Mark of the Thief

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  Crispus and I walked through a spacious dressing area to find Aurelia already waiting on the other end. Then he pointed out the directions to each of the four baths. "The caldarium at the rear of the building is the hottest of them all, and most bathers begin there. Then the tepidarium is in front of it. Maybe your griffin would've gone there."

  I shrugged, hoping not. Crispus's tepidarium had been so perfectly comfortable, I'd never have left if women hadn't been coming to bathe. If Caela was in this one, I'd have no easier time getting her out.

  "She wouldn't want the frigidarium, it's too cold." Crispus shivered to make his point and Aurelia giggled and poked his arm, which I didn't think was particularly funny at all. "But I think she'll be in the natatio," he added. "It's for open-air swimming, and your griffin would like that best."

  We entered from the dressing room, but even before we did, I recognized the sound of Caela's breathing, though it seemed raspier than the breaths I had heard in Caesar's cave.

  I held up one hand. "Let me go in alone. If she's injured, she might be calm and easy to manage, but she also might want to fight. Stay back until we know for sure."

  "We rode in the caravan into Rome," Aurelia said. "She knows me already."

  "Yes, but that doesn't mean she likes you." My smile was mischievous. "Don't feel bad. I'm not even sure she likes me."

  Once inside, I spotted Caela in the far corner, nestled behind two large columns. I called her name, and saw one of her long, triangular ears perk up, but she didn't raise her head. Not a good sign.

  Because of the large pool between us, it was necessary to walk the long way around to get to her. I went to the right, and about halfway there, noticed the nugget of gold she had taken with her from the venatio, dropped on the marble floor like cheap fill rock. If she had abandoned this so casually, then things were more serious than I had thought.

  I called to her again, and this time she cawed softly, painfully. She was trying to move enough to greet me, but not succeeding.

  "I'm so sorry," I said once I was closer. "I didn't know you were hurt this bad." I lowered the sack of meat right in front of her, but after a sniff, she showed no interest in it. So I ran my fingers across her feathers the way she had seemed to enjoy it before. Once I reached her wing, I understood how bad things were.

  The spear from the bestiarius had broken the wing. Either that, or it had injured the wing, and once I had forced her to fly us out of the amphitheater, that had finished breaking it. I would've apologized again, but it seemed senseless at this point.

  I knelt beside her and removed the bulla from around my neck to place against her wing. It glowed brighter in the moonlight, and felt heavier too. I hoped if the bulla connected me to her, it would transfer the healing powers better. Because of the seriousness of Caela's wound, I would have to rely even more upon the Divine Star, which Radulf could detect, and it made my heart pound. But this had to be done. All that mattered was Caela.

  Pushing aside the nerves that were stirring inside me, I set the bulla directly over her wound. She flinched from the pressure, but had no strength to move away. I whispered another apology for the pain it caused, but I would likely have only one opportunity and I wanted every chance to do it right.

  Just as I had done earlier that day, I focused on the magic to heal. It came easier this time, wrapping itself around both Caela and me, and I thought about Radulf's words, that magic was a muscle and using it made it stronger. Having practiced all day in the vineyards, I definitely felt the added strength, and knew I would need it now. I concentrated on the flow of magic, letting it fill every pore in me, giving it more life with every breath I drew in, and pushing it deeper into my core with every exhale.

  When it had built up inside me, I willed it to move from my hand, through the bulla, and into Caela's wing. If it healed the infection in my arm, it could heal her as well. I only needed enough strength to outlast her injury.

  Caela trilled nervously as she felt the magic, and even shuffled a bit, but my hand stayed in its place. With my other, I stroked her neck, hoping to keep her calm.

  "This is too big for you, Nic." There had never been any doubt that Radulf's voice would come again, only how long it would take him to find me. It drizzled through my veins like ice, and I shivered.

  "Go away," I muttered. "Live while you can. I'll come for you soon."

  He chuckled, which diverted my attention until Caela shifted again. I poured more of myself into her, not only magic, but my gratitude for having twice saved my life, and my sorrow that all I had done in return was endanger hers. For the first time, I began to understand the magic, not just use it. Magic itself was an emotion, and like the strongest emotions, it could build or destroy. Right now, it was doing both. Building her, destroying me.

  My arm began shaking and I leaned my weight into her to support it. Even as she was gaining strength, I was losing it, and it was becoming harder to keep her wing from fluttering out of my hands.

  "Not yet," I whispered to her. "Not yet, Caela."

  "You save the beast that gave you the mark," Radulf said in my head. "How interesting. I wasn't so kind to the unicorn that scratched me." He laughed. "Actually, it gave me the scratch while I was killing it. I don't think it ever intended to share its magic."

  I tried to ignore that, tried to shut out from my mind the thought of how Radulf could possibly have harmed a creature of the gods.

  My body was feeling heavier, as if my limbs had turned to lead. The magic continued stirring inside me, but I didn't think I was generating anything new. Breathing was harder, thinking was slower. And I couldn't feel the mark on my shoulder any longer. Actually, I couldn't feel much of anything. I was a fading sunset.

  Caela cawed, a stronger cry now, and this time when she fluttered her wing, she pushed my hand out of her way and rose up to her feet. Whether she intended it or not, she knocked me to the ground, and I was in no condition to get up again.

  "Nic!"

  Aurelia's footsteps pounded across the cement, and then she grabbed me beneath my shoulders and dragged me farther from Caela. I wasn't worried about that. Caela wouldn't step on me, or at least, not deliberately.

  Once we were clear, Aurelia knelt beside me and asked how I was. I heard her, but not really. It sounded like she was in another room. Without answering, I closed my eyes and tried to find myself again. It felt as if everything I was had vanished, like rainwater into a thirsty earth.

  "Healing her cost too much," Radulf said. "Your body can't hold such powerful magic."

  "He's shaking!" Aurelia brushed my hair back from my forehead. "Nic, look at me!"

  "This girl is special to you," Radulf said. "I feel the beat of your heart when she is near."

  "For the last time, get out of my head!" I yelled. Then I forced myself to sit up, to put some distance between Aurelia and me. Waves of dizziness enveloped me, but through that fog, I heard Caela eating the meat I had brought her. Whatever was happening to me didn't matter. She would be all right.

  "Those baths are some of the finest in all of Rome," Radulf said. "You've done the empire a service by ridding them of a dangerous griffin. I will tell the emperor of your kindness."

  "Do that," I muttered. "Then I'll tell him about your plans for the empire."

  "What's going on?" Aurelia asked. "It's Radulf, isn't it?"

  "I do have great plans, after I get that bulla," he said. "You took what was mine, Nic."

  "It was Caesar's. Never yours!"

  Crispus appeared in my line of sight and said something to Aurelia, but all I heard was Radulf saying, "I'll trade for it right now. Go out to the gardens. Livia is there."

  I sat up even straighter and felt for the bulla around my neck. No, it wasn't there. I had taken it off to heal Caela. I looked to Crispus, who seemed to understand what I wanted, even without words.

  "Stay here with Caela," I said to Aurelia. "Just stay here, please, where it's safe."

  "Where are you going?"


  "Livia is outside. She's here."

  Aurelia grabbed my arm. "Radulf's lying. You must know that."

  I pulled my arm away and turned to her. "Of course he is. But I still have to find out for sure, don't I?"

  Aurelia sighed. "Be safe, Nic. I'm not wrong about this."

  It took everything I had to get to my feet. There was little left in me but the desire to see my sister, and that would have to be enough. Crispus ran back with the bulla in his hands. He hung it around my neck, and it immediately began to supplement my energy.

  "I'll come with you." Crispus's offer was stupid, but brave. Two words that accurately described me at the moment as well.

  "It won't be safe," I said. "Please don't."

  "Better hurry," Radulf said, for only me to hear. "I won't allow Livia to remain there for long."

  I did hurry, leaving the same way I had come. Once I was outside, I wasn't sure which way to go, but then saw a strange light, pulsing and floating midair, beckoning me out of the gardens and back to the road beyond the bath walls.

  With every step, the bulla continued adding to my strength. I only hoped it would be enough for when I found Livia -- if I found Livia. Radulf wouldn't make it easy.

  But once I got farther out, I saw her from a distance, lit by starlight. She stood on a narrow road between lines of small, thatched-roof homes, dressed in a long, pale yellow tunic, and with her hair pulled back in braids. Never before had I seen her in such fine clothes. She seemed to be looking around, as if trying to find someone. Maybe me.

  "Livia!" I called as I ran toward her. "How did you get here?"

  But she didn't answer. And then I came to the right angle to understand why. She was a trick of light, Radulf's plan to pull me outside. Exactly what I had feared, and what Aurelia had warned me about.

  "Where is the real Livia?" I yelled. "Why did you take her?"

  The trick of light that had been Livia shifted. Her image dissolved, which almost felt like losing her again. But worse still, as she faded, Radulf appeared in her place.

  He wasn't really here either, or at least, I didn't think he was. But some part of his consciousness was standing directly in front of me.

  "How did you do that?" I asked.

  "A trick like this isn't even complicated magic. Wait until you see everything I can do."

  "Try it, and then you'll see everything I can do too," I muttered. "Mine is worse." That last part was a lie, one neither of us believed.

  He frowned at me. "Why must we fight? It doesn't have to be this way."

  "I disagree. I think this is exactly the way things must be."

  "Livia is a part of my household now. She says I am like Halden, the father she never knew."

  My brows furrowed at the mention of my father. Even if Livia had known his name, he would've been nothing like Radulf. Surely she didn't believe that.

  "Your mother could come here as well. You'd have your family back, Nic."

  "Nobody knows where my mother is," I said.

  "Are you sure? What if I am the only one who does know? What would you trade for that information?" He laughed and reached out one hand. "I see the bulla responding to the moonlight. Give it to me. Now."

  It was glowing as brightly as when it had first shone in Crispus's atrium. I wrapped a hand around the bulla and felt its growing burn. "You're not here. You couldn't take it even if I tried to give it to you."

  "I'm here enough."

  "Nic, who are you talking to?" Aurelia ran up behind me. Crispus was with her.

  "Go away!" I shouted back to them. "Please!"

  Aurelia pulled out her knife. "Tell me who's here. Is it Radulf?"

  So she couldn't see him? Only me. In his arrogance, Radulf smiled and said, "Ah, so you have another friend now? Are you sure you can trust them?"

  "More than I'll ever trust you," I shouted.

  He only laughed at that. "You're probably right. Though if you can't protect yourself from me, how can you protect them?"

  I turned back to Aurelia and Crispus. "Get back inside. Now!"

  "Nobody's here, Nic. This is only happening inside your head." Aurelia stepped forward and grabbed my arm, but I shook it off.

  Worse still, I noticed that families from the thatch homes had heard the noise and begun to wander outside. If Crispus and Aurelia couldn't see Radulf, then neither could they. All they would see was the boy from the amphitheater, wearing a glowing bulla worth years of their income, yelling at an empty road. Now I was not only dangerous and valuable; I was a madman as well.

  "Let's go home." Crispus spoke gently, like I was a child. "All of us together. C'mon, Nic."

  But my attention flew back to Radulf, who said, "Two hundred years ago, while Nero was emperor, a great fire destroyed nearly all of Rome. It burned for six days and nights. Some think that Nero started the fire himself, to clear away old homes and make room for his new palace." He paused and looked at the thatch homes around him. Not everyone had come outside. But those who had were pointing at me, no doubt thinking about the reward my capture could give them.

  "Do you think that story's true, Nic? Would a leader of Rome, even their hero, really harm his own people to get something he wanted?"

  "No." Panic rose inside me. "Don't do this!"

  But he raised his hands together and a ball of fire formed between them. He threw it at the home closest to him, which immediately lit with flame. The people around it screamed and went running. More people emptied from their homes as Radulf formed a second ball of fire, and then a third. Within seconds, homes on both sides of the road were engulfed in flame, and it was spreading.

  I looked around, unsure of my capabilities, but certain I had to do something. I glanced up at the skies, wondering if it was possible to create a rainstorm. If it was, I had no idea how to make it happen. Maybe that was a good thing anyway -- I didn't dare stay out here if the storm also created lightning. I had to think of something else. Aurelia was yelling at me from behind, and Crispus was likely doing the same, but I couldn't hear either of them. Why couldn't they have stayed in the baths when I asked them to?

  The baths!

  I turned my focus there, on the open-air pool. Could I do that, pull at something so formless and vast as all that water? I had to try.

  I gathered the bulla's magic in my arms and then used it to call to the water. I didn't need much -- just enough to put out the fires. For a few moments, I wasn't sure if anything would happen, but then above the noise of burning and the people's cries, I heard the splashing of water. It traveled as if through an invisible tube, and with each hand, I sent half to each row of homes, letting it rain down on them like waterfalls. But, as with everything I attempted, there was so much more water than I had intended. It came down like an ocean had overturned on us, creating a river in the streets that forced the people still there to run behind me, away from the deluge.

  I hoped that at least it would carry Radulf away in its current, but it didn't. He wasn't truly here, so the water passed through him like he was made of air.

  "You are stronger than I thought." For the first time, Radulf sounded worried. Then his voice turned icy. "But only because of that bulla. No matter how much power it has, you will always be weaker than me. Because I don't care about any of those people behind you. I will sacrifice them all to get that bulla!"

  "Everyone get out of here!" I yelled to the crowd.

  "Why?" a man yelled back. "So you can finish destroying our homes? Get him!"

  I threw a hand toward them, intending to create some sort of invisible barrier between us. Instead, it threw the people back, like they had been pushed by giants. Where they had stood, a vast ditch opened up in the ground, too wide for them to jump and too deep for them to climb through. One man fell in while trying to lunge at me, and I yelled for the others to help him get out, then to stay back.

  Ahead of me, Radulf snarled and drew in a deep breath so forceful that it pulled in dirt from the higher grounds, which writhed and s
wirled around him like a horde of angry snakes. Once it had collected, he threw everything forward. It came at me like a storm, full of violent wind, dust, and rocks that hit me head-on.

  I held up both hands, hoping to contain enough of the storm to protect Crispus and Aurelia, and the others behind me. They might not be able to see Radulf, and for all I knew, they couldn't see this storm either, but surely they'd be able to feel it.

  Radulf continued sending anything his fierce wind could pick up, rocks and downed branches and parts of the homes that were shredding apart. I didn't dare let it fly past me and hit someone else, so I took all of it, absorbing the blows as best as I could.

  "What is he doing?" I vaguely heard Aurelia shouting behind me. "Crispus, help me across! We have to grab him."

  I didn't know how she intended to get across the ditch, or if Crispus was helping her, but I couldn't pay attention to them now. Instead, I pulled my hands together and tried to gather the storm, letting it build in my hands the same way it had done for Radulf.

  Before I'd finished, Aurelia's hands were on my shoulders and she was saying something. Radulf smiled. "You know the truth about her, don't you?"

  That caught me off guard, but only for a moment before I threw what I had gathered back to Radulf. The storm left my hands with the strength of the bulla, making it far worse than what he had done to me. It knocked him backward, and when he sat up again, a long scratch was on his cheek.

  "Thank you, Nic," he said calmly. "Now I know exactly what you're capable of. I will be ready when we meet in person, and I promise to bring the whole of my powers against you."

  And then he disappeared.

  I lowered my arms and only then turned to Crispus and Aurelia. Their faces registered horror when they saw me. Behind them, the families stood in clumps, frightened by what I'd done, maybe angry too. A fallen plank of wood was lying across the ditch, which they must have used to get across. With the wind Radulf had created, it could never have remained in place ... unless the storm was invisible too. Nobody felt it, or saw anything other than my standing in front of them, fighting something they could not perceive.

  "Your face!" Crispus said.

  I felt with my fingers the cuts and bruises I already knew were there. But I tried to smile through it and said, "I've looked worse before."