The Strength of the Few by James Islington - 16

I STARE AT EMISSA. SURPRISED . Delighted. Furious. Panicked. So tangled up in myself that I don’t respond for several seconds. The dark-haired girl in the middle of the street just watches me. Lit by the dawn. Smile painfully uncertain.

“Emissa.” I finally get the name out. “What are you doing here?”

It comes out harsher than I mean it to, and Emissa winces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ambush you like this. We can talk another time. Or not,” she adds with hesitant insecurity. “But I know you have a carriage just around the corner. Could I ride with you? Just give me until you get home.”

It’s less than ten minutes to my apartments. “Alright.” It’s not alright, not entirely, but I can’t avoid her forever. I don’t want to avoid her forever. I think.

And while I don’t believe she’s still intent on killing me, it doesn’t hurt that the driver will be a witness to her company.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I’ve been trying to contact you since the Columnae attack. Even Veridius couldn’t get you a message.” She fidgets with her clothing. “I knew you’d come to see Lanistia eventually, though.”

Of course. Given both her father’s position and her sway as Military’s top graduate, it wouldn’t have been hard to arrange word of my visit. “Veridius sent you?”

“Not exactly.”

We pass a clump of grim-looking Octavii. They glance at us sourly before one of them brightens, whispering something to her companions; suddenly they’re all nodding and murmuring “Stronger together” to me as they pass. I force a smile back in acknowledgement. A common occurrence. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I wanted to see you, and Veridius wanted me to pass along a message. But mostly, I wanted to see you.” Sincerity in the emphasis.

We reach the carriage and I just grunt as we get in, the driver eyeing Emissa but making no objection. I’m still too disoriented, too twisted up, to know what emotion I want to display. Brusqueness is a convenient shield at the moment.

There are only the sounds of waking Caten around us as the Will-carriage begins to roll. So much that needs to be said, to be explained, but I don’t think either of us know where to begin.

Eventually, Emissa speaks into the awkwardness.

“I thought you were already dead. That you’d died and been replaced by something very dangerous.” She doesn’t look at me. Her brow is furrowed, long brown hair falling over her face. Her calm façade vanished. Or perhaps this is the façade. But I have never heard her sound so vulnerable or small or sad as when she makes the admission. “When I stabbed you, that night. I really thought…” She trails off.

“What?” I whisper it. Shake my head. Spread my hands to show my utter confusion. “ Why would you think that?”

“It was your blood. Veridius said you’ve been to the ruins near the Academy—been underground?” She takes a breath. Steadies. Meets my gaze long enough to see me confirm it. “Then you saw those bodies in there. The ones with the swords through their chests, but that can talk.”

I shudder. “Yes.”

“I thought you were one of those. ‘Iunctii,’ Veridius calls them. Already dead, but… not. He warned me that there are more of them out there, and they’re not always like that. Not always obvious. They can move around. Even pretend to be the people they once were.”

I think of the husks chasing me from the dome. Complete the journey, warrior .

Vek . My stomach twists as more connections come. “Gods. Lanistia…”

“She’s not. Military have already had her blood tested.” My heart unclenches. “But the way they test is by seeing how blood interacts with an imbued object. Obsidian, usually. Normal blood does nothing. The blood of the dead causes a kind of interference. It’s easy to spot, if you know what to look for.”

I think about what she’s saying. Replay that night up on the tower, as I already have so many times.

“Your blade. You used it to cut away my shirt. It had my blood on it.” That was the moment it all changed. She was protecting me, so concerned about my injuries. And then, suddenly, not.

“There was something wrong with it,” she says. Utter, painful frustration at the memory. “ So obviously. I didn’t want to act on it. You have to know I didn’t want to. But that’s why those things are so dangerous, why Veridius trained me to spot them in the first place. Why it’s so important to strike first,” she finishes softly.

I stare at the opposite seat of the carriage, just trying to grasp it. “If that’s true, then what changed? How do you know I’m not…” I gesture.

“There are things the dead can’t do. Like heal.” Her eyes go to my empty sleeve. “You were tied up for the first few days when you got back to the Academy, but then you started to get better. Veridius… I think Veridius was looking for it. He said you must have run the Labyrinth in the ruins on the other side of the island. He figured your blood must have been contaminated in some other way. I think he knows how, but he doesn’t trust me enough to explain.” She locks eyes with me. So much pain and sorrow in them I can barely stop from looking away. “It was a mistake, Vis. A terrible, terrible mistake that I wish every day I could take back. I am so sorry.”

I don’t tell her it’s alright. I can’t. “So you’ve been working with the Principalis.” I say it gently enough that she understands I’m willing to continue listening, at least.

Emissa struggles to find the words for a few seconds. Fighting the urge to say more. Apologise more. The newly healed scar along my stomach itches.

“For him.” It’s a correction she’s not happy at having to make.

“Willingly?”

She takes some time to think about it. “Yes.” Not as confident as I would have expected, though. “I know he’s told you about the Cataclysm, and I believe him.”

“Why?”

“The things he’s shown me.” She shakes her head with a rueful smile at my expression. “No. If I tell you what I know, you’ll decide it means there’s no need to go and see Veridius. And Vis? You really need to go and see Veridius.”

I don’t say anything. She knows me well.

“He’s been trying to get a message to you for days now,” she adds, seeing I’m not going to respond. “A warning. When are your Placement exams?”

“They’re not telling us exactly, but probably in a couple of months. Same time as yours, I assume,” I say slowly.

“There’s going to be a separate test, just before you get ceded your Will. They’re going to check your blood.”

I swallow. Remembering Sextus Valerius, the strange man who came to the villa after the naumachia and took samples of my blood. Showed me those pictures. “I’m not going to pass, am I.”

“No. And they’re going to kill you because of it.”

I close my eyes. Part of me doubts her, can’t just accept her word the way I used to. I know how gods-damned good a liar she is now. But it feels real. “How do I avoid it?”

“You don’t. You can’t. It’s being mandated by the Princeps.” She takes a slow breath. “But there is a way you can fool it.”

“Which is?”

“You could cede to me before taking it.”

Silence, and then eventually I just laugh. When she just looks at me steadily, I throw up my hands. “You want me to become your Octavus?” Even the words make me sick.

“Only just before the test, and then I’d release your ceding as soon as it’s done. Before Placement. The timing would be tricky, but we could do it.” She sees the disgust warring on my face. “Veridius says it’s something to do with your Will being different, not your blood by itself. If you don’t have enough Will to begin with, it won’t trigger the reaction they’re looking for.”

I run a hand through my hair. “You’re sure that will work?”

“Veridius is sure. And I trust him on this. He wants you alive. So do I.” She watches me. The carriage rolls through Caten’s streets. Outside, the faint cries of hawkers are already echoing in the early morning. “It’s not enough, is it? You don’t believe me.”

“No. I believe you.” No reason for her to lie about this. Trust, though. That’s another issue. “Thanks. I’ll find a way.”

Her nod to my tacit rejection of her help is hurt and unsurprised. “What about talking to Veridius?”

“I’ll go and see him if he guarantees me unrestricted access to Solivagus. No chaperone.” Even before speaking to Lanistia, I knew I was going to have to talk to him eventually. But Emissa doesn’t know I’ve already made that decision.

“You know he won’t do that.”

“If he won’t trust me, then I see no reason to trust him.”

She stares at me. Frustrated. Seeing through me, I think, but enough has happened and she’s unsure enough that she’s not willing to gamble. The carriage is passing Lordan’s Column, not far from my apartments now. “What if I could get you in to see the prisoner from the Iudicium? Would you agree to go and see Veridius then?”

I blink. Taken aback. “I… didn’t know there was one,” I eventually lie. Officially there was no one captured after the Iudicium, though there have been rumours swirling. And I’ve been isolated since the Aurora Columnae attack, haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone with senatorial access. If not for my prior knowledge of the Anguis’s plan, this would have been a startling revelation.

“It’s been kept quiet. My father says Military made a big show of having the Dimidii from Religion and Governance in on the first interrogation, but it didn’t go well. The senatorial pyramids have been keeping their own counsel on it ever since.” She examines me. A sort of fond sadness in the look. “Gods, Vis. You can tell the Senate whatever you want, but I know you chose Callidus’s father as your patron because you want to find the people behind the attack. I do, too. I want to help . But this thing with Veridius is even more important.” She sees the flash in my eyes at her priorities, and shakes her head. “They were my friends too,” she adds softly.

I make a conscious effort to release my unjustified anger, and nod. Willing to share at least this pain with her. And willing to take this bonus. It may not end up being useful—I already know what the prisoner is meant to reveal, how he’s meant to sow division between the senatorial pyramids—but it can’t hurt, either.

The carriage is slowing. Drawing close to my rooms. We don’t have much time left. Emissa knows it too.

“So we’re agreed? I get you in to see the prisoner, you talk to Veridius?” Not showing her desperation, but I know it’s there. “It will have to be after Placement. They won’t let either of us in unless we’re at least Sextii.”

“I’ll let you know.” Eking this from her feels wrong. Feels like I’m deceiving her about something new, something I don’t have to. But that’s dangerous. I can’t even know if what she’s told me thus far is the truth. “If I change my mind, about the ceding. Where are you staying?”

“Military apartments on Vicus Caeseti. Fourth floor. Turn right at the top of the stairs and it’s the second door.”

“I’ll need an access token, then. You know they won’t let me in otherwise.”

She holds my gaze. Hesitates, then produces a small stone disc and presses it into my palm. Folds my fingers over it.

“This will let you into any Military housing.” She smiles ruefully, finally letting go. “But you already knew that.”

The carriage pulls to a stop, and the door opens. We disembark, and I look at her. I want to say so much. To yell. To make her understand what she broke. “You’re sure about the blood test?”

She nods. Looks like she wants to step forward and embrace me. Then to say something more, something important.

“Be careful.” Mournful eyes linger on me, and then she turns and walks away.

THE NIGHT AIR HAS A chill to it. everything’s silent. No one else in sight. I keep my hood up and cloak loose around my left side anyway, doing what I can to disguise my shape as I tentatively rap on the door.

I’m on the third-story balcony of a building in Aventilus District. It’s mostly brick. Ground floor dedicated to shops around the open courtyard. Similar to the one containing my own apartment, and virtually indistinguishable from the hundreds of others in Caten that house the vast majority of the city’s million-odd inhabitants.

Except, of course, that the occupants here are mostly Military Sextii and above. Not a group that will keep their mouths shut, if they spot me.

There’s no response from inside. I hold my breath and knock again, a little harder.

The scraping of a chair. Heavy footsteps. A sliver of dim light filters out onto the balcony.

“Vis?” Eidhin opens the cracked door wider in recognition. Dressed and fully awake, I’m pleased to see. He always did prefer to stay up late. My redheaded friend frowns out in wary puzzlement, then bends his hulking form aside to allow me through.

“Sorry for coming unannounced. And so late.” I keep my voice low and talk in Cymrian, even after Eidhin shuts the door again. This is an affluent area but the walls are still made of wood. Not thin, but not thick enough to discard caution.

“How did you get in? You need a…” I flash the access token, and he rolls his eyes. “Of course you have one. Come in. Food? Drink?” Speaking Cymrian too. Understanding immediately.

“A drink, if you’re offering.”

Eidhin grunts and busies himself pouring as I look around. The apartment’s small: just two rooms separated by a bead curtain. A couple of chairs and a candlelit table in this one, with a bench for food preparation and cupboards beneath. A bed dominates the other.

“Better than the Academy,” says Eidhin, seeing my observation. “Not as pleasant as whatever Governance have provided you, I am guessing?”

“I was wondering where all your fountains and gold mosaics were.”

“We cannot all be Catenicus.” He presses a mug into my hand. I take a swig without thinking, then almost choke as cheap wine burns my throat. “It did not feel like this was a visit where water would suffice,” he adds, straight-faced as always.

I half glare and half chuckle, taking a more prepared draught this time. “You’re not wrong. I need a couple of favours.” I slump into a seat.

“Are you alright?” Simple, genuine concern. Brow furrowed as he examines me.

“No.” I don’t realise it’s true until I utter the word. There’s suddenly a lump in my throat. Weariness combining with the emotion that has drained me today, this whole past week. My missing arm and aching heart. I put my head in my hand. The tension that has been with me since talking to Emissa this morning finally leaking out. “No, Eidhin. No. I’m not alright.”

There’s a massive hand on my shoulder. I look up to see Eidhin crouching in front of me. Eyes locked to mine.

“Whatever you need,” he says quietly.

I grin at him. A couple of tears leaking down my cheeks but I’m not ashamed. He sees I believe him, nods. We settle opposite each other, the low-burning candle on the table between us.

“So.” Eidhin locks his gaze to mine. “You need my help.”

“What gave it away?”

He spreads his hands. “I am very good at reading people.”

I smile. A proper smile, this time. It’s an expression I haven’t felt much, recently. “I saw Emissa today.”

“Oh.” He shifts. He knows she attacked me during the Iudicium, left me for dead. I had to unburden that much on him before Callidus’s funeral.

“Oh,” I agree grimly. “She tried to explain herself.”

He studies me. “I am worried that you said that as if it is not a joke.”

“She was very apologetic.” I give him a half smile and he snorts, the equivalent of a laugh from him. “Don’t worry. I haven’t suddenly decided all is forgiven. But…” I sigh. “It’s complicated.”

So I tell him. He already knows about the ruins near the Academy, but I relate my journey to the other side of Solivagus, to the red dome and inside it. Ulciscor’s drive to find out what happened to Caeror. The Labyrinth beneath the mountain and Ulciscor’s threat to put me in a Sapper if I didn’t run it. What happened beyond it.

It’s awkward, at times, as I search for the right words and phrases in Cymrian. Stilted both by the language and the emotion of what I’m reliving. But I’ve already told Ulciscor almost all of this. I hold myself together well enough.

I want to keep going. Tell him the final piece of the puzzle about Relucia and the Anguis, my birth, my real identity. My real name. But trust is not just earned by individuals. It cannot always be simply parcelled out. I liked Emissa. Maybe even loved her. And she was hiding things from me just as surely as I was hiding things from her. Telling Eidhin would unburden me in the short term. Perhaps help him understand me more deeply. But he does not need to know.

I don’t for a second believe he would betray me, but some secrets are simply best left buried. So about my true self, about the Anguis, I say nothing.

I finish with Veridius’s claims about the Cataclysm, then what happened at the Aurora Columnae, then Lanistia and my encounter with Emissa today. What she said about the blood test. It helps, I realise as I finish. Juxtaposed with the utter madness of everything else I have been through, her claims—Veridius’s claims—feel at least as though they could be legitimate.

Eidhin doesn’t speak throughout, doing little more than nodding occasionally. By the end, my mouth is dry and throat raw.

He considers me for a few seconds once I’m done.

“Huh,” he says eventually.

“It’s a lot.”

He processes for a little longer. Stands. “Another drink?”

“Please.”

He pours us both a glass. Hands me mine and then sips his, an oddly delicate motion from a man his size. Still thinking. “Perhaps this is why the Principalis was so interested in the ddram cyfraith ,” he says suddenly.

I frown. The “Right to Death,” roughly translated. The code Eidhin’s people lived by, before the Hierarchy. “What do you mean?”

“He asked many questions about it, at the Academy. As did Sextus Carcius. Over the course of many months and always as part of another conversation, but enough I thought it was strange.” He says it calmly, but I can hear the reluctance in his voice, the resistance to even mentioning this to me. “The ddram cyfraith speaks of the Cataclysm as a cycle. An inevitability of balance. Veridius wanted to understand its history. How its tenets came about. But for that, I didn’t know enough to help him.”

“Who does?”

“My father.”

Silence. I shift. Hesitant to bring it up, but I am his friend. I should ask. “Have you spoken to him, since the Academy?”

“No.” He looks intent on leaving it there, then sighs. “When I am forced to speak with him again, I will see if there is anything to find. Now. To more pressing matters. This testing of your blood. They are going to do it just before Placement?”

I let the blunt change of subject go uncommented. “That’s what Emissa said.”

“And you trust her?”

“I don’t think she’s lying.”

The burly young man across from me grunts. Acknowledgement of both statement and prevarication. He still has all the anger I had toward Emissa for what happened, and none of the latent feelings. There won’t be forgiveness there for a long time. Maybe ever. “Tricky. We would need to meet again straight after. Otherwise your ceding will be obvious during your exam.”

I haven’t asked, haven’t even implied that’s what I want from him, though I had been hoping. “You’re willing?”

His look is disdainful. “To help you avoid death for something that is entirely not your fault? Yes.” He waves his hand as if I’ve asked him to pass me a drink, not commit what the Hierarchy would consider fairly close to treason. “I am guessing this will all take place in the Governance compound.”

“I have an idea about how to get you in. But… it may involve you blackmailing a Quintus.”

“May?”

“Not may,” I admit. “But you don’t have to—”

“We are talking about your life.” Calm. Unyielding.

I laugh softly. Shake my head. “I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

“Truth.” Eidhin’s chair creaks as he leans back. “Now. Tell me what has to be done.”

I spend the next few minutes outlining Quintus Elevus’s indiscretions. Not how I know—my spying on Military’s meeting at Suus is too hard to explain, even now—but make it clear that I’m confident in the accuracy of the information. Eidhin absorbs it all in grim silence.

“He has contacts in Governance. His mines in Jatiere provide a lot of the raw materials for Transvect construction; Magnus Quintus Marianus works in infrastructure, so they need to communicate frequently. A Will seal from Marianus should get you into the compound, no questions asked,” I finish quietly.

Eidhin flicks his hand idly through the candle’s flame, which has burned down almost to a nub. “A dangerous business, blackmail,” he observes after a while. “Weigh down a man with his secrets, and there is no telling if he will bend or break. I assume your father is not an option?”

“Even if he had the contacts, I don’t trust him enough. Not for this.” I study him. Heart sinking a little. “I know this is an… unpleasant thing to ask. I meant what I said, earlier. You do not have to do it.”

Eidhin passes his hand through the flame again. “It is unpleasant, but this is the world you and I live in, now. Men must be bought or compelled, rather than relied upon to do the right thing. I will make sure Quintus Elevus does the right thing.” He nods slowly to himself. “This is a small favour, but he will worry we will ask something larger of him later.”

“And he’s right to. But he won’t believe you’re anything more than a messenger—there’s no way you could have found out this information yourself. He’ll watch you, I expect. Hoping to find whoever sent you. But nothing more than that.”

There’s a contemplative hush, and then finally Eidhin stretches. Looks across at me. “You said two favours.”

I frown at him, then puff out my cheeks a little as my memory catches up. “Ah. Yes. It’s… something else to ask of Elevus, I’m afraid.” The Quintus’s interests include several iron mines. Iron that, once it arrives in Caten, flows to a myriad of different ends.

There are other ways to do this. Easier ways. More direct ways. But none that will be as reliably discreet.

Eidhin grunts. “Given what we know, I suspect one more thing will be fine. What is it?”

I roll my left shoulder, watching the limp sleeve of my tunic flap slightly with the motion.

“I need him to lend me a blacksmith,” I say quietly.