Mark of the Thief (14 page)

But in doing so, I had also lost my way out. I had become a rat in a never-ending maze without food or light or anywhere to rest. I couldn’t survive in here, and I’d never be allowed to live if I tried returning to the surface.

I stumbled on something that squeaked back, and tried not to think about how big it had been. Then, in regaining my footing, I felt the bulla bounce against my waist. It was as heavy as ever, but also cold and lifeless. It had brought so much bad into my life. I couldn’t see how anything might get better if I continued to wear it, and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it down either. Whether keeping the bulla was a sign of strength or weakness, I didn’t know, but I brushed my hand over it and continued on.

I stumbled again, but this time fell to the sewer floor, completely indifferent to how it smelled and without a thought for the filth that surrounded me. Then I removed my hand from my arm and nearly blacked out when my wet fingers dripped into the wound. The pain was beyond anything I’d ever before experienced.

The only reason I didn’t scream was that I was too frightened and exhausted to make so much noise. Tears came to my eyes, but not from the pain. The harder I tried to make things better, the worse they got. Only days ago, I was a slave in the mines, a hopeless situation, but at least it was a life I knew.

“Nicolas, you are the head of our family now.” After she was sold away from us, my mother had cried those words as she was being led away in chains. “I’m relying on you to protect your sister.”

“I will,” I had promised her through my tears. “Always.”

“Stay together. Because I will see you again,” she’d said. “If the gods are willing.”

And then she was gone.

Whatever my fate, I had absolutely failed my family.

And that was the worst thought of all.

With little hope, and even less of an idea of what direction to go, I finally forced myself to my feet. Maybe the gods would seal me in here forever and laugh at my failures. But until they did, I had no choice but to continue searching for a way out.

T
he bleeding in my arm eventually stopped, though the pain erupted every time I stumbled off the narrow pathway and fell into the sewage. My eyes had adjusted a little, but then I’d spot a grate overhead where the sunlight poured in and the darkness beyond it would turn black again.

It had been two full days since I became lost in here and nighttime was approaching again. Except for one grate that had poured in clean water, I hadn’t had anything to drink, and nothing at all to eat. Despite that, and the endless ache in my arm, the worst pain came with the realization of how stupid I’d been. Unforgivably foolish.

Sal had been right. From the moment of my birth, I was cursed. Born in poverty to a father who lost a half-second battle with a lightning bolt, and a mother who gave up hope for us too soon. The bulla — a mistake of my own doing — was a second curse. Caela had abandoned me. Radulf knew I was alive and held the bulla. And the empire had turned on me, just as Aurelia had predicted.

Aurelia.
Something flashed in my memory from our last fight. Hadn’t she said that she lived below ground? I had always pictured her in some sort of mine, but there were no mines in Rome. This was what she had meant. Aurelia had to be here somewhere, in the sewers. We hadn’t exactly parted on good terms, but she might be my only chance of survival.

I wandered on farther, trying to convince myself that she was down here and probably knew this maze well enough to walk through it blindfolded. If she used the sewers, then she knew the ways in, and the ways out. She would have food, and perhaps a solution for the growing pain in my injured arm. Whether she would share any of that with me, however, was a question I preferred not to think about.

Despite my hopes, as day faded to night, the sewer walls all became the same again. I didn’t dare call her name for fear of someone above hearing me and reporting where I had escaped. It was probably useless anyway. If only I knew where I was. I had gone for miles in infinite loops, likely repeating the same senseless steps that I’d crossed a dozen times already. My injured arm throbbed, and the hunger that had gnawed at me was now becoming a warning of how serious the situation was if I didn’t find food and clean water soon.

Eventually, I was forced to rest on the narrow walkway, every part of me feeling shredded apart. I leaned against the brick wall, which was covered in a slimy moss that could only have grown from the underworld. I reached for the bulla, hoping to draw in some of its warmth, but it had slid around to my back, and I didn’t have the strength to retrieve it.

I must’ve fallen asleep that way, and sometime later awoke to a fierce ache in the mark on my shoulder. It froze me in place at first, as I struggled to move my arms and unclench my teeth. In my sleep, I had rolled onto the bulla, which was now sucking strength from the Divine Star into itself. But it was doing more than pulling out my strength. Magic was going with it.

Finally, I was able to shift enough to move the bulla. The ache immediately stopped, though it was several minutes before I was breathing evenly again. Oddly, the bulla then began to replenish my strength, returning to me what it had just stolen.

As I lay there, I began to wonder how Radulf stole magic from others with the Divine Star. He had no bulla, but the effects Crispus had described to me seemed similar to what I’d just experienced. With pain like that, hopefully I never would again.

Once my strength returned, I began to walk again, weighing the few things I already knew about Radulf, and what I understood about magic. There had to be a way to save my life. Once I escaped these sewers, I would find it.

I crossed to a grate overhead, one of hundreds I had seen over the last few days, but every one of them was sealed, or too far above my head to reach, or too small. This one wasn’t much better, but at least it seemed to be in a quiet part of the city and I had a way to climb up to it. All I needed was a way to make the opening larger. Perhaps with the bulla’s help, I could collapse the rock around it.

That was where I stopped. The memory of what I’d done in the amphitheater was still raw. When he fell, the bestiarius would’ve been seriously injured, or maybe worse, though I hated to think about that. Clearly I had drawn upon the magic in the bulla, somehow. I still wasn’t sure if the magic was good or bad, which meant I could no longer be sure whether
I
was good or bad. But it saved my life before, and I needed it again.

So I raised my hand and tried to summon enough strength to push the grate out of its place. All I needed was to spread the rock farther apart or for a couple of rocks to fall. With the right tools back at the mine, I could’ve done this in an hour, but here, I felt ridiculous attempting it by only willing it to happen.

And this time, my will was not enough. The bulla had gone cold on me. Maybe because I was afraid to use it. Without even meaning to do anything, I had unleashed a magic in the arena that I did not understand and could not control. There were thousands of people at the games, every one of them endangered because of my recklessness. For all I knew, using magic in these tunnels might bring an entire street down over my head and any number of people with it.

Only the gods were meant to have magic. It was never intended for someone like me. I grabbed the bulla’s strap and tried to pull it over my injured arm, but my arm ached too badly to move it. So instead I cursed loud enough for the gods to hear and kicked at the sewer wall with all the strength I had left.

“It’s dangerous for any slave to have such a temper,” someone said. “It’s worse when that slave has the power to use his temper against fifty thousand people.”

Aurelia.

I swerved around so fast that I slipped and fell back into the sewage again. With the sting in my arm, I sprang back to my feet with lightning speed and then bumped my head on the curved wall above me. Truly, my grace was no better than my magic.

Aurelia stood in front of me, arms crossed and eyes narrowed like she was staring at a madman. Even in the darkness, I saw that Aurelia was better armed than she had been on the surface. She had a bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver full of arrows on her back. She had all sorts of tiny sachets attached to a belt around her waist, as well as the long knife I had seen before. As far as I knew, she was armed in twenty other ways I couldn’t even see.

“It’s not a temper, just desperation.” I stepped toward her. “I need help.”

She took the same number of steps backward and put a hand on her knife. “Don’t come any closer, Nic. I’m warning you.”

I stopped and, through the little light seeping in from the grate, tried to read her expression. Her eyes were wary and watchful and her jaw was tense. She was afraid of me, probably for good reason. I raised one hand to her, hoping to show I wasn’t armed, but she flinched.

“I won’t hurt you,” I said. “I would never —”

“I was in the amphitheater. I saw what you did. Lots of people got hurt trying to escape. Some people didn’t escape at all.”

The hand of my injured arm wrapped over the bulla as it warmed again. “I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t mean for any of that.”

My explanation wasn’t working. She shook her head, undoubtedly trying to figure out how to get away from me, but I couldn’t let that happen. With every passing moment, I felt another piece of my life slipping away. I was dying in here.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

The bulla finally warmed and traveled to the wing of my shoulder. Everything about me felt warm, even hot. I didn’t want to feel magic now, not when I was trying to convince her there was no danger in being near me.

“No,” I mumbled, not sure if I was responding to her or trying to command the bulla. I fought against the heat inside, but as weak as I was, the magic wanted to take over. Not here, not now. Not ever again. A sudden feeling of dizziness swam through me. I set a hand on the sewer wall to keep myself from falling, and the wall shook, as if something were trying to break out from behind it. It happened only once, but it startled me and I immediately let go.

Aurelia put out both hands as if ready for a fight. “Did you do that?”

“Please help me.” I was about to black out. “I’m drowning.” I lowered my hand and took another step forward.

Before I had any chance to react, she kicked out a leg and connected directly with the wound in my arm. I cried out with pain and splashed into the rancid water, but this time I couldn’t get up again. The bulla tried to help — I felt it trying, but there was nothing left inside me now.

“I’m sorry.” She crouched down to help me up. “You scared me, that’s all.” She grabbed my hand, then touched it with her other hand. “Nic, you’re burning with fever.” Her hand ran up to the injury in my arm, and through my haze, I heard her draw in a breath. “It’s infected.”

“I won’t hurt you,” I said, and then everything faded around me.

M
y eyes opened slowly and unwillingly. I would’ve preferred to remain asleep, but at some point, the need to know where I was overpowered my desire to roll over and let everything vanish again.

Except for a few candles around me, the room was dark. Since there were no windows, I wondered if it was day or night, and how much time had passed since I had last opened my eyes. The room was round with dark bricks stacked as high as I could see, and one doorway leading to an outer room had faint light streaming in from overhead. So we were still underground. It seemed quiet at first, but then I noticed a buzzing sound nearby. No, not buzzing. As I became more awake, I realized it was the sound of voices.

Suddenly a face appeared right in front of mine and I yelped with surprise. It was a little girl, with dark African skin and large eyes. She didn’t look half my age, but was already quite pretty.

“He’s awake!” she called. “Aurelia, he’s awake!”

I sat up on one elbow and saw Aurelia stride across the room toward me. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line. Her whole face looked strained actually, and I wondered if that was because I had slept so long. Or because I was awake.