“Ostius,stop.” Exesius’s muscles are tensed. Silence hangs, suspended.
Ostius smiles, and opens his mouth.
Nine.
Exesius moves. Eyes black as he leaps at Ostius.
It’s so easy. I self-imbue my entire body, using the tiniest fraction of a fraction of what I now have at my disposal. Glide forward. Catch his downward strike and expect resistance of some kind, but instead Exesius screams in stunned, horrified pain and I can see from the way his hand dangles at the wrong angle that his wrist is broken.
“Three Princeps,” finishes Ostius quietly, face inches from his uncle’s, gazing into his eyes as if nothing had happened. “All ceding to the man who is planning to kill us.”
I release Exesius’s wrist, letting him slump to the floor. The other senators’ eyes have gone black as well. Insane to think that even after all the Will they’ve imbued, they still have more in reserve. But it’s nowhere near enough to face me. Not now.
Quiscil and Werex are first to act, diving not for me or Ostius but for the stone circle. They skid to their knees, each with a hand pressed against one of the stones marked with II.
Their expressions go from grimly triumphant, to confused, to horrified.
Exesius sees it too and seems to understand. His shoulders slump. “The Cataclysm is necessary, Ostius. Youknowthat.” He’s dropped all pretence. A desperate man now, as he gasps it between groans, still clutching his dangling wrist. “I sent you because it can be us who decides, or it can be him. But we can’t—”
“What in all the gods’graves, Exesius?” It’s a shaken interjection from Dimidius Werex, quickly echoed by the others. They’ve joined him and Quiscil in trying to take back their Will. Wear identical, almost comically lost expressions. I almost feel the same myself, even as the inordinate amount of Will running through me steadies my mind. The Princeps areceding? Ostius has to be lying. It’s contrary to everything I know about the Republic. To everythingeveryoneknows. “Is he telling the truth?”
“Always, Dimidius. Always!” Ostius smiles at the man still on his knees with hand against cold stone, as if hoping the process of regaining his Will was simply taking longer than it should. “Trust. Trust! Such a difficult thing. I imagine he just felt a little awkward telling you. Seeing as it involved you all dying, and so on.”
“Ostius. Please. We just voted forpeace.” Exesius gestures to the stone circle. “Nothing is more important than preventing bloodshed right now. I know you to be a gentle man, and—”
“‘A gentle man’?” The lightness, the casualness, the humour has fled from Ostius’s eyes. Only the ice of his rictus smile remains, and he leans back and kicks his uncle in the face; there’s a spray of blood and a groan from around the room as the Princeps of Military flails backward, his cry somewhere between a shout and a squeal. “Gentle men are the products of love and protection,Uncle.” Another kick, cold and powerful and brutal. I hear something crack. “They are the offshoots of shelter and naïvety.” Another to the face, and this time the cry is more of a wheezing gasp. “If there aregentle menin our family, Uncle, it is because you have not yet met them.”
He raises his foot again, as if to stomp down.
“Stop!” I shout it because, apparently, none of the senators will. Ostius pauses, foot hovering in mid-air. He hops to balance, almost comically, as the madness retreats once again behind that jovial, too-casual façade. The senators across the room just stare. Frozen in their abject fear. My razor-sharp iron shards still between them and us. None move to help their moaning leader.
Through my own horror, my own disorientation and disgust, I am ashamed to say that I feel some flicker of satisfaction at the helplessness of their expressions.
“But. Speaking of trust,” continues Ostius, digging into his robes and pulling out some paper with a flourish, as if the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. “I have names! All the names. Well. All the ones who matter. Details about those names, too. All the things they did. All the ways in which they helped with the attacks on the naumachia and Solivagus.” He makes a show of reading. “Hmm. Yes. Yes. Your names are on here! Wonderful. Even yours, Uncle. I included it as an addendum about the cover-up, after you found out what they’d done.” He addresses the last to the still-groaning, bloodied man on the floor. “Now all I need is for you all to sign it, seal it, and we can be on our way.”
Silence. If there was any doubt, it is washed away in that moment. The shifting of their eyes, the slow horror dawning. There is no surprise. No outrage or shock or denial.
Each of them knew.
I feel my hands shaking, even through the numbing power of Will. I clench them into fists.
“Don’t be foolish, Ostius.” Quiscil finally scoffs it into the dismay. “Why would we do that?”
“Because it is the truth, of course!” Ostius smiles too widely. Gathering ink and quill, sealing wax and a candle from the triangular table. “Oh. And of course it means I won’t kill you. This way, you all get … what? The night, I suppose, to get out of Caten?” He emphasises the crushing inevitability of their choice with another savage kick to his uncle’s midriff; the man’s breath explodes from his lungs and he doubles over again with a defeated gasp.
No one speaks. Horrified acceptance amidst their fury. They know there isn’t an option. “What is to stop you from killing us anyway?” asks Dimidius Werex eventually.
“You haven’t beenlistening, Werex. Myword. You have myword. You have totrustme.” He crouches beside Exesius. Places the paper beside him on the floor and then props him up gently, pressing the quill into his hand. “Just down there, Uncle. That’s it! You can check it over if you like, if I’ve made mistakes I can … no? You trust me? Wonderful.” He watches as the Princeps of Military signs the confession, then snatches up the paper and springs to his feet, letting the man collapse back to the floor. “Who’s next?”
And so they sign. One by one. Anger and defiance and shock and regret in every stroke. Evil men seeing their power ripped away. There is, I quickly learn, no sadder or more gratifying sight.
Despite that, my mind is finally catching up to the madness of these events and I try to plot out their consequences. A civil war that ensures Military is divided? That seems most likely, and in fact, I suspect the senators are gradually coming to the same conclusion. See them sliding from stunned to calculating. Ostius is right; they’ll be able to leave before anyone can take action—exiles, but exiles who still command formidable loyalties. The armies swear their oaths to Exesius as much as they do the Republic. They’ll claim they were working for the good of Caten, or maybe recant and say they signed under duress. All is not lost for them.
The blood drains from my fingers, I squeeze my fists so tight. I get my names, but not necessarily justice. These men killed my friends. They killedthousands. That much will soon be public.
And there’s still a gods-damned chance they will get away with it.
Quiscil is the last. He signs with a disgusted flourish and presses his ring into the wax; Ostius examines the signature and then nods absently, as if he was not now holding a document that could tear the Catenan Republic apart.
