54. The Dove

The Dove

Rose

The temple of Venus is intoxicating, the myrtle blossoms filling the air as a light breeze separates petals from stems. I’m already in my white wedding dress, modest and trimmed in gold to match Tristan’s white and gold robes. Everything has a red haze as I look through my wedding veil. White for purity and red for luck and fertility.

Tristan doesn’t come in. “Venus is for women,” he says. Perhaps she is, but Venus blessed our match with her festival and with her favor. I know it. My hands are sweaty, wrapped around a struggling dove. Its small talons and little beak grasp for purchase against my slick skin so it can fling itself away.

I’ve never brought a live sacrifice before. My stomach turns. I could set it free and Tristan would never know, but the priestesses would.

My steps are steady and sure as I move towards the altar and my heart thunders in time to the dove’s, beating against my palm until I don’t know which belongs to me.

The temple is empty, cleared by the Praetorians, as I drop to my knees in front of Venus. The columns cast gilded shadows across the courtyard, as if the myrtle trees and I are caged here. The dove has finally exhausted itself, lying still in my hand.

“Venus.” I take a sharp, shaky breath. “Bestow your favor upon my marriage. Open my heart to love and grant me the wisdom to serve my husband.” I lower my hands, still caging the dove. It stays there, frozen in fear. Can I kill it?

I’m supposed to break its neck, quick and painless, but my hands are immobile. I’m supposed to do so many things, but what do I want? I want to build a life, one that’s nothing like the one I’ve had before. I want sweetness and hope. I want what I was made for.

I want a life filled with love.

I’ve followed tradition my whole life, adhered to expectations set forth by my mater and pater, and doing so gained me so little. When I was vulnerable, when I told Tristan the truth: that’s when Venus changed my life.

If we want to break the cycles that have broken us, shouldn’t I break this tradition, too?

I make a decision, the first of my new life, and uncurl my fingers.

The dove flies away, unharmed.

My wedding isn’t a grand ceremony; only me, Tristan, and a Jupiter priest. Too much of his life was pomp and circumstance, Tristan said. This would be better than that. Intimate.

“I promise to provide for you, lead you, and fulfill my duties as your husband,” Tristan repeats after the priest. It’s hard to see his face beneath the red haze of my wedding veil, but he doesn’t smile, doesn’t look happy. The shadows of the temple shroud his features and I feel a chill at the back of my neck.

My familia isn’t here. After the temple of Venus, we’d stopped at my old domus where Pater had signed the paperwork that released his right to his eldest daughter, entrusting me to Tristan and his familia. Daisy had bowed and smiled at us, sending us off with happy wishes. Tristan’s pater was too busy to attend the signing, but no one minded. Tristan wasn’t old enough for this to be a spectacle yet. Besides, I don’t need Pater’s reminders about my role tonight.

“I vow to obey my husband in all things,” I repeat after the priest. Tristan nods across from me, his silent approval easing something tight in my chest.

Minutes later, we’re on our way back to the Domus Aurea to dine and retire to our marriage bed. The excitement and nervous energy course through my tangled thoughts, until I realize Tristan’s led me to the garden.

Except it’s different. Instead of orange trees and grapes, the entire central walk has been replaced with…

“Roses,” I whisper. The smell hits me now, almost overwhelming in the still evening air. I can almost taste the petals, loamy and sweet .

Tristan steps closer. “A wedding gift, Rosebud. I wanted to give it to you before dinner.” He tugs me into his arms, and they aren’t as warm as I want them to be. I lean in closer.

“I love you, Tristan.” He captures my mouth the way he always does, but he’s more insistent tonight. Our teeth clash and I flinch away, trying to find a more comfortable rhythm. Tristan growls, gripping my hips to stop me.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. He releases my mouth, moving his lips and teeth to my jaw. His hand tangles into my hair and he drags my head back so he can access my neck.

“What should I call you?” I’m breathless, dizzy with it.

“You call him Augustus.” He punctuates the sentence by biting me along the side of my neck, the fragile skin trapped between his teeth, and I can’t help the whimper that escapes. Panic shoots through me. He can’t know about Augustus and me in the hallway. “But that’s not his name.” He bites again and my hands come up of their own accord, gripping into his shoulders in protest, but the traitorous things refuse to push him away. I can’t. “And she calls him princeps .” He moves to the top of my shoulder now, teeth grazing, and my head angles to protect it, trying to stop his access. Desire and fear wrap around me, the way they often do with Tristan.

“He told me that was his name,” I whisper. “It just became a habit to continue.” I think my explanation will remind him that I didn’t choose it, but I’m not good at reading people, at reading him. His grip tightens in my hair and he yanks even harder.

The scent of roses threatens to turn my stomach as the fear overpowers everything else. My muscles slacken and my eyes drop. I know better than to fight this.

“Because you spend so much time with him,” Tristan says, his tone condescending. “My sabine wife, trying to fuck any patrician cock she can find?”

A tear slips down my cheek, because nothing has changed. The cycle we vowed to break is already repeating, and I remember that Augustus said the monsters are here, too. I think past the hurt, past the fear I’ve known my whole life. My mind wants to survive. “No, my love. I just want you.”

Tristan’s hands are rough and cold. The contrast against my skin feels like shattered dreams and a broken future.

I should have snapped that dove’s neck when I had the chance.