Mark of the Thief (28 page)

“You turned Nic in to him?” Crispus asked Aurelia. “How dare you?”

Her eyes pled with me to believe her. “I didn’t, Nic. I swear —”

“Don’t!” I shook my head. “Don’t say anything else.”

“Run out the back,” Valerius said.

I wasn’t going to run, and it would’ve been futile if I’d tried. The door opened and in poured Horatio’s personal guard, looking similar to Roman soldiers except for Horatio’s banner worn on their uniforms. They pushed Aurelia aside, and walked directly toward me.

My hand curled around the bulla, which was currently beneath my tunic. The heat in it worried me. Magic flowed in through my fingers, and up my arm. It wanted a fight.

Horatio glared down at me and no doubt was weighing the odds of how many of his men I could take out before one of them got the bulla. The correct answer: all of them. And I would’ve released the magic already except I wouldn’t put Crispus or Valerius at risk. Or even Aurelia, who stood off to the side with her eyes wide and still full of tears.

Horatio’s face twisted as he prepared to speak. “Nicolas Calva, Emperor Tacitus has ordered your execution. I am here to arrest you.”

“No,” I said.

“No?” He arched an eyebrow. “I’m not asking your permission, slave.”

“And I’m not giving it. The emperor and I made an agreement. Once I fulfill it, I will go to him. On my own.”

Valerius pushed past me. “Senator Horatio, Nic’s magic is stronger than you can imagine. He plans to take the key to the Malice of Mars. If you want to live, you will give it to him.”

“Stop this!” Aurelia darted forward. “Nic has not threatened his life, not once.” Then she turned to Horatio. “And you will not threaten Nic’s life either. He’s my friend.”

Horatio laughed. “And why should I take orders from a street girl?”

Aurelia bit down on her lip, then held up the crepundia, still in her hand. Visibly trembling, Horatio took it from her and examined the miniatures. When he looked back at Aurelia, there were tears in his eyes.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“From you. On the day you exposed me.”

He made a sound in his throat and stepped closer to her. “My daughter,” he whispered. “I had no idea you were still alive.”

“We have much to discuss,” Aurelia said. “But first, you must not arrest Nic. He’s done nothing wrong.”

“Hasn’t he?” Any of the sentimentality he’d felt toward Aurelia vanished by the time he remembered me. “Tell me, slave, how did you get the bulla?”

“It doesn’t matter how I got it.” The magic flared in me again, and I clenched my fists to contain it. “What matters is how I use it.”

Horatio nodded his head at Aurelia. “Wait outside, daughter. I wish to bring you home, so we can talk.” Aurelia tried to say something to me, but one of his soldiers was already escorting her outside, and I still wouldn’t look at her. When she had left, Horatio waved a hand forward for his men. “Burn this house, so other senators may know what happens when they ignore the orders of the emperor. Then arrest anyone who survives.”

“No, you won’t!” I raised a hand at Horatio. My intention had only been to warn him, but magic burst from me instead and shot him against the wall. Immediately I felt a sting across my back where one of the soldiers struck me with his sword. His cut went deep, too deep. It might’ve been worse if I hadn’t been moving already, but the injury still dropped me flat on the ground.

“Nic!” Crispus ran to my side and rolled me to my back. I gasped with the pain of moving, but he clutched my hand.

“What have you done?” Valerius cried.

Horatio seemed equally horrified. He shoved his soldier away from us. “You fool! General Radulf wants him alive!”

If anyone answered, I didn’t hear them. My breath was locked in my throat and I felt warm blood pooling beneath me.

“Heal this,” Crispus whispered. “Nic, I know you can.”

So much had happened to my body over the last few days, I didn’t have the same confidence. Even with magic, there were limits to what I could take. I closed my eyes anyway and tried to find the Divine Star, or even the bulla, but the pain was so fierce it made any concentration difficult.

Crispus pulled the bulla out from beneath my tunic and pressed it into my hand. Instantly it began to work, though as I called upon the Star, Radulf crept into my head too. He was angry. He hadn’t wanted Horatio to injure me. And I understood then that he didn’t like Horatio. Finally, we had something in common.

“He should’ve done worse,” I muttered, hoping Radulf could hear me. “This won’t stop me from fighting you tomorrow.”

“I hope not.” Radulf laughed, sending a chill through my bones. “Because if you fail to show up in that arena, I will punish Livia for your cowardice.”

His words were like a second wound. “Don’t hurt her!” I cried. “I will be there!”

“Who is the boy talking to?” Horatio asked.

Crispus seemed to understand. “Ignore what you’re hearing, Nic. Just heal that wound.”

“Take the boy,” Horatio said. “He’s in no condition to stop us now.”

That was true enough. The sting wasn’t so bad now, so I knew I was beginning to heal, but it had also taken strength from me. While one soldier kicked Crispus away from me and then kept a sword on him and his father, the other picked me up.

“Put him in the wagon.” Horatio then turned to Valerius. “There will be consequences for hiding the boy here. Until then, may I remind you that I am the sponsor for tomorrow’s games in the amphitheater? As a fellow senator, I expect you to be there to show your support. We must not let the people think there are … differences between us.”

Valerius responded with a frown. “Tomorrow, you will make yourself a traitor to Rome. Trust me, there are differences between us.”

Horatio laughed. “Are you sure about that?” He stepped closer. “If you could use the bulla, would this boy still be alive?”

If Valerius answered, I didn’t hear it. The soldier had carried me out by then and dumped me in the back of the wagon.

“Nic? Are you all right?” Aurelia jumped from a carriage, which her father must have arrived in, but a third soldier quickly forced her back inside. Horatio came out immediately after and got into the carriage with them. Once it left, ours followed behind it. Chains lay in a pile near my legs and despite my weakness, I kicked them away.

“We should put them on the boy,” one of the guards said.

My eyes narrowed. “Try it and the only parts of this wagon that’ll be seen again will be splinters on this road.”

One man leaned forward with a sneer on his face and breath so rancid it actually made me remember Sal’s more kindly. “I was in the arena that day. I saw what you did, and trust me when I say that there’s plenty we’d have done to you already, except that Radulf made us promise not to touch you.”

“So Horatio has already given his loyalty to Radulf?” I asked.

“Not yet.” The sneer turned into a smile of genuine pleasure. “He’s going to announce that in the arena tomorrow, after your execution.”

H
oratio had a large apartment very near the amphitheater, though when we arrived I was immediately locked in an underground room. They warned me not to use magic in this tight space, but it wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t sure how many families lived above where I stood, and I wouldn’t endanger them.

Besides, I had bigger issues pressing in on me. The revelation from Aurelia shouldn’t have surprised me, and once I found out, I never should’ve been so harsh. I was still angry with her, but I also missed her, somehow. Whatever friendship we’d had was in ruins now.

Weighing even heavier on my mind was the question of who had turned me in to Horatio. As I considered it, the answer came like a lump in my throat. Sal.

Of course it had been Sal, who saw me leave the forum with Crispus. Even his crusty brain could figure out who Crispus’s father was.

That suspicion was confirmed almost immediately when the door opened and Sal’s face was on the other side. He’d been cleaned up and was now dressed in a long white toga. Despite that, he still reeked of the mines.

“Try anything and there’s a dozen armed soldiers behind me waiting to take their shot at you,” he said.

I didn’t even blink. “Are you sure? Getting rid of you would do them a favor.”

“I’m part of Horatio’s house now, managing servants for the Senate’s presiding magistrate. So you can see how much my life has improved from the filthy mines.”

“Horatio is filthy too,” I said. “Just in a different way.”

“The senator pardoned me, after I told him where you were hiding. But to be honest, I’d have told him even without the pardon.”

I turned from him and sat down on the single chair in the room. “Go away, Sal. Crawl back underground with the other worms.”

He chuckled. “If you knew what Horatio has planned, you would beg the gods to take you right now.”

“If I begged the gods to take any life, it wouldn’t be mine.” With my growing anger, magic coursed through every vein in my body, so much of it that I was terrified of what might happen in this tight space. “I could bring the entire apartment down on our heads right now. I might survive it. You won’t.”

“Your mother warned me about you!” he said. “I should have believed her.”

“Warned you about what?” It had been almost five years since Sal sold my mother, while I’d had this magic for only a few days. She couldn’t have warned him about this. When Sal failed to answer, I threw some magic at the wall beside us. A large chunk of concrete tumbled to the ground, not much, but enough to frighten him. “What did she say?” I yelled.

“I hate you,” he snarled. “And even more, I hate having a debt to you. You never should’ve saved me in last week’s games.”

“And you didn’t have to spare my life at the mines. So why are you here now? Not to free me.”

“No, of course not.” He shrugged. “But since you’ll probably die in the arena tomorrow, I thought I owed you an explanation. The day I sent you away from the mines, Livia tried to tell you something about your mother.”

“What was that?”

The fingers of his hands pressed together, and then he asked, “Why do you think your mother made you promise to stay together? It wasn’t so that you could protect Livia. Nic, she has always been there to protect
you
.”

My mind skipped through the last five years, all the times Livia begged me to not to defy Sal, when she hurried me away if Roman soldiers came through the mines, and how she refused to share any of her memories of our parents. I always thought I needed to keep her safe. It had never occurred to me that I was the one who needed saving.

Seeing my confusion, Sal added, “Your mother never sold you to the mines. She paid me the last of everything she had to take you. After the way your father died, she knew the empire would try to find you.”

“Why? It was a lightning storm — that had nothing to do with the empire.”

“During one of Rome’s battles with Gaul, your father saw his people were about to be destroyed. He tried to create something known as a Jupiter Stone, which he could’ve used to defeat Rome.”

Valerius had told me about the Jupiter Stone, the most powerful of all the magical amulets. He had also told me that many men had gone to their deaths in the attempt to create one.

“My father had magic?” I asked.

“Not enough, apparently. Done correctly, the Stone is activated in a lightning storm, but your father failed and Rome had its victory in Gaul. Your mother fled with you and your sister, but she knew Rome would come after you too, just as they tried to destroy all of your family. Magic runs strong in some families, and Rome would not rest until they knew you could not become a threat.” He grinned. “Which you are.”

I wondered if Livia knew all of this. Probably not, but it bothered me that my mother would’ve held that one secret back from us. If Rome was determined to destroy my family, how could she have believed they wouldn’t one day come looking for me?

“We hid for almost two years,” I said. “But I thought it was from slavers, not the empire itself. We would’ve stayed in hiding, but Livia was getting sick.”

Sal grimaced, as if having to look at me made him ill. “All I know is that your mother believed you and Livia were safer in the mines. Then she asked me to sell her far enough away that Rome would ignore you. And look what you’ve done — made yourself known to the entire empire! It’s the last thing she would’ve wanted.”

My breath came in shallow bursts, and the magic swelled again within me. “Where is my mother?” I asked. “Is she still alive?”

He shrugged dismissively. “Whatever happened, it was all her choice. For you, Nic.”

“Thank you, then.” I hated to force out those words, but they had to be said. Even to him. “Thank you for taking in Livia and me.”

“Not a day has passed when I don’t regret it.” Sal frowned at me. “Well, when I don’t regret taking
you
.”

I used enough magic to raise the fallen chunk of concrete, although it turned out to be much heavier than it looked. I stepped forward, trying to hide the strain within me to keep that rock held in midair.

“So this is your magic? Lifting rocks?” He laughed. “That would’ve been useful at the mines. I am still your master, you know.”