of sweetness when he really smiled, the way his eyebrows rose when he was teasing me, the promise of his lips. I saw instead the fathomless well of a cold mage whose person is the conduit through which weave the energies that bind the worlds.
Thunder jostled my sight, and I lost track of him. The current of battle swept me south. Camjiata had deployed his artillery parallel to the road. It pounded into the Roman columns caught marching at double time, trying to reach their Coalition allies. Every time the Romans tried to break out they were met with a fierce attack from the general’s Iberian Lion Guard or his Amazon Corps. The Kena’ani skirmishers with their white sashes had moved miles down the column to hit the hapless rear guard, which was cut off from the front by the lumbering baggage train.
So small rats were, seen from the height. Their lives of no moment, not truly. So much death churns through the world that we look the other way lest we be overwhelmed by its weight. But I was my sire’s daughter. I had no heart whose conscience burdened my wings.
Separated from its Coalition allies by the tide of the battle, the Invictus Legion retreated step-by-bloody-step south, hoping to meet and join up with its brother legions. However much I had disliked the legate, he held the ranks together under merciless fire. The remnant hunkered down at last within the walls of a lord’s estate.
Farther south an eagle standard went down amid screams of angry victory shouted by jubilant Iberians. Pressed by an unrelenting stream of cannonade, the Romans broke and ran, all but the Ironclad Legion. Under the command of an unflappable young tribune, it worked its way along the river and, in a meeting of grim embraces, joined up with the Invictus.
Twilight reached its fingers out of the east as a front of cold air. The current of the past hauled me into the tower room where I had stalked hours ago.
“Cat! Wake up!” Rory was shaking me. Everything was all blurred and smeary. He embraced me so tightly I couldn’t move. “Cat, you were having a nightmare.”
Thunder shuddered through the earth. Drops of icy rain spattered onto my forehead. Instead of blood- soaked clothing, I wore an Amazon’s uniform. Who was I? What had I become?
Rory pulled me to my feet. “We’re moving out. Look at those clouds! No one wants to be up on this hill in a storm.”
“The general is asking for you, Maestra,” said a young officer. He ducked at a growl of thunder, for there really was a storm crashing in on the wings of twilight. “Hurry! The walls of Lutetia have caught fire.”
The glow of flame lit the north as Camjiata’s retinue moved out. A terrible fear ripped through me. The whole city would burn. Drake would burn it all, the mage House and every building inside the city walls, just to show he could do it. Bee was in there, and not just Bee but tens of thousands of ordinary people going about their lives.
Blessed Tanit protect them! I stared in horror as flames leaped along Lutetia’s walls.
A blizzard of sleet swept in with the night, swift and brutal. Born out of cold magic, the storm slammed down and, just like that, extinguished the flames.
43
The sleet icing down over us could not cool my gloating smile. Now Drake would know who was stronger! Yes, he was a savagely powerful fire mage, but he lacked the wisdom and discipline that made a mage like Queen Anacaona so formidable.
Fiery Shemesh! I had completely forgotten about the head.
“Rory! Where is the cacica’s skull? I left it with you!”
“Don’t snap at me! I hid the basket and your satchel in the prickly branches of that felled pine. No one will find it, I assure you.”
When I applied to the general he shook his head. “I’ll escort you back to Red Mount myself, once we have settled this matter of the Romans. Two of the legions have dug themselves in for the night. If they prove recalcitrant, I shall need you to slip into their camp and kill their commanders.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“Cat? Is this too much for you?” He bent his head, examining me. “While you slept, I received word that a number of mages escaped into Lutetia. You know I want your husband’s cooperation. Help me now, and I will help you find him. Furthermore, I’ve heard no word of James, which as you may imagine concerns me.”
“I think he’s decided he doesn’t need you anymore,” I said, goading him.
Rather than reply he withdrew a pipe from his coat, considered its damp bowl, and tucked it back into the pocket. A messenger rode up with a dispatch, pulling his attention away from me. At length, as we rode about a mile south, the icy rain slackened and ceased. We came up to one of the Iberian infantry divisions, which had boxed in the two battered legions against the river.
At the general’s arrival a cheer rose. Captain Tira marched up with a squadron of Amazons. Dirty, bloodied, exhausted, they danced forward to the pound of drums and the singing of their sisters. Luce her very own self presented a Roman eagle to the general. Her pride blazed. She had a bloodied nose, a cut on her left shoulder, and mud smeared in her short cropped hair as if she had wrestled an enemy onto the ground. I could scarcely recognize the girl who had befriended me with a cheerful grin at Aunty’s boardinghouse. Then she saw me, and she laughed to see me and Rory still alive, but she did not break ranks to come to us. She had chosen her path. It no longer marched alongside ours.
The general made his way through the troops, greeting men, giving a private word to the worst-wounded. I trailed behind him, trying to wipe flakes of dried blood and the cling of weariness from my eyes. Because I was not paying attention, I scarcely noticed when Camjiata rode out onto the vacant ground between the two armies.
The two legions had anchored their defense on an old fortified estate very like that of Red Mount. This compound backed up against the Sicauna River. The walls and buildings had taken damage from artillery fire, but the legionnaires were tough, experienced men who had set up an effective perimeter. The general rode right into range and then closer yet. I was so astounded by his audacity that I followed, together with a pair of aides in braided uniforms and tricorn hats.
The general surveyed the night-shadowed Romans and a lit lamp. “Brothers! I salute you! You have fought nobly this day for the honor of the empire that gave birth to you. That empire gave birth to me as well, for my mother was born into the Aemilius clan. By the courage and valor with which you have fought I am brought to wonder what incompetent commanders have led you to this pass. For it is certain that now, shed of them, you find yourselves driven into a corner not of your making. Have your consuls done well by you? Were you not abandoned by the best of your legates, Amadou Barry? Let me tell you what you do not know. The emperor envied and feared Amadou Barry, so he rid himself of the man. He will deny it! But you will never find Amadou Barry’s body.”
Camjiata was no djeli, but he was doing a cursed beguiling job weaving a story that tugged at hearts and loins and drew the world in fresh colors for men worn out by battle.
“How do you know what happened to Amadou Barry?” I demanded in a low voice.
“I have never managed to insinuate a spy into a mage House, but getting informers into the household of Lord Marius was not difficult. Every word I spoke is true. The emperor sent Amadou Barry to Adurnam because he feared the young legate’s popularity in Rome.”
Noble Ba’al! That put a different smell on the rose!
The legate whose wine I had poured walked boldly out to confront the general. I pulled just enough shadow around me that he couldn’t be bothered to notice me any more than the general’s aides. “What do you want, General Keita? Our surrender? The Invictus do not surrender. Nor do our Ironclad brothers. Our honor forbids
