The girl is dragged from sight. Her begging shout fades.
Within moments, I am again surrounded by the deep, unsettling thrum, and alone.
XIX
WILL, WE WERE TAUGHT OVER AND OVER AT THE ACADemy, is a gift. Not just in the sense that it is something good and wondrous, but that it is literally a gift: it can only ever be given, never taken.
Another of the great lies of the Hierarchy. Possibly their greatest. And yet, perhaps, also their greatest truth. Like any power, it can be coerced. Fought for. Demanded. Requested under false pretences. But in the end, it is always the giving that is the important part. It can be reluctant. It can be because it is expected, pressured. It can even be a last resort against death itself.
The reasons never matter. It is always a choice being made. Always a personal responsibility.
As I’m ushered by my lictor through a surprisingly large mob calling my name and beyond the massive sandstone walls of Governance’s Alta Semita compound, a sharp summer dawn scything across Caten, that knowledge weighs on me. I’m not a fool; I know the alternative would have been as unacceptable. Running away, hiding from the murder of my friend, pretending my abstinence was worth more than justice. This is the only way I can understand what happened on Solivagus. This is the only way those responsible for Callidus’s death, and the deaths of so many others, will get their due.
It doesn’t make today, or the long two months leading up to it, any less a nightmare made real.
I trail after the burly, shaggy-haired Sextus who accompanied me here: one of a rotation of lictors on loan from Tertius Ericius who have been serving as both bodyguards and frustrating shadows, castigation for my visit to Lanistia. My hollowness is exacerbated by a strange pain in my chest this morning, not to mention the physical heaviness to my limbs, the mental torpor that has accompanied my ceding. Sneaking out last night, seeing Eidhin again, went as smoothly as I could have hoped. But there is a part of me missing. Even knowing it is being held by my friend, I cannot escape the pain of being so diminished.
The courtyard entrance is wide and grand, surrounded on all sides by multiple tiers of balconies rising above poplars and fountains. A massive blueHierarchy symbol is inlaid into the cobblestones in its centre. It is largely empty as we enter, and I don’t recognise the few who mill in its corners. That’s not too surprising. This is a massive walled complex, taking up almost five acres of Alta Semita, comprised of many different entrances and interconnected structures. The Sevenths and Sixths from the Academy all went through this a few weeks ago, too. I doubt I’ll even catch sight of Aequa and the others I know, today, until we’re gathered in the central gardens for the Placement exam.
Behind us, I hear the booming sound of the compound gates closing. The thunk of them being barred.
“Why is the gate being shut?” Unease skitters across my mind.
“I don’t know, Catenicus.” The lictor, Darius, responds with the same cool politeness and lack of information as he does to most of my enquiries. He, and his five peers, have made no secret of the fact that they disapprove of how they are being used. Tradition dictates that they guard no one but Tertius Ericius. It seems that as suspicion and distrust increasingly permeates the city, though, many such time-honoured roles have begun to morph into something more utilitarian.
On the far side of the courtyard, three figures emerge from between the poplars. Two are men, near identical with their short-cut black hair, imposing physiques, and tinted glasses. They loom behind the third in the group—a girl, younger than me. Perhaps sixteen. Vaguely familiar, though I can’t place her.
“Catenicus?” she calls, her gaze focused on me.
“Yes.” I look around. The name has drawn eyes, the few people around pausing in their conversations to cast surreptitious glances in my direction. “Where is Magnus Tertius Ericius?”
“He’ll meet you for your ceding ceremony.”
“Isn’t that what happens first?” I can’t let on that I know about the blood test. I make my step energetic, put everything I have into feigning alertness and excitement. I slept for almost ten hours after ceding to Eidhin last night, a luxury few Octavii ever get. I still feel as though my sandals are made of lead.
“Not today. Please. Follow me.” She pauses, softening into something apologetic and infinitely warmer as her gaze lands on the lictor behind me. “Darius, do you mind waiting? No one’s allowed in or out until after this is done.”
Vek. I barely manage to keep my face smooth as Darius departs for some other section of the compound. “You’re shutting down the entire complex?”
“Now that you’re here. You’re the last to arrive.” No further explanation,and from her tone, none forthcoming. Another security measure? Tensions have been higher than ever in the city, and given that the timing of today’s test was meant to be unknown to the general public this year, the crowd outside the gate was far larger than I expected.
In the end, though, its purpose doesn’t matter. Its effect does. Eidhin won’t be allowed in.
My sluggish mind struggles as we walk, the frustrations of pointless weeks of tightly controlled schedule and blurred repetition threatening to bubble up and overwhelm me. Up before dawn each day, an hour of lonely physical training in an empty courtyard. Slowly, slowly learning to adapt to my missing arm. Then mornings spent being shown the intricacies of Caten’s runnings. The Senate and its interminable, showy debates in the Curia Caten that hinge far more on oratory performance than argument. The judiciary, which is even worse. One day in the Temple of Jovan, we watched the trial and subsequent sentencing to a Sapper of a man who tried to protect his daughter from ceding.
Some small part of me died when I didn’t stand up, didn’t announce my objection to his punishment. But it was his choice to be part of the Hierarchy.
Same as mine.
I squint at the familiarity of the girl leading me toward the farthest structure. Have I met her? It’s certainly possible. My afternoons for the past seven weeks have been filled running minor errands for Governance’s elite, shaking new hand after new hand. Tertius Ericius’s way of giving me a chance to make contacts. I’ve been studious enough in that endeavour, but it’s had the added benefit of my slowly getting to know the unsettled morass of Caten. The dark corners of Praedium, the deceptive heights of Alta Semita. Every district has its own flavour, its own expectations. In Esquilae, I hide my missing arm because I know I will be mobbed if I am recognised. In Sarcinia, I hide it because if I do not, Military Praetorians are more likely than not to deliberately delay me without provocation.
And that knowledge, in turn, has let me move around unnoticed in the evenings. Find my way to the tucked-away smithy in Sarcinia that Quintus Elevus arranged access to and, exhausted though I’ve been, work late into the nights without being seen or interrupted.
“Wait.” I start as my recognition of the girl in front of me clicks into place. Her long brown hair is braided, but the few strands that are loose curl. She’s not as gaunt as either her father or Callidus, but still slimly built. Dark skin andsharp, appraising brown eyes. I caught a glimpse of her at the funeral. “You’re Callidus’s sister. Livia?”
“Yes.” That same stiff formality, closing off the possibility of a conversation.
I try anyway. “It’s nice to finally meet you. He spoke of you a lot.”
