The Strength of the Few by James Islington - 72

I WAS EIGHT WHEN THE ship my uncle was on was lost to a storm, killing all aboard. I remember my father’s immense sorrow well, but my own was a strange thing. There, certainly—but more confused, almost uncomprehending, and so something I instinctively tried to push aside until it went away.

Then, weeks after, I found a toy my uncle had given me. A stone horse figurine that I had grown out of so quickly that it had sat on a shelf behind books, forgotten, until that day. And when I happened upon it, when I remembered his happiness in the giving of the gift, I wept anew. Wept more freely than I had at his funeral. Unprepared for the sudden realisation of aching, complete absence.

My father found me like that, and we talked a while. About life, and death, and the way we deal with them. When I told him I didn’t want to feel sad anymore, he gave me a smile that wished it could take my pain. Grief, he explained to me gently, is a process that has only a beginning. We work through it, not get over it. And so attempting to just ignore its ache is inevitably a pointless exercise.

Tonight, though, I don’t have an option.

I feel no fear as I make my way carefully downward into the depths of South Caten Prison. No anxiety. I am focused on the task at hand, but the fiercely suppressed grief and anger is there, thick, muting everything else. I consider my actions in a hollow, detached way, as though none of these events are real. I suppose that is what my mind is doing. Pretending this is all some nightmare, until such time comes that I can afford to accept otherwise.

Like many things, Caten builds their prisons using a uniform layout, and it’s an uncomfortably familiar journey descending the stairs. I’m about halfway down when the smell first hits. I hold my sleeve over my nose and mouth immediately. It shouldn’t be this bad. Not this far up.

I press on. Reach the bottom of the first stairwell, the air thick and rancid, clogging my lungs. Lanistia’s meant to be on this level, past the Sappers meant for shorter-term punishments. I should find her first.

My light touches the first open chamber, and I freeze, bile filling my throat.

“Gods. Rotting gods .” Sticky brown blood coats the white stone. Has dribbled down into the gutter and clogged it. The naked man currently on the Sapper is alive and seemingly uninjured, skin wan and breath rasping. A replacement for whoever was killed here, then. Done in a rush. No care for cleanliness, no thought of preventing the onset of any sickness.

Probably some Octavus or Septimus unfortunate enough to have originally belonged to a Military pyramid. I doubt he even did anything wrong.

I stumble on, shakiness as much from horror as my legs, my gait requiring less focus now I’m on level ground again. One in every three or four Sappers shows signs of bloody execution. All the prisoners on them are dirty, emaciated. Not just uncared for but dangerously close to abandoned down here.

I limp through the stench and misery, and try to coldly assess. In my experience, most Sappers are devoted to Military pyramids, so if the killings were to do with the current conflict—a reasonable assumption—then they were targeting Governance and Religion. Military were in charge of the prisons, prior to the festival. When they withdrew, they must have done exactly what Governance and Religion are planning to do tonight.

And it was Military who staffed these places, too. Had the expertise to properly run them. Organised the supplies of food and water. Knew what was needed to keep prisoners healthy and clean.

I press on, between the smeared memory of the dead and the rasping misery of the rest, and it’s with no small amount of relief that I finally pass the last wheezing horror and into the hallway of true prisoner cells. By the time I reach the one Lanistia was listed as being in, I’ve endured desperate calls for help or information, studiously ignored, from a multitude of them. Hers, though, is silent.

“Lanistia?” I say her name low through the thick iron bars into the darkness. Nothing, and I shift uneasily, pressing closer and calling louder. “Lanistia? It’s me. Vis.”

A rattling of chains in the black. A shifting of shadows.

“About gods-damned time.”

My concern breaks to a relieved sigh as Lanistia’s form shuffles into the dim light afforded by the narrow slits of her cell. She’s haggard and thin, her voice croaking. Movements evidently painful. A ghost of the health she was in only a couple of months ago.

But the expression on her face is grim, not broken. Physically weakened, but she’s still the same woman.

“If I get those chains off you, can you walk?” I use the jailor’s key to unlock her door. Swing it wide. The motion one of bravado to myself; she’s no threat in her current state, but I have to believe she won’t be one regardless.

“Walk? Yes.” She shuffles another step toward me. Tentative. Left arm outstretched to brace herself. “Though you may recall, getting the direction right might be trickier. What in the rotting gods’ names has been going on? They were meant to put me in a Sapper two weeks ago, and that night there was a lot of yelling in the distance and then nothing else. I’ve had three, maybe four bad meals since then, and the last few days I’ve had to ration my washing water for drinking.”

I wince, even if being an Octavus and locked away like this is probably what’s saved her; with everything else going on, easier to not bother with her than to relocate her to a Sapper. And I’d already taken into account that she wouldn’t have access to Will.

Though, I’d also assumed Aequa would be with me for this part.

I ruthlessly force down the surge of emotion, and focus on Lanistia. “I’ll explain on the way out, but I’m going to need your help. Give me your hand.” I need her to be able to see, and probably to carry Ulciscor. In a better world, I would have found something imbued down here and Adopted it to bolster my own supply, just temporarily. But I’ve seen nothing and even if I had, I’m not sure I have the acuity to manage the extra mental load, right now.

She goes still. “Are you sure?”

“Of gods-damned course not. And just so you know, I’m a little injured myself. So I may have to take it back sooner rather than later.” I managed the Harmonic imbuing well enough as a Sextus, and even with half of my Will as Quintus, I’ll still be well ahead. I grasp her outstretched wrist before I can change my mind. Carefully reduce my self-imbuing, gritting my teeth against the extra strain, until I’m confident I’m not using more than half of my capacity. “I freely give my Will.”

She gasps as the energy pours out of me and into her; even braced for it as I am, I can’t help but reel from the shock of it. My legs immediately scream, and I stagger.

Lanistia catches me. Pulls me upright. When I take her in again, she seems taller. Still thin, far from hale, but it’s as if the abuses of the past few months are surface deep rather than worn into her bones.

“Good to see you again,” I mutter through a grimace.

“You too.” She casually snaps the chains holding her wrists together. “That’s better.”

“Good. Let’s move.”

Her focus turns to me. Hearing the short words escaping through gritted teeth. “We’re in danger, I take it? You sound tense. Even for you.” She smiles wearily and briefly, and then cocks her head to the side. Releases a sudden hiss of breath. “Rotting gods . A little rotting gods-damned injured , Vis? What’s going on?”

A lump in my throat. I force it down. “It’s ugly out there, Lanistia. Civil war. Military’s Princeps, Dimidii, and Tertii are all dead; Religion and Governance are in control of Caten, for now, and they’ve endorsed Quartus Laurentius as the new Princeps. But there are three pretenders with more legions than him, and they’ve all burned tradition and restructured their pyramids to actually make themselves Princeps, too.” I’d forgotten that her unique vision would be able to see the metal supporting me. See the swollen wreckage of my legs, otherwise hidden beneath the folds of my toga. But I can’t bring myself to tell her the details. “Redivius is going to attack tonight. Anyone in the Sappers still ceding to Military is going to be killed when that happens.”

Lanistia absorbs the information as quickly as ever. Expression flickering from understanding to disgust to determined gratitude as she realises why I’ve come, despite my condition. “I suppose we should go, then.”

“Ulciscor’s here too. Deep cells. I’ll need you to help him out.”

Dismay, briefly, then a breath and a nod. “Lead the way.”

We head back, through the rancid stench, lantern pushing against the miserable darkness. There are shouts again as my light passes cells that remain locked tight, and though we ignore them, I resolve again to ensure the people down here are looked after properly. The part of me that worked in Letens Prison for so long, especially, mourns what they’re being put through. But at least they will survive beyond tonight.

The people in the Sappers are a different story.

Lanistia, I think, senses my hesitation as we start past the first of them. “You can’t save them all,” she says softly.

“They shouldn’t need saving.”

She nods soberly. Hears my hatred of the fact we have to leave them, and shares it. “So this was what all the shouting was about.”

My stomach turns again as we pass yet another blood-soaked Sapper. “I don’t know who’s worse. The men who did it, or the ones who gave the orders.”

“Both,” says Lanistia quietly. “For things like this to happen, Vis, it takes a special kind of cowardice from both commander and soldier.” Her voice is heavy. “It must be a nightmare out there.”

I ignore the half enquiry. Don’t have the heart or the energy to explain it further. “Why didn’t Military let you go, if they went to the trouble of doing this?” I gesture to the latest blood-soaked open cell we’re passing.

“There was one Septimus and one Octavus running this place at any given time. During the festival? Probably not even the regulars.” Her face suddenly twists, but not at what she’s saying, I think. She falters. Massages her forehead, then continues, “Whoever was here was panicking, I can tell you that much. I imagine they just did what they were told as quickly as possible, and ran. I doubt whoever gave them the orders had me at the forefront of their thoughts.” She shakes her head. “I’m surprised they left this place open to access, actually.”

“They didn’t. There was a fight at the Forum that night, and Quintus Ferius was killed.” The Quintus was the senator in charge of prisons across Caten. It was his Will that would have originally locked the doors.

“Good. Odious… odious little man.” Her brow is furrowed.

“Are you alright?” I ask it absently, focused more on scanning our surroundings as we near the stairwell, trying to find another source of Will nearby that I might be able to use. But there’s nothing.

“Let’s sit. Just for a minute. We can afford that, can’t we?” She gestures to a short stone bench near the stairwell ahead. I don’t complain. No desire to linger, but my legs feel as though they’re on fire. I desperately need the rest.

We sit, and as I let out an inaudible breath of relief, Lanistia grabs my hand. “I freely relinquish your Will.”

A surge rushes back into me before I can react. I jerk away. “What are you doing?”

She leans back with a sigh. Doesn’t respond for a few seconds. “I heard the voice again, Vis. As soon as you ceded to me. And it was getting worse.”

I stare. Resist the urge to slide away from her, physical aches easing again as I unconsciously self-imbue everything she just returned. “The one from when…”

“Afraid so.” She smiles tiredly in my direction. “It’s gone now, though. I think as long as I don’t have any extra Will, it won’t trigger. And it was manageable for a while there; I can probably help haul Ulciscor up the stairs from here, if you want to risk it. But I don’t think I should try for anything longer than that. Sorry.”

I say nothing. Trying to focus on the present but lacking forward motion now, my mind is a wreck. Pain battling heartache battling anxiety battling wrath. Any one of them alone might be crippling.

“You know something about it, don’t you.”

I force myself back to now. Hesitate and then immediately know by my hesitation that I’ve admitted it. “You wouldn’t prefer to hear about what’s happening out there?”

“I’ll figure that out soon enough. You’re stalling,” she adds.

I gaze at the damp, glistening wall ahead. The stench is worse around the stairs, and my mouth is perpetually covered with cloth. I knew the question was coming, had considered my response earlier this afternoon. What to say, what to hold back. What could give her comfort and what would only make things worse.

But that all seems so distant, now. So pointless. Once we leave here, depending on how long this war lasts and where we end up, I may not see her in years. If ever again.

My chances for honesty are not infinite.

So I tell her.

I don’t go into the same detail as Veridius did; aside from anything else, there’s not the time. But I explain in the broadest possible terms about Solivagus, and the other worlds, and the Cataclysms. About Veridius’s version of events at her own Iudicium. The fact she tried to save Caeror. The fact he may yet even be alive in another world. I aim for speed rather than clarity, the weight of everything draining my voice of emotion and inflection. Lanistia listens without interrupting. I’m done in less than ten minutes.

“Don’t tell Ulciscor about Caeror,” I finish quietly, almost as an afterthought. Lanistia, I trust to approach this information with some level of circumspection. My adoptive father is another story. “I don’t think it will help him. I’m not even sure it helps you, but… I thought you should know.”

“It’s more than I’ve had in seven years, Vis. It helps. Thank you.” She gives me a gentle shove. “Speaking of your father. If your legs are up to it now, I’ll be fine here by myself for a few minutes.”

“Alright.” I stand, and though the pain returns immediately, between the extra Will and their brief respite, it’s manageable. “Don’t wander off.”

She snorts. I take a few steps, but before I can start my cautious way downward, she calls out to me again.

“And Vis?” Her voice is hard. “Caeror’s his brother, and I’m his friend. I’m going to tell him. Don’t ever ask me to keep something like that from him again.”

I grimace silently. Think about arguing but there’s no time, and no point.

Head into the fetid dark of the deep cells.

I PLOUGH MY WAY PAST naked body after naked body plastered across the polished white of the Sappers, too many of them dulled and smeared with reddish brown and black. My lantern-light illuminates each in turn, and though I have Ulciscor’s cell number, I keep one eye on the prisoners’ faces as I pass.

Even so, I almost don’t recognise Relucia.

I stumble to a stop. The one side of her face that I can see is puffy, her long brown curls plastered over half of that. Strands stick to the blood-soaked Sapper behind her. Bruises cover her wrists and ankles. A sight I recognise all too well. It’s from where she thrashed in a panic against her restraints.

I hesitate for a long moment. Carefully place my lantern on the ground, and walk over to the crank in her alcove.

This will start a timer. There’s a Religion or Governance Septimus receiving Will from her, and while under normal circumstances her loss might trigger an official enquiry to Military, this will trigger an alarm. Especially so close to the attack.

I winch her carefully free.

She’s only been on the Sapper for a few days, clearly; it doesn’t take long for her breathing to change, for colour to seep into her cheeks and awareness back into her filmy eyes as she dangles on the chains. There’s a rattling as she tests her bonds. Then a flailing as she realises where she is.

“Get me away from this thing.” She croaks the words, barely wheezes them out. She hasn’t seen me yet, is twisting around wildly. “Get me out .”

I anchor the winch, then walk around into her view. Her eyes widen as she takes me in.

“Diago.” I don’t know whether she uses my real name as a deliberate ploy to appeal to me, or if she’s just panicking and it’s the name that comes to her mind. Luckily there’s no one else to hear. “Diago. Thank the gods.”

“Don’t thank them yet.” I ignore the deep horror I feel at what she’s been through. Keep my voice cold, and my gaze steady on hers.

“What?” She looks at me as if not understanding and then begins to shake. Pleading in her eyes and there’s no deception in them, for once. “No. You’re not that cruel. Just get me up and we can—”

“Tell me everything you know about the Anguis, about the Iudicium, about the naumachia. Names and plans. The weapon Estevan used. Everything .”

She stares at me. Wide-eyed. Shaking. “No.”

I take a step back toward the winch.

“Wait.” I take another step. “WAIT!”

I move back into her view. The seconds are already ticking, but this is an opportunity I can’t miss. “Let’s start with something simple. Why are you here?”

“I was meant to help Lanistia get out of the city, but something must have gone wrong. I waited too long for her. Lost my escape route. And then your gods-damned Tertius put out word for me to be picked up. He was worried I might wield an undue influence over you, apparently.” She spits the last.

Tertius Ericius put her in here? If I wasn’t already so dead inside, I would be disappointed. “Who else was involved in the attack on the Iudicium, that you know of? Either planning it, or actually there?” I lean forward. “I already know some. So I’ll know if you’re lying.”

I can see her thinking, trying to decide if she should answer. I take a half step back toward the winch.

It’s a flood of information, after that. Furious and self-loathing and I’m not sure how much of it, if any, I can trust. But I make careful note through the pain of my injuries and heart. Mentally record the names I don’t already have. She gasps most of the ones on the list that Ostius created, clearly more willing to give up Military contacts than Anguis. But as the seconds pass and I look increasingly unimpressed, she adds more. From obscure Octavii and Septimii, to a Magnus Quintus in Religion who has been involved in some of the meetings at the Forum over the past week.

“That’s all,” she says eventually. “That’s all, Diago. I swear it. Everyone who knew about the naumachia and the Iudicium.”

I commit the last of the information to memory, and don’t let up. “And the weapon you used at the naumachia?” I’ve been thinking about that a lot again, this past week. Not just its destructive nature, but the way it entirely muted the ability to use Will around it. One of the few things which, properly harnessed, could still stop these impending bloodbaths before they start.

“Only Estevan knew all the details. He said that using it was a great, necessary evil. He didn’t want to give anyone the chance to decide it should be used again after he was gone.” She sees my displeasure at the answer. Stammers. “Ostius! Ostius helped him with some of it, parts Estevan didn’t know enough about to put together on his own. I once heard him say it was a power that came from a fight far older and more dangerous than the one against the Hierarchy. But he never talked about any of that with me. Never. I swear it .”

I grimace, but nod to the honesty of her evident terror. Hard not to feel sympathy. Hard not to think she deserves every second of this.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t leave you here.” I don’t flinch away from her pleading stare. “You and the Anguis have been responsible for so much death , Relucia. So much pain. As far as I am concerned, if anyone belongs in here, it is you.”

She just hangs there for a few moments. Probably desperately trying to decide whether to speak honestly, or give me what she thinks I want to hear.

“Sometimes lives lived in misery have to be sacrificed so that the ones which follow aren’t even worse, Diago,” she says eventually. “I hate it, you know. Same as Estevan did. But it’s working . Haven’t you seen it, out there? The rumblings? The discontent? Octavii and Septimii have gone from accepting their station in life to seeing the truth of it. Seeing that their role in the Republic, because they were not lucky enough to be born otherwise, is to be tools. Just things to be used. The naumachia shook them awake . And then the Iudicium ensured that their masters began focusing more on one another, than them. It showed them that their rulers are petty, and small-minded, and never to be trusted. It showed them the truth .”

I shake my head slowly. Wearily.

“So an unhappy life now is worth less than someone else’s potentially better one in the future?” I stare at her. Even here, even now, she still can’t see it. “These people may be miserable, they may be being used, they may even be responsible for that . But that doesn’t mean they deserve to die. And it certainly doesn’t give you the right to kill them.”

“I never said I had the right, Diago.” More confidently now. As if by continuing the conversation, she somehow thinks she’s convincing me. “Just the responsibility. We’re doing what has to be done to effect change. You can see that, surely.”

“I can see that. You did what you thought is best for the world. And you were willing to accept the consequences.” I crouch by her. Let her meet my gaze. “Well here are the consequences. My friend was killed less than an hour ago. Her head was crushed by a Tertius. Some of that is my fault. A lot of that is my fault. But she would still be with me right now if it were not for your gods-damned war.”

She sees it in my eyes, then. Her chains start to rattle. “Diago.” She’s shaking her head. “Diago, don’t do this. I can help you. You need me.”

“I don’t, Relucia,” I say softly. “Thanks to what you’ve done out there, I really don’t.”

“Let me free.” She begins to thrash. Her chains scream at the darkness. “LET ME FREE, DIAGO! YOU ROTTING COWARD! YOU—”

I kick the winch. The chain unspools. Her screams cease.

ULCISCOR IS GROGGY, BARELY ABLE to walk at first as I help him up the stairs. He never thinks to glance in Relucia’s alcove as we pass, too focused on trying to catch up, to get his sluggish mind back into working order. It’s not just the Sapper, I realise with some dismay after a minute or two. It’s that he’s lost his pyramid because of it. He’s an Octavii but he’s used to being a Magnus Quintus. Life must seem like it’s running through sludge for him.

We stumble along in silence, Ulciscor eventually mostly able to do so without leaning on me. My adoptive father has barely spoken, but as we come within sight of the stairs, he glances at me. “Lanistia?”

“She’s just up ahead. She’ll explain everything.”

“How is she?”

“Tired and grumpy.”

A pause as we labour our way upward, and then, “Any chance you can put me back?”

We share a soft chuckle, though my heart’s not in it. Stumble on, but then Ulciscor puts up his hand and sags against the wall. I wait patiently. I’ve seen men and women released from the Sappers before. None of them ever made it out the door without several stops for rest.

After a few seconds, Ulciscor’s breathing steadies. He looks up at me. “Why?”

I shake my head. “Why what?”

“I made you run the Labyrinth. I made you risk your life.” There’s something in his voice that I’ve never heard from him before. Shame? “I didn’t send you to die, Vis—I swear it—but… gods. I knew it might happen and I did it anyway. You don’t owe me this.”

“I didn’t owe you the alternative, either,” I say quietly.

He holds my gaze, then dips his head. A genuinely grateful motion.

We start up the stairs. Painfully slow. Unspeaking, more because Ulciscor needs his breath than because of any fear of being heard. Though I know it must still be a while until the planned attack, time feels as though it has no meaning down here. Only the length of wax inside my lantern reassures me that hours have not passed.

I cautiously cede to Lanistia again as soon as we reach her; risk though it is, I barely made it up the first flight of stairs with Ulciscor. She and Ulciscor’s reunion is almost comically perfunctory after that. A brief embrace. Nods of familiar recognition, as if they were meeting for dinner at Domus Telimus rather than being rescued from prison in the middle of enemy territory.

“You look awful,” says Lanistia to him conversationally, as the three of us stumble our way upward.

“The rewards of trying to rescue you,” he grunts between laboured breaths.

“Should’ve just sent Vis. He’s better at it.”

Ulciscor coughs something that falls somewhere between a snort and a laugh. And though I cannot find the energy to smile at the familiar banter, it eases something in me. Just a little. Helps me maintain my focus on what I’m saving, not what I’ve lost.

Soon enough I’m knocking on the guardroom door; there’s a pause, and I briefly panic that perhaps the Septimii beyond have had a change of heart, but then there’s a key turning in the lock. I hold the door closed. “Face away, Septimii. As agreed.”

An irritated grunt, another few seconds and then, “Alright. Come through.”

The Septimii are both facing the wall, arms crossed, as I swing the door wide. We’re halfway across the small room when Lanistia ducks smoothly to the side. Snatches up a knife and before I can understand what she’s doing, slits the throat of the man closest to us.

The woman half turns at the gurgling. Far too late. Lanistia has taken another two steps and has opened her jugular, too.

“What in the… gods damn it, Lanistia!” I put the emphasis in the words by hissing rather than shouting, though I sorely want to do the latter. “I told them—”

“You know what they were planning to do,” she says, tossing the bloodied dagger to the floor with a clatter. Cold.

Ulciscor gazes at the two bodies, then gives a nod which, if not approving, at least isn’t the opposite.

I just stare at them. Weary more than horrified. It won’t save the people in the Sappers for long. Will probably hurt our chances of repelling the attack tonight. I can’t figure out how I feel about the two murders I just witnessed. I don’t feel anything .

I slowly, heavily retrieve the Septimus’s Will key, and open the door to Caten.

“Do you know anything about my parents?” Ulciscor finds his voice again as the prison door seals behind us. “Or Relucia? Or Kadmos?” His mind is catching up.

“Kadmos is at home. They let me take over Domus Telimus, and he’s the Dispensator, so he’s considered Governance now. And he’s confident your parents got out.” I shake my head. “I haven’t seen Relucia, but I have to hope she slipped away too.” Her screams echo in the back of my mind.

“Any ideas how we can get out?”

“There’s a Military attack tonight. Redivius. East Caten will be almost empty, and I’ve left the scheduled patrol routes through there with Kadmos. Get him to give you both some of his tea.”

Lanistia cocks her head to the side, recognising the implication a moment before Ulciscor. “Where will you be?”

“I’ll walk you back. But I have something else I need to do after that.” I smile tightly.

“Of course you do.” Lanistia breathes a disbelieving laugh, and I can tell her focus is on my legs again. Then she abruptly freezes. Frowns, and pales, and grabs my hand, and says the words. My Will floods back into me.

“Again?”

She just nods grimly. Gripping my good arm. “We should get moving.”

It’s a tortuous walk back to Domus Telimus, almost an hour of skulking through dark alleys and gutted streets. We proceed largely in silence, both to conserve our breath and for the sake of stealth, though it’s only twice we come near any of the roving bands that “patrol” Caten after dark. The simple pain of walking while supporting the other two, I find, helps keep my mind from my more complex ones. When every step is an effort, it’s hard to dwell.

Finally we reach the lantern-light of Domus Telimus; Kadmos and Diago greet us at the door, the former with more of his tea as I instructed him earlier. I take it as he gives a soft cry of overjoyed relief at the sight of my companions, embracing them with unrestrained delight.

I’ve drained the pain-numbing concoction before the three of them have broken apart. “Luck, all of you.” I hand back the empty mug. Kadmos knows what to do from here, and I need to press on.

Kadmos’s lip twitches and then he’s enfolding me in a surprising hug, which I return with a bemused smile. The same quickly follows from Lanistia and Ulciscor. Warmth to them all and I cling a heartbeat longer to each than I mean to. Suddenly wanting nothing more than the comfort of other people.

“Be safe,” Ulciscor murmurs as he parts. “We owe you a debt, Son.” Eyes locked with mine.

For the first time, he doesn’t use the word lightheartedly.

I just nod, not knowing what to say. Clap him lightly on the shoulder, and head toward the street.

Diago pads after me, somehow knowing that this time, he’s required.

I limp away back into the darkness of the unlit avenues, until my and Diago’s shadows disappear, and then lean against a wall. Ruffle the fur on Diago’s head absently. Between my Will and Kadmos’s tea, I’ll be capable of making the docks. But it’s past midnight. We’ll have to be quick.

There are screams on the night breeze. They come fewer than they did even a couple of days ago. More surprised, harsher against the sullenness of Caten’s corpse. But one only has to listen for a few minutes in any section of the city to hear them.

People being killed. Or raped. Or dragged away to be fodder for the Sappers.

And so much of it is of my doing. Not my fault , perhaps—I am not arrogant enough to think that the machinations of empire revolve around me. But I played more than my part in beginning this horror.

I check I’m alone, and take the stone medallion Ostius gave me from around my neck. Examine it again. The faintest trace of Will pulsing from the Hierarchy symbol, as always. I’ve thought about this a lot, this past week. About what was said, that night, between him and Princeps Exesius. What it all means.

And I remember again Decimus’s last, sneering words to me. An ugly truth ringing in them.

The strength of the few is all that matters .

I pour Will into my hand, and close my fist. When I open it again, all that remains is dust.

I brush it off onto the ground.

“Come on, Diago,” I tell the alupi softly. “Time to be strong.”

I grit my teeth against the pain once again, and head for war.