Fallen City by Adrienne Young - 1

There were no gods left to pray to.

The short sword glimmered as I tilted its edge against the sharpening stone, the metal warm against my calloused fingers. A line of recruits watched in a kind of daze, their focus trained on my grip as the high-pitched vibration drowned out the sounds of early morning in the camp.

Sharpening your blade correctly is a means of survival, I’d told them. As necessary as cleaning your armor or fastening your boots before battle. What I didn’t tell them was that there are times when none of those things matter. That no amount of preparation could prevent the kind of death many of them would meet.

The motion of the wheel sank deep into my hands as I leaned my weight into the sword, turning it again at just the right angle until it held steady against the stone with almost no sound at all.

“Give it a try.” I handed the sword to the man beside me.

The unsteady look in his eye did little to reassure me. If I had to guess, I would say he had once been a mason or one of the laborers who maintained the city walls. He didn’t look as if he’d ever swung a sword in his life.

He was at least ten years my senior, but he gave me an obedient nod and took the sword, eyeing the blade. It was a humble weapon, the iron a flat gray and missing the faint shimmer of the swords that had been forged and strengthened with godsblood. With the right blow, the metal would fail him.

He got to work, stepping into my place so he could position its edge against the wheel as it cranked back to life. The sound of metal on stone filled the tent, and I watched his eyes focus, his strong hands turning the sword a bit clumsily until it slipped, sending an eruption of sparks into the air. He caught it by the handle before it fell to the cobblestones underfoot, eyes wide as he looked up at me.

I motioned for him to try again, and when he set the blade to the wheel this time, it took only seconds before he had the feel of it. The medallion that hung around his neck signified him as a citizen of Isara, but I paid no mind to the family name engraved on it. These recruits weren’t the apathetic privilege-born legionnaires I’d sparred with in the training ring. The ones who grew up in the Citadel District, enlisting for their parents’ political gain. They weren’t the zealous, hot-blooded youths I’d fought beside when the first breath of rebellion flooded the streets, either. These were dwindling remnants of the Lower City. Broken pieces of lost family lines who’d joined up for the rations and the protection of the New Legion. I’d stopped looking at their faces months ago, eager to keep myself from recognizing them when we pulled the arrow-pierced bodies from the streets. But the questions still hung in my mind as I drew the smell of the hot metal into my lungs. How many children did this man have? How many would miss him once he was gone?

He lifted the blade from the wheel, and when I gave him a nod of approval, he stepped back in line.

“Next.”

I gestured to the man behind him, an old Isarian with a white beard and sun-worn skin that sagged. As soon as he drew his sword, I exhaled a little. He had strong hands and arms. That, at least, was something. But that meager sense of hope withered when I saw the talisman that hung alongside his medallion. The braided cord lay beneath the opening of his tunic, a sign that this was a man who believed the gods would protect him.

He tried to be discreet when he glanced up over my head, but then forced his eyes down with a look of shame. He wasn’t the only one in the group I’d caught staring at the mark. That was something I hadn’t gotten used to. I didn’t think I ever would.

It had been almost six months since the gods had marked me, placing a faint circlet of light over my head. It wasn’t as visible in the glare of the sun, but in dim, shadowed light like this, it glimmered just enough to catch the eye.

The scrape of the wheel sounded in fits and starts as the man got started, and I tilted my hand in the air silently, showing him the correct angle. He made the adjustment, giving me a grateful nod, but my attention was slowly drawn to the opening of the tent, where I could hear the low hum of voices. Dust had been stirred into the air.

My brow creased, my arms falling from where they were crossed over my chest, and I watched the light outside change just a little. Far beyond the walls of the city, the sun was just rising over the horizon, but the stillness of the camp had shifted somehow. I could feel it.

One by one, the recruits were sensing it, too. They looked up, faces turning toward the sunlight, and the man lifted the sword from the wheel, waiting.

“Every blade,” I ordered, leaving them.

I pushed outside, expecting to find my tribune waiting, but he was gone. The moment the Centurion’s medals had been placed on my chest, I’d been assigned a handpicked legionnaire honored for his talents in battle. A tribune’s only job was to protect the highest-ranking soldiers, and in the last three months alone, I’d watched two of them die. This one would be the third.

I looked up and down the street, trying to spot him. I hadn’t been able to shake him from my shadow for more than an hour at a time. So, where was he?

The Loyal Legion’s barricades were erected along the riverfront, where the soldiers who’d been our brothers-in-arms less than a year ago were hunkered down and waiting for the end we all knew was coming. They’d chosen their side, just like we had. And most of the time, I could hardly blame them for it. The only question was how much blood would be spilled before it was finally over.

Our sprawling camp marked the hard-won front line, flanking the opposite edge of the river that cut the walled city of Isara in two unequal parts. The first was the Citadel District, where the Citadel sat on a hill, encircled by the villas of the Consul, Magistrates, and other highborn families. It was still dark, save for the lights of the Forum’s great dome, the streets empty. The commotion wasn’t coming from there.

Behind me was the Lower City, ten times the size of the district and filled with everyone else. It had taken months to fight our way through the compact maze of streets and buildings all the way to the edge of the Sophanes River, and for twelve nights, we’d held what was left of the Consul’s Loyal Legion on the other side. It, too, was quiet. Just beginning to stir as the temperature warmed.

It took a few seconds for me to realize what was off. It was the camp itself. By this time each morning, there were already legionnaires going about their daily tasks, and in preparation for what lay ahead, there was more than enough work to be done. We outnumbered what was left of the Loyal Legion, but the last stand in the district would be a bloody one. In a matter of days, we’d be crossing the river.

I took a step forward, where the tents opened up enough to see past the camp. It was all but empty now, a stream of red tunics spilling down the bank of the river. Except for one. My tribune appeared, pushing through the legionnaires in the opposite direction. As soon as he saw me, his pace quickened. He had one hand clenched to the hilt of his sword.

“What the hell is going on?” I snapped, eyes scanning the growing crowd in the distance.

“It’s the south bridge, Centurion.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, my gut twisted.

For the first time, I looked the tribune in the eye. His dark irises were sharply focused on me, the set of his jaw firm. There wasn’t so much as a ripple of unsteadiness there, but I could sense the faint shadow of something else.

My feet were moving before he could fall into step beside me.

“Three bodies this time—Magistrates.” He kept his voice low, confirming what I already knew.

It wasn’t the first time dawn had broken over the hanging corpses of Magistrates and their families on the south bridge. They were the reason this war had started, the wielders of the judgment stones that controlled the fate of the city. But now they were being hunted one by one, emboldening the soldiers of the New Legion with the promise of an empty Forum once we crossed the river.

“Are there any women?” I rasped, throat tight.

“Sir?”

“ Women. ” I could barely get the word out. “Are any of them women?”

“Yes. Two women and one man.”

My pulse was racing so fast now that it felt like my heart would stop altogether. More legionnaires ran past us, everyone headed to the bridge, and I pushed into the crowd as panic flooded my veins. I could see the pillars of the stone archway ahead, but there were too many people. I couldn’t get a view of the water.

The tribune stayed close to my side, one arm shoving into the bodies before us to create a path. But it took only a moment for the legionnaires to recognize me, a collective hush falling over them. They parted until the street was open before me, and their gazes drifted above my head to the mark, a look of reverence falling over their faces.

I ignored them, taking advantage of the opportunity to get to the railing at the river’s edge. Once I could see the bank, I struggled to keep my steps steady until I reached it.

Not her. Please, gods, don’t let it be her.

“Centurion.”

My tribune’s voice faded away behind me, my heart turning into a knot wedged between my collarbones. I couldn’t breathe for the several seconds it took for my eyes to find them. Three bodies were hung from the bottom of the bridge, their forms limp and heavy. The river ran below their feet, the water whitecapped and quick as it traveled from one side of the city to the other.

The dead man’s face was turned up to the sky, his neck gruesomely broken, and his bulging red eyes open and empty. He had a crescent ring of hair that crested his balding head and a bloom of dark blood stained the front of his fine white tunic. It looked as if he’d soiled himself, too.

I nearly lost my balance, catching the railing as my vision focused on the pale blond braids of the woman who hung beside him. She was missing a sandal, her bare foot blue and misshapen, as if it had been crushed.

Not her.

But the third body was turning slowly in the air, the face hidden by a curtain of dark hair. My hand tightened on the railing, slick with sweat. My chest felt like it was caving in, my whole body bracing for what I was about to see. The green silk chiton fluttered in the breeze, gently caressing the pale hands that hung limp in the air, her skin almost completely drained of its color. The tassels of the belt at her waist were caked in mud, the ties unraveling, as if she’d been dragged through the streets. A shaking breath escaped my lips as the glint of a gold ring caught the light.

I swallowed down the urge to retch, as slowly, the body continued to turn on the rope. The wind picked up, blowing the length of hair across her face, and by the time I could see it, black was pushing in along the edges of my vision.

It wasn’t her.

The image of the woman suspended from the bridge was instantly replaced by my memory of another, which was cast across my dreams each night. Salt water dripping from her hair, the sound of her laugh. The shape of her body beneath the wet silk as she waded out into the sea. The memory flashed in my mind, flickering in and out until the blue-tinged face of the dead woman finally came back into focus.

Not her. Not her.

A sharp, tingling feeling spiraled from the center of my belly as I finally inhaled, and then I was pushing back into the gathered legionnaires, away from the river.

“Centurion?”

The tribune followed at my back, but I kept my eyes on the cobblestones until I reached the edge of the crowd, certain that I was going to pass out. I barely made it to the corner of the building across the street, my legs threatening to give out beneath me with every step. I caught my balance on the stone just as I vomited, and I was only half aware of the tribune taking position behind me to hide me from view.

I retched until my stomach was empty, the rush of blood in my head making me dizzy. By the time I was steady on my feet again, my tribune was waiting, discreetly holding a cloth between us. I took it, trying to catch my breath.

“Are you alright, sir?” he said, eyes still fixed to the street. He’d been like a splinter beneath my skin for weeks, but he at least did me the courtesy of not watching as I wiped the vomit from my mouth.

The crowd at the bridge had multiplied now, and the sound of cheering had begun to fill the air. The collective chant took shape slowly, growing louder as more voices joined in.

“Thirty-three! Thirty-three! Thirty-three!”

The number changed every time a Magistrate’s body was hung from the bridge—it was the number of them left in the Citadel.

“Centurion Roskia,” my tribune murmured.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, trying to breathe through the sick feeling still gripping my gut. I knew he was right. The Centurion Roskia and his cohort of forty-eight legionnaires were some of the best soldiers we had, and there was no doubt that they were one of the reasons we’d managed to push the front all the way to the Sophanes River. But he was also the most brutal and barbaric Isarian in our ranks, and he’d made a name for himself by hunting down and killing every Magistrate who attempted to flee the city. After more than two dozen unsanctioned skirmishes and executions, he’d been relegated to the gates in an effort to contain him until we crossed the bridge. But that hadn’t kept him and his legionnaires at bay.

“Thirty-three! Thirty-three!” The sound of the words warped in my mind.

The seats in the Forum were now half empty. And it was only a matter of time until I saw Maris Casperia hanging from one of those ropes. And when that happened, it wouldn’t just be the end of me. It would be the end of everything.

I pushed off the wall, stalking back toward the camp, where the smoke from the temple fire was still rising from the Illyrium. I glanced back one more time at the crowd, at the fists lifting into the air, the sound of a bright, fragile hope in their voices.

Traitors, they’d called us, when we first revolted. Defectors and rebels. When the first arrows flew over the Forum. When the first barricades went up. But it wasn’t until I saw the bodies in the streets that I realized what we’d done. And for that, I didn’t know if there was a name.