9. Mistake

Mistake

Rose

A mistake. I’ve made such a mistake.

I try to yank my arm away from the man, but his grip is like a mater towing a recalcitrant child. Unrelenting.

“Let go,” I screech.

“Come inside, little goat. You’ll have fun.” His eyes show me otherwise as he drags me towards the door of The Sabines.

Not like this. Not my own stupid curiosity dooming me.

“Help,” I scream, my voice unrecognizable in its hysteria. Fear grips my lungs as he drags me forward. The shadow of the building falls over me and its accompanying chill turns me to ice, and my feet lose purchase on the ground.

No, no, no, no.

“I’m betrothed,” I shout, the desperate wish breaking free.

His grip tightens, but he freezes. “To who?”

His dark eyes look sunken into his pale face as he leers down at me. I swallow, unable to speak.

He shakes me, snarling. “Who, little goat?”

I say the only name I know. “A-Augustus.”

“Augustus who?”

My jaw works, opening and closing, but nothing comes out.

“That’s what I—”

“She’s betrothed to me.”

The familiar voice buckles my knees. Augustus is here. He’s saving me.

But when I turn, it’s not him. It’s his golden counterpart.

His hair is mussed, unkempt almost, and his cheeks are flushed. He wears a dark cape thrown across his shoulders but the clothes beneath are bright, matching the festival.

The man looks between us, laughing as he shoves me towards Tristan, and I fall into the dirt at his feet, looking up at my savior. The man holds out his hand for Tristan.

Tristan sighs and withdraws not a silver denarius, but two golden aurei from his pocket, and without an instant of hesitation places the small fortune in the man’s hand.

The man leaves without a word and Tristan reaches for me. I’m still in such shock that I barely register his grip as he raises me from the ground.

The Sabines casts shadows over us to the left and the Maero roars to the right. Sounds the river or the festival or my naivetè had drowned out in front of the building manifest here.

Screams. Crying.

Primal sounds that wash through me, distorted through the buzz in my ears.

The bars on the windows remind me of what almost happened. What still might happen if my pater has his way. We’re almost out of the alley when the last window, barred in a grid pattern, is interrupted by something reaching out. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a hand, missing all but the three middle fingers, the stumps scarred and red. I flinch, falling back against Tristan but unable to look away.

No sound comes out from these bars, just a sad, tired reaching.

Tristan’s grip tightens on my hand. “Let’s go before he changes his mind.”

My stomach roils. I want to save them, these women, but I don’t know if I can save myself.

“You paid him a fortune,” I say. No one would change their mind over two aurei.

“Yet, I’m the one with the treasure,” he says, not looking back at me.

His words don’t register. Instead, I keep looking at our intertwined hands and seeing the scarred hand from behind the bars in place of my own.