What did I expect? That someone like Nyatrix was actuallyinterestedin me? That what happened back in the ruined chapel wasn’t just charity—or, worse, just more manipulation?
“This complicates everything.” The woman sighs. “And draws much unneeded attention.”
“I know,” Nyatrix says, so quietly I almost can’t make it out through the door. “I— How was I to know I’d be returning to achanged Centuria? That they would elect Lucretia to Primus, of all people?”
I lean against the wall, as close to the door as I can without jeopardizing being noticed. I hear a long, exhaled sigh—the stranger, I think.
“You should’ve used her to get out and then left her behind.”
Every part of me goes still. I tell myself furiously, over and over again, that no matter what Nyatrix says in response, I am still worth something. I clench my hand around my cane and try to force air into my lungs.
“I know, Maxima,” Nyatrix says, tone flat, lacking any shred of feeling. “I know.”
And then silence, the blood pounding so loudly in my ears that I fear I might go deaf. I slump against the wall and try to hold back the fresh tears that prick my eyes.
No one, it seems, really wants me just for who I am. Perhaps Agrippina, but even her recent promises sour in my memory now—surely she wants something from me, too, something she won’t name and that I won’t understand until it all descends upon me like vultures. I clamp my jaw to hold back a sob. Then the door beside me opens.
Nyatrix stands there, her eyes gleaming and wild. We say nothing to each other for a long while; I’m too fragile for the sharp-edged words in my own mouth. They’ll slice my tongue to ribbons before I could ever hope to spill a drop of the Lupa Nox’s blood.
The impossibly beautiful knight leans against the doorframe and sighs. “Ophelia,” she says. “Exactly how much did you hear?”
Chapter 40
“I-I heard plenty,” I stammer, one hand clenching at the fabric of my dress, just above my heart. “I heard that you only pretended to care about?—”
“Ophelia,” Nyatrix implores, reaching out for me. I pitch myself away from her grasp, almost tripping over my feet. She flinches at my reaction, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “I’m sorry. I should’ve explained more to you sooner.”
She leans out into the hallway, keen gaze looking left, then right, scouring the darkness. A few moments later, as if satisfied no one is listening, she steps out of the waiting chambers and closes the door behind her. Then it’s just me and the Lupa Nox and the shadows, the flickering light of the torches and the scream held in the back of my throat. Against all reason, the tender place between my legs still throbs for her.
She is so close—I could take one step toward her and be firmly within her embrace. And I want to. In the name of the First Son, even after everything I’ve just heard, Iwantto—with every fiber of my being.
“Explain it to me now,” I find myself saying, my voice firm despite the way everything inside me wobbles with uncertainty.
Nyatrix nods, dragging one hand through her hair. “I told you I’d need to do some politicking,” she replies, her gaze finally meeting mine. “That was the commander of the Sepulchyre army, Maxima Cato. I said those things to her because I don’t know if I can trust her any longer. I . . . I don’t want her to know how much I care— Look,pleasejust understand that Liminalia is a very dangerous place right now.”
I startle at that, pulling farther away from her, my back grazing the stone wall. “You told me I would be safe here.”
She closes her eyes for a long moment, and when she opens them, she looks so weary, so ground-down, so utterly spent, that I have to lean against the wall and cross my arms to stop myself from reaching for her.
“I am doing my best, but it is madness,” she explains, keeping her voice low, her eyes darting now and again around the hall. “Allegiances flipped, alliances broken, the entire balance of power disrupted.”
I stare at her, uninterested in this talk of the Sepulchyre’s political body. I want to know how shefeels, if she aches for me, too, or if she just peered into the depths of my loneliness and found all the places it might be exploited.
“I don’t care about any of that,” I hiss. “At least not right now. What I’m asking . . . What I need to know is this: do you care for me at all, Nyatrix?”
That hard, fierce expression of hers collapses. Her hand reaches out to cup my jaw, fingertips knifing into my hair. As her thumb traces my lower lip, every last piece of me hums with wonder.
“Nyatrix!” a voice shouts, muffled, and for a long moment, I cannot understand the direction it’s coming from. But the beautiful Fatum knight with her hand in my hair, her eyes trained on my mouth, is gifted with much more acute hearing.Her fingers slip away from me, her head snapping to attention in the direction of the room she just exited.
She looks at me, back at the door, and then at me again. In a movement so quick I don’t even have time to process it, she sweeps me into her arms and moves toward the waiting chamber.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Please trust me, little dove,” she replies, her lips brushing my ear. She shoulders through the door, bringing us both into the room. “I beg of you. Unless you wish to face Lucretia’s Expurgo. Or perhaps something even worse.”
I twist in her arms, trying to see what awaits us, and come face-to-face with Centurion Primus Lucretia. She’s standing in the simple, earth-walled chamber as if it’s a throne room. No windows provide illumination, the only light coming from a candelabra sitting atop a small wooden table and a few blackened iron sconces dripping with beeswax. One guard—tall, powerfully built, armed with a short sword—stands at her side, the candlelight dancing on his helm.
“So,” says Centurion Lucretia, crossing her arms, “I hear your little stray is not the Avatar we seek.”
