XXIV

“HAIL, MASTER VIS.”

It’s turned into a preternaturally muggy summer morning, the air heavy and my tunic still clinging to me after training, despite the respite of Gaius’s examination. My head’s bowed over a tome detailing a very Catenan perspective on pre-Cataclysm society; I’m chewing bread absently, don’t register the words for a second.

“Kadmos.” I push the book aside and greet the Dispensator affably as he takes a seat opposite, brushes his stringy black hair back over his shoulders, then wipes away the sweat that’s already beading on his extremely high forehead.

The portly man returns my cheerful expression once he’s settled, startling me. Nothing’s regressed since yesterday, then. “You’re well enough to resume our lessons, I trust?”

“I feel fine. Good, in fact, after the extra rest I got yesterday,” I assure him. “I have to thank you, too. I didn’t realise that you were the one tending to me while I was unconscious. Lanistia tells me you lost a lot of sleep, making sure I got through those first few days safely.”

“It was nothing, young master.”

“Not to me.” I mean it. The way Lanistia described it, the man all but attacked anyone who tried to take over for him. I make sure he sees that I’m being genuine, then lean forward. “Speaking of which, there was a man here this morning. Another physician, sent by Tertius Servius.”

“They sent someone else to attend to you?” Kadmos is offended by the concept. “Ulciscor and I have been updating the Senate on your well-being, right up to and including this morning.”

“This was something else.” I tell him about Gaius’s taking of samples, though I leave out his questions and the drawings. “Do you know any reason why he would do that?”

Kadmos’s consternation has grown as I’ve explained what was done to me, until his eyes are bulging with indignation. “There is no reason that would be of assistance,” he sputters, dragging the back of his hand across his creased, glistening brow. “Some of the old cults might have burned what this man took from you—Tarchanism, was probably the last surviving one. But even that would have been in some misguided attempt to heal you. There is nothing anyone can glean from dead skin and a little dried blood.”

I shift. “And there’s nothing they could do with it?”

He’s stares at me blankly, then chuckles. “No! Gods’ graves, no.”

Lanistia said the same thing, but it’s a relief to hear it confirmed. I hadn’t been able to think of any nefarious purpose, myself, but I’m also keenly aware that my knowledge of higher-level Will use is still limited. “Good. Thank you.”

He hears the dissatisfaction in my voice, I think, though it’s not aimed at him. “I could investigate further, if you wish? I still have contacts in Sytrece who might be willing to look through some of the libraries there.”

“No, thank you, Kadmos. That’s very kind, but the Tertius clearly meant this to be done quietly. I wouldn’t want there to be any trouble.”

“Of course, young master.”

I eye him. I’ve known from the beginning he was a learned man; the proof has been in every lesson we’ve had together. But his surliness always meant the source of that knowledge was never a topic of conversation, and his mention of Sytrecian contacts has reminded me of it. “You were really in charge of the entire Azriat Institute?”

Kadmos shifts, chair creaking beneath his weight. “It wasn’t for very long. I got the position about six months before the proscriptions began.”

“Oh. That… must have been awful.”

“Such were the times,” he says with no trace of bitterness, splaying his hands. “I was young, even to be a professor, and my position was one that garnered no small amount of jealousy. When the pretender Erimides made his claims, very few in Deopolis thought it was wise to risk the friendship of Caten—myself included—and sure enough, when Dimidius Carthius inevitably crushed the revolt, he wanted to make examples. I still don’t know who named me, but they took me from my bed one night, and… here I am.”

“But you weren’t guilty of conspiring?”

He chortles. “I would not be much of a conspirator, young master. I was never exactly the dashing, secrets-in-the-night type.”

I don’t know what to say. It seems so obviously, outrageously wrong.

Kadmos sees me struggling and smiles again, only the barest trace of sadness in the expression. “A man will always wonder what might have been, but a wise one recognises fortune when it comes. For all I left behind, life has not been unkind to me.”

“How could you just accept it though? How could you not resent them for what they took from you?” The words are out of my mouth before I consider them; I reach out my hand as if to snare them back and then let it fall, wincing.

He ponders me. Still glistening with a sheen of sweat, but dignified. Then he rises and turns, uncinching his tunic and raising it so that I can see his back.

“We all have them, young master,” he says quietly. “Or did you think you were the only one to ever refuse the Aurora Columnae?”

I survey the pink and milky-white stripes layered across his skin, speechless. They’re old, faded—but there’s no mistaking them.

“There comes a point in every man’s life where he can rail against the unfairness of the world until he loses, or he can do his best in it. Remain a victim, or become a survivor.” Kadmos lets the cloth fall to cover the scars again. “Submitting was a burden, but never one I would trade for the alternative. I have thirty years more of memories, many of them fond. I live well, surrounded by luxury and with the trust and respect of a family I love. And yet I had colleagues who went to the Sappers, or who got sold to knights and were sent to work in the mines. Learned men all. Long dead.”

He holds my gaze. He thinks he’s helping me, I realise. Thinks that by doing what I did at the naumachia, I’ve made my choice. That I’m him thirty years ago, giving in to the enemy and joining them.

I try to look as though I’m not sick at the idea of living out my life like Kadmos. I empathise with him more, certainly.

But his approach to the Hierarchy is the opposite of who I want to be.

We move on to study for a while, Kadmos deciding to use my illness as a practical lesson, cheerfully explaining the various tests he put me through while I was unconscious. Despite the bleak subject matter, I enjoy the work. Kadmos is more free with his praise now, remarking several times how far I’ve come in the past month, even as he still corrects the occasional mistake. I’m surprised by how much I find myself glowing beneath his approval. It’s feels like a long time since I’ve been given any sort of acclaim for my efforts.

We’re interrupted a few times—the Dispensator still has charge of the estate, even as he teaches me—and just as the sun is reaching its zenith, an Octavii approaches, carrying a letter.

“Hm,” the rotund man says, poring over the missive with a frown. “Lady Telimus writes. She’s heard about the naumachia and asks after your well-being.” He raises an eyebrow as he reads. “There’s an implication she might be coming back to Caten sooner than expected too.”

I’d almost forgotten about the woman. “Do you think she’ll be a problem?”

“Not that you’ll have to worry about. I doubt you’ll meet her until after the Academy, even if she returns early.”

“What’s she like?”

“She’s lovely.” It’s not sarcasm, but it’s not said with the warmth required for it to sound honest, either. “Often away, though.”

There’s plenty of implication in the second part, even if Kadmos again delivers it as simple, uncoloured fact. Women in the Hierarchy—particularly young wives such as Ulciscor’s—are generally expected to focus on family, no matter their skills wielding Will. The fact that Relucia is abroad working, when she and Ulciscor have no children, speaks volumes.

I’m tempted to ask more, but I doubt Kadmos will stretch propriety so much as to tell me anything I can’t already glean.

I let the matter drop, and we resume our race to prepare me for the Academy.

---

THE NEXT TWO WEEKS PASS in a rough blur of training, learning, and practice in the Labyrinth.

My anxiety over a potential Anguis response to the naumachia remains unfounded: there’s no hint of retribution, no concerns from any of the guards posted around the Telimus estate. No statement from the Anguis at all, in fact. Lanistia guesses the organisation is in disarray, scrambling to recover now their leader is dead and their major attack largely foiled.

That doesn’t mean I rest easy. There’s some part of me that was forged into steel after Suus, I think—some part of me that knows exactly how to wall off memories that would otherwise tear me apart. And I could feel it hard at work over those first couple of days after waking, when I was asked to relive the naumachia again and again. But the nights are a different beast. I close my eyes and see a lake of blood. I clamber over slick, steaming entrails and bones. I wake sweating, or shivering, or sometimes crying out into the darkness.

It fades, as all things do. And the relentlessness of my days means that even when I do start awake, exhaustion forces me back to slumber within minutes.

But my sleep is never the same.

Dawn is bright and clear the morning of the day I leave for the Academy. Lanistia and I have just finished our final sparring session; I’m bathed in a light sweat, breath misting as we walk back to the villa. Around us in the fields, Octavii are starting their labour, distant chatter ringing across the hills. Lanistia’s uncharacteristically mute; usually this is where she berates me on all the mistakes I’ve just made, and then berates me about all the mistakes I’m about to make in studying. And then berates me for being behind.

I’m not sure what it says about me that I find the silence uncomfortable.

“Ulciscor sent word yesterday,” Lanistia says suddenly. “He’s arranged for you to travel to the Necropolis for the Festival of the Ancestors—that will be the next time you’re allowed out of the Academy. And he looked into the students you met after the Transvect attack.”

“Oh?” With everything else that’s happened since, I’d almost forgotten his suggestion that I might have been drugged.

“Indol Quiscil is the Dimidius’s son, as he thought. Belli Volenis and Emissa Corenius were the other two. Belli is the daughter of Quintus Volenis, the governor of Sytrece. Emissa is the daughter of Magnus Quintus Corenius.”

I recognise the names from my studies. Important families. Important students.

“They’re in Class Three, so they’re among the elite in the Academy. And they’re all from Military families. Ulciscor says that makes them unlikely targets for Veridius—much easier to co-opt students he could offer advancement to. So they probably didn’t do anything to you.”

“One more thing to probably not worry about, then.”

Lanistia grunts. “You won’t have much to do with them for a while, anyway—remember, you’ll be starting in Seven, and classes at the Academy are meant to mimic pyramid rankings in the real world. Unless you reach Class Three, the most they’ll interact with you is to give you orders.”

I nod. Silence again. Unless you reach Class Three. I don’t want to ask. It feels too much like conceding defeat, admitting I actually care what she thinks.

“You’ll do well.” She volunteers the statement as begrudgingly as anything she’s ever said. She’s facing straight ahead, though for all I know she could be focused on my expression. “If you keep working, there’s a chance you can do what you need to do.”

“Find what you and Ulciscor are looking for?”

“Get into Class Three.”

I swallow. Tension drains out of my shoulders as I acknowledge the statement.

Then I allow myself a grin. “You think I’m pretty good.”

She snorts. “I definitely didn’t say that. Or imply it.”

My grin widens. “No, no. I can see it now. You secretly like me. You think I’m—”

I’m staring up at the sky, rasping, air vanished from my lungs. From the corner of my eye I can see Lanistia walking away, her gait as calm as it was just a moment ago.

I groan, roll to my feet. Smile. Jog to catch up to Lanistia for the last walk back to the villa we’ll ever take.

---

IT FEELS STRANGE, LEAVING. THIS isn’t a home, not by any measure of the word as I understand it. There’s no love here, from or for me. Not truly, anyway, regardless of how the others feel. There can be no love without honesty.

But I still feel an emptiness as the door to the carriage closes. A sense of loss as I peer out the window and watch Lanistia’s and Kadmos’s forms slide from view. It’s been a sanctuary, of sorts. A place where I’ve found a renewed sense of purpose.

Eventually the green hills vanish on the horizon and I sit, alone with my thoughts, as landscapes roll by. It’s a short trip from here to the Transvect platform. Any sense of nostalgia is quickly swept away by anxiety, no matter what I pretended to Lanistia.

In a few hours, I’ll be at the Academy.