67. The Soror

The Soror

Cassius, the stupid, beautiful matulo , gives me what I said I needed.

Time.

But he took what he needed to do it, which is space.

It’s only been two days but part of me already yearns to see his face, to hear more than his muffled meetings in the fleeting moments he’s been in his room. Securing power is never a simple task, and I imagine rallying his supporters and ensuring Tristan's fall in line is happening quickly and quietly, long before the public will even know Tristan is dead. The Evander line can’t be seen as weak, or a new power will try to move in.

I’ve seen the Domus Aurea healer a few times, but no one else has come to my rooms.

Until today.

The knock sounds again, accompanied by a vaguely familiar voice.

“Imperata?” She calls and I feel myself flinch. I’m sitting on a floor cushion, staring off as I have found myself doing more than I’d care to admit. It’s a flora, but I can’t place which.

“Enter,” I call out, not rising.

A young woman with black hair and wide green eyes enters. She’s one of the floras who had shared information about Tristan with Cassius and me.

“Hello, Rine.”

“Imperata.” She bows much lower than I’m comfortable with. “The Imperator would like to know if this room is still acceptable or if you’d like your things moved?”

When I don’t answer Rine, she takes a deep breath. “He also wanted to say the healer said you are cleared for travel as of today, and that you may do with that information as you wish.”

“Did he give you a letter to give to me, too?” I ask, remembering the way he’d sent me the list before.

Rine shakes her head. “No, Imperata.” I don’t know why I’m disappointed. Perhaps I’ve asked for something I don’t actually want. Then I think of her wording. ‘You may do with that information as you wish.’

Cassius doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what I want.

That makes two of us.

Rine leaves, and I slip out of the Domus Aurea easily, wearing brown hair and freckles. A small bag hangs over my shoulder with my leftover potions and stones. I left Cassius a note, but he won’t like it.

“Thank you, matulo . For everything.”

I don’t know if I’ll return, or who I would be if I did.

Besides, there’s somewhere more important for me to be right now.

The domus is small, with most of the land dedicated to the garden in the back where Agrippa tilled the ground to make his and Mia’s dream come true. Where I’d stumbled ten years ago, bloody and broken, into the arms of my new sister.

I knock before entering, but don’t wait for an answer. Taln is there in a moment and when his eyes widen, I realize he still doesn’t know.

Reaching into my pocket, I drain a stone, until I look like the Luella he knew. He steps back.

“It’s okay, Taln. Everything’s okay now.”

I wrap my hand around another stone, this time transforming into the first face he ever saw of mine. Julia, wife of Silas. “It’s always been me.”

“Julia?” He asks.

I smile, crouching down to his level. “I like Luella best, but you can use whatever you want.”

“You want to see her?” He seems less shocked than I expected.

I nod. “Did Mia tell you?” Standing, I make my way to her bedroom.

“She told me a little bit. Not your name, but what you were doing.” Ah. He just didn’t know the face I had worn today.

When I open Mia’s bedroom, I realize how much tension I’d been carrying. I hadn’t believed she was alive, not really. Hadn’t been able to until I saw her lying on the bed, her hair wrapped in silk, eyes closed. Her chest rises and falls, as if she’s sleeping deeply.

Taln lets out a cry of relief and I turn to shush him before realizing he’s still in the entryroom. The noise came from me. I cover my mouth and check if I’ve woken her, and see Mia’s beautiful brown eyes looking right at me.

“Am I dreaming?” she asks, her voice like gravel and glass.

“You know I only appear in nightmares.” I smile, falling onto the bed and wrapping my arms around her as gently as I can manage through my half-laugh, half-sob. “I thought I lost you.” I’m crying in earnest now, my relief so sharp and strong in the aftermath of the last few clipses, maybe in the aftermath of the last ten years.

Her arms are around me in a breath, and then I can feel her crying, too. “Me too, soror. Me too.”

I kiss the top of her head, then sit up and kiss the backs of her hands, holding them to me like she’ll float away if I let go.

My own voice mirrors hers, cracked and broken with emotion instead of injury. “He’s gone. It’s finally done.”

A clipse later, Mia motions for Taln to pour us water, tapping her empty glass against the pitcher gently. Taln quickly fills both of our cups before bowing out of the sitting room. I’ve moved in, for now, to make sure Mia’s not alone, only to discover she wasn’t anyways.

“When did he move in, miss ‘I don’t take in strays?’” I smirk.

“Well, someone mentioned that it went okay the last time I did.” She smiles, and while we’re both mostly healed, her scarred throat is a constant reminder of what I’ve put her through.

“Maybe they spoke too soon.”

She follows my line of sight and sighs. “We’re alive. We’re together. That’s more than I ever hoped would come of this.”

It hurts to hear her say it, how much my revenge almost cost us both.

“I still can’t believe it, Mi.” I shake my head. “How did we both know to try ingesting the stones?”

“I think the gods guided us. Although, Janus could have done a little better job. I still can’t believe you just swallowed whole stones.” Mia had the idea to start grinding the stones into a powder and ingesting it the very day she’d been attacked. She said she’d swallowed her first dose just that morning, to see if she could heal her morning patients before telling me about the technique.

I laugh. “Yeah, I already told them how I felt about those stones coming out the other end.”

“Stones, indeed.” Mia says, face serious. She meets my eyes and we can’t hold it in any longer, both of us laughing too hard to speak, hers a croaking rasp and mine louder and more unbridled than ever.

“What will you do now?” Mia says, catching her breath.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I say. We both know what I should do.

“You want to help this city? This is how you do it. You can’t keep going after individual praeda. There are always more.” She coughs, taking another small sip of water. “Change the system, Luella.”

“He’d do it without me.” I know it’s true. I know that with or without me, Cassius will try to change things. “And what if I don’t love him? What if I can’t? If I use him that way am I any better than Ledo or Tristan or any other man who tried to use another?” I shake my head. “I won’t do that.”

Mia shakes her head like she’s disappointed. Her black braids fan her ebony face. “Tell him the truth. Besides, how do you know you don’t love him?”

“I don’t know that I can love anyone,” I confess. I don’t know that I’m capable. I’ve seen too much, and if Cassius is decent then I know even less about what to do with him, how to behave.

Mia, as always, knows the tenor of my thoughts. “You could try being yourself, Luella. No games. No goals. No roles to play, no faces to wear. Just you.”

I’d never considered it, not really. I’d never thought I could just be… me. Cassius had, though. He’d seen me when I hadn’t even seen myself. And he’d loved me in all my forms. Could I do that, too?

“Perhaps,” I tell us both.