“I’m fine.” More irritable than I mean it to be, but it’s true enough. At least physically. I’m the one who requested the fresh air and exercise. My head no longer aches. The words forced through my mouth in the ruins no longer echo in my skull. I can still sense Diago waiting just outside the walls, and I’m admittedly stiff and aching—but otherwise, I have nothing more unusual than some scrapes from Aequa’s hauling, and weariness. “You should probably let Livia free, by the way. Her father’s not going to be pleased you confined her to the dormitory.” We discovered a little earlier that her absence hasn’t been through disinterest.
“Her father’s going to be even less pleased that you snuck away from her. And he doesn’t particularly like me much, anyway. She’ll survive a little longer.” Veridius’s voice has the hint of a rasp to it. I’m not surprised. He’s done a lot of talking, these last few hours.
That’s another reason I wanted this walk, this break. I needed to clear my head. To try and understand everything he’s just thrown at me.
The Principalis started at the beginning. Haltingly, at times. Careful and awkward, a story he hasn’t often told. How he, Caeror, and Lanistia became friends, despite the competition of Class Three. Caeror’s brilliance in the firsttrimester leading the then-Principalis to secretly enlist his help in translating the glowing scrawls of the pre-Cataclysm ruins he’d discovered nearby. Caeror’s eventual insistence that his friends be involved, and then breakthrough after breakthrough as together they figured out the location of the Labyrinth and how to open the way down to it. Deciphered the instructions to build their own Labyrinth for practice. How to turn off the defences guarding it.
And then, quickly after, why it was all necessary.
It took a long predawn of probing from Aequa, Eidhin, and myself before I even started to believe his assertions. A vague, ancient war against an enemy that Caeror translated as the “Concurrence.” Then something called the Rending—that term, I recognised from the recitals of the iunctii—to prevent their victory, which split the world into three near-identical versions, but left Will broken into shards of itself. A power only whole again now when someone exists in all three worlds at once—“Synchronous.” Another term I’m uncomfortably familiar with.
The condition that Veridius believes I now have. And the one thing he believes might stop another imminent Cataclysm.
I suck in another steadying lungful of the evening air. It’s been hours of cautious exchange, since then. My experience running the Labyrinth met with his explanations of what he thinks happened, a back and forth as long and tentative and tense as anything I’ve been through. The fate of the world balanced against a mistrust so deep, I’m still not sure how to give the former its proper weight.
“You’re sure there’s no way to bring in Ulciscor and Lanistia?” I ask it abruptly. Not the first time I’ve brought it up; of everything we’ve talked about so far, this is strangely one of the things that is bothering me the most. For all Ulciscor put me through, Caeror was—maybeis—his brother. “Caeror even tried to tell Ulciscor what was happening, before he ran the Labyrinth. Sent him notes. And, gods. They both loved him. If there’s even a chance he’s alive, if I convinced them to sign a Silencium—”
“No.”
“Itbrokethem, Veridius.”
“I know.” Genuine pain on Veridius’s face. He pretended Caeror had committed suicide in his deal to defect to Religion: They gave him a position directly under the old Principalis, and the Academy avoided investigation and scandal. His idea. His price. I have never seen more raw shame on a man’s facethan when he made that admission to me. “Iknow. But the fact is, broken people cannot be trusted with something of this magnitude. Caerorisdead in this world, and even if that message on your arm means what I think, there’s no way to get to him in the others. Maybe it would bring them some comfort, knowing he’s out there. Or maybe Ulciscor would refuse to listen to me, the way he refused to listen to you. Maybe he would decide that Military’s resources offered his best chance at rescuing his brother.”
“I don’t think he would.”
“But you cannot be sure.” Veridius holds my gaze. “And anyway, you know Lanistia. Trying to keep her away if she found out the truth …”
“Oh, gods. Good point.”
We share a chuckle. Brief, but genuine.
“Silencium or not, I can’t stop you from telling them,” Veridius says eventually. “And I know you want to help them. But it won’t—not practically, not emotionally. I think you know what the right course is.”
I glance over at Aequa and Eidhin. Aequa nods, the slightest of indications that she agrees with the Principalis. After a pause, Eidhin slowly does the same. They’ve each kept their own counsel for most of the past few hours, chiming in with questions or observations only when they’ve felt they needed to. But I’ve been leaning on them to help me process what we’re learning. Using the shared experience to help me accept Veridius’s claims, knowing that there will be many, undoubtedly far less rational conversations to come about what we’ve heard here tonight.
They will never know how grateful I am that I do not have to go through this alone.
“Alright.” Not much else I can say to it, really.
We sit on the cold stone of the Curia Doctrina’s stairs. For a strange moment it feels as though nothing has changed, despite the eerie silence. From the corner of my eye, I can almost see Callidus sitting alongside Eidhin and Aequa. Feel like I could turn and see his smile.
Instead, I keep my gaze focused ahead, through the glittering spray of the triangular fountain in the centre of the Quadrum and resting it on the Praetorium. My mind drifts further still, beyond the Will-cut structure. To where I know the Labyrinth—the Academy’s Labyrinth—lies.
“So you think the Labyrinth was originally designed as some kind of proving ground for soldiers. That they were being sent through to continue fightingthe Concurrence in Luceum and Obiteum, after we won against them here.” Picking up where our conversation left off, before I requested the change of scenery. “And those soldiers were expected to sacrifice themselves here on Res, so they wouldn’t become Synchronous?”
“Ithink. I told you, the translation is tricky and it’s focused more on the mechanics of getting around that sacrifice, than explaining its background. There arehundredsof words down there which appear only once. Even with what we’ve correlated with the Alta Semita translations, there’s still a lot we’re having to make guesses at in context. And even then, what’s written seems to be assuming a lot of knowledge we just don’t have.” He’s emphasised this several times already. I still can’t decide whether it’s because it’s true, or simply a convenient way to obscure information.
“But if you’re right, then that means whoever wrote it was working against peoplefightingthe Concurrence.”
“They were working to circumvent a system set up thousands of years before their time; there could be any number of reasons for that. But they were certainly notforthe Concurrence. That much is clear.” Veridius spreads his hands. “I wish I knew more. Truly. The one thing we do know is there have been multiple Cataclysms, and another is due, and the authors seemed sure that only someone Synchronous could prevent them.”
I examine Veridius. He seems open, seems honest. He’s told us a lot and despite the madness of it all, it fits. It explains so much.
I do not trust him. I believe what he is saying, but not that it’s everything.
“Then how does Vis stop it?” Eidhin finally rumbles the question I’ve been desperate to ask, and avoid, since we started.
Veridius makes a face. Doesn’t answer for a long enough pause that I exchange glances with the other two.
