LXXI

I CUP EMISSA’S TRACKER IN my palm. Check I’m still heading in the right direction. Push forward again as fast as I dare. I left only a couple of minutes behind Aequa.

My thoughts continue to race as I force my way through scratching bramble and damp leaves, the shocked haze of finding the corpses gradually lifting. If this really is the Anguis’s Military-sponsored attack, then Relucia knows they’re here. And if she knows they’re here, they surely have orders not to kill me.

But on the other hand, she did say that only one other person in the Anguis knew about me. That I was a cog.

And if the Anguis here don’t know who I am, then I’m still a target.

Maybe, for many of them, the target.

It’s not fifteen minutes later that I’m bursting into a clearing to find Aequa and Marcellus facing each other. Marcellus looks ill. Aequa flinches at my arrival, giving me a reflexive glare before relaxing again.

“He knows,” she says, gesturing to the severed hand on the ground between them.

“Where’s Emissa?” I check the tracking marble. It’s pulling directly at Marcellus.

“She did what you did. Vomited it back up and used it as a decoy.” Aequa’s grim. “She convinced Valentina and Tem to join her, too, after she eliminated Prav. Those three and Titus are going for the Heart right now.”

“It’s at the top of the eastern tower,” supplies Marcellus, his voice weak. “She’s using the other three to draw out the Sextii on watch. Then she’ll go up there and get it herself.”

My blood turns cold. “How long?” When Marcellus doesn’t answer immediately I snarl, take a threatening step toward him. “How long since she left, Marcellus?”

“A quarter hour. Not more.”

I glance at the sky, mind whirling. She’ll move just as dusk turns to night. I turn to Aequa. “Show me the tracking plate.”

It doesn’t take long to see what Emissa’s planning, given how Titus, Valentina, and Tem are arranged. Emissa guessed that Indol would be watching, so she’s letting them be seen. Using them as a distraction for both Indol and the Sextii who are supposed to be guarding the Heart, while she slips around and approaches the tower from the other side. The fading light, the muddying of other team’s members being involved… it would have been difficult once she had possession of the Heart, but still the best possible start. Confusing to everyone except her.

I frown around at the forest. There’s something tickling at my mind. Like a sound I can’t quite hear, a movement I can sense but not quite see. Distant.

“Are you alright?” Aequa looks at me worriedly.

“I’m fine. You get to Callidus. Marcellus, you’re with me. We need to warn the others.”

Marcellus unhooks the two medallions that were sitting around his neck and drops them to the ground. Then he digs in his pocket and tosses a small black bead alongside them. “No.”

Aequa and I look at him. “What?”

“I’m leaving.” There’s shame on Marcellus’s face, but also resolve. “I’m not dying for this.”

“You rotting, fetid coward.” Aequa spits the words and looks about to follow up with something worse, but I put a hand on her arm.

“Ignore him. No time.”

Aequa’s expression is still black, but she turns her back on Marcellus. The boy hurries away into the forest. I let him go.

“Warn Callidus. Get him to smash my medallion.” I channel my father as I give the command. Calm and stern. “We’ve delayed long enough; these people are going to realise something is wrong very soon. And if this is the Anguis, they may want me dead more than anyone else.” I press Indol’s bag of tracking stones into her hand as she opens her mouth to protest. “If you get spotted, don’t risk your life. Just run and get the rotting hells away. If my stone’s still on the tracking plate, I’ll know something went wrong and find a way to warn him myself.”

Aequa looks at the bag. “I still think—”

“Wait.” I hold up a finger, cutting her off. There’s something from the direction of the deep forest. The same feeling as I had before, but more insistent. A pulse of sensation, but not audible or visible. It’s growing stronger. “Hide.”

“What are you—”

“Hide.” I hurriedly kick the hand on the ground into the brush, then forcibly drag her into the thickest undergrowth nearby. She has the composure not to protest, though she shakes my grip and glares with confused irritability afterward.

Ten seconds pass. Twenty. Aequa shifts, looking like she’s about to reprimand me.

There’s a rustling, and two men walk into the clearing. One of them is carrying a tracking plate.

“Should be here,” the one with the plate mutters, head bowed over it. The other scans their surroundings, eyes narrowed against the rapidly fading light. His gaze passes over us. There’s no sign he sees anything out of the ordinary.

That strange sensation is emanating from them. It’s impossible to describe. A pulsing beacon that I know is entirely in my head, but that I can pinpoint in physical space.

The second man suddenly steps forward, snatches something up off the ground. Marcellus’s and Emissa’s medallions. “Another two.”

“Little bastards know.”

“How?”

“Doesn’t matter how.” The bigger man tosses the medallions to the ground again. Stomps on them emphatically, stone crunching as it breaks. “We just have to get as many of them as we can. Come on.”

They vanish the way they came. The pulsing sensation fades.

Aequa and I crouch for a good twenty seconds longer before she turns to me. “You heard them coming?”

I nod.

“Good ears.” I can see she wants to probe further—she doesn’t believe me; it’s the naumachia all over again—but instead she yields. “Alright. You’re right. I’ll go and warn Callidus. Just… be careful down there.”

We exchange tight smiles. Without anything further, she disappears southward.

---

THE DUAL TOWERS LOOM AGAINST the fading horizon as I run at a crouch, chest constricted, then scramble over a collapsed moss-covered wall and duck out of sight.

The guard’s footsteps pad along the other side of the stone a breath later. I feel his passing in my head, risk a peek out once he’s past. I can’t see his face, just dirty-blond hair hanging past his shoulders. He’s wrapped in a grey cloak. I have no idea what the men guarding the Heart would have been wearing, but it doesn’t matter. Whoever’s behind this attack knew enough to take out all the safety teams. They wouldn’t have risked leaving the last two opposing Sextii alive.

The man clomps around the corner, and I lever myself back up. I haven’t had time to question this strange new ability, but it’s proving useful: this is the third time I’ve felt the presence of someone before I’ve seen or heard them. Without it, there’s no way I could have made it this deep into the fortress without being spotted.

I school myself to patience, waiting before moving. As tempting as it’s been to simply rush in and scream a warning, I know it would be pointless; aside from the obvious danger to myself, Emissa and her team would just assume it’s a trap. All I’d be doing is alerting our attackers.

I consult my tracking plate. Marcellus seems to have been right about the Heart being in the tower ahead, and thankfully—or perhaps worryingly—it hasn’t moved. The three students acting as Emissa’s diversions are nearby, most likely hiding in a cluster of largely intact buildings just to the north. Hopefully she’s still with them.

As the pulse of danger dwindles from my senses I emerge again, keeping low, creeping toward the overgrown buildings. Dusk is fully upon me now, pink-tinged wisps of cloud fading to grey above. Dead leaves crunch underfoot. Everything else is silent.

It takes me two minutes to scurry from shadow to shadow, as fast as I dare, before I reach a large, walled courtyard. The remains of a fountain lie in its centre, arches surrounding it. I frown at my tracking plate. Scan the area.

Shrink back in horror as I spot the darker shapes high against the wall to my left.

The bodies are untouched, except for two areas. Where jagged stone spikes have nailed them, spread-eagled. And where their heads have been beaten to grisly, unrecognisable pulps.

Just like the safety teams. Just like Sianus.

My hands shake as I tear my gaze from the ruins of their skulls, looking for any other identifying features. There are just the three of them. One girl with long blond hair—Valentina. One with dark skin—Tem. And the other boy must be Titus.

I’m ashamed at my relief that Emissa’s not among them, even as my hands ball into fists.

“Do not mourn them.”

The words are accompanied by an abrupt presence behind me. Too close. Burning bright inside my head. I whirl, knife out and at the ready.

The man is tall and slender, narrow features cut by a pink-white line stretching from forehead to chin. It takes only a moment to place him.

The Festival of Pletuna. Relucia’s mysterious meeting.

“You know me,” the man says, cocking his head to the side. “From where?”

“I don’t know you.” I don’t lower my knife. “Stay back.”

“Now, now.” The man’s gaze flits from me to the corpses draped on the wall behind, then back again. “We have time, young man. Let us talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“I disagree.” The stranger begins circling. Slowly. Not coming toward me, but more as if he wants to get a better look at me. “Interesting. Oh, interesting. Of all the people in this world, we two have at least one thing to discuss.” He makes an odd sign, tapping his heart three times with three fingers.

I ignore him. My knife firmly between him and me. “Why are you doing this?” I jerk my head at the Fourths’ bodies, never taking my eyes from him.

The man looks disappointed. “That is not the question, young man. That is not an exchange worth having.” He produces a knife of his own. Smaller than mine. He flicks it idly in one hand. Lets it roll across his fingers, the wicked-looking short blade in and out between them, smooth as water. “But I shall indulge you, just this once. We are doing this at Military’s behest, though they think we don’t know. They expect that like the naumachia, we will be eager to claim responsibility. They expect that this will solidify us as a threat to all the Republic, allowing them to push through new laws and shore up their crumbling power in the Senate. And they expect the Senate to demand that they take over the Academy, to ensure such a massacre of promising young leaders never happens again. Because they do not know why this island is special—but they do know that it is.”

He continues circling, toying with the knife. “Of course, this will end with only one of our number being captured. And his interrogation will reveal that it was an attack sponsored from within the Hierarchy, a play to strip Religion of their control of the Academy. Though not who, exactly, was behind it.” He smiles. Shadowed and dark. “And even should others gain access to Solivagus because of this little incident, they will never find the gate. Because Veridius will bury it before he ever allows someone else near it.”

My heart pounds. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The stranger sighs.

The air warps, and he vanishes from view.

A second passes. Two. I stare around wildly. Not sure what to make of it.

“Yes you do,” the whisper comes from behind, a cold blade resting against my neck.

I drop my knife and splay my fingers in surrender, otherwise staying perfectly still. The pressure on my throat eases, but doesn’t disappear.

“Now,” murmurs the man. “Your safety team knew not to attack you, but these others… well. I could tell them. But then they would wonder why the boy who killed their leader was being spared. And we can’t have that. So go. Claim your prize.” A note of pleased amusement to the stranger’s voice. “Now that I know we are kin, young man, I am so very eager to see what you can do.”

I don’t speak immediately, fear and fury clotting my tongue.

“No. Relucia should have known better.” I get it out eventually. My voice shakes. It’s the wrong move, the wrong thing to say, but something’s breaking in me. The Anguis are responsible. The Anguis are responsible and at least in part, they’re doing all of this to make me Domitor. “I thought we’d come to an understanding. I was willing to cooperate, before this.”

“Relucia?” The man pauses, then laughs delightedly. “Oh, come now. She just does as she’s told. Our little revolutionary dreams too small for the likes of us, I fear.”

My brow furrows. At the Festival of Pletuna, I thought Relucia was giving this man orders. But the way he’s speaking about her here is fondly condescending.

“Why in the rotting hells would I do what you want me to do, then?”

“Because she is up there, too.”

My breath catches. The way he says she, there’s no doubting who he means.

“She’s alive?”

“For the moment.”

“Touch her, and I will find a way to kill you.”

He chortles, as if I’ve just made a grand joke. “Win, and you have my word. She shall remain unharmed.”

I think. Scrunch my eyes closed in frustration. “Agreed.”

The pressure on my throat vanishes. I turn carefully. The man has stepped back.

“One last piece of advice, young man,” he says quietly. “You should prepare yourself to lose that arm. None of us get out without scars.” He touches his disfigurement lightly.

There’s another warping in the air, and then he’s gone.

I release a shuddering breath once I’m sure I’m alone, scrambling over to my knife and snatching it up again. My sense of the stranger has vanished; there are only two fainter pulses from nearby, both from atop the left-most tower.

I peer up. It’s close, only a few buildings away. The square façade stretches perhaps a hundred feet into the air, though it shows plenty of gaps where time has worn the stone away. It’s in better condition than its twin, though, and its peak looks intact. No motion from up there, but there’s light. And no mistaking those unsettling beats in my head.

I slip through the deepening shadows to its base, and begin to climb.

The stairs creeping around the tower’s core are old and crumbling. A short waterfall in the river below hisses into the night. I ascend as swiftly as I can while still being quiet. If the stranger was telling the truth and Emissa’s up here, she probably has no idea what’s happened down below. Probably has no idea of the danger she’s in. That leaves me with few options. She still thinks we’re in opposition to each other; as long as she’s still trying to get the Heart, yelling a warning will do nothing except draw every Anguis in the area.

Which means I’m going to have to face whoever’s up here, and hope that Emissa helps take them down before they alert the others or kill me.

The pulsing above increases in intensity as I climb. Definitely two sources. I’m still profoundly unsettled by the idea that I can sense people like this, but for now, its utility outstrips my trepidations.

I reach the top, stealing a look over the stone parapet. Torches are lit around the tower’s edges. A single man lounges in the centre of the battlement. He’s enormous. A half-foot taller than me, lean and muscular. Bigger than many of the Octavii I used to fight in Letens.

There’s no sign of Emissa or anyone else, but the other pulse is coming from a jumble of wooden crates and rubble on the opposite side of the tower. Emissa must be hiding in there, waiting for her team to cause a distraction below. She probably scaled the far wall to avoid the guard’s notice.

“Come for this?” The man rolls lazily to his feet, holding up the golden Heart of Jovan between two fingers, though he never looks at me. He must have heard me coming, despite my best efforts.

There’s no point in hiding. I climb the last few stairs and step onto the battlement. “Yes.”

The guard finally turns to me. His face lights up in recognition.

“Catenicus.” A low and harsh delight to the name.

His eyes flood to black.