He’s mistaken what I’m looking at, but it’s not hard to gather his meaning. Just like the rest of Caten, the Forum mutters and glares its tensions. It’s in the way everyone stands, groups distinctly and deliberately apart from one another. In the wary glances and near universally lowered tones.
“Divisions in the Senate?”
“Divisions everywhere. Governance and Religion telling Military to disband the armies because of their cost. Generals telling Military they need to find their veterans land as reward for service, but Governance won’t even talk about it unless Military takes the first step, so now there are factions within Military that support and oppose land reform. Half the provinces are agitating for Citizenship, saying they’re being pushed to the limit by knights collecting their tax contracts. The knights are claiming they can’t collect their taxes and so there’s a shortfall in the treasury, which is why we can’t pay the gods-damned armies. Now some of the generals have started to privately finance them. Did you know that?” He shakes his head. “And then the Iudicium happened, and the Anguis very publiclyhaven’tclaimed responsibility. It doesn’t matter that we’ve announced they were behind it. What you told me earlier … it doesn’t surprise me. It wouldn’t surprise the people of Caten. And that’s a whole other problem.”
I watch the crowd. Relucia in the corner of my vision. Unsettling, how well the Anguis have judged their moves.
“How do you think it will turn out?” I ask eventually.
“Not well.” Ulciscor’s tone is heavy. “Not well for anyone.”
Silence again, and then my gaze is drawn up toward the Temple of Jovan as the magistrate administering the rites today emerges. Everything else is forgotten beneath a moment of surreal, light-headed denial at the sight. As if part of me still believed there would be some last-second reprieve.
“Ready?” Ulciscor’s noticed my abrupt tension. He may not understand why I’m doing this, but he knows exactly how hard I’ve struggled to avoid it up until now.
I don’t answer, focusing instead on the approaching magistrate. A man in his fifties, his station signified by two narrow purple stripes. He adjusts his white toga as he reaches the top of the stairs leading to the Aurora Columnae, beckoning us up.
Ulciscor, Lanistia, Relucia, and I climb, then I alone pass through a gap in the massive encircling chain and inside the protective ring of green-cloaked men and women. The Aurora Columnae are supposedly indestructible—no steel or stone able to even scratch their surface—but the Hierarchy maintains a meticulous record of everyone who can cede, and there’s nothing particularly mystical about this process. Without guards, it would be too easy for people to perform the rites themselves. Form their own pyramids. Make their own decisions.
As I come to a stop, the radiating glow of the obelisk before me feels like it’s something more, something powerful. An almost physical force. I do not know if it is my imagination.
“Let the Benefactor announce his name.” The magistrate’s mellifluous tone is practiced, his serene gaze fixed firmly on me. He knows exactly who I am, but in Caten, all religious rites must be perfect to the word.
“Vis Telimus.” My throat is dry.
“Vis Telimus. Do you come freely to commit yourself under Vorcian? Under Pletuna? Under Mira?”
A hesitation I can’t avoid. “I do.”
The magistrate’s brief frown accentuates the crags in his face, but it’s not enough of a deviation for him to have to begin again. I only half listen after that as he drones on. A monologue on how I am contributing to the greatness of Caten. He offers sacrifices to Vorcian for my hard work; Pletuna for my harvests; Mira for my strength. Time crawls. I stand there through it all, despising the show of it, dwarfed by the monstrosity before me, the eyes of the Forum on my back.
And then the talking has stopped. I’m being nudged forward. I’m standing right beside the white granite, can see the individual grains in the stone between the emanating lines of light.
“Place your hand against the Aurora Columnae.”
Vek. My breath comes tight and fast. I do as he says.
As soon as my skin touches stone, everything changes.
I stumble, almost fall at the violent influx of sensation. Pulses from all around me. Like motion or sound, but not quite either. As if some other sense has been switched on in my head.
“Vis. Are you well?” It’s Ulciscor’s concerned voice.
I suck in a shaky breath, leaning against the obelisk. I haven’t felt … whatever this is since the Iudicium, but it’s the same thing. The only difference is that out in the forest, there were only one or two pulses at a time. Now I’m overwhelmed. Bombarded with hundreds upon hundreds of them at once.
“Just a little light-headed.” I call the lie out with what I hope is a convincingly embarrassed smile, still trying to sort through the chaos in my head.
“That’s normal,” the magistrate assures me, trying to drag my focus back to him. He places a hand on the obelisk, alongside mine. His fingers glow pink from the light seeping through beneath them. “Try to relax. It will feel strange,at first, but don’t worry. All you need to do is say the words, and the rest will happen naturally. It will be over in moments.”
I glance around. Lanistia, I notice, is staring at the ground, shaking her head. Muttering something unintelligible. Ulciscor’s glancing back at her concernedly.
I push her to the back of my mind, along with the pulses. The confusion in my head is settling into something disconcerting but manageable. The magistrate is looking vaguely displeased.
“Now say that you give your Will freely.”
This is it. The point at which they could never make me proceed. Last time there were two Sextii restraining me, another holding my hand forcibly to the cold stone. Whip cracking in the grey silence before dawn as the Matron screamed at me to say it, just to say the words and then it would all be over. The stripes along my back burn. Every muscle is rigid. My jaw cracks in protest as it opens.
“I give my Will freely,” I whisper.
