Fallen City by Adrienne Young - 40

My hands shook as I lit the incense.

I spoke the words with my eyes closed, my voice echoing in the Illyrium’s temple. The fragrant smoke filled my lungs, washing out the taste of the acrid fire still burning in the Lower City. But there was no forgetting what Vale had said. There was no denying it, either.

If Valshad had come for blood, we had little hope of maintaining what control we’d gained over Isara. Vale and I had been at it all night, constructing scenarios that might give us a chance at keeping the city walls intact. We had not one front now but two—the Sophanes and the gates. But we had nowhere near enough men to hold them both, which meant we were working at a puzzle that was impossible to solve.

Valshad’s army had done what they came to do—weaken our defenses. And I wasn’t the only one thinking it. The same thought was on the face of every legionnaire who had stood at the foot of the wall with soot smeared over his skin and blood streaking his tunic. Valshad had started a war before we’d even finished fighting the one with the Citadel, and I could feel the quiet trepidation of the soldiers from the Lower City who’d taken up arms with us.

We’d been low on supplies and resources weeks before Valshad appeared. We also had the looming threat of the entire Lower City at our backs. They were still waiting for what we’d promised them: grain and peace.

From what I’d seen of Valshad’s legion, we were outnumbered in a way that didn’t offer much hope, and many of the legionnaires most experienced in strategy and large-scale battle were across the Sophanes or gone. We had only a day before we needed to open the gates to Valshad’s Commander, so by the time the sun was setting again, we needed to have a plan. Walking away from that meeting with any kind of solution would come down entirely to what exactly they wanted, and I had a feeling that would depend on what the Consul had promised.

I prayed, Maris’ name burning on my lips as I cupped my hands, washing the smoke over my head. What Vale had said still haunted me. I had loved Maris Casperia since the first moment I saw her, and I hated the gods enough to reject the idea that it was the result of their fortune or favor. Sometimes I felt like she was a curse they had cast upon me. The ideas that Vitrasian had planted in my mind hadn’t found fertile ground until Maris. I hadn’t seen a way past my uncle, the Magistrates, the role I was destined to play in Isara. It was the night I stood with her in the gardens that I first found that sight.

“Matius.”

Théo said my name in a way that made my prayer stop short. I turned back to see him at the entrance to the temple. He’d refused to sleep, he and Asinia standing guard throughout the night as Vale and I worked.

“What is it?”

“There’s something you should see.” The tone of his voice was somewhere between confusion and concern.

I left the incense burning and got to my feet, striding toward the temple’s entrance. My body was so heavy with the need to sleep that I hardly felt my own feet beneath me. We took the long, statue-lined corridor of the Illyrium to the doors that opened on the silent courtyard.

Théo stopped at the top of the steps. “There.”

He pointed at the river, where the north bridge was visible in the distance. But there was something strange about the view that made a painful pricking feeling race across my skin. I couldn’t place what it was until Théo spoke again.

“The legionnaires. They’re gone.”

I took the steps down to the courtyard, eyeing the empty archway. Where soldiers were always posted, there were none. I couldn’t see any at the entrance to the south bridge, either. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I looked around us, suddenly aware that things weren’t just quiet. They were too quiet. I squinted, studying the dark, and my eyes narrowed when I saw the flash of light flickering against the sky.

I took a step forward as it drifted toward us, turning and twisting in an erratic pattern. A few seconds later, I realized it was fire. The object fell from the sky, landing on the stones before us, and a sick feeling turned inside me.

It was a falcon. Engulfed in flames.

My eyes lifted back to the sky, where more were tipping and swaying on burning wings. They were coming from the Citadel. And that wasn’t all. A warping shadow of black moved against the night sky, the smell of it thickening.

Smoke.

My feet started moving, taking me across the plaza as my mind tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Ahead, the bridge was empty. Deserted. The barricades were still standing, but not a single one was manned. Théo watched the buildings around us, both of us thinking the same thing.

“Where is Roskia?” he murmured.

I walked wordlessly toward the end of camp where his cohort had been gathered, and Théo disappeared into one of the tents as I turned in a circle, eyes scanning the scene around me. Tables set with pots of stew and unleavened bread were left abandoned, the fires gone out. Stools were toppled, the rooftop missing its sentries.

Théo reemerged from the tent in the midst of strapping on his armor, the sword swinging at his side. But he stopped short, turning toward the river when we heard the sound of shouting. We stood there, eyes trained on the mouth of the haze-draped bridge ahead. There were no legionnaires posted on the other side, either.

Théo took a careful step forward, watching the rooftops as if he were waiting for the sound of an arrow. But there were no archers on the Citadel. I drew the knife at my belt with the sound of Théo’s footsteps at my back, holding my wounded arm to my chest. We were running now, and my heart was sprinting ahead of me as the bell of the camp rang behind us. Someone else had noticed that something was wrong. That, or they were calling in reinforcements. To a battle we hadn’t sanctioned.

I ran toward the empty bridge, driving my legs faster as we crossed the water. The barrier that separated the market from the north end of the district was already a pile of bricks, toppled by the ammunition of the ballistae in the New Legion’s attack on the Illyrium. Théo climbed the heap, reaching behind him to pull me up. I dropped on the other side and he came down beside me.

I didn’t wait for him before I walked into the wall of smoke, swallowed up by the sounds of voices and orders being called out in the buildings ahead. The air burned in my eyes and throat, and when I saw what lay on the other side, panic flooded my veins.

Dozens of legionnaires in red tunics and scale armor were barely visible through the thick smoke, covering the steps of the Citadel. Each of them wore a blue sash on their arm. They weren’t the Loyal Legion. These soldiers belonged to us.

“There!” Théo watched the entrance, where Demás stood at the top of the steps. And wherever Demás was, Roskia couldn’t be far behind.

A heavy breath escaped me as I realized what this was. Roskia’s cohort had crossed into the Citadel District. The men at the river’s edge straightened when they saw me, their voices echoing in a salute as I searched their faces for Roskia. We took the steps two at a time and I resisted the urge to draw my sword. There was something wrong about the way the legionnaires stood in the entrance to the portico. Their weapons were sheathed, their postures relaxed. It wasn’t the manner of soldiers holding a defense. This was the way legionnaires looked when a battle was won.

Smoke rose from the roof, spiraling into the black sky over us, the Citadel lit with the glow of firelight.

“Sir.”

The legionnaires recognized me with a string of acknowledgments, but I halted as my eyes tried to understand what I was seeing. Beams of early sunlight slanted through the hazy, warm air, and every inch of me registered the disturbing silence that filled the domed room.

That sick, gnawing feeling crawled up my throat as I stared at them—the bodies. Hung from the balcony along each side of the wall. Below each one, a Magistrate’s portrait taken from the Tribunal Hall was propped on display. Like a trophy for each of the slain.

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

The room spun around me and I pinned my eyes to a pair of dangling, sandaled feet ahead. The portrait beneath it was slashed, the canvas ripped in two.

I moved forward, not breathing as I peered up into the blank face of a dark-haired woman. My heart threatened to explode in my chest before I realized it wasn’t Maris.

I went to the next, and the next, hands skimming the bloodstained chitons and stolae.

“She’s not here.” Théo’s voice was suddenly close to me again, and his hand came out, taking hold of my arm to steady me. It wasn’t until then that I realized I was trembling. So violently that I could hardly stand.

“She’s not here, Matius,” he said again, his grip tightening.

I turned in a circle, my gaze still searching for any sign of her. There were at least fifty, maybe sixty bodies hanging from the banisters. Magistrates and their families. More than one had a face I recognized.

My vision tunneled as I found the knife at the back of my belt, and Théo’s voice flickered out, replaced by the pounding in my ears. I walked straight toward the other side of the portico, where the archway opened to the Tribunal Hall.

I didn’t see the faces of the soldiers who passed me or the dead ones from the Loyal Legion who lay scattered across the floor.

The door to the Magistrate chambers marked with the name Casperia was ajar, the iron bar busted at the joint as if it had been forced open.

I couldn’t breathe, imagining it. Maris’ body on the floor. The cold touch of her skin, the color drained from her face. I stepped over the pool of expanding blood creeping across the marble and pushed inside, a sound breaking in my chest. The chamber was dark, except for the faintest light of dawn. I stepped inside, the underwater feeling creating pressure in my head as my eyes swept the room. It was empty.

My gaze landed on a dark streak that marred the white stone below the window. I moved toward the ledge, teeth clenching. It was blood. Pressed to the ledge in the shape of a small, slender hand.

I peered down to the river below, the water writhing like a snake as the New Legion’s camp came to life. Any moment, they would wake to what had happened. But it was far too late to stop it.