by Jen Greyson
He stands at the edge, his head hanging, his arms spread wide along the top cap of an ornate railing.
I check left and right for anyone who might raise an alarm. The house echoes back a lonely silence. I step closer and he lifts his head a few inches.
“This is a problem,” he says.
I close the distance. “When are we?”
“After.”
“Why now?”
He exhales loudly. “I don’t know. In the moment when I told you where to go, my mind slipped. I meant only to prevent Viriato and his men from following us to the training ground. I didn’t mean to come to now.” He lifts his arms and turns, sweeping his arms to encompass the room behind us. “Not to this wretched existence.” He looks at me. I gasp at the raw pain. “I will endanger more than myself if . . .”
“You can’t expect—”
“Yes, I can. I must.”
One falter in his confidence was nearly too much. This second one will take an immeasurable toll on us both.
“Go again.”
“I can’t.”
That word didn’t exist in his vocabulary before I screwed things up. I bite my lip.
“Go. Now.”
While he searches my face, I do my best to project confidence.
He looks away and whispers, “I can’t remember what the other room looks like.”
I cringe, then wrap my arms around him, enfolding our bodies in a gentle white blanket of lightning. The veranda dissolves.
We trade one noontime sun for another and arrive in a small pool of light across from his map table in the right house.
Leeching strength from each other, we stay still for a moment. Then he lifts his lips from my hair, clears his throat, and peels my arms from the small of his back.
He steps to the maps, and his hands tremble as he arranges the papers. “If I’m to kill Viriato, I must do it in that early dawn before he wakes.”
I press my lips together and blink back the tears. The pain around the edges of his features fades as he pulls himself together again. I want to pry at the crack I saw in his warrior façade.
“Constantine . . .”
He cuts his head to the side.
I retreat.
For now.
Chapter 20
No memories bombard me.
This time I made a concerted effort to displace the energy by wrapping it around Constantine, and I wonder if that was the solution.
Constantine traveled four times on his own power. I arced seven times, but only three with him. If I did steal a memory from him, it’s one that hasn’t jeopardized our cause. With each movement, his confidence returns.
For now, this is what he needs. Action, purpose, a mission. I’d prefer never to see that look on his face again.
This is why he buries himself beneath a layer of warrior. Warriors have a singularity of thought and the luxury of separation. When he’s focused, nothing else exists. Not his past. Not his pain.
Maybe one day he’ll afford me access to his deep network of caves beneath all this.
He’s watching me, but I sweep the emotion from my face, and he’s not paying enough attention to realize where my thoughts have led me. He still thinks it’s his plan for Viriato that’s making me struggle. I mask the concern and step to the table. “Tell me again.”
He scrutinizes the top of my head, but he says nothing and returns to his maps. He’s sketched a map of Viriato’s camp, marking trees, the few physical structures, and the perimeter. Small notes line the edges of the map: Viriato’s jumbled sleep schedule, the number of guards at the times we’ve watched, the optimal time for attack.
My eyes glaze over. I’m back at the entrance to his cave, remembering that look on his face, wanting to ask him about Aurelia, find out what happened and when, how it could have been prevented. I need to keep him from returning to that house again. I want to go hunting through the recesses of my mind. There has to be at least one new memory from him. I grip the edge of the table, sending a tremor through the papers and maps. I claw my way back to the surface and strain to hear what he’s telling me. This is important, but the image of his face won’t go away.
Silence stretches between us. Did he ask me a question? Noncommittal seems safest here. “If you think that’s best.”
“I’ll see what I can find.” He doesn’t look away after he says it, and my fingers ache with the need to touch his cheek, to cradle his face against my chest.
I step away from the table, desperate to piece together the last few hours. Or has it been days? Almost half a dozen locations in the span of minutes.
I try sorting through my mind. Something changed when I taught Constantine, and Warrior Woman took over. My mind is . . . different.
Everything needs to shut up so I can focus.
Constantine clears his throat. Papers rustle as he pushes them around, and his legs thump loudly against the table. My concentration fragments.
The peaceful spot I need evaporates again. “I’m going outside.”
He grunts.
I slip through the door and around the corner, hoping our normal training field is empty. By some miracle, it is. The men must be using other fields or grabbing a midday bite to eat. I walk the hundred yards to the far edge, a few feet from the thick line of trees, buying myself a few extra moments of quiet.
I rotate my hands and soften my knees. Rolling through the few of Constantine’s poses that I remember, I allow my body to take what it needs and add other movements as they come. The chaos and hurling assault of memories no longer exists. They’ve begun to assemble and sort themselves now, organizing and filing away for when I need them.
Forest noises become colors as I restart the movements and close my eyes. Memories flow like cover art of my favorite albums, in a seamless transition from one to the next, in order from when I acquired them.
I swing my arm over my head, and a trilling birdsong mimics my movement, the noise a green wave of motion across my closed lids. My knees soften, and I turn toward the forest and push both palms outward. As thoughts sift, one memory stands out of place, unwilling to line up. I search the room of my mind for the anomaly and find it in a new corner, trying to hide.
It’s folded like an origami swan, a handful of tight corners combined to make something from nothing.
Leaves rustle, dark red spots across the canvas of my mind, and I settle deeper into the transition of the movements. Everything else falls away. Left arm straight, sweep across my chest. Right foot back, toe pointed.
It’s just me and this elusive memory that isn’t mine. I tug at it and it unfolds. Right arm forward, fingers together.
The memory is a jumbled mess, but I know one thing—I am Viriato. He thinks like he fights—instinctual, nonlinear. I tug out strands of thought, single phrases I can piece together once I have them all lined up. I see snapshots of three men he speaks to often—Audax, Ditalcus, and Minurus. They guard him as he sleeps. They’re the last people he talks to before he drifts off and the first he sees when he wakes. He sleeps not in long stretches but in short stints throughout the day and night, and only when he can no longer stay awake. His aides are ever watchful. The rest of his men don’t know when he sleeps, but Audax, Ditalcus, and Minurus cover for him. He trusts no one. Including them. He sleeps in his armor.
My hands drop to my sides, and I rise from my crouch.
Constantine stands at the far edge of the field, watching me. Like Viriato’s three watch him.
Images overlap. Constantine’s lithe movements, calculated precision, acute awareness. Three men with eerie similarity.
The puzzle piece slips into place.
Viriato’s three are Romans.
Chapter 21
Constantine glides across the field, stopping short before we collide. There’s a conspiratorial energy surrounding him.
“I may have found something,” I say.
His face betrays nothing.
I tell him about the men who shadow
Viriato. “He won’t call them guards, but they’re with him always.”
“I’ve seen them.” He blinks and looks away, his mind still elsewhere. “We’ve wondered if they could be of use. Don’t worry, we’ll find a way past them, just like his others.”
“They’re Roman.”
He stills. “How . . . how could you know this?”
I tap my temple and fight the grin tugging at my lips. “I can steal his memories, too.”
With a loud laugh, he picks me up and swings me around. “I would give you every last one of mine if you could steal more of his.”
When he sets me down, I twirl a half step away before I catch my balance. “His freak me out.” I shiver. Viriato’s memories are coated in a dark film. They’re not clean and light like the others, almost as if they retain some essence of the person.
“I’ll find the men and bribe them,” Constantine says.
“That sounds a little too simple.”
“We’ve tried bribing his men and came close to succeeding. It’s been years since our last attempt, but things are shifting within his camp. Still, I wouldn’t have thought to approach those specific men, but if they’re Romans, that makes it easy.”
I shake my head, and my heavy braid thumps against my shoulder blades. “Viriato wouldn’t have chosen persuadable men.”
“Every man has his price.”
“I suppose.”
“The senate is involved again. They’ve agreed the peace treaty is . . . flawed. With what they’re offering me as leverage, and your brilliant bit of information, I’ll be able to grant these three far more than money.” He pauses again and caresses my cheek. “The less you know, the better.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and trails his fingers down my neck to linger on my shoulders. “Such innocence,” he whispers.
I tumble down the shaft to his cave entrance and peer into the yawning darkness.
“I would slay a thousand men to keep you from knowing the pain I’ve endured.”
My chest aches, but I don’t know what to say, mostly because I’m afraid I’ll startle him into silence again.
He shudders and drops his arm. “Does this alleviate your struggle? He will die, but it will not be by either of our hands. You will be able to stay at the perimeter, away from the fighting.”
“But you won’t.”
“I have a duty. I must see this to finality. Things can always go wrong at the last moment.” He sighs. “And they have.”
I should be relieved, but a dark shadow invades my space, lurking in the corner Viriato’s memory occupied. My own memory of reading about Viriato and his final battle. How he won it. And how his enemies died. Have I changed enough that it’s no longer Constantine’s final battle? My fingers curl inward, and I lock my arms against my sides so I can’t reach up and pull his face down to mine.
“Will you train with me?” he asks.
Oh yes. It’s the only time we’re real with each other, and I could stand to blow off some steam. We each take a step back, then I take three more toward the center of the field and flick my hands sideways. Green lightning unfurls from my open palms. Every question, every worry, every emotion falls away as I charge him.
There has never been a softness to Constantine’s training, but today it is feral. Our pent-up energy clashes—and this time we let it. He spins and dodges my amateur attacks, allowing me to witness the depth of his skill. My own jealousy at my ineptitude makes me strike too soon, and he lunges. I parry. We dance a tango of death, a sexually charged battle we both know may be our last. Where we could have chosen meaningless sex, he honored my strength and invited me to step wholly into his world and expose my true self with him here on his battlefield. The one place he can show me who he is, without words, without barriers. And where I can be me, no judgment, no embarrassment, no preconceived notion of what a woman can or can’t be. Here, we are warriors. Nothing else.
The way he knows me makes my footsteps falter, and he bumps my shoulder with his—hard. I draw a huge breath and spin around, arms wide, hands open, massive wings of lightning protecting my back, multiheaded swords of it in my hands. Back and forth we cross the entire field. Now my aim is better and I strike closer to my intended targets, but I falter at taking that final leap of faith and aiming at a vital spot that could kill him. Luckily, he attacks so often that I don’t have to worry about it. I’m on the defense far more than the offense.
Warrior screams echo through the field. With a low, sweeping kick, he knocks my feet out from underneath me and I roll, throwing three bolts in rapid succession as my back hits the dirt. They connect with his chest, launching him in the air. As the flash strips away my vision, I let out another yell and scramble to my feet.
On his back in the dirt, Constantine hasn’t moved since I struck him. The energy should have only pushed him off-balance. It has every other time. An angry welt slices across both his biceps. Strips of skin peek through charred bits of his tunic across his chest. His fingers curl loosely around the hilt of his sword, barely keeping it balanced on its edge. I ease closer, waiting for him to spring up and come at me.
He doesn’t move.
“Constantine?” My voice cracks. I lean over him, trailing slithering bolts from each hand.
The sword tips and falls to the dirt. He makes no move to stop it.
Panicked, I collapse and press my ear to his chest and listen. His heart beats its steady rhythm, and he breathes out a big sigh. “Hopeless.”
“Why? What? Are you dying? I didn’t mean to strike you so hard, but you attacked me. I thought you would duck.”
“No, you. You’re hopeless. No warrior collapses at the side of their opponent and weeps on his chest. You move in for the final blow. I thought you were going to try to kill me this time.”
“I’m not weeping.” Especially now that he’s making fun of me. Jerk.
“You would have, had I given you more time.” He sits up. “Always attack to kill. Always.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You must defend with the intent to kill.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
He stands and pulls me to my feet. “This is not a matter to joke about.”
“So why do you keep bringing it up?”
“Because a day may come when you have no choice.”
“I don’t really see that happening.”
We walk to the end of the training field where Penya stands watching. “Have you told her?” she asks.
I look between them. “Told me what?”
“I must leave,” Constantine says.
“Niña, we need you to check on Ilif, keep him busy at your father’s house.”
More secrets. “Why? What are you up to?”
“We must hurry,” she says.
I throw up my hands. “Are you ever going to tell me the whole truth?”
“Not today.”
Constantine wraps his fingers around my upper arm. “I’ll be back. Can you return to now if you leave?”
I search his face for what they’re not telling me. “Probably.”
He sighs and gives Penya a sideways glance. “I must risk it.”
“What’s going on?” I step to Penya. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She ignores me and addresses Constantine. “Go.”
He looks back to me and pauses, his lips pressed tight together like he’s trying to keep the words from escaping. I wait, but then he turns and hurries away, his long strides eating up the path until he vanishes around the corner.
“I should stay,” I say, turning back to Penya.
“It will be fine. You won’t miss the alteration.”
I snort. “Not sure I’m needed.”
“Alterations aren’t always about burning buildings and speeding trains. Sometimes they’re simple matters of information. A pinprick of knowledge, a subtle shove in a different direction. That you are still here leads me to believe your participation is not yet com
plete and you will be needed during the final exchange. I don’t know what part you’ll have to play, but the mission must succeed this time. It must.”
There it is, the layer of secrecy. “Why won’t you tell me the rest of the story?”
“Soon. Details are still missing. That’s why I need you to occupy Ilif.”
“What does my occupying Ilif have to do with the missing details? You’re going to have to give me something. One, you know I’m terrible at faking, especially when it comes to him. Two, I’ve earned it. None of you are exactly easy to put up with.”
She purses her lips and taps her foot.
I cross my arms.
“Viriato is only part of the alteration.”
My eyes pop wide. “What?”
“Ilif believes he knows the other half and what needs to happen to further contort the future to suit him. I need to find out what else he knows before he can interfere with both and keep us from succeeding. But the answers will take me a while to find because he’s keeping the information well hidden. You need to buy me time and keep him busy.”
“You sure have a funny way of earning my cooperation.” I huff.
“There is much I’ve kept from you, and I still have good reasons for doing so. Most first alterations are simple. This one . . .” She crosses and uncrosses her arms. “The layers and complexity of this arc would have challenged even the most experienced rider.”
“How long have you known?”
“Several years.”
So many people who knew so much about me—about Papi—and no one bothered to tell either of us. And still she’s keeping secrets. For my own good.
“I knew the rider who took this on would have to be uncommonly talented. I didn’t believe you were her the first few times we met, and for that, I apologize. I could have handled this better . . . could have started informing you earlier.” She waves her hand at the air, dismissing the mistake.
Old people and their mismanagement of situations . . . some things never change.
“Even now, I withhold things from you because I think it best.” She stares at me. “And I will continue to do so. But I can tell you that Constantine is far more involved than a warrior would usually be.”