The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(75)

I turned to go find Elka and almost bumped into Aeddan, who was suddenly standing right behind me. Dressed still in his black cloak and armor. A shadow on the chasm bridge. I stifled an impatient sigh and moved to one side so that I could slip past him—only to have my way blocked when he mirrored my steps.

“What is it, Aeddan?” I asked, woefully unsuccessful at my attempt to conceal the irritation in my voice.

He ignored it or didn’t notice. I looked at him and saw that he was staring after Cai and Charon. I crossed my arms and waited, one eyebrow raised, until he looked back at me.

“Don’t you find it disconcerting to have placed your complete trust in the hands of the man who stole you from your home and sold you into slavery?” Aeddan asked.

I shrugged. “No more than I find it disconcerting to place any trust in you.”

He ignored that too. “And the Roman?”

“If you mean Cai, then—”

“He will betray you.”

Shadows on the chasm bridge . . .

I shoved away the whisper of thought, glaring at Aeddan and suddenly angry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think I do,” he said. “I know what the whore warned him about back in Rome before we left. Do you?”

I felt my temper flaring. “Her name is Kassandra—”

“It’s bad, Fallon,” he snapped. “Very bad.”

Shadows . . .

“What is?” My patience would allow him two more words out of his mouth. Maybe three. It turned out that was all Aeddan needed to make me listen. And they weren’t what I was expecting. Not at all.

He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Cai’s father.”

“Senator Varro?” I frowned. “What of him? Has something happened—”

“He’s one of them, Fallon!”

I stared at Aeddan, not understanding.

He shook his head in frustration. “One of the Sons of Dis.”

I burst out laughing, just like Cai had with Kass in the prison courtyard.

The very idea was laughable. Senator Varro—elegant and eloquent, kind and caring Senator Varro, a decorated hero of the legions and a respected statesman of the Republic—could not conceivably be one of those monsters. Preposterous.

“It’s true,” Aeddan said.

I stared at him hard, struggling to find the joke. Aeddan’s expression remained humorless.

“Senator Varro is a war hero,” I said. “An honorable man. He served in the legions under Pompey the Great—”

“And that makes him honorable?” Aeddan gaped at me. “The Fallon I used to know would never have said such a thing. Would he have been honorable if he’d served in the legions when they came to conquer our land?”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head and turned a withering glare on me. “Here’s something I know about the esteemed Senator Varro from the time I spent with Pontius Aquila, Fallon. Since Pompey’s death, Varro has been vocal in his support of Caesar, but it’s a lie, Fallon. He hates Caesar, just like so many of his fellow snakes in the senate do. Hates him and fears him. Varro is secretly on the side of the Optimates—the very faction of Romans that Caesar is off fighting now in Hispania.”

“So he doesn’t agree with Caesar’s politics,” I argued, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. “That doesn’t mean he’s part of that sick, subversive cult.”

“That sick, subversive political cult, Fallon. Don’t be na?ve,” he scoffed. “The Sons of Dis think the gladiatorial sacrifices grant them power. The kind of power they can channel into bringing down the mighty Julius Caesar. Whether someone like Varro buys into their beliefs or not, he still might very well see them as a useful means to an end. Caesar’s end. Add to that, the delicious irony that it would be a downfall set in motion by Caesar’s own treasured Spirit of Victory. You.”

I looked down to see that I was clutching my arm where Aquila had carved his mark into my skin. I unclenched my fingers like they’d touched something hot and hid my arm behind my back.

“I followed the girl back to the brothel, Fallon,” he said. “That night. She told me everything she knew.”

“Liar. She wouldn’t tell me—”

“I’m not you. I’m not as polite.”

I glared at him, wanting to turn on my heel and walk away from his nonsense, but needing to know what he’d learned in spite of myself. “And what did she tell you, then?” I snapped. “What proof did she have? Is Varro, himself, one of her . . . her patrons?”

“No.” Aeddan shook his head. “There is a junior senator named Fabius. A frequent visitor at the brothel. A fool, yes, and usually addled with poppy wine. But according to the wh—” He stopped himself when he saw the look in my eyes and amended what he’d been about to say. “—according to Kassandra, he’s never said anything while in his cups that hasn’t borne out as truth. That day, he was running off his mouth about secret gatherings, about ‘blood sacrifices’ and how he was going to be a force to be reckoned with soon . . . How the ‘great dark god’ would grant his ‘sons’ the strength to take on a tyrant. How ‘his master’ would soon be one of the most powerful men in Rome—”