Fallen City by Adrienne Young - 46

Once, the theater had overlooked the sea.

I stood at the top of the seats, where sunlight bathed the white stone, and stared into the haze. Now the view was hidden behind a sky filled with smoke.

Only a year ago, I’d watched Vitrasian stand on the stage and speak to dozens of highborn Isarians about the revolution of the planets. It was one of the last lectures she gave before she penned the play that would change the fate of our city.

She had been a lover of tragedies and I’d seen all the ones she’d written, no idea yet what that word even meant. I remembered watching as the players killed each other with wooden swords below. Now I wondered if that was where it had been born—the thing in me that had filled the sky with the smoke that hid the sea.

I’d realized something the day Vitrasian was executed. For the first time in my life, I had a reason to die. But if I was going to finish what I started, I had to untie myself from my only reason to live.

By the time I reached the Citadel, the Forum was flooded with the legionnaires transferring the legion’s camp across the river. We’d waited for this day for so long, and now that it was here, none of it mattered. On the other side of the wall, an army waited to devour us. Every risk, every sacrifice, every death. It was all so close to meaning nothing.

I was numb as I climbed the steps and passed back through the corridors. Inside, soldiers were taking down the stiff hanging corpses and hauling them out. An order from Vale, I guessed.

The Consul’s inner and outer chambers had been mostly cleared of soldiers, and the legionnaires in the corridor didn’t even look at me twice, giving small gestures of acknowledgment as I passed.

Asinia stood at the door and I breathed through the tightness in my chest when I saw Vale’s shadow stretched across the marble. He stood before the altar, burning a plate of incense.

“Close the door, Matius.” The words were heavy as he said my family name, missing the familiarity that they usually held.

I clenched my teeth, obeying. Asinia glanced at me from the corner of his eye before the door slid shut and I stepped inside, lifting my chin. Vale’s silence roared in the room, a quiet rage rippling off him in waves. I could almost always read him, but I didn’t know what this was. This was something different.

I waited in silence as he washed the smoke over his body with cupped hands, eyes closed. He was stripped down to his tunic, the blood from battle still crusted on his skin. But his hands and face had been scrubbed clean.

“What are you asking the gods for?” I said, voice low.

He blew on the smoldering incense, sending another waft of pungent smoke into the air. “The offering isn’t for them.”

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t press, trying to read the feeling that seeped through the air. The look on his face was strange. Distant.

“How many times have we talked about the day we would stand in this room together?” he said, keeping his back to me.

I didn’t answer. The truth was too hard to think about. Those dreams were born long before this war, and we’d had no real idea of what the cost would be. We didn’t know what it would take. And now here we were, with everything we’d wanted, and it only felt like we’d lost.

“Did you really believe we could win?” he asked.

“I did.”

“Do you think that’s what we did?”

“We knew there would be a price, Vale. If you’re asking whether the price was worth it, then my answer is I don’t know yet,” I said hoarsely.

He looked at me with a deep sympathy, his face softening.

From the beginning, it had been Vale and me. From our first day as legionnaires to the day we walked across that bridge. Even now, as the bodies were being dragged out of the Citadel, our fates were intertwined.

“You and I lost control of this thing a long time ago. We promised them a swift victory and the reward of power. Grain for their families. Peace. Now we don’t have any of those things.”

“You think we were fools,” I murmured.

He nodded. “Yes, we were. But that doesn’t change what happened here. If we’d never gone to war with the Magistrates, the streets would still be filled with the dead. Our dead.”

He was talking about the citizens of the Lower City now. The ones who’d taken up arms with us. But we weren’t the same as them. Not really. I was a grafted vine of both noble and common blood. I’d been born in the Lower City, but I’d become a man in the Citadel District. I’d fallen in love and taken vows with the daughter of a Magistrate, and though I’d dreamed of revolution, I’d never cut the ties that bound me to the Citadel.

“You and I might see this for what it is, but this isn’t about you and me,” Vale said. “It’s about Isara. Right now, Valshad is waiting outside the walls. And we’ve promised them a Priestess that we don’t have.”

“So, what do we do?”

“We open the gates. Then we see if the gods have any mercy left for us. If you plan to stay, that is.”

I waited. I could see he had a question. Whether he would ask it was another matter.

After a long moment, Vale leveled his gaze at me. “You have every reason to go, Luca. And if you stay, you will always be a breath away from them finding out what Roskia knows. He’s wrong about a lot of things, but he’s also right. Eventually, justice will find us both.”

“Are you asking me if I plan to leave?” I said.

“You’re not Commander. You made sure of that.”

“We decided together that you would lead,” I said, defensive.

“We did. But for different reasons. I think we’ve come far enough together to say the truth out loud, don’t you?”

“What truth?”

“That I became Commander because you were afraid to. I did this for you.”

The words carved deep inside me, splitting me in two. To the legionnaires, I was the stoic, ruthless rebel who’d avenged the Philosopher and started the rebellion. But to Vale, I was just the only thing he had that resembled family. And he was protecting me in more ways than one.

I turned to the window, where I’d held Roskia over the drop only hours before, looking out over the Forum to the sea. Almost immediately, I could see Maris. Feel her touch beneath the water.

“When we started this,” Vale said, “we gave our lives to Isara. We let go of what we wanted. Do you remember that?”

I swallowed. “I remember.”

He took hold of my shoulder and clenched it tight, his eyes meeting mine with a deep sadness. “But you’re my brother, Luca. And if you want to go, I’m not going to stop you.”

I’d never heard his voice sound like that. The pain on his face was so vulnerable that it filled my insides with dread. What had it taken for him to muster the courage to say it? That if I wanted to go, he would let me.

My eyes drifted back to the altar, where the incense still burned. Maybe that was what he’d meant when he said it wasn’t an offering for the gods. Maybe it was an offering for me.

“We started this together, Vale. That’s how we’ll finish it, too,” I said.

“And Maris?”

The name resounded inside me as soon as it was spoken, but Vale didn’t so much as blink. I’d already decided before I’d seen the cuff on her arm. I’d known the words I’d spoken were a lie. But now, with the knowledge that Maris had been gifted, I was even more certain about what I had to do. I didn’t trust the gods. I especially didn’t trust them with Maris.

“I’m not leaving.” A strangled feeling curled in my throat as I said it. Even thinking it made my heart feel like it was tearing open with each beat.

Vale exhaled. He rubbed his hands over his face, breathing into them.

“But if I don’t get her out of the city, I can’t do what I need to do. I can’t make the decisions I need to make or keep the promises I made to you.”

We’d come far, he and I. Once, we’d been boys holding wooden swords on the training grounds for the legion’s recruits. But that was before we’d seen what we’d seen. Before we’d done what we’d done.

He looked up at me, the old Vale I knew flashing in his eyes. “Then why are you here, Luca?”

“Because I need your help,” I said.