The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(46)

Someone had called his name from the street.

For a brief, panicked moment, I thought maybe the vigiles had discovered our hiding place. But then I saw a slender, cloaked form slip through the gap across the threshold in Cai’s wake. Not a soldier or a watchman, no. A girl.

Kassandra.

Cai strode back to her as she pushed the palla shawl back from her face. Her hair was loose and tumbled about her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed. It looked as though she’d been running. She spoke in low, urgent tones, but I was too far away to hear what she said. Cai listened at first, his head bent in concentration. After a few moments, he shook his head and uttered a bark of laughter. But Kassandra clearly wasn’t joking, and she wasn’t finished. She made a grab for Cai’s arm but he shook her off, suddenly angry.

I still couldn’t hear the argument but I’d rarely seen Cai so upset. He put a hand up and—this I did hear—told Kassandra to shut her mouth and never speak such a lie to him again. Not to him, or to anyone. Then he turned on his heel and stalked off into the prison house. Kassandra called after him, but her cries fell on deaf ears. The door slammed in his wake, and she stood there, staring after him, her hands clutched together.

I remembered thinking once that there had been something between the two of them. I’d long since laid that fear to rest but, suddenly, the ghost of it was there, hovering over my shoulder, whispering in my ear. I shushed that whisper mercilessly and, sheathing the sword I’d been sharpening, walked over to Kassandra. It took a moment for her to even realize I was there. When she did, she turned to blink at me blankly, her mind a mile away from where she stood.

“Kassandra?” I asked. “What is it?”

“I . . .” She hesitated for a moment and her glance flicked back and forth between me and the direction Cai had gone. Whatever she’d been about to say died on her lips and she shook her head, lapsing into silence, her brow creased into a deep, anxious frown. I noticed then that, beneath the flush of her cheeks, she was pale and drawn, her features more sharply defined than the last time I’d seen her, as though she’d lost too much weight. And there were circles under her eyes.

“Kass . . .” I put a hand on her arm. “Are you well?”

She looked at me, blinking, as if she’d half forgotten I was there.

“No,” she murmured. “No, I’m not.”

“What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”

She laughed harshly and shook her head. “No. Only . . .” Again her glance drifted off in Cai’s wake. “Only this: I . . . dream, Fallon. Terrible dreams where the statues of the Forum are thrown down and shattered and the streets of Rome run with blood. I fear that something terrible is about to happen. To the Republic . . . to those loyal to Caesar. Maybe to all of us. I fear a dreadful turmoil approaches.”

In the brief time I’d come to know her, I’d learned that Kassandra was a sensitive and generous soul, for all that she’d likely seen the worst of humanity in her life. And now . . . bad dreams? Ruinous premonitions? She’d already told me poppy wine—and worse—flowed freely in the House of Venus. Maybe she’d fallen into the habit. I could hardly blame her. The life she lived . . . I probably would have tried to numb myself too.

I wondered why she would have felt the need to tell Cai of her fears—and why he would have reacted so. Then I wondered if maybe Kassandra didn’t secretly have feelings for Cai. Was that why she’d come to see him? To try to convince him to leave aside the reckless danger I seemed to be leading him into? I couldn’t find it in myself to blame her for that. But I could also see how that would anger Cai.

“Kass . . .” I had to shake her arm to get her to focus on me again. “Why don’t you stay here? With us? Join me and the rest of the girls and—”

“And learn to fight for my life?” She laughed. It was a hollow sound. “I’m already doing that, Fallon. I just don’t have the luxury of watching my enemies bleed.”

I let go of her, and she pulled her palla back up over her head, hiding her face once more from the eyes of Rome. Junius let her back out through the gate, and I stood there for a long moment after she was gone, a confused knot of emotion sitting heavy in my chest. Was there more between Cai and Kass than I had guessed? I shook my head. No. He would have told me.

Would he? Really?

I had to believe that he would.

When I turned to go back inside, I saw Aeddan standing in the shadows of an alcove, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a stony expression on his face. He was close enough to have probably heard the entire exchange between Kassandra and Cai, and I waited for him to say something. But he didn’t.

He just pushed himself away from the wall and walked away from me, shaking his head.

? ? ?

Later that evening I couldn’t find Cai. He’d been a walking thundercloud ever since his encounter with Kass. Quint had told me that he’d gone back out into the city to continue making arrangements for our impending departure. I wasn’t sure I believed him. But I trusted Cai. I trusted Kass, for that matter, too. Neither of them, I firmly believed, would ever do anything to hurt me, and if they had something to work out between the two of them, then I would leave them to it.

To take my mind off that possibility, I found myself later that night ruminating with Elka on the things Kass had said about the state of the Republic, and about what she’d already told Cai about the Optimates and the Populares and the secret power struggles that took place in the shadows of those two factions. I could hardly discount Pontius Aquila and his handful of depraved followers—I’d seen them with my own eyes—but was it really possible, I wondered, for such practices to be as widespread as Kassandra seemed to think they were? For such men to have influence over the power behind Rome herself? Even Caesar, I knew, had once been a high priest in the strange and secretive Order of Jupiter, but I still had difficulty reconciling the strategist with the mystic.