I can barely think straight. I want to goad him, to hurl insults, to dosomething. The rage almost chokes me to it.
Some distant part of my mind is screaming at me to keep my mouth closed, though. I don’t know whether it’s fear, or calculation, or both. But Decimus doesn’t know about the tea, numbing the pain to something merely awful ratherthan crippling. He doesn’t know about Carnifex or Adoption. I could provoke him into killing me, and part of me wants to, simply because my rage screams for an outlet.
But dead, my other friends are too. So instead I weep and let him see me wholly broken, as he wants me to be. As I almost, almost am.
“The interesting thing will be to see what you tell everyone. Because even if you think you can convince Governance of what happened here, will you try? Will you continue to be selfish and sacrifice the lives of thousands? You know Religion will side with me. And if anyone comes for me, I won’t surrender.” He spits to the side. Onto Aequa’s body. A fresh flood of rage wracks me and I thrash at him, but his heel keeps me pinned to the stone. “Men will die, and then more men will die because those men weren’t there to defend against Military. You may even damn Caten to one of the pretenders out there. So if you do come after me, it will only prove what I already know.”
“You’re a coward.” I wheeze it. Mind just clear enough to know he needs to hear it. Needs to hear me rail helplessly, throw pointless insults at him. Silence will only provoke. “And you’re wrong. Nobody’s going to protect a Tertius who breaks Birthright like this. With his ownallies.”
He chuckles. Grabs my toga, pulling me up so that he can see my face. “Have youbeenin Caten these past weeks, Telimus? Sextii hunting Septimii and Octavii, every night. People value only one thing now, and it is the same thing they have always valued. What is it they say, again? The needs of the many will always be loud.” He leans forward. Hooked nose inches from mine. “But in the end, it is only the strength of the few that matters.”
He drops me again, so that my head hits stone. Black eyes disgusted.
Leaves.
I LIE THERE FOR MINUTES, UNABLE TO MOVE. PAIN BOTHphysical and emotional crippling me. Kadmos’s tea means the agony of my legs is blunted, but I still feel it. Nothing can dull the ache of Aequa’s shattered form lying a few feet from me, though. She was just here.Just here. Smiling, joking with me in the dwindling afternoon light. The sun has only just set.
Eventually, the knowledge of what’s coming across the street intrudes on my anguish, and I allow my helpless, festering fury to bubble over the top ofit. To compel some focus. Decimus was right: I could drag myself down there but to what purpose? The guards will not believe a man who cannot stand has been sent to fetch a prisoner. And using force—even as a Quintus against two Septimii—is an uncertain proposition right now. If nothing else, there are alarms they could easily trigger before I can deal with them.
And if I am caught, if I am stopped, then I cannot get to Eidhin, either.
I feel the metal armour beneath my tunic again. Months of constant practice the only reason I haven’t lost the imbuing there. It absorbed a lot of the impact, probably saved me from a broken back when Decimus threw me against the wall.
Decimus had to have assumed my injuries, awful though they are, were even worse. And he had no idea about my Harmonic imbuing.
I glance over at Aequa again, throat clogging anew. It feels wrong to just ignore her. To leave her.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her broken body.
I close my eyes, and force grief inward behind the rage, and concentrate on how I am going to ensure Decimus does not take everything from me.
If I’m going to get to Lanistia, I need to be able to walk.
The first part is the most unpleasant. I stick my right leg out, trying not to look too hard at the violent angle at which it protrudes just above the ankle. Align triangular shards around my upper leg, and wrap more around my foot.
My breath shortens, panic at the anticipation of pain. I do it quickly. Roar as I use the imbued metal to pull the leg back into place. Almost pass out.
Sobbing, I do the same for the other.
As soon as I’m done, I self-imbue my legs; it won’t allow the snapped bones to suddenly bear my weight, but it will strengthen the surrounding tissue. There’s a flash of added pain as I feel muscles forcibly aligning the bones further, and then a relative easing to a dull, angry throb.
Minutes pass. The distending lumps of skin in my legs gone, replaced by awful swelling and rapidly blushing bruises. I force back the encroaching shock, and breathe, and breathe again. Think. Kadmos used to have me read texts on Catenan battlefield medicine, back before the Academy. There were diagrams. Will-based devices for Sextii with injured limbs, constructed so that they could still fight. Imbuable scaffolding to prevent a leg from taking weight, distributing it instead across a harness to allow continued mobility.
Slowly, I try to build something similar.
A brace around each foot and beneath it, the base of the open metal boot sitting a fraction of an inch below my sole. Then a kind of harness under my armpits. Another around my thighs and waist. The Harmonic connection allows me to distribute my weight evenly across it all, and as I self-imbue into those areas, the discomfort of the metal digging into my flesh fades to mere irritation.
Gradually, shakily, I haul myself to my feet against the low wall. Let go. Wobble.
Take a cautious step. Stumble and immediately, painfully fall, biting back a gargling scream as I hit the stone.
It takes three more agonisingly awkward tries before I can clumsily move more than a few paces without falling. It’s effectively like walking using crutches as stilts, but stilts that I can shape and control at a granular level. The motion is a natural one, though; just like my false arm, once I have the basics, it’s not a mental strain to have my makeshift boots moving as if they were feet. Every step clanks as iron hits the ground, so once I’m satisfied it will work, I reposition my sandals so that they sit over the metal, as well as my foot. Once they’re retied—and with the scaffolding of metal hidden beneath my dirtied toga—there is, remarkably, no obvious sign that I’m using anything to assist my movements.
I keep practicing, knowing the need for confidence. Ten minutes. Twenty. It’s messy. Gods-damned painful where the iron cuts into my skin from the necessary tightness, as well as at the breaks. I can only imagine what it would be like if I weren’t a Quintus enjoying the added benefit of Kadmos’s tea. Throughout, I harness my seething wrath to focus on the task. Only the task. Fighting back choking breaths not from the pain, but from the constant glimpses of my friend’s motionless, ruined form. Each time I almost stop. Each time, I want nothing more than to sit beside her, and cradle her, and tell her I am sorry, and weep until I can grieve no more.
But as gloom congeals to night, I remind myself again and again that Decimus is aiming to take more from me than her alone. That Lanistia and Eidhin are still alive.
And after a half hour of tense, agonising, teeth-gritted practice, I am able to walk without being noticeably awkward.
