would be absolutely wretched of you to shirk your portion of the responsibilities now. And can you imagine, if I had to avenge you? Utterly ridiculous. No. I absolutely refuse.” Her nostrils twitched, and she swallowed around a lump in her throat. “Do you understand me? I won’t do it. And that means you can’t—It means you have to wake. You have to wake up.”
But Latona did not stir.
A rustle of skirts heralded Rubellia’s return to the room. “Did you get anything more useful out of that charlatan?” Vibia asked.
“He recommends valerian, white willow bark, and ginger when she wakes,” Rubellia said, coming to stand beside Vibia’s chair. “And plenty of rest.”
Vibia snorted in derision. “Any fool could come up with that treatment plan. I hope Aulus didn’t pay him for coming here and doing nothing.” Absurdly, her voice broke slightly on “nothing.”
Rubellia leaned in close to Vibia and dropped her voice. “Vibia, it’s beyond his ability. We need to get a healer-mage in here, and even then . . .” She shook her head. “I’ve been trying to sense her, but . . . it’s like she’s not in there. I’ve been with injured people before, but it’s not like . . . it’s not like this. It’s not only the knock to her head.” Rubellia glanced about again, affirming that no one would overhear them.
“From what Merula said, that Fracture mage attacked them both. What she did to Merula was temporary, it faded as soon as the mage left, but this—”
“Clearly is not.” Vibia pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Focus. You should be able to see this. You should be able to figure this out.’
Shards of Fracture magic sliced into her awareness. An incredible concentration of them, barbed and angry, but Vibia could not find their origin. They were tied to no token, no charm, nothing that Vibia could locate.
“I don’t know,” she whispered in defeat. “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Rubellia gave her arm a squeeze, perhaps in sympathy, then drifted out of the bedroom again, going to commiserate with Aula and Alhena. Vibia leaned over Latona, touching her shoulder. If there was any consolation to be found, it was that she had not gone cold. To the contrary, she was quite warm to the touch. Not feverish, for her skin had no flush nor sweat, but that same sun-bright heat that Vibia had felt from Latona’s magic. ‘Perhaps she’s fighting within, even now.’
Vibia bent close to Latona’s ear. “Wake up, damn you,” she said, almost in a growl. “You have to wake up. If you die, my brother might well plunge on into Pluto’s realm to drag you back out, and really, none of us have the time for that nonsense, so wake up.”
But Latona remained insensible as a statue.
Glossary
ab urbe condita: literally, “from the founding of the city.” How the Romans/Aventans measure years, in time since what we consider 753 BCE, the legendary founding of the city.