I pause there on the stairs, frozen in place. For all his lack of aggression toward me at meetings, Iro’s father is no supporter of mine and won’t hesitate to try and stop me from freeing Lanistia. Is that why he’s here?
“Release me, please, Tertius.” Aequa is keeping remarkably calm, but there’s something more to her voice now. “You’ve no authority to detain me. I’m not doing anything—”
She cuts off with a low, pained cry, and my decision is made.
“Tertius Decimus.” I step up onto the roof and immediately prepare myself to imbue, though it will be pointless against the man. Decimus’s eyes are completely black and he is gripping Aequa’s shoulder with evident force. She’s keeping still, but I can see the discomfort in her eyes as she gives me a reproving look. Thinks I should have stayed hidden, clearly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Telimus.” Decimus’s smile broadens to something disconcerting and wholly false. A gleam in his dead eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted to make sure youunderstandthis.”
“Understand what, sir?” I keep my unease in check and take a mildly confused, acquiescent tone. Decimus is on edge. There’s no benefit to angering him.
“Loss.” His manic grin fades until he’s just staring at me. Aequa still held in his iron grip. “Helplessness and loss.”
My heart clenches. He knows why I’m here. He’s planning to stop me.
“Vis already understands those things, Tertius. Truly.” Aequa, speaking up quietly before I can find a response. “His parents were murdered when he was young. His friend died in his arms at the Iudicium. He was at the naumachia when—”
“Thenaumachia.” Decimus cuts her off and Aequa’s wince shows she sees the mistake, though I would have made the same one. “You were both there, weren’t you? Andyousavedherwhile thousands died. While my daughter died. Trapped in there like an animal.” He shakes Aequa as he says “her,” though his dark eyes never leave mine. She’s a Quintus, and self-imbuing, but still powerless to stop the effortlessly violent motion. “And now here you both are again. Here to rescue your … what? Former tutor? Though she is our enemy. Prioritising the personal over the many yet again.”
I see it then. Something in the way he spits it, sending a genuine chill down my spine. I see all of the grief and hatred he’s been keeping hidden as we meet, day after day.
Chained in the dark, as my mother once described it.
“Lanistia’s my friend, Tertius. She’s my friend and of no tactical importance, and if she’s in a Sapper, they’re going to kill her just in case she’s cedingto the wrong person.”Vek. Even if he wasn’t holding Aequa so threateningly, I cannot think of a way I can get past him, let alone beat him. If he imbues something, then maybe I can get to it. Adopt his own power and use it against him. But he’s self-imbuing. I confirmed months ago that I can’t take Will directly from other people, and the weapons I have at my disposal—the metal triangles sitting beneath my tunic—will do little more than dent themselves against him, and then give me away in the process. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t act sooner at the naumachia. I’m sorry Iro got injured—”
“Iro is dead.” Decimus’s lifeless voice cuts through anything else I might have said. Stills me to hollow silence. “He died three days ago. The Vitaerium wasn’t enough. He just couldn’t breathe anymore.” Fist clenching and unclenching. The words coming out so calm, and yet every inch of the man screams of pain and violence. “They knew it was coming. But I couldn’t go to him. I couldn’t be there to say goodbye because I. Had.Responsibilities.”
He takes me in. Shifts his grip so that his hand rests on Aequa’s head. “At least I am giving you the chance to say goodbye, Telimus.”
“What?” I freeze, hold up my hand as I see the sudden panic on Aequa’s face. She beats at him, tries to twist away but his grasp on her head is firm. No. This is a test. A means of extracting more from me. “Whatever you want from me, Tertius. Anything you want. Just let me know.” Test or not, I won’t risk it.
“I want my children back,” says Decimus softly. “Or in lieu of that, I want you to say goodbye.”
“It’s alright, Vis.” Aequa’s shaking. Stopped struggling, I think because it was hurting her as much as getting nowhere. But somehow, she still forces a smile at me. “It’s alright. Whatever happens, neither of us can—”
Decimus tightens his grip.
Aequa’s head caves in.
I just stand there. Limbs weak, heart stopped, breath gone. There is the cracking of bone and then an ugly squelching. This cannot be happening. My friend’s face is crumpled between his fingers. Her dark, straight hair molten with crimson in the dying light of the day. Decimus releases her. Flicks blood and brain off his hand as her body crumples to the ground, watching me the entire time.
A wordless cry. I am flying at him. All of my shock and rage a thin tunnel, unable to even process what I am doing as I am doing it. I hit him across the face, and he smiles at my pain as my fist near shatters in its meeting the immovableobject. I try to force him backward over the edge, forgetting that it will take far more than twenty or so feet to kill him. He doesn’t budge. My throbbing hand around his throat. He doesn’t even blink.
Then he gestures. Disdainful. The backhand slams me ten feet into the far wall, raining rubble down on my head. My self-imbuing the only difference between pain and death.
I stagger to my feet and run and swing again through the tears in my eyes, but he moves as if I’m a child, avoiding the blow and then gripping my shoulder. He holds me up, feet dangling, so that my face is level with his. Soulless eyes examining mine.
“You think your children would be proud of this?” I pant the words. The only thing I can use to hurt him before I die. “Gods. Now I see you for who you are, Decimus, be grateful I made sure they never had the chance.”
I see it hit, though he tries to hide it. The twitch of his lip. The shortening of breath, the shaky exhalation. I stare at him boldly. I won’t go cowering. Not to this man.
He tosses me to the ground and, before I can move, grabs my lower left leg in both hands.
I scream as he snaps it.
Decimus drops the skewed limb calmly, despite my thrashing easily securing my right leg and doing the same. I writhe, and moan, and try to crawl away but he places a single boot on my back.
“I am going to leave you here, Telimus. Just like this.” His voice is somehow both conversational, and utterly dead. “Perhaps you can drag yourself down to the street with that one hand of yours, but even if you do, you will not be able to save anyone inside that prison tonight. You will leave, or you will be taken away, and you’ll know what is happening when it happens.” He looks down on me as I weep. For the broken and bloody mess I can see from the corner of my vision. For the agony I’m feeling. For Lanistia, and Eidhin, and the powerlessness of it all. “And then, you will understand how I have felt. You will understand the impact that you have had onmylife.”
